Five hundred years together

500 years of the name of England and Scotoland is exactly five centuries of fierce enmity and five more centuries of gradual rapprochement. The historical fracture falls just in the middle of the millennium - 1502. Yakov ѵ Scottish was a kernel king and, in addition to military valor, was famous for endless love adventures. On one of his beloved, Margarita Dramond, he was even about to marry, but the close associates managed to convince the monarch that the king’s marriage was not his personal matter. The favorite was brought to the Linlitto castle with honors and soon poisoned there. Nothing now prevented Yakov from starting the search for a profitable party. For many centuries, the natural ally of Scotland was France forever fought with England, from there the Scottish kings usually brought brides. But this time the archbishop of Glasgow went to London to take a closer look at the twelve -year -old Margarita, the daughter of the English king Henry VII.

The matchmaking of the northern neighbor did not become the main sensation of the London court, where the preparations for a much more important wedding were ended: the heir to the English throne of Prince Arthur and the Spanish infanta Ekaterina Aragon. However, Henry was favorably reacted to the proposal of Jacob and appointed a dowry of thirty thousand gold for the princess, paying for three parts for three years. The parties hit their hands, and in January 1502 a solemn marriage took place in Richmond, on which the authorized representative of Jacob, Count Patrick Boswell, played the role of the groom.

Until the summer, Margarita remained in England, and only in June the royal train touched from Richmond to the north. On July 8, Henry said goodbye to his daughter in the castle of Colleston and turned back, and the solemn procession continued its leisurely path. On the border of the county of Northumberland, King Jacob was waiting for the bride, to whom Count Surrey handed her with appropriate ceremonies. On August 8, the wedding ceremony was repeated in Edinburgh, this time with the participation of a real groom.

This marriage did not lead to the immediate damping of the centuries -old enemies. Ten years later, Yakov entered the war with England, suffered an amazing and fell in battle himself. Nevertheless, the union of two august surnames, concluded in 1502, potentially created a new reality on the British Isles. She materialized after the century later, when, after the death of the childless Elizabeth I, the Tudor dynasty was stopped and the Scottish king Jacob VI Stuart entered the English throne under the name of Jacob I.

Henry VII in 1502 warned of such a danger, but he replied that this was the problem of Scotland, not England. It doesn’t matter where the king came from, that country will still be dominated by more. And so it happened. Stuarts have become real English kings.