Team Tudor vs Team Stuart: Power and Personalities

In politics, being neighbors doesn’t mean being friends. The
struggles between the Tudors of England and the Stuarts of
Scotland shaped the power dynamic of the two countries and
affected the politics of Europe as well.

The inevitable mixture of power and personality with the key
players in this group make their battles a struggle for personal
as well as political survival. So choose your side—Team Tudor or
Team Stuart—and let’s get ready to rumble.

When Henry Tudor took the English throne, he knew he had his job
cut out for him: create a dynasty and get other countries around
the world to accept him as the King of England. One way to create
alliances and demonstrate the growing status of the Tudors was to
arrange marriages with prominent royal families. Toward that end,
Henry VII arranged two marriages: the marriage of his son and
heir (at the time) Prince Arthur to Princess Katherine of Aragon
in 1501 and the marriage of his daughter Princess Margaret to
King James IV of Scotland in 1503.

We usually focus on Arthur and Katherine, as it gets the Henry
VIII marital merry-go-round started. But the marriage of Princess
Margaret and King James IV is the one that would ignite the
Tudor/Stuart rivalry and lead to power struggles and politics
that would reshape England and Scotland for years to come.


History shows us what's possible.