Summary

"Alison Weir is one of our best popular historians and one, moreover, with an impressive scholarly pedigree in Tudor history." --Frank McLynn, Independent Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins.

"Alison Weir is one of our best popular historians and one, moreover, with an impressive scholarly pedigree in Tudor history." --Frank McLynn, Independent Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Her mother was a queen, her father an earl, and she herself was the granddaughter, niece, cousin and grandmother of monarchs. Some thought she should be queen of England. She ranked high at the court of her uncle, Henry VIII, and was lady of honour to five of his wives. Beautiful and tempestuous, she created scandal, not just once, but twice, by falling in love with unsuitable men, which led to the passing of the first Act of Parliament to regulate royal marriages. Fortunately, the marriage arranged for her turned into a love match. Throughout her life her dynastic ties to two crowns proved hazardous. A born political intriguer, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London on three occasions, once under sentence of death. She helped to bring about one of the most notorious royal marriages of the sixteenth century, but it brought her only tragedy. Her son and her husband were brutally murdered, and there were rumours that she herself was poisoned. She warred with two queens, Mary of Scotland and Elizabeth of England. A brave survivor, she was instrumental in securing the Stuart succession to the throne of England for her grandson. Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, was a prominent and important figure in Tudor England, and yet today, when her Tudor relations have achieved almost celebrity status, she is largely forgotten. Her story deserves to be better known. This is the biography of an extraordinary life that spanned five Tudor reigns, a life packed with intrigue, drama and tragedy.