Margaret Tudor - Death

Death

Margaret died of a severe stroke at Methven Castle, in Perthshire on 18 October 1541. Henry Ray, the Berwick Pursuivant, reported that she had a palsy on Friday and died on the following Tuesday. As she thought she would recover she did not trouble to make a will. She sent for King James, who was at Falkland Palace, but he did not come in time. Near the end she wished that the friars who attended her would seek the reconciliation of the King and the Earl of Angus. She hoped the King would give her possessions to her daughter, Lady Margaret Douglas. James arrived after her death, and he ordered Oliver Sinclair and John Tennent to pack up her belongings for his use. She was buried at the Carthusian Priory of St John in Perth (demolished during the Reformation, 1559). The Tudor dynasty ended with the childless Elizabeth I, and the line of succession to the English throne was passed through Margaret's heirs. Her great-grandson, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England, thus uniting the crowns of the two kingdoms and conferring on Margaret something of a posthumous triumph.