♀Margaret of Scotland

Margaret of Scotland^W (died 1201) was a Scottish princess, a granddaughter of King David of Scotland and a sister of two Kings of Scots, who was Duchess of Brittany by her first marriage and the wife of Humphrey de Bohun, hereditary Constable of England, by her second. She was the twenty-third great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Henry de Bohun (1176–1220).

A Scottish princess

Margaret was a daughter of Henry of Scotland^W, Earl of Huntingdon and Earl of Northumberland, the heir apparent of David I^W, King of Scotland, and of Ada de Warenne, a daughter of William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey. Her father died on 12 June 1152, in his own father’s lifetime, and was buried at Kelso. The crown passed instead to her brothers, Malcolm IV^W and William the Lion^W, who became one after the other Kings of Scotland and Earls of Huntingdon.

Duchess of Brittany

In 1159 Margaret married Conan IV^W, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond. Conan’s only child was their daughter, Constance of Brittany^W.

The Countess Margaret

After Conan’s death, Margaret married Humphrey de Bohun. Between 1172 and 1181 Humphrey made a charter to the priory of Bohon in Normandy for the health of his wife, the Countess Margaret, and in 1175/6 the sheriff paid him more than £28 from her dower lands in Earl Conan’s honor. Margaret held claims of her own in her father’s earldom: in the reign of Henry II twenty knights’ fees in the honor of Huntingdon were adjudged to her, and under Richard I the land of Rihale. Their son, Henry de Bohun (1176–1220), was created Earl of Hereford in 1200 and was one of the twenty-five barons chosen to guarantee Magna Carta.

Widowhood

Humphrey died not many years after 1176. Sometime between 1187 and 1193 Margaret made a charter to Bradenstoke Priory^W in Wiltshire, which her son Henry witnessed. She died in 1201, and Henry was her heir.

Lines of descent

The line to Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) runs through Margaret’s son Henry de Bohun (1176–1220) and, probably, Henry’s descendant John Washburn (died 1547); the reason for the doubt is set out in the Notes.

Notes

Sources

Margaret’s parentage, her brothers, her marriage in 1159 and her daughter Constance are given in the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, 1926, p. 642 and note, under Huntingdon), citing the Chronicle of Melrose and Roger of Wendover; her father’s marriage, death and burial are on the same page. That he was King David’s heir apparent is from the 1st edition (vol. 6, 1895, p. 82, under Northumberland). Her second marriage, the charter to Bohon, the dower payment of 1175/6, the lands adjudged to her, her death in 1201 and her son’s inheritance are from the 2nd edition, vol. 6, pp. 457–458 and notes (under Hereford), citing Round’s Calendar of Documents Preserved in France, the Pipe Rolls of 22 Henry II and 6 John, and the chronicler Roger of Hoveden. Her charter to Bradenstoke is given by Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), p. 99 (Bohun 1), citing the London Cartulary of Bradenstoke Priory.

Her name and her father’s title

Richardson calls her “Margaret (or Margery), daughter of Henry of Scotland, Earl of Northumberland”. The Complete Peerage, under Huntingdon, shows that her father held both earldoms, Huntingdon from 1136 and Northumberland from 1139.

Her death

The year of her death, 1201, is the Complete Peerage’s, on the authority of Roger of Hoveden.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joyce Botetourt’s great-granddaughter Joan Mitton was John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is given here as probable.