Margaret Drummond, Queen of Scotland

Margaret Drummond
Queen consort of Scotland
Tenure	1364–1369
Born	c. 1340
Died	after 31 January 1375
Spouse	Sir John Logie David II of Scotland m. 20 February 1364; div. 20 March 1369
Issue	John of Logie (by her first marriage)
House	Clan Drummond
Father	Sir Malcolm Drummond
Mother	Margaret Graham, Countess of Menteith

Margaret Drummond (c. 1340 – after 31 January 1375), known also by her first married name as Margaret Logie, was the second queen of David II of Scotland and a daughter of Sir Malcolm de Drummond, 10th Thane of Lennox (b. after 1295 – d. 17 October 1346 at the Battle of Neville's Cross, Durham, England) by his wife Margaret Graham, Countess of Menteith.

Margaret first married Sir John Logie of that Ilk, having by him a son, John of Logie.^[1][2]

To counter Stewart influence, David II of Scotland pardoned John Logie in September of 1343, son of a conspirator against Robert I of Scotland in 1320, and restored to him the large lordship of Strathgartney bordering the earldoms of Menteith and Lennox. Strathgartney had been held by Sir John Menteith of Arran and Knapdale’s family (cadets of the Stewarts and also former keepers of Dumbarton and guardians of Menteith). At the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346, the king was apparently deserted by some of his subjects and led off to eleven years’ captivity in England. After Neville’s Cross the Steward as lieutenant would allow John Menteith to recover Strathgartney: This led David, when he returned from England in 1357/58, to try again to restore Logie’s sasine.^[3]

By 1361/62 Margaret was a mistress to King David who was widowed from his first wife, Joan of The Tower, on 14 August 1362. In addition to David's aid to Margaret's husband John Logie, Margaret’s brother, Malcolm Drummond, became coroner of Perth and received new lands in the shire, as did their uncle, John Drummond, whom David would make earl of Menteith in 1360 directly denying a son of the Steward. David’s favour to the Drummonds must have fuelled the tension between them and the Stewarts and Campbells: this erupted into a full-blown murderous feud by the 1350s.^[4][5][6]

Margaret then married David II of Scotland at Inchmurdach in Fife, on 20 February 1364. Her niece Annabella was subsequently married to John Stewart, later king as Robert III and Margaret's grand-nephew by marriage.^[7] They had no children and the King divorced her on 20 March 1369 on grounds of infertility. Margaret, however, travelled to Avignon, in southern France, and made a successful appeal to the Pope to reverse the sentence of divorce which had been pronounced against her in Scotland. Having borne a child from her first marriage, it seems likely that David himself was infertile, since his thirty-four year marriage to his first wife also bore no issue.^[8]

Margaret survived the King, and was alive on 31 January 1375, but seems to have died soon after that date.^[9] Her funeral was paid for by Pope Gregory XI.^[10]

References

1. Fraser, Douglas Book vol i, pp248-249
2. Bain, Cal.Doc.Scot. p.22 no 93. In which he is gifted a "parcel-gilt cup by the English King valued at £4 5s 1d
3. The Scots at the Battle of Neville's Cross, by Michael A. Penman, page 168. Accessed 7 August 2016.
4. Regesta Regum Scottorum VI: The Acts of David II, 1329-71, ed. B. Webster (Edinburgh, 1982), nos. 75, 212, 327.
5. S. Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert III, 1371-1406 (East Linton, 1996), 16-19
6. Fraser, Menteith, i, 109-15.
7. Barrell, A. D. M. (2000). Medieval Scotland. Cambridge University Press. p. 132.
8. Ashley, Mike (1999). The mammoth book of British kings and queens. London: Robinson Publishers. p. 551. ISBN 1-84119-096-9.
9. Dunbar, Sir Archibald H., Scottish Kings - A Revised Chronology of Scottish History 1005 - 1625, Edinburgh, 1899, p.156
10. Barrell, A. D. M. (2000). Medieval Scotland. Cambridge University Press. p. 132.

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