Margaret Stuart (or Stewart) ( – 4 August 1639), Scottish aristocrat and courtier in England. She served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark. She was the daughter of James Stewart, 2nd Earl of Moray, and Elizabeth Stuart, 2nd Countess of Moray. The sailor and patron of Ben Jonson, Sir Frances Stuart was her brother.
Unions Margaret Stewart was probably the sister of the Earl of Moray who joined the household of Anne of Denmark in September 1602.John Duncan Mackie, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 13 part 2 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1969), p. 1048 no. 852. She may have been the subject of marriage negotiations in Scotland in July 1602. A committee of "4 Stewarts" to arbitrate in the feuds and disagreements between the Marquess of Huntly and the Earl of Moray. The four Stewarts were Lord Ochiltree, Walter Stewart of Blantyre, Alexander Stewart of Garlies, and the Tutor of Rosyth.Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1597-1603, vol. 13 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1969), pp. 1023 no. 832, 1048 no. 852.
One solution offered was the marriage of Moray to Huntly's daughter, and Huntly's son to a daughter of the Earl of Argyll. However, in February 1603 Anne of Denmark proposed an alternative solution, that Huntly's son, Lord Gordon, would marry Moray's sister in a double marriage. Moray's sister, perhaps Margaret Stewart, had recently joined the queen's court.Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1597-1603, vol. 13 part 2 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1969), pp. 1048, 1111. The marriage plans were abandoned at this time, but the scheme suggested by the "4 Stewarts" was adopted.
After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, she was appointed to be a lady of the queen's drawing chamber.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 134. At Winchester in September the queen ordered fabrics for new clothes for Stewart and other women who had made the journey from Scotland, including Anne Livingstone, Jean Drummond, and Margaret Hartsyde.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), pp. 123, 146 fn. 21.
In September 1603, Margaret Stewart married Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford University Press, 2024), p. 272. She attended the trial of Sir Walter Ralegh and the Earl of Cobham in November 1603 with the Countess of Suffolk and Arbella Stuart.Thomas Birch (Folkestone Williams), The Court and Times of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1848), p. 21: Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1778), p. 379.
Nottingham was an older man and the marriage in September attracted comment from Anne of Denmark and her brother Christian IV of Denmark, Arbella Stuart, Thomas Edmondes and other letter writers.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stewart: the regime change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford, 2024), p. 272. Anne of Denmark wrote a letter to King James describing them as a match between Mars and Venus.Letters to King James the Sixth from the Queen, Prince Henry, Prince Charles, the Princess Elizabeth and Her Husband, Frederick, King of Bohemia, and from Their Son, Prince Frederick Henry (Edinburgh, 1835), pp. xliv-vi: Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 92-93.
They had two children: Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Nottingham Anne Howard (born c. 1612), married on 29 December 1627 to Alexander Stewart, Baron Garlies, son of Alexander Stewart, 1st Earl of Galloway and Grizel Gordon.
Arbella Stuart wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury that the Lord Admiral had been to visit Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth and, "either is or will be my Cousin before incredulous you will believe such incongruities in a Counsellour."Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1838), pg. 27]: Sara Jayne Steen, Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), p. 183.
Edmondes described their meeting during dancing organised by the queen at Basing House.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. (London, 1828), p. 258. The Earl of Worcester wrote of a gallant of 70 years that in one night could dance himself into a fair lady's favour. Robert Cecil wrote that Nottingham had "begun the union", meaning the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1838), pp. 19, 39, 40. The king gave her Chelsea Place and a yearly pension of £600.HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 20 (London, 1968), p. 305.
In January 1604 she played the part of Concordia in the masque The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, wearing "crimson and white, the colours of England and Scotland joined".Ernest Law, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (London, 1880), pp. 30, 60 Her party-colored mantle of crimson and white was embroidered in silver with clasped hands and she carried a bush with red and white roses as an offering in the Temple of Peace.Berta Cano-Echevarría & Mark Hutchings, 'The Spanish Ambassador and Samuel Daniel's Vision of the Twelve Goddesses: A New Document', in, English Literary Renaissance, 42.2 (2012), pp. 250, 256.John Pitcher, 'Samuel Daniel's Masque "The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses": Texts and Payments', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 26 (2013), pp. 24–25. Her role in the masque made an allusion to the union of England and Scotland.Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 102-103.
In December 1604 she was excused from performing in the queen's masque, The Masque of Blackness, because she had a "polypus" which was thought to require surgery.Memorials of Affairs of State from the papers of Ralph Winwood, vol. 2 (London, 1725), pp. 39-40, John Packer to Winwood, 12 December 1604. Ann Howard, her daughter-in-law, appears in the cast list as "Lady Effingham", in the part of "Psychrote". Margaret did not appear in any further court masques.Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 92-93, 101.
Her husband was involved with the negotiations with Spain known as the Somerset House Conference and the subsequent ratification of the treaty at Valladolid. The King of Spain, Philip III gave him a diamond and gold feather jewel for his hat, and other jewellery and gilt plate. The countess was given a gold chain with diamonds and portraits of Philip III and Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain, and a casket decorated with diamonds and the Spanish royal portraits, and perfumed gloves and other perfumed goods.E. K. Purnell & A. B. Hinds, HMC Downshire, vol. 2 (London, 1936), pp. 423-5.
Misunderstanding on the Thames In 1606, when Christian IV was preparing to leave London, he had an argument with the Earl of Nottingham aboard ship about time and tide.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stewart: the regime change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford, 2024), p. 249. The Danish king insisted it was two o'clock and waved two fingers at the Earl.Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Birlinn, 2023), p. 265. Nottingham or the countess thought he had made a joke about their age difference.Courtney Erin Thomas, If I lose Mine Honour I Lose Myself (Toronto, 2017), pp. 87-89: Sarah Gristwood, Arbella: England's Lost Queen (London: Bantam, 2004), p. 311. An angry correspondence ensued.Lawrence Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy (Oxford, 1965), p. 665.
Arbella Stuart attempted to mediate in the scandal in letters to Christian's chamberlain, Sir Andrew Sinclair.Sara Jayne Steen, The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), pp. 211-217, 282-284. Margaret insisted in a letter to Sinclair that Christian IV should know "that I deserve as little that name he gave me as either the mother of himself or his children".Cabala: Sive Scrinia Sacra, vol. 2 (London, 1654), pg. 94 Sinclair had to pass the letter on to Christian IV. Anne of Denmark asked James to banish her from court.Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England vol. 4 (London, 1869) pp. 93-95, quoting a letter in the British Library, Egerton MSS, printed in J. Payne Collier,The Egerton Papers (Camden Society: London, 1840), pp. 467-470 and John Duncombe, A select Collection of Original Letters, vol. 1 (London, 1755), pp. 67-68.
The French ambassador Antoine Lefèvre de la Boderie was aware of the quarrel, and wrote of the age difference between Lady Nottingham and the Admiral. He describes the argument centering on a clock and the time of departure. Christian IV two or three times indicated the time two o'clock with his fingers. The Countess, who was pregnant, thought Christian IV and Anne of Denmark were laughing at her. Boderie knew that Margaret had written to Sinclair, and Anne of Denmark had expelled her from court, berating her as the grandchild of an illegitimate son of James V. His letter is an important source for our knowledge of the incident.Ambassades de M. de La Boderie en Angleterre, vol. 1 (Paris, 1750), pp. 307-309 Boderie's version of events was a source of amusement to Henry IV of France.Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, History of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, illustrated by original documents, vol. 1 (London, 1835), pp. 215-217.
Dudley Carleton found fault with Christian IV. He heard that Christian IV had written to Anne of Denmark to complain about the Countess of Nottingham's letter to him, which did "some hurt". Carleton thought that Christian IV had shown two fingers to the Earl of Nottingham, who took no offence. The Countess was offended, more so because she was pregnant and anxious of her credit and honour.Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), p. 90.
Another, possibly apocryphal, cause for the quarrel was included in Edward Peyton's Catastrophe of the House of Stuarts. During The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark at Theobalds House. King James was carried to bed and Christian IV was so "disguised" or drunk that he tried to seduce the Countess of Nottingham, causing a quarrel with the Earl of Nottingham,Walter Scott, Secret History of the Court of James the First, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1811), p. 387. "And Denmark was so disguised, as he would have lain with the Countess of Nottingham, making horns in derision at her husband the high Admiral of England; which caused a deep discontent between them".Edward Peyton, The divine catastrophe of the kingly family of the house of Stuarts (London, 1652), p. 64.
Life at court The countess seems to have been quickly returned to royal favour. Like many courtiers she gave Anne of Denmark clothes as New Year's Day gifts. On 1 January 1609, she gave the queen a satin petticoat embroidered round about the hem and up the front with grapes, roses, pansies, birds, clouds, and bats described as "fruits batts or flindermyse".Jemma Field, 'The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark', Costume, 51:1 (March 2017), on-line supplement, pp. 42-43 citing Cambridge University Library MS Dd.I.26, f. 21r.
There was another incident at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate in February 1613, recorded by the master of court ceremony, John Finet. He noted a confrontation between the French ambassador's wife and the Countess of Nottingham. As the ambassador's wife was directed to a place at dinner deemed inappropriate by the Countess, she grasped her hand and would not let her go all through the meal.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), pg. 605.
In July 1614, she was a godparent to Thomas Ingram.John Nichols, The progresses, processions, and magnificent festivities, of King James the First, his royal consort, family, and court, vol. 2 (London, 1828), p. 8.