Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 22nd January 1557, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, died after a tumultuous life. Described by his uncle as a ‘young, witless, fool’, Angus became the most powerful man in Scotland for a period. In 1514 he married Margaret Tudor, the widowed Queen of Scots – an act which outraged the rest of the Scots nobles. In 1526, he seized control of his stepson, James V (more on this period here) and dominated Scottish government, until James escaped. Once free, the King banished Angus who spent 16 years in England at the court of his brother-in-law Henry VIII (although he and Margaret were divorced in 1527). Following the death of Henry, he was reconciled with the Scottish Government, and, although he had approved the marriage of Queen Mary to Edward, Prince of Wales, opposed the English in the Wars of the Rough Wooing, fighting at the Battle of Pinkie. He continued his policy of promoting his family interests rather than those of his country for the rest of his life.

On 21st January 1535 six French Huguenots were burnt at Notre Dame, in Paris, following the ‘Affair of the Placards’ in which posters denigrating the Mass and the Pope in lurid terms were published all over France, including, provocatively, one pinned to the door of King François I’s own bedchamber, a breach of security that was a shock to the King. Previously, François had been tolerant of Huguenots – his sister, Marguerite of Angouleme, was certainly an evangelical, even if she did not go as far as Lutheranism, and his sister-in-law, Renee, Duchess of Ferrara, was a committed Calvinist. This, however, was going too far and Francois reconfirmed his belief in traditional Catholic teaching, and eventually issued the Edict of Fontainebleu which announced that ‘heresy’ would be punished by forfeiture of goods, torture and death.

Picture is of François I by Clouet

On 20th January 1583 Sir John Maxwell died. Maxwell, who was Lord Herries of Terregles in right of his wife, Agnes Herries, was one of the staunchest supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots after her forced abdication. Maxwell had been brought up as one of the first generation of Protestants in Scotland, and was described by John Knox as ‘zealous and stout in God’s cause’. He was one of the Lords of the Congregation who opposed the Regent, Marie of Guise, and introduced Protestantism as the religion of the country in the Reformation Parliament of 1560. When Mary returned from France, Maxwell became one of her most loyal advisors, supporting her marriage to Darnley, whilst trying to temper her anger with the Earl of Moray following the Chaseabout Raid. When Mary decided, for reasons which will forever remain debated, to marry Bothwell, Maxwell apparently begged her on bended knees not to take action he believed would end in disaster. Maxwell commanded the Queen’s cavalry at Langside, and accompanied Mary when she crossed into England after losing the battle. He was a Commissioner for her in the hearing at York and continued to push for her restoration to the throne. He died leaving seven children.

Picture is Sir John Lavery's (1856 - 1941) interpretation of the night after the Battle of Langside.