Margaret of Denmark (23 June 1456 – before 14 July 1486) was the daughter of King Christian I of Denmark (1448-1481), Norway (1450-1481), and Sweden (1457-1464), and his wife Dorothea of Brandenburg.

Life

In July 1469 (at age 13), at Holyrood Abbey, she married James III, King of Scots (1460-88). Her father, King Christian I of Denmark and also of Norway, agreed on a remarkable dowry to her. He however was strained in cash, so the islands of Orkney and Shetland, Norwegian crown possessions, were pledged as security until the dowry was to be paid.
William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness was at that time the Norse Earl of Orkney, who was made in 1473 to exchange his Orkney fief to castle Ravenscraig, so the Scottish throne took the earl's rights in the islands too.

This marriage produced three sons:

• James IV (17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513)

• James Stewart, Duke of Ross (March 1476 - January 1504), and

• John Stewart, Earl of Mar (December 1479 - 1503).

She died at Stirling Castle and is buried in Cambuskenneth Abbey.

Legacy

thumb|left|King James III and Queen Margaret on the 1562 Froman Armorial
Her great-great-grandson James VI of Scotland married another princess of her dynasty, Anne of Denmark. They became ancestors of all the future monarchs of England and Scotland.

She was responsible for introducing the bloodline of England's first Danish monarch King Sweyn Forkbeard into the Scottish Royal blood line and after James VI of Scotland assended to the English throne in 1603, into the English royal bloodline as well.

When in the 20th century, there was some Orcadian dissatisfaction with the government of the United Kingdom, some Orcadians investigated the terms of Margaret's marriage contract and pleaded to the Kings of Denmark and Norway to pay Margaret's dowry to the British Exchequer so that Orkney and Shetland would return to the government of a Scandinavian nation and not be governed by the United Kingdom.

Ancestry