Margaret Carwood was a maid-of-honour at the court of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her wedding was celebrated at the time of the murder of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, the Queen's consort. However, historians have disagreed on who Margaret married.
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Margaret was an heiress of the family of Carwood of that Ilk in Lanarkshire. Her sister Janet married John Fleming of Persellands. Margaret became a lady of the Queen's chamber in May 1564. When Mary was pregnant with her son James, Margaret helped draw up her will with a list of bequests of her personal jewellery. Margaret worked with Piers Martin, the tapestry-man, in 1566 making a mat and a green canopy and coverlet for the Queen.[1] She was also the Queen's "Pantrice", in charge of the royal pantry.[2]
In March 1566, according to some accounts, after the murder of Mary's Italian secretary David Rizzio, Margaret Carwood accompanied Mary, Darnley, and the servant or musician Bastian Pagez on their escape from Edinburgh to Dunbar Castle. A 17th-century history mentions that a Sebastian Broune and a lady-in-waiting rode with the party.[3]
George Buchanan wrote in his Detection that Margaret was privy to all the Queen's secrets. Buchanan's story, published to incriminate the queen, was that Mary lodged in the Exchequer House in Edinburgh rather than her Palace in September 1566. In a night-time escapade she and Margaret Carwood dangled another servant called Lady Reres, with a string or a belt, over the garden wall to fetch the Earl of Bothwell.[4]
After the murder of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley on 10 February 1567, during his trial the servant called French Paris (Nicolas Hubert) declared that he went the Kirk o'Field lodging on 8 February to retrieve a fur wrap of the queen's, on Margaret Carwood's orders. Margaret was attending Mary at the Kirk o'Field, waiting with the other ladies in the queen's chamber next to Darnley's bedchamber, when the ladies were suddenly called to Holyroodhouse.[5] Some histories say that Margaret married Bastian Pagez on Sunday 9 February 1567. Sources agree that Mary attended a masque or dance in honour of Bastian's marriage that night. Mary's husband, was killed at 2:00am the next morning. Margaret's wedding was celebrated at Holyroodhouse on the following day.
One of the Casket Letters, which were thought to incriminate the Queen in Darnley's murder, mentions Margaret Carwood and her previous departure from court. The letter was endorsed by its Scottish copyist, "Anentes the depesch of Margaret Carwood, quhilk was before her marriage, (proves her affection)," and by another hand that Margaret was in special trust with the Queen.[6]
Although the dance on the night before the murder is often described as a celebration of the wedding of Bastian and Margaret, the historians Joseph Stevenson and William Robertson believed that Bastian married Christily Hogg on 9 February, and Margaret Carwood married John Stewart of Tulliepowrie and Fincastle, on Tuesday 11 February 1567, two days afterwards.[7] This is compatible with the contemporary report called Hay's articles, which mentions both the masque attended by the Queen for Bastian's marriage before the murder, and Margaret's marriage the morning after the murder.[8] Amongst others, the biographer Antonia Fraser accepted Stevenson's view that Bastian married Christiana Hogg on that night.[9] Pagez and Hogg were listed as man and wife four years later in England.
The Queen gave Margaret a gift of 15 ells of black velvet for her wedding on Monday 10 February.[10] Mary's participation at Margaret's wedding on the day after Darnley's murder was cause for adverse comment.
Bastian Pages and his wife Christily Hogg were listed in Mary's household at Sheffield Castle on 3 May 1571.[11] Bastian's daughter, Mary Pagez appears in the list of Mary's servants at Fotheringay Castle after the Queen's execution in 1587.[12]