The Abbey history at this time helps us to realise that it was an age of struggle between liberty and despotism, an age when the people were determined to become more and more self-governing. The Tudors had been clever enough and strong enough to rule without making their people discontented. The Stuarts were not wise enough to see that the English spirit of independence would not bear any tyrannical form of government, and as the Stuarts found it difficult to understand this, they ended by losing their kingdom altogether. We shall see how all these things left their mark upon the Abbey itself. As this chapter has to do with a long and eventful time in English history, it will be divided into three parts. The first part will be about the earlier Stuarts; the second, about the Commonwealth; and the third, about the Stuart Restoration and the most famous men of the Stuart and Commonwealth times. I The first of the Stuart family to be laid to rest in the Abbey was Margaret, Countess of Lennox, the mother of Lord Darnley. Margaret was the daughter of the Earl of Angus and of Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII. Her epitaph tells us that she “had to her great-grandfather, King Edward IV; to her grandfather, King Henry VII; to her uncle, King Henry VIII; to her cousin-german, King Edward VI; to her brother, King James V of Scotland; to her son (Darnley), King Henry I of Scotland; to her grandchild, King James VI (of Scotland) and I (of England).” This epitaph is again an English history lesson in itself, if we think over it carefully. Margaret’s mother was first married to King James IV of Scotland, and on his death she married the Earl of Angus. Margaret Lennox was thus half-sister to James V of Scotland, and she therefore was a link between the English and Scottish royal houses. She married Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox. Her eldest son, Lord Darnley, married Mary, Queen of Scots, and was called King. Her second son was Charles Stuart, father of the Lady Arabella, of whom we hear so much in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Margaret died in 1578, and is buried in the south aisle of Henry VII’s Chapel, where she has a very fine tomb. Round the tomb are the kneeling figures of her children, Lord Darnley and Charles Stuart among them. Lord Darnley is represented wearing a royal robe, and there are the broken remains of a crown over his head. Charles Stuart is buried here with his mother.