Margaret Howard, Countess of Nottingham

Margaret Stuart (or Stewart) (c. 1591 – 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.

Margaret Howard, Countess of Nottingham, by Cornelius Johnson, (Dunrobin Castle)

Unions

Margaret Stewart may have become 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]

In September 1603, she married Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham.[5] She attended the trial of Sir Walter Ralegh and the Earl of Cobham in November 1603 with the Countess of Suffolk and Arbella Stuart.[6]

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. Anne of Denmark wrote a letter to King James describing them as a match between Mars and Venus.[7] 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."[8]

Edmondes described their meeting during dancing organised by the queen at Basing House. 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.[9] The king gave her Chelsea Place and a yearly pension of £600.[10]

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".[11] Her mantle was embroidered with clasped hands and she carried a bush with red and white roses as an offering in the Temple of Peace.[12]

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.[13] She appears in the list of the cast as "Lady Effingham", dancing in the part of "Psychrote".

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.[14]

The countess 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".[15]

A 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. The Danish king insisted it was two o'clock and waved two fingers at the Earl. Nottingham or the countess thought he made a joke about their age difference.[16] An angry correspondence ensued. Arbella Stuart attempted to mediate in the scandal in letters to Christian's chamberlain, Sir Andrew Sinclair.[17] 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". Sinclair had to pass the letter on to Christian IV. Anne of Denmark asked James to banish her from court.[18]

The French ambassador Antoine Le Fèvre 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. 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.[19]

Material culture

An inventory of luxury goods belonging to Margaret and the Earl of Nottingham written by the notary David Moysie in 1606 gives an idea of the material culture of Jacobean courtiers. There were a large number of buttons set with diamonds and rubies, a flask of amber for musk, two bezoar stones, a variety of silver plate including a lemon squeezer and dishes for sausages and eggs, a silver sugar box shaped like a scallop shell, and bed curtains of velvet and of "China stuff."[20] A portrait of the countess attributed to Paul van Somer places her in a rich interior with curtains dressed with bobbin lace and wearing needle lace collar and cuffs.[21]

Family

They had two children:

In July 1614 she was a godparent to Thomas Ingram.[22]

When the Earl of Nottingham gave up the admiralty he was declared to be the first earl of England. However, during the planning of the funeral of Anne of Denmark in 1619 other aristocrats including Alethea Howard, Countess of Arundel and Dorothy Percy, Countess of Northumberland refused to give her precedence. One solution suggested was to make Helena, Marchioness of Northampton the chief mourner.[23] As "Lady Monson" she walked in procession at the funeral with the ladies of the Privy Chamber.[24]

William Monson

After her first husband's death, she married William Monson, 1st Viscount Monson in October 1625.[25] They had no children.

Margaret died in her house at Covent Garden on 4 August 1639 and was buried at Chelsea.[26]

Notes
  1. Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1597-1603, vol. 13 (Edinburgh, 1969), p. 1023 no. 832, 1048 no. 852.
  2. Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1597-1603, vol. 13 (Edinburgh, 1969), pp. 1048, 1111.
  3. Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), p. 134.
  4. Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), pp. 123, 146 fn. 21.
  5. Henderson 1898, p. 308.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1838), p. 27: Sara Jayne Steen, Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), p. 183.
  9. Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1838), pp. 19, 39, 40.
  10. HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 20 (London, 1968), p. 305.
  11. Ernest Law, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (London, 1880), p. 30, 60.
  12. Berta Cano Echevarría and 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. 223-57, at pp. 250, 256.
  13. Memorials of Affairs of State from the papers of Ralph Winwood, vol. 2 (London, 1725), pp. 39-40, John Packer to Winwood, 12 Dec. 1604.
  14. E. K. Purnell & A. B. Hinds, HMC Downshire, vol. 2 (London, 1936), pp. 423-5.
  15. Jemma Field, 'The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark', Costume, vol. 51 no. 1 (March, 2017), on-line supplement, pp. 42-3 citing Cambridge University Library MS Dd.I.26, f. 21r.
  16. Courtney Erin Thomas, If I lose Mine Honour I Lose Myself (Toronto, 2017), pp. 87-9.
  17. Sara Jayne Steen, The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), pp. 211-7, 282-4.
  18. Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England vol. 4 (London, 1869) pp. 93-5, 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. 67-8.
  19. Ambassades de M. de La Boderie en Angleterre, vol. 1 (Paris, 1750), pp. 307-9
  20. See the Morton papers in the National Archives of Scotland GD150/2838/3, and National Library of Scotland MS 78 nos. 96, 97.
  21. Annabel Westman, Fringe, Frog & Tassel (London, 2019), pp. 13-14.
  22. 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.
  23. Norman Egbert McClure, The Letters of John Chamberlain vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1939), pp. 232-3.
  24. John Nichols, Progresses of James First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), p. 541.
  25. William Shaw & G. Dyfnallt Owen, HMC 77 Viscount De L'Isle Penshurst, vol. 5 (London, 1961), p. 441.
  26. Herald's funeral certificates, The National Archives TNA SP16/360/11.
  • Henderson, Thomas Finlayson (1898). "Stewart, James (d.1592)" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 54. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 307–308.
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