A stunning alabaster monument in Westminster Abbey, adorned with hidden crowns, kneeling children, and a golden lion, is far more than a final resting place—it is a carefully crafted dynastic weapon designed to propel a family from the brink of ruin to the throne of England, and new analysis reveals the secret messages embedded in its stone that have been overlooked for centuries.
The tomb of Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, lies in the south aisle of the Henry VII Chapel, a riot of color in a sea of gray stone and white marble. It is a rectangular chest tomb, measuring 2. 52 meters long, 1.
36 meters wide, and 2. 2 meters high, made entirely of alabaster. Atop it, a reclining effigy shows Margaret with her head on an ornate tasseled pillow, hands clasped in prayer, wearing robes of state that scream expense and royalty: a red cloak with a fur collar and lining, fastened at the neck with a white cap trimmed in gold thread and a golden cornet on her head.
A white Elizabethan ruff, likewise trimmed in gold, sits just above a blue and gold collar depicting quatrefoils within lozenges. Her eyes are open, staring upward, her face set in a stern, determined expression. At her feet sits a golden lion, which once bore a crown, and pointed obelisks stand at the corners of the tomb.
But the most remarkable addition is the crown on Margaret’s own head. She was not a princess or a queen, but her mother was Princess Margaret Tudor, Dowager Queen of Scotland, and her father was Archibald Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus. She boasted James V of Scotland as her big brother and Henry VIII of England as her uncle.
The crown on her tomb is there to remind viewers that this woman had a claim on the Tudor throne, even if it was never realized. This was particularly important at the time of her death in 1578, as the other people with the best blood claims on the English throne were Margaret’s daughter-in-law and niece, Mary Queen of Scots, and Margaret’s two grandchildren, Mary’s son James VI of Scotland and Lady Arbella Stuart. They did not have the best legal claims, as Henry VIII’s will specifically left them all out.
The tomb was therefore a dynastic tool designed to remind those who saw it in the years after her death, when the succession was still very murky, that the Stuart family had the best claim to Elizabeth’s throne and to bolster that claim.
The ornate decoration continues on every side of the tomb, and like the crown and outfit, everything is designed to showcase Margaret’s family, rank, and connections, and even her claims to the thrones of Scotland and England. To the countess’s left are four kneeling female figures on red cushions, with their hands raised in prayer to match hers. These are her lost daughters, all aged up to well beyond the years they actually attained, and none of whom are buried with her.
Here they are, back with their mother in death, praying to God for her and demonstrating that she was actually incredibly fertile, yet cursed by the horrifically high infant mortality rates of the 16th century. They are of different sizes to denote older to younger, all facing towards her feet, wearing black dresses with red bodices, their hair in a classic Elizabethan style with tight curls around the face, a high ruff at the neck, and a black and gold coif or cap on the back of the head. In the middle of these girls is a shield depicting the Lennox coat of arms impaling those of Angus and Douglas, showing the marriage of Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of the Earl of Angus, to the Earl of Lennox.
On the other side of the tomb are four more little statues kneeling in prayer on red cushions with gold tassels. These depict Margaret’s four lost sons. Like their sisters, they face their mother’s feet, and we can tell which one is Lord Darnley as a crown hovers above his head showing that he was King of Scotland.
Presumably the figure directly next to him is Charles, the only other brother to reach adulthood, while the two smaller ones on the left beneath Margaret’s head are the two who died as infants. Though here they are depicted at a much older age than they reached, just as their sisters are. Her eldest died less than a year after his birth.
Darnley is the largest statue despite the fact that he was actually the second born, but as the father of James VI of Scotland, he is the most important dynastically speaking, and the tomb is designed to show that. As well as the crown, this is achieved through his outfit. While the smaller boys wear black robes edged with gold, Darnley and Charles wear black and gold armor, the clothing of adults.
And most importantly of all, Darnley has a red cloak making him the most visually distinctive of all the eight siblings and echoing what his mother statue on top of the tomb also wears. He is staring directly at the tomb of his wife, Mary Queen of Scots, which is a nice little irony as she was suspected of playing a role in his death and of course his body is not in Westminster Abbey to lie near her.
The coats of arms in between the children’s statues are not the only ones present. On the tomb’s east end, we see Darnley’s arms impaling those of Scotland to represent his marriage to Queen Mary. On the west is a lozenge showing Angus and Douglas, the title and surname of Margaret’s father, and of course her own maiden name.
The many inscriptions all around the tomb say relatively little of Margaret’s own life, personality, or accomplishments, and instead are mainly focused on who she was related to. Starting with the panel at her feet, and then moving to those beneath her daughters, then her sons, we read the following, written in English, presumably to maximize the number of people who could absorb the information: “Here lieth the noble lady Margaret, Countess of Lennox, daughter and sole heir of Archibald, Earl of Lennox, by Margaret, Queen of Scots, his wife, that was eldest daughter to King Henry VII. He bare unto Matthew, Earl of Lennox, her husband, four sons and four daughters.
This lady had to her great grandfather, King Edward IV, to her grandfather, King Henry VII, to her uncle, King Henry VIII, to her cousin Germain, King Edward VI, to her brother, King James of Scotland V, to her son, King Henry I, meaning Lord Darnley, who was declared King of Scotland, to her grandchild, King James VI, having to her great grandmother and grandmother two queens, both named Elizabeth. This means Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Woodville, to her mother, Margaret, Queen of Scots, to her aunt, Mary, the French Queen, to her cousins Germain, Mary, and Elizabeth, Queens of England, to her niece and daughter-in-law Mary, Queen of Scots.”
At the head of the tomb, on a plaque under her two sons who died as infants, are two other panels which are in Latin and which actually repeat a lot of information already given on the English panels. It is only here, in the text which would have been less accessible to the general public given the language it is written in, that we find out anything about Margaret herself or when she died. It translates to: “Sacred to the memory of Margaret Douglas, wife of Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, granddaughter to Henry the Seventh, King of England by his daughter Margaret Tudor, joined by the closest ties of kinship to most puissant kings, grandmother to James the Sixth of Scotland, a lady of most pious character, invincible spirit and matchless steadfastness.
She died the 10th of March, year of our Lord 1577.” This is in the Julian calendar, which took the new year as the 24th of March. She died in 1578 according to the modern Gregorian calendar.
We do not know who the sculptor of this monument was, but we do know that it was erected very quickly after Margaret’s death, as it used to include an inscription before a 1960s restoration which read, “This work was completed at the charge of Thomas Fowler, the executor of this lady, 24th of October, 1578.” This shouldn’t come as any great surprise, as in her last will and testament, made less than a fortnight before her death, Margaret had specifically requested that she be buried in the Abbey, and despite her financial difficulties at the time of her demise, explained how her funeral was to be funded. She said, “My body to be buried in the great church of Westminster, in the monument, sepulchre, or tomb already bargained for and appointed to be made and set up in the said church.
Also, I will that the body of my son Charles shall be removed from the church of Hackney and laid with mine both in one vault or tomb in the said church of Westminster. And I give, appoint, and bequeath for my burial and funerals to be bestowed and employed thereupon the sum of 1,200 lbs, alias 1,200 lbs of lawful money of England, to be made and furnished of my plate, household stuff, and movables to be sold therefore.”
The countess wanted some of her household goods sold off to pay for a fitting send-off for her, and that is presumably what her servant and executor, Thomas Fowler, did. She seems to have prepaid for a monument. This quick turnaround for the tomb is contradicted to some extent by what you will see written in some histories of the Abbey which discuss it.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, writing in the late 19th century in his book Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey, says in a footnote that “It may be observed that the monument must have been erected upon the accession of James to the English throne, as he is called in the epitaph on the tomb King James the VI.” This comment had me scratching my head. Surely, the details of Margaret’s will, the inscription mentioning Fowler and giving a date of 1578, and the fact that James was referred to only by his Scottish title, indicates that pre-dates his accession to the English throne in 1603.
It is true that at one point an inscription says that Lord Darnley was father to James the VI, now king, but to my eye that clearly means now king of Scotland.
Nevertheless, you can find the assertion that James had the tomb built in other later works, too. Helen Marshall Pratt, for instance, writing in 1914, said that “Her tomb had been in part arranged for by her will, but her grateful grandson, when he became King of England, not only erected a noble tomb in this aisle to his mother, the Queen of Scots, and one of equal splendor to his predecessor, Elizabeth, but probably, so she’s not sure actually, built a large part of this to his grandmother.” Like Stanley before her, Pratt cites no source for any information about James’s involvement, and this might explain her uncertainty about his contribution to the tomb.
But the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography expresses no such doubts, saying that “A quarter of a century later, meaning 25 years after Margaret’s death, which would be in 1603, when James succeeded to the English throne, her grandson James VI and I erected a fine monument in her memory.” On the basis of the now lost 1578 inscription and the fact that James is referred to as King of Scotland on the tomb and not as the King of England as well, I suspect this information to be at least somewhat incorrect. Had he had this tomb made or very significantly altered, he certainly would have mentioned his other crown, and he likely would not have made anything of the fact that his uncle Charles Stuart was the father of Lady Arbella Stuart, a cousin whose claims to the throne he was keen to play down.
The design of this tomb screams Margaret, not James. The Lennoxes were very good at creating objects which proclaimed their dynastic importance and were full of hidden messages that are often lost on a modern audience. For example, they had an incredible mourning painting commissioned after Darnley’s death showing his parents, brother, and son grieving around his dead body.
They also had the famous Darnley or Lennox Jewel created, which is not just an exquisite piece of jewelry, but also a statement about the family’s position, power, and dynastic hopes. Margaret had a real flair for this kind of thing. And while James certainly signed off on the grand tombs for his mother and Queen Elizabeth, and they are huge, very impressive, and full of messages of their own, Lady Lennox’s tomb seems like something she would have designed, especially with the call outs to her long dead infant children, people whom King James surely cared little if at all about.
Now, as I’ve mentioned, this tomb was restored in the 1960s resulting in the loss of the 1578 inscription telling us when it was created. If we look at a description from 1812 in William Coombe’s book on Westminster Abbey, we find that the 1578 inscription was certainly present at that point, as too were crowns over Margaret and Darnley’s heads, which can also be seen in an image published in 1677. In 1818 though, Edward Brayley, John Neale, and Sydney Fisher wrote that the crown on Margaret’s head was then broken and that over Darnley’s head was missing entirely having, quote, been destroyed or stolen.
It is therefore safe to say then that the coronets we see today are not original to the tomb, or in the case of Margaret’s have at the very least been mended. An old photograph of the tomb published in 1902 also shows that Darnley’s crown was then missing. Though in 1909, Francis Bond said that there remained the fastening of a crown.
Brayley et al. noted too that the hands on Margaret’s effigy were broken, but they don’t say how badly. We can see the damage in old images though, as well as severe damage to the obelisks which look like they’ve been cut in half by 1818.
These authors noted too that there used to be railings around the tomb, which were gone even by that same year, but they knew what they had looked like, saying that “On the iron railing which formerly surrounded this tomb, were small badges and armorial standards.” Westminster Abbey’s website also mentions these railings, saying that they are now thought to be at a school at Piddletrenthide in Dorset.
We’re going to finish with a look inside this tomb, and at who else is in there with Margaret, because she’s not alone. As we know, Margaret rests with her son Charles, who died 2 years before her and was obviously moved to lie with her, just as her will had requested. I don’t know when the move occurred, but the fact that he is mentioned in the inscription on the tomb as being there would suggest that it was done very quickly after her death, if we accept that the tomb was built or mostly built in 1578, as Feiler asserted.
Both are in leaden coffins and in around 1682, during the reign of Charles II, the vault was breached, if not opened entirely, for we have this account of its contents from Henry Keep in his Monumenta Westmonasteriensia. “There is a small vault adjoining to this, wherein are only two coffins of lead, the one on the other, the undermost of which is very much shaken and decayed, so that the skeleton and perched, meaning parched, skin of the interred is to be seen, being the remains of Charles, Earl of Lennox, youngest son to Matthew, Earl of Lennox, and the Lady Margaret, his countess, grandfather and grandmother to King James. He died anno 1576.
In the other capsula or chest of lead is the body of the aforementioned Margaret, mother to Charles, Earl of Lennox, and grandmother to King James.”
Keep clearly says that there were only two people in the vault at that time, and we may imagine that Charles’ coffin was damaged either when he was moved from his initial burial location to lie with his mother or over time from having the weight of her coffin on his, because he was the undermost. If we jump forward to the 1860s, though, when Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was searching for the remains of Margaret’s grandson, James VI and I, we get another peek inside the tomb and at a third person who was by then in it. Stanley was hunting all over Westminster Abbey for James and before he got to the Lennox vault, he tried Mary Queen of Scots first thinking that perhaps mother and son had been reunited in death.
When that proved fruitless, he moved on to the tomb next door and he described what he discovered as follows. “This vault, meaning Mary Queen of Scots vault, opened on the west into a much narrower vault under the monument of Lady Margaret Lennox. Through a wall of nearly 3 ft in thickness by a hole which is made about 3 ft above the floor and about 2 ft square.
A pile of three or four of the small chests of James II’s children obstructed the entrance, but within the vault there appeared to be three coffins one above the other. The two lower would doubtless be those of the countess and her son Charles Earl of Lennox, the father of Arabella Stuart. Some people call her Arabella, but her name seems to have been Arbell or Arbel.
The upper coffin was that of Esmé Stuart, Duke of Richmond, whose name with the date 1624 was just traceable on the decayed plate.”
So, at some point from 1624 on, Esmé Stuart, who was actually the third Duke of Lennox, was also interred in the tomb, but when exactly is unclear. Esmé was a grandnephew of Margaret’s by marriage, being the son of another Esmé Stuart, first Duke of Lennox, who was in turn the son of Margaret’s brother-in-law, John Stewart. He was obviously in the vault by Stanley’s time, yet Keep doesn’t mention him.
It seems incredible that Keep could have missed him, and yet Stanley was able to clearly see him about 180 years later, saying that the coffins were stacked three high, and yet I really can’t explain what happened here. Esmé was certainly buried in Westminster Abbey after his death of the spotted fever in August 1624, but was he buried elsewhere and moved to the Lennox vault at some point in or after 1682? Or was his coffin next to Margaret and Charles’s in 1682 and somehow missed in the gloom when the vault was inspected in that year, then later stacked on top of the mother and son, perhaps when space was being sought to bury other Stewarts who ended up being put in Mary, Queen of Scots’ tomb instead?
All are possible, and I will say that as mad as it seems to say that Keep couldn’t count to three, he actually made some incredible other mistakes regarding Margaret’s tomb elsewhere in his book when he said that the little statues around the sides of it showed six men and only two women, when they clearly show four of each. So, he is arguably not the best source of information.
As for the little coffins of James II’s children, I don’t think they’re in the Lennox tomb, but rather in the Mary Queen of Scots vault. Again, this goes back to another video I did on where royal children were buried, which looks at that vault’s contents in detail. The way Stanley describes it here, I also think he just means that their coffins were blocking the entrance into the Lennox vault from the Mary vault, rather than actually being in with Margaret, Charles, and Esmé.
Also, there is a plaque on the floor listing who is in vault, and it only has three names on it. As far as I can tell, these three, Margaret, Charles, and Esmé, Duke of Lennox, have not been bothered since Arthur Penrhyn Stanley’s day, and whatever is left of them is still down there in the Lennox vault, with Margaret moldering away close to so many of her illustrious family members.
The tomb of Lady Margaret Douglas is a masterpiece of Tudor propaganda, a stone monument that continues to speak across the centuries, telling the story of a woman who was determined to see her family on the throne of England, and who, in death, ensured that her message would be seen for generations to come.
