Margaret Howard, Countess of Nottingham

Margaret Stuart (or Stewart) ( – 4 August 1639), Scottish aristocrat and courtier in England. She served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark. She was the daughter of James Stewart, 2nd Earl of Moray, and Elizabeth Stuart, 2nd Countess of Moray. The sailor  and patron of Ben Jonson, Sir Frances Stuart was her brother.

Unions
In September 1603, she married Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham. She attended the trial of Sir Walter Ralegh in November 1603 with the Countess of Suffolk and Arbella Stuart.

Nottingham was an older man and the marriage in September attracted comment from Anne of Denmark and her brother Christian IV of Denmark, Arbella Stuart, Thomas Edmondes and other letter writers. Anne wrote a letter to King James describing them as a match between Mars and Venus. Edmondes described their meeting during dancing organised by the queen at Basing House. Robert Cecil wrote that Nottingham had "begun the union", meaning the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland. The king gave her Chelsea Place and a yearly pension of £600.

In January 1604 she played the part of Concordia in the masque The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, wearing "crimson and white, the colours of England and Scotland joined". Her mantle was embroidered with clasped hands and she carried a bush with red and white roses as an offering in the Temple of Peace. 

In December 1604 she was excused from performing in the queen's masque, The Masque of Blackness, because she had a "polypus" which was thought to require surgery.

She gave Anne of Denmark clothes as New Year's day gifts. On 1 January 1609 she gave the queen a satin petticoat embroidered round about the hem and up the front with grapes, roses, pansies, birds, clouds, and bats described as "fruits batts or flindermyse".

A Misunderstanding on the Thames
In 1606 when Christian IV was preparing to leave London he had an argument with the Earl of Nottingham aboard ship about time and tide. The Danish king insisted it was two o'clock and waved two fingers at the Earl. Nottingham or the countess thought he made a joke about their age difference. An angry correspondence ensued. Arbella Stuart attempted to mediate in the scandal in letters to Christian's chamberlain, Sir Andrew Sinclair. Margaret insisted in a letter to Sinclair that Christian IV should know "that I deserve as little that name he gave me as either the mother of himself or his children". Sinclair had to pass the letter on to Christian IV. Anne of Denmark asked James to banish her from court. 

In July 1614 she was a godparent to Thomas Ingram.

An inventory of luxury goods belonging to Margaret and the Earl of Nottingham written by the notary David Moysie in 1606 gives an idea of the material culture of Jacobean courtiers.

When the Earl of Nottingham gave up the admiralty he was declared to be the first earl of England. However, during the planning of the funeral of Anne of Denmark in 1619 other aristocrats including Alethea Howard, Countess of Arundel and Dorothy Percy, Countess of Northumberland refused to give her precedence. One solution suggested was to make Helena, Marchioness of Northampton the chief mourner.

They had two children:
 Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Nottingham
 Anne Howard (born c. 1612). She was married on 29 December 1627 to Alexander Stewart, Baron Garlies, son of Alexander Stewart, 1st Earl of Galloway and Grizel Gordon.

After her first husband's death, in 1625, she married William Monson, 1st Viscount Monson. They had no children.

Margaret died in her house at Covent Garden on 4 August 1639 and buried at Chelsea.

Notes

Category:1590s births
Category:1639 deaths
Category:English ladies-in-waiting
Category:English countesses
Category:17th-century Scottish women
Category:17th-century Scottish people
Category:Women of the Stuart period
Category:Court of James VI and I