- published: 28 Sep 2012
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Margaret Tudor (28 November 1489 – 18 October 1541) was the elder of the two surviving daughters of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York (eldest to reach adulthood), and the elder sister of Henry VIII. In 1503, she married James IV, King of Scots. James died in 1513, and their son became King James V. She married secondly Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. Through her first and second marriages, respectively, Margaret was the grandmother of both Mary, Queen of Scots, and Mary's second husband Lord Darnley. Margaret's marriage to James IV foreshadowed the Union of the Crowns - their great-grandson, King James VI of Scotland, the child of Mary and Darnley, became King of England and Ireland on the death of Margaret's fraternal niece, Elizabeth I of England.
Born on 28 November 1489, Margaret was baptised two days later on the 30th — St. Andrew's Day — in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. She was named after Lady Margaret Beaufort, her grandmother.
Daughters were important political assets in a world where diplomacy and marriage were closely linked. Even before Margaret's sixth birthday, Henry VII thought about a marriage between Margaret and James IV as a way of ending the Scottish king's support for Perkin Warbeck, Yorkist pretender to the throne of England.