It was a prohibition that stood for 1,000 years - until one particularly capricious monarch decided otherwise. In 1540, King Henry VIII changed the law to allow first-cousin marriage so he could ...

By now pregnant with the Earl of Angus's child, Margaret Tudor fled to England. In October she gave birth to Margaret Douglas, the future Countess of Lennox and mother of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, ...

It was considered lucky to keep some of the charred remains to kindle the log of the following year. The twelve days of Christmas would have been a most welcome break for the workers on the land, ...