In her youth she was high in the favour of her uncle, Henry VIII, but later incurred his anger for her unauthorised engagement to Lord Thomas Howard, who died imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1537.

Her son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, married her niece Mary, Queen of Scots, and was the father of James VI and I. Margaret was born at Harbottle Castle in Northumberland on 8 October 1515.

[3] After a brief stay at Berwick Castle accompanied by her nurse or 'gentlewoman' Isobel Hoppar,[4] Margaret joined the household of her godfather, Cardinal Wolsey.

When Wolsey died in 1530, Lady Margaret was invited to the royal Palace of Beaulieu, where she resided in the household of Princess Mary.

Henry had declared his daughters Mary and Elizabeth bastards, leaving Margaret very high in the line of succession; for her to contract an unauthorised marriage was politically outrageous, especially with the son of a powerful nobleman and near kin of the disgraced queen.

On 18 July 1536, Parliament, by an Act of Attainder, condemned Thomas to death for attempting to 'interrupt ympedyte and lett the seid Succession of the Crowne'.

While in the Tower, Lady Margaret fell ill, and the King allowed her to be moved to Syon Abbey under the supervision of the abbess.

Margaret was restored to favour and given a gilt cup made by the goldsmith Morgan Wolf as a New Year's Day gift for 1539.

[16] Margaret and the Duchess of Richmond were appointed to greet Henry VIII's bride, Anne of Cleves, at Greenwich Palace, join her household, and convey her to the king.

[19] In 1543, Margaret was one of the few witnesses of King Henry's final marriage to Katherine Parr, Dowager Lady Latimer, at Hampton Court.

[citation needed] In June 1548, during the war of the Rough Wooing, Margaret's father, the Earl of Angus, wrote to her with the news that her uncle, George Douglas, and others of the family had been captured at Dalkeith Palace.

[28] On the accession of Queen Elizabeth I of England, Margaret moved to Yorkshire, where her home at Temple Newsam became a centre for Roman Catholic intrigue.

Margaret succeeded in marrying her elder son, Lord Darnley, to his first cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, thus uniting their claims to the English throne.

[31] On 3 August, the governor of Scotland, Regent Morton wrote to her about the capture of Edinburgh Castle from the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots.

[citation needed] Lady Margaret's diplomacy largely contributed to the future succession of her grandson, James VI of Scotland, to the English throne.

[37] Although she died in debt, she was given a grand funeral in Westminster Abbey, at the expense of Queen Elizabeth I, with a hundred poor women in attendance.

[41] Her recumbent effigy, made of alabaster, wears a French cap and ruff with a red fur-lined cloak, over a dress of blue and gold.

[42] At his death in 1624, Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox had a bed in his lodgings at the gatehouse of Whitehall Palace that had belonged to Margaret Douglas, and she had "worked" or embroidered the curtains.

Her close friends, Mary Shelton and the Duchess of Richmond, were the main contributors, as well as Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Thomas Wyatt.