In 1524, Margaret, with the help of the Hamiltons, removed Albany from power in a coup d'état while he was in France, and was recognised by Parliament as regent, then later as chief counsellor to James V when he came of age.

Her siblings included Arthur, Prince of Wales, the future King Henry VIII, and Mary, who would briefly become Queen of France.

On 30 September 1497, James IV's commissioner, the Spaniard Pedro de Ayala concluded a lengthy truce with England, and the marriage with Margaret became a serious possibility.

[8] The new queen was provided with a large wardrobe of clothes, and her crimson state bed curtains made of Italian sarcenet were embroidered with red Lancastrian roses.

[16] Dishes included solan geese with sauce, baked apples and pears, and jelly moulded with the arms of England and Scotland.

[26] Richard Justice and Harry Roper worked in the wardrobe, making her sheets, washing clothes, mending her tapestries and perfuming them with violet powder.

[32][33] On 4 April 1504 Margaret gave 15 poor women blue gowns, shoes, a purse with 15 English pennies, and a wooden tankard with a jug and a plate, a token of the Last Supper.

[36] In 1507 James IV gave her a "serpent's tongue" (really a shark tooth) set in gold with precious stones, which was believed to guard against poison.

[40] In July 1507, after recovering from a period of ill-health, she went to Whithorn in Galloway, dressed in green velvet and riding on a saddle covered with the pelt of a reindeer, accompanied by her ladies and the court musicians.

His successor, the young Henry VIII, had little time for his father's cautious diplomacy, and was soon heading towards a war with France, Scotland's historic ally.

A woman was rarely welcome in a position of supreme power, and Margaret was the sister of an enemy king, which served to compound her problems.

Before long a pro-French party took shape among the nobility, urging that she should be replaced by John Stewart, Duke of Albany, the closest male relative to the infant prince, and now third in line to the throne.

But in her search for political allies among the fractious Scottish nobility she took a fatal step, allowing good sense and prudence to be overruled by emotion and the personal magnetism of Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus.

She found herself particularly attracted to the Earl of Angus, whom even his uncle, the cleric and poet Gavin Douglas, called a "young witless fool".

Not only did this alienate the other noble houses but it immediately strengthened the pro-French faction on the council, headed by James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow.

For some time her brother had been urging her to flee to England with her sons; but she had steadily refused to do so, fearing such a step might lead to James's loss of the Scottish crown.

[citation needed] It was also at this time that she at last began to get the measure of Angus, who, with an eye on his own welfare, returned to Scotland to make peace with the Regent, "which much made Margaret to muse".

[citation needed] In October 1518, she wrote to her brother, hinting at divorce:"I am sore troubled with my Lord of Angus since my last coming into Scotland, and every day more and more, so that we have not been together this half-year… I am so minded that, an I may by law of God and to my honour, to part with him, for I wit well he loves me not, as he shows me daily.

"[57]This was a difficult issue for Henry; a man of conservative and orthodox belief, he was opposed to divorce on principle – which was highly ironic, considering his later marital career.

[citation needed] Angered by his attitude, Margaret drew closer to the Albany faction and joined others in calling for his return from France.

[citation needed] The dispute between husband and wife was set to dominate Scottish politics for the next three years, complicated even more by a bitter feud between Angus and James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran; with bewildering rapidity Margaret sided with one and then the other.

Angus went into exile while the Regent – with the full cooperation of the queen dowager – set about restoring order to a country riven by three years of intense factional conflict.

[citation needed] Angus and his allies spread the rumour that the two were lovers, to such effect that even the sober-headed Lord Dacre wrote to Wolsey, predicting that James would be murdered and Albany would become king and marry Margaret.

[citation needed] In most essentials, Margaret remained an Englishwoman in attitude and outlook, and at root, she genuinely desired a better understanding between the land of her birth and her adopted home.

When he arrived in Edinburgh with a large group of armed men, claiming his right to attend Parliament, she ordered cannons to be fired on him from both the Castle and Holyrood House.

When the two English ambassadors present at court, Thomas Magnus and Roger Radclyff, objected that she should not attack her lawful husband she responded in anger, telling them to "go home and not meddle with Scottish matters".

She married Henry Stewart on 3 March 1528, ignoring the pious warnings of Cardinal Wolsey that marriage was "divinely ordained" and his protests against the "shameless sentence sent from Rome".

The central aim of Margaret's political life – besides assuring her own survival – was to bring about a better understanding between England and Scotland, a position she held to through some difficult times.

Time and again she wrote to Henry with complaints about her poverty and appeals for money and protection – she wished for ease and comfort instead of being obliged "to follow her son about like a poor gentlewoman".

The funeral ceremony itself was possibly not as elaborate as that held in Edinburgh for Madeleine of Valois in 1537, but James V and his household were provided with expensive black clothes for a mourning period.