"for goddes sake kepe my writing secrete for it is my destruction": Strategies of Epistolary Secrecy in the Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541)

This article offers a detailed analysis of the strategies of epistolary secrecy that Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots, employed in her correspondence with Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, in autumn 1523. During this period, Margaret acted as a double agent: appearing to be a willing mediator of peace to the Scottish government, whilst simultaneously acting as a spy for England. This study investigates how Margaret established separate overt and covert channels of communication with Thomas Howard to maintain this dual identity and to protect herself in a challenging political situation. This analysis provides evidence for the use of multiple channels of communication as a method of epistolary secrecy, a strategy which has been seldom recorded in other studies of early modern letter-writing. Finally, this article challenges previous, highly-gendered ideas of female political activity which accused Margaret Tudor of being "inconstant" and "politically inept", to instead show that she was exercising excellent political and diplomatic strategy. This provides an important reassessment of the strategies that late medieval queens could employ to exert power and agency in high-risk diplomatic and political negotiations.