The boy was already bigger than his father but another Spaniard noted Henry was as protective of him as if he had been a young girl.2 Perhaps more so; in June 1503, just a few months after the death of Elizabeth of York, he was ready to bid farewell to his elder daughter, Margaret, Queen of Scots, and escort her on the first leg of her journey north to her new homeland. An impatient and gregarious thirteen-year-old who enjoyed archery, music, dancing and cards, Queen Margaret would need all her high spirits and optimism now she was to leave those she loved. Scotland was notoriously violent and it was considered a rare thing for a Scottish king to die of natural causes.3 The husband she had not yet seen, James IV, wore an iron belt as penance for his unwitting role in the death of his own father, James III, killed by rebels whose cause he had been supporting. Near Stamford in Lincolnshire Queen Margaret and her father reached her grandmother’s house, Collyweston, where the formal court farewell was to take place.
