Following the death of husband, James IV, King of Scots, Queen Margaret Tudor takes charge of her realm to protect the throne and her son from powerful Scottish nobles who covet her power.

SYNOPSIS:

EPISODE 3, SYNOPSIS, MARGARET

It is 1513, and the leader of Henry the VIII’s English army, the Earl of Surrey, examines the bloody aftermath from the Battle of Flodden Field. Very few of the 30,000 Scots survive.

Surrey finds the coat, severed head, and body of James IV, which he takes to Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England. Catherine leads her court in celebrations and sends the coat to Henry VIII who wars against Louis XII in France.

Scotland is in mourning. Margaret Tudor, widow of James IV, oversees the coronation of son, James V, who is 17-months old. Providentially, two future leaders of the Reformation, John Knox and George Wishart, are baptized on the exact day as James V’s coronation.

Per the Last Will of James IV, Margaret may not remarry, or she will forfeit Regency over James V. Her weakness for powerful men, however, is a temptation she cannot overcome.

John Stewart, Duke of Albany and second in line to the throne, and Archbishop James Beaton conspire against Margaret for her sins of being English, sister of Henry VIII, and a woman.

Catherine dreams that James IV and Pedro de Ayala, deceased ambassador from Spain, warn her about her future daughter Mary I (Bloody Mary), a force for Catholicism in the Reformation.

Catherine has her third miscarriage, the result of travel to deliver a speech to the English army before the Battle of Flodden Field. She is devastated.

Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian statesman, writes The Prince, a controversial treatise that unleashes powerful incentives for rulers and popes to oppress their subjects. This makes the upcoming Reformation worse. Henry VIII embraces the message.

In heaven, James IV and Pedro de Ayala survey the death and destruction that occurs in the future as the Reformation gains strength in future episodes.

Pregnant by James IV before his death, Margaret delivers another son and succumbs to temptations and the overtures of Archibald Douglas. They secretly wed, which endangers her position as Regent. This sets the stage for confrontation with her adversaries in Episode Seven - Seeds.