Margaret of Anjou

“ In the days when Margaret of Anjou lived, the kings, princes, nobles, and knights who flourished in the realms of England and France, though they were, relatively to the mass of the people, far more wealthy, proud, and powerful than their successors are at the present day, still lived in many respects in a very rude and barbarous manner. ”

“ Perhaps the most powerful of all the great nobles who flourished during the time of Margaret of Anjou was the Earl of Warwick. So great was his influence in deciding between the rival claims of different pretenders to the crown, (p. 033) that he is known in history by the title of the King-maker. His wealth was so enormous that it was said that the body of retainers that he maintained amounted sometimes in number to thirty thousand men. ”

“ The story of Lady Neville, and of her connection with the great political transactions in which Margaret of Anjou was engaged at this time, though it is in all probability to be considered as a romance, is not an invention of the compiler of this narrative. It is interwoven with the history of Margaret of Anjou precisely as it is given here, by one of her most ancient and most oft-quoted biographers. It is chiefly useful to modern readers as illustrating the ideas and the manners of the times. ”

“ We afterwards saw the noble statue of Margaret of Anjou, a regal figure, wearing the crown and bearing the sceptre of which she was so soon deprived by Edward IV. When she went to England, as the bride of Henry VI, she was received with rejoicings and the London streets were decorated with the Marguerite flower in her honor. No man, it was said, surpassed Margaret in courage, and no woman in beauty, and it might well be added that none of the princesses who had left France to share the British throne had to endure such misfortunes. ”

“ When the paper was signed Margaret was dismissed and left at liberty to go her own way to her native province of Anjou, where it was her intention to spend the remainder of her (p. 312) days. Her plan was to pass by the way of Paris, in order to see once more her cousin, King Louis, who had treated her with so much consideration and honor when she was on her way to England with a fair prospect of finding her husband upon the throne. ”

“ The Beaufort party now pressed on their advantage, and strongly represented the benefits to be hoped from the choice of Margaret of Anjou, the daughter of Bene, titular King of Sicily and Jerusalem, and Duke of Anjou, Maine, and Bar. Margaret had a great reputation for beauty and talent. She was said to be one of the most superior women of the age, and besides this, she was cousin to the Queen of France, greatly admired by Charles himself, and generally resident at his court. ”

“ At last the friends of the beautiful little Margaret carried the day; and in the year 1444 commissioners were formally appointed by the governments of England and France to meet at the city of Tours at a specified day, to negotiate a truce between the two countries preparatory to a permanent peace, the basis and cement of which was to be the marriage of King Henry with Margaret of Anjou. The truce was made for two years, so as to allow full time to arrange all the details both for a peace between the two countries, and also in respect to the terms and conditions of the marriage. ”

“ Margaret, usually called Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI., was the daughter of Renè, Duke of Anjou; was married to Henry VI. at Southwick, in Hampshire, on the 22nd of April, 1445, and was crowned at Westminster on the 30th of May following. On the 13th of October, 1453, Edward, the only child of the marriage, was born. After the defeat of the Lancastrians at the battle of Tewkesbury, and his murder, on the 4th of May, 1471, Margaret fled, and took sanctuary in a poor religious house, and was brought from thence prisoner to London, and Henry died in the Tower very soon after the battle. ”

“ The biographies of Margaret are numerous. They include: (1) Michel Baudier's History of the Calamities of Margaret of Anjou, London, 1737; a mere romance, 'fécond en harangues et en réflexions,' and translated from a French manuscript that had never been printed. (2) The Abbé Prévost's Histoire de Marguerite d'Anjou, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1750, a work of imaginition by the author of Manon Lescaut. (3) Louis Lallement's Marguerite d'Anjou-Lorraine, Nancy, 1855. (4) J. J. Roy's Histoire de Marguerite d'Anjou, Tours, 1857. (5) Miss Strickland's Life in Queens of England, i. ”

“ True enough, the troubles and reverses of King René were more than fall to the lot of most men of high culture and degree; but what of Queen Margaret’s shipwreck? For nearly thirty years she had endured experiences which had tried no other Queen half so hardly; and all the while she had set a unique example of devotion, loyalty, courage, and endurance, unexampled in history. There never was a truer wife, a more self-sacrificing mother, a more intre [302] pid and a nobler Queen, than Margaret of Anjou.
From Rouen the Queen sent a message to King Louis, desiring to see him ”

“ The bursting heart cannot trammel itself by those fetters which grammarians and rhetoricians have forged to restrain language within its proper limits. That Margaret of Anjou was a woman of business is evident from a copy of one of her wardrobe books now, in a state of perfect preservation, in the office of the Duchy of Lancaster. ”

“ Listen! yonder fall more bedizened nobles, with good gold nobles in their purses moreover to prove their nobility!"
I had heard plainly enough. The cold wind of Maytime set from far-off Hexham level to where we were standing under the shadow of Blockhill, and not for the first time that day the heavy sound of cannon came down it, like and yet unlike thunder. There was another battle on hand between the white rose and the red. Margaret of Anjou was making one more struggle, for herself and her son and husband, against Edward of York. ”

“ Margaret’s elder sister, Yolente, survived her two years; she had a beautiful daughter called Margaret of Anjou the younger. Maria Louisa, Napoleon’s Empress, possessed the breviary of this Princess, in which there is one sentence supposed to have been written by the once beautiful, powerful, and admired Margaret, Queen of England, her aunt:
“Vanité des vanités, tout est vanité.” ”

“ The king was in tears. “Lady,” he said, “all this shall be done.” And Philippa the queen died.
[Pg 31]
MARGARET OF ANJOU (1429-1480) . Margaret had a difficult part to play in the history of England; married to a weak king, who preferred founding colleges to governing a kingdom, she had to take the reins of government into her own hands. With the interest of her only son at heart, she refused to stand by and see the kingdom snatched from her husband and son; wrath roused her to energy. ”

“ Margaret, loving peace and holy things, was easily persuaded to reason with her husband; she submitted absolutely to the overpowering personality of the Queen. With Charles, Yolande had a stiffer fight, but she gathered up her strength, and in the end, lusty warrior that he was, he yielded up his defence to the tactful diplomacy of the good mother of Anjou. Woman’s wit once more, as it generally does, triumphed over man’s obstinacy. ”

“ Poor Queen Margaret was all this time at Greenwich, waiting in the utmost suspense and anxiety to hear tidings of the battle. When, at length, the news arrived that the battle had been lost, that the king had been wounded, and was now virtually a prisoner in the hands of her abhorred and hated enemy, she was thrown into a state of utter despair, so much so that she remained for some hours in a sort of stupor, as if all was now lost, and it was useless and hopeless to continue the struggle any longer. ”

“ With bent head and slow feet, the great heroine of the Wars of the Roses, broken like a pitcher at a fountain, took her lonely way no more in gallant cavalcade, but almost in funereal cortège, to Anjou and Angers—the cradle of her race.
At Reculée father and daughter once more embraced each other. Alas, what a sorrowful meeting that was, and how mixed their feelings! Margaret’s filial duty conquered the reproaches she had prepared, and René’s tears and silence spoke more loudly than words of regret could do. Providence had been cruel to them both. ”

“ In the year 1480 Margaret of Anjou and Queen of England, daughter of René, King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, forced to abandon her kingdom after having courageously borne herself in a great number of encounters and in twelve pitched battles, deprived of the rights of her family, spoiled of all her possessions, without means of support and without help, found a resting-place in this manoir, the home of François de la Vignolles, an old and faithful servant of her father. ”

“ As soon as Margaret escaped to Scotland, far from being disheartened by her misfortunes, she began at once to concert measures for raising a new army and going into England again, with a view of making one more effort to recover her husband's throne. She knew, of course, that there was a large body of nobles, and of the people of the country, who were still faithful to her husband's cause, and who would be ready to rally round his standard whenever and wherever it should appear. ”

“ The unfortunate duke can be traced, however, lurking on the Scottish frontier, fighting at Hexham, flying to a Northumbrian village, finding Margaret of Anjou in the outlaw's cave, accompanying the Lancastrian queen into exile, and wandering as a broken man on the Continent, while his duchess, in no degree inclined to share such fortunes, enjoyed the estate of her banished lord, lived at her brother's court, kept well with Elizabeth Woodville, and ministered to that lady's maternal ambition by pledging the hand of Exeter's heiress to the young Marquis of Dorset. ”

“ When Margaret was not more than fourteen or fifteen years of age, she began to be very celebrated for her beauty and accomplishments, and for the charming vivacity of her conversation and her demeanor. She resided with her mother in different families in Lorraine and in other parts of France, and was sometimes at the court of the Queen of France, who was her near relative. All who knew her were charmed with her. She was considered equally remarkable for her talents and for her beauty. ”

“ Henry of England and Margaret of Anjou were married by Cardinal Beaufort in the abbey church of Titchfield on April 22. The bride was just sixteen years of age—already a woman, but with the heart of a man. Most extraordinary presents were showered upon the young Queen: a lion in a cage, a score of hedgehogs, a dozen thick all-wool blankets, two tuns of English wine, a suit of bronze silver armour, several chairs,—two of state,—five young lambs’ fleeces, and so forth. Then the royal progress began to the capital. ”

“ Margaret's heart was filled with the wildest exultation and joy when she heard that her inveterate and hated foe at last was dead. She could scarcely restrain her excitement. One of the nobles of her party, Lord Clifford, whose father had been killed in a previous battle under circumstances of great atrocity, cut off the duke's head from his body, and carried it to Margaret on the end of a pike. She was for a moment horror-stricken at the ghastly spectacle, and turned her face away; but she finally ordered the head to be set up upon a pole on the walls of York, in view of all beholders. ”

“ She had not the spirit of Margaret of Anjou, and, on account of her alien creed, commanded the sympathies of neither side. The Queen never formed a party strong enough to change the current of events. ”

“ During the battle Margaret did not know that her husband was on the ground. But at night, as soon as Henry's keepers had abandoned him, a faithful serving-man who remained with him ran into Margaret's camp, and finding one of the nobles in command there, he informed him of the situation of the king. The noble immediately informed the queen, and she, overjoyed at the news, flew to the place where her husband lay, and, on finding him, they embraced each other with the most passionate tokens of affection and joy. ”

“ Such names 75as these, however, offer no kind of comparison with that of ‘Margaret.’ This is the only rival that ‘Gillian’ had to fear, and had the misfortunes of Margaret of Anjou occurred two, or even one century earlier, it would easily have taken precedence, so far as our surnames are concerned. Apart from its being found in several royal lines, it had the advantage of undoubted prettiness both in sound and sense. Every one, too, knew its meaning, for ‘margarite’ and ‘pearl’ then, and until the seventeenth century even, were interchangeable terms. Every early writer so uses it. ”

“ There was, of course, a great outcry raised against Suffolk, and also, more covertly, against the queen, who had brought Suffolk into power. All the mischief originated, too, people said, in the luckless marriage of Margaret to the king, and the cession of Maine and Anjou to the French as the price of it. The French would never have been able to have penetrated into Normandy had it not been for the advantage they gained in the possession of those provinces on the frontier. ”

“ Margaret, to allay their mistrust, ate a number, and she sickened and died. Her last words were: “A curse on life! Don’t trouble me about it.” This lamentable cry was drawn from her through the false aspersions on her honour raked up against her by her husband. Marriage was indeed a failure to Margaret of Scotland, for “there was no one she dreaded,” says de Commines, “like my lord the [314] Dauphin.”
The next scene wherein Jehanne de Laval is recorded to have been a participant was the obsequies of Queen Isabelle of Sicily-Anjou and Naples. ”