Margaret Stewart and Lincluden College.
Professor Richard Oram.
Although the tomb of James I and Joan Beaufort in the Perth Charterhouse was destroyed around the time of the Reformation, some sense of how royal or high status Scottish tombs looked and were located in churches can be obtained from the few surviving monuments to members of the wider Stewart family. One of the finest to remain is that of Margaret Stewart, elder sister of James I, who had married Archibald, 4th earl of Douglas. As countess of Douglas and duchess of Touraine – a title given to her husband by the French king in gratitude for his role in the defeat of the English army at Beaugé in 1421 – she was one of the greatest ladies of the kingdom and her tomb design reflected both her royal blood and her husband’s high noble lineage.
Margaret’s tomb can be found in the choir of the collegiate church of Lincluden, now located on the north-western outskirts of Dumfries, but originally in a rural position on the edges of her husband’s lordship of Galloway. Lincluden had been founded in 1389 by her father-in-law, Archibald the Grim, 3rd earl of Douglas, as a collegiate church, a type of religious establishment where the resident clergy’s main purpose was to say masses and prayers for the spiritual welfare of their patrons in life and for the salvation of their souls in death. Often, they were intended to be the family mausoleum. Archibald the Grim had died in 1400 and been buried in his other collegiate church foundation at Bothwell, possibly because building work at Lincluden was not far enough advanced for him to be buried there.
Construction at Lincluden was carried on mainly for Margaret and her husband, the 4th earl. What was intended to be their joint tomb was an integral part of the buildings. It is still a magnificent monument, recessed into the north wall of the sanctuary area of the choir, just in front of the high altar and in a position where it would have been in sight of both the priests officiating at masses and their fellows in the choir stalls. Being seen and remembered was as much part of the process of spiritual salvation as the services themselves. James and Joan’s tomb would have stood right in the middle of the pavement at the Charterhouse and been surrounded by the choir stalls and celebrants, almost as if the royal dead were participating directly in the services, but Margaret and Archibald’s monument occupied a more traditional place to one side. There, it still benefited from the priests’ prayers and devotions, but it didn’t obstruct them in the performance of the services.
What remains is a magnificently sculptured arched recess set into the wall and around which the other architectural features of the choir’s north wall are fitted. The arch, which once had a rich tracery of cusps around the recess is framed by an elaborate frieze of sculpted, blind-arcade panels that contains the elaborate finial that rises above the arch-head. The whole array is decorated with trails of foliage, religious symbols and small angelic figures, representing the angels who would carry the deceased’s soul to heaven. An elaborate tomb chest projects slightly from the recess, its outer face decorated with nine arcaded niche panels containing armorial shields, once painted with the coats of arms of her and her husband’s lineage, the ensemble forming a powerful statement of who the tombs occupants were and the richness and potency of their connections. On top of the chest is the now sadly battered effigy of Margaret, lying on her back, dressed in rich clothing, and once with hands clasped in prayer. It, too, would have been painted in life-like colours, with gilded and glass-jewelled details. It was intended that her husband’s effigy would have lain alongside her, but he was killed in 1424 at the battle of Verneuil in France and his body buried in the cathedral of his ducal city of Tours.
Like her kingly brother, Margaret and her husband started building their tomb during their lifetime and would have been regular visitors to Lincluden to see how work on it was progressing. They would have taken a close, personal interest in its design and chosen its placing as well as its materials and colours. No doubt, they would have visited other noble tombs and selected examples that they wanted their masons to use as models for theirs. It is likely that the monument was finished decades before Margaret’s death in 1450, when she was finally buried, alone, in the vault beneath the magnificent memorial that she and Earl Archibald had confirmed.