Notes |
- From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (citation details below):
Drummond, Margaret (d. 1502), royal mistress, was the eldest of the six daughters of John Drummond of Cargill, first Lord Drummond (d. 1518), and his wife, Elizabeth Lindsay. James IV may have met Margaret when he visited Drummond Castle on 25 April 1496, and she appears to have succeeded Marion Boyd as James's mistress about this time. Coupled with the growing influence of Archibald Campbell, second earl of Argyll, whose sister Isabel was Drummond's daughter-in-law, Margaret's affair with the king helped in the advancement both of her father, who held the office of justiciar from February 1495 until 1501, and of his kinsman Walter Drummond, dean of Dunblane, who became clerk register in 1497. Official acknowledgement of the relationship came on 3 June 1496, when James installed Margaret in apartments in Stirling Castle; a reference by the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro de Ayala, to a lady being kept by the king in great state in a castle describes this arrangement.
Margaret Drummond lived at Stirling Castle under the care of its keeper, Sir John Lundy, and of his wife until 30 October 1496, when she was moved to Linlithgow, possibly to give birth to the daughter, also called Margaret, whom she bore the king. The liaison effectively ended in March 1497, when Margaret and her daughter were sent home to Drummond, but although James IV had embarked on his long-running affair with Janet Kennedy in 1498, Margaret received a crown lease for nine years of lands in the earldom of Strathearn, dated 23 January 1498, possibly at the time of her marriage—according to de Ayala she was married off after her return to Drummond, although there is no supporting evidence for this. The king certainly seems to have accepted a measure of responsibility for his erstwhile mistress, as payments to her of £21 and 41s. for her daughter's nurse were made as late as June 1502. When Margaret died, towards the end of 1502, James had their daughter Margaret brought from Drummond Castle to Stirling, where royal children were traditionally brought up, and he paid a quarterly fee until at least 1508 for two priests in Dunblane Cathedral to sing masses for Margaret Drummond.
A number of stories concerning Margaret Drummond's time as royal mistress appear in the eulogistic history of the Drummond family which William Drummond, later first viscount of Strathallan, completed in 1681. He states that the king had known Margaret since 1488 and had desired to marry her, but in 1502 some courtiers, determined to help the king to a far more advantageous marriage, and fearing that his infatuation with Margaret would prevent this, caused her and two of her sisters, with whom she happened to be dining, to be poisoned. There is no contemporary evidence for these stories, and official records attest a much briefer and less dramatic liaison than the exaggerated account presented by William Drummond.
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