Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 11th September 1476, Marguerite of Bourbon, Duchess of Savoy, gave birth to a daughter, named Louise. Louise spent much of her childhood at court of France, before being married, aged only 11, to Charles de Valois, Count of Angouleme, a close relative of King Charles VIII. The couple began cohabiting in about 1493, and Louise had two children, Marguerite and Francois, before her husband died, leaving her a widow before she was twenty. Unusually, Louise did not remarry, but concentrated her efforts on educating her children, forming an unusually tight-knit family.

In 1515, her son Francois succeed to the French crown, there being no male heir in the senior branch of the family. Louise immediately took a central role in French politics, acting as Regent when Francois became embroiled in the Italian Wars in 1515, and again when he was held hostage in Spain after being captured after the Battle of Pavia. During the 1520s, Louise attempted to find allies against the Hapsburgs by treating with Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, but nothing came of it.

Louise was instrumental in brokering the treaty known as ‘The Ladies’ Peace’ of 1529, which was supposed to stop the interminable Valois-Hapsburg conflict. She negotiated with her sister-in-law, Marguerite of Austria, who was Regent of the Netherlands. When the male heirs of Francois died out in the 1580s, Henri of Navarre, son of her grand-daughter, Jeanne d’Abret, Queen-Regnant of Navarre, became King of France. Louise died in 1531. She was buried at St Denis.

On 10th September 1549 the last pitched battle between English and Scottish forces before the Union of the Crowns took place. The battle, near Musselburgh, is known as the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. It was the culmination of a period of conflict known as the Wars of the Rough Wooing.

On the death of James V, his uncle, Henry VIII, hit upon the idea that James’ heir should be married to his son, Edward, thus uniting the two countries under an English King. This did not play well in Scotland, and resistance, although not universal amongst the Scots nobles, was widespread.

The 9th September 1513 was one of the most momentous, and saddest, days in the history of Scotland. On that day, King James IV led his troops into battle at a remote place in Northumberland called Branxton Moor, now known as Flodden. The Scots army was bigger, better equipped, and, initially, better positioned than the English. The English however, had the advantage of a commander who, although over seventy, was a clever and insightful general. Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, was a veteran of the Battle of Bosworth, and years of skirmishing on the Border. He knew James well, having accompanied the young Margaret Tudor, James’ wife, to her wedding ten years before. He used this knowledge to entice James out of the commanding position, and to control his own men effectively. James, his twenty-year old illegitimate son, Alexander, and a host of Scottish Earls and lords were killed. Read more about the Battle of Flodden here.