Margaret of Anjou

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Margaret of Anjou
Queen consort of England
Born	23 March 1430
Birthplace	Duchy of Lorraine
Died	25 August 1482,
Place of death	Anjou
Buried	Angers Cathedral
Consort	23 April 1445 – 21 May 1471
Consort to	Henry VI
Issue	Edward, Prince of Wales
Royal House	House of Valois House of Lancaster
Father	René I of Naples
Mother	Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine

Margaret of Anjou (Marguerite d'Anjou, 23 March 1430 – 25 August 1482) was the Queen consort of Henry VI of England from 1445 to 1471 and led the Lancastrian contingent in the Wars of the Roses.

[edit] Marriage to Henry VI

Margaret was born in Pont-à-Mousson in the Duchy of Lorraine, an Imperial fief east of France that was ruled by the cadet branch of the French kings, the House of Anjou. Margaret was the daughter of René I of Naples, Duke of Anjou, King of Naples and Sicily and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine in her own right. Margaret married King Henry VI, who was eight years her senior, on 23 April 1445, at Titchfield in Hampshire. She was fifteen years old but already a woman, passionate and proud and knew her duty which was to zealously guard the interests of the Crown. This indomitability, she inherited from her mother who actually governed Anjou "with a man's hand", putting the province in order and keeping out the English.^[1]

Henry, who had more interest in religion and learning than in military matters, was not a successful king. He had reigned since he was a few months old and his actions had been controlled by regents. When he married Margaret, his mental condition was already unstable and by the time their only son, Edward of Lancaster, was born on 13 October 1453, he had suffered a complete mental breakdown. Rumours were rife that he was incapable of fathering a child and that the new Prince of Wales was the result of an adulterous liaison on Margaret's part. Many have speculated that either Edmund Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset or James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, both staunch allies of Margaret, was the young prince's actual father ^[2].

Although Margaret was strong-willed, feudal and in possession of a volatile temperament, by dint of the cultured upbringing she received at her father's court, she shared her husband's love of learning and gave her patronage to the founding of Queens' College at Cambridge University. Elizabeth Woodville served as her Maid of Honour.

[edit] Beginnings of The Wars of the Roses

After retiring from London to live in lavish state at the palace of Greenwich, Margaret was occupied with the care of her young son and did not display any signs of overt belligerence until her husband was threatened with deposition by the ambitious Richard, Duke of York who to her consternation had been appointed regent during the king's previous illness. The duke was a claimant to the English throne and had many powerful nobles and relatives who were backing his claim. In 1457, the kingdom was outraged when it was discovered that Pierre de Bréze, a powerful French general and an adherent of Margaret, had landed on the English coast and burnt Sandwich. Margaret became the object of scurrilous rumours and vulgar ballads. Public indignation was so high that Margaret, with great reluctance, was forced to give the Duke of York's kinsman Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick a commission to keep the sea for three years. He already held the post of Captain of Calais.^[3]

Hostilities between the rival Yorkist and Lancastrian factions soon flared into armed conflict. The Lancastrians suffered a crushing defeat at the First Battle of St Albans on 22 May 1455. Somerset was killed, Wiltshire fled the battlefield and King Henry was taken prisoner by the victorious Duke of York.

Although the king was captured, Margaret managed to escape and immediately began raising an army in Wales and the north of England, where she was assisted by Henry's half-brother, Jasper Tudor. In 1459, hostilities resumed at the Battle of Blore Heath, where Margaret is said to have witnessed her commander, James Touchet, Lord Audley defeated by a Yorkist army under Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury.

[edit] Campaigns

While she was attempting to raise further support for the Lancastrian cause in Scotland ^[4], her principal commander, Henry Beaufort, Third Duke of Somerset ^[5], gained a major victory for her at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, by defeating the combined armies of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and the Earl of Salisbury. Margaret had both beheaded, and ordered their heads displayed on the gates of the city of York. She followed up with a victory at St Albans on 17 February 1461, at which she defeated the Yorkist forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and recaptured her husband.

On 29 March 1461, the Lancastrian army was beaten at the Battle of Towton by the son of the late Duke of York, Edward IV of England, who deposed King Henry and proclaimed himself king. Margaret was determined to win back her son's inheritance, and fled with him into Wales and later Scotland. Finding her way to France, she made an ally of her cousin, King Louis XI of France, and at his instigation she allowed an approach from Edward's former supporter, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who had fallen out with his former friend, as a result of Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and was now seeking revenge for the loss of his political influence. Warwick's daughter, Anne Neville, was married to Margaret's son, Edward, Prince of Wales, in order to cement the alliance, and Margaret insisted that Warwick return to England to prove himself, before she followed. He did so, restoring Henry VI briefly to the throne on 3 October 1470.

By the time Margaret, her son and daughter-in-law were ready to follow Warwick back to England, however, he had been defeated and killed by the returning King Edward IV in the Battle of Barnet on 14 April 1471, and Margaret was forced to lead her own army at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, at which they were defeated and her seventeen-year old son was killed. Over the previous ten years, she had gained a reputation for aggression and ruthlessness, but now she was a broken spirit, imprisoned at both Wallingford Castle and in the Tower of London until ransomed by the French king in 1475. She lived in France for the next seven years as a poor relation of the king. She died on 25 August 1482, at the age of fifty-two, in Anjou. She was entombed in Anjou Cathedral but her remains were removed and scattered by revolutionaries who sacked the cathedral during the French Revolution.

[edit] Ancestors

[edit] Depictions in fiction

Margaret is a major character in William Shakespeare's three-part play Henry VI, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. She also appears as an old woman in Richard III.

[edit] References

1. ^ Paul M.Kendall"Richard The Third"p.19.
2. ^ IPaul Murray Kendall "Richard The Third".Page 32.nsert footnote text here
3. ^ InPaul M. Kendall "Richard The Third"Page 32.sert footnote text here
4. ^ Haigh, P.A. (1995). The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses. Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. Page 32. ISBN 978-0938289906
5. ^ Wagner J.A. (2001) Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Inc. Page 26. ISBN 1851093583

 3.Kendall, Paul Murray  "Richard The Third"

[edit] Further reading

• Maurer, Helen E. Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England. Boydell Press, 2003.