Margaret of Burgundy

“ As regards Margaret of Burgundy and her sisters Jeanne and Blanche, they have not the safeguard or the protection of a date, nor of the verdict of history. All the world knows, on the other hand, that the three sisters were in other ways guilty of the most scandalous conduct; two of them had their two brothers, Philippe and Gaultier d'Aulnay as their lovers; the tower of Nesle then belonged to the Princess Jeanne, and was their meeting-place. ”

“ However, early next year, 1471, the Duchess of Burgundy with the open dissent, but secret connivance of the duke, raised forces to enable her dethroned brother, Edward the Fourth of England, to invade that kingdom; our old friend Denys thus enlisted, and passing through Rotterdam to the ships, heard on his way that Gerard was a priest, and Margaret alone. On this he told Margaret that marriage was not a habit of his, but that as his comrade had put it out of his own power to keep troth, he felt bound to offer to keep it for him; "for a comrade's honour is dear to us as our own," said he. ”

“ The only way to get at a peace was through Leonor, who might bring Burgundy as a dower.
"I desire, for your good, things which the pains of death should not make me wish for my own repose." So Margaret had written to her brother on her journey to Madrid; and now she found herself obliged perforce to agree to cruel terms. "I assure you, my lord," she writes to Francis, "that the office of solicitor in so unreasonable a company is a far more difficult service than it was to be your physician when you were sick." ”

“ It is true she goes on her journey [2] to-morrow, and I must go and take leave of her. I think she goes more by obedience than by choice, for they keep her very much in order. And as I was talking to her the Viceroy came in quest of me, and I went to the Emperor's apartments, who sent for me to come to his chamber; and he told me he desired your deliverance in perfect amity; but, in the end, he stopped at the question of Burgundy."
Margaret, by this time, centred her hopes on the intercession of Leonor. ”

“ Margaret’s tale may also be compared with No. lxii. of the Cento Novelle antiche, p. 84 of the edition of Florence, 1825.—L. and M.
In the Duchy of Burgundy there was a Duke who was a very honourable and handsome Prince. He had married a wife whose beauty pleased him so greatly that it kept him from knowledge of her character, and he took thought only how he might please her, whilst she made excellent show of returning his affection. Now the Duke had in his household a gentleman filled with all the perfection that could be sought for in a man. ”

“ Blanche of Castile, the queen-mother, arranged the marriage to win over to the cause of France the powerful count of Provence, but treated her daughter-in-law most unkindly, and her jealousy of the energetic young queen was naturally shared by Louis, whose coldness towards and suspicion of his wife are well known. Margaret did not lack courage, she followed the king on his crusade, and bore herself heroically at Damietta. But her ambition and strong personal prejudices often led her to actions injurious to the realm. ”

“ But Queen Margaret was no weakling. She was a woman born to command, strong in mind and body, and more like a man than a woman. In Sweden, to which she quickly turned her attention, she had a bitter enemy in Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg, who had been declared king of that country after the death of King Magnus, and who also claimed the crown of Norway, being remotely related to its royal house. ”

“ A woman of hard indomitable will, mistaking too often cruelty for firmness, using the pliancy and simplicity of her husband for mere party ends, outraging the national conscience by stirring up the Irish, the French, the Scots, against the peace of England, finally pitting the north against the south in a cruel and futile civil war, with nothing left of womanhood but the almost tigress heart of a baffled mother, this is the Queen Margaret as we know her in Shakespeare and in history. ”

“ Francis, with his ideas of splendour and chivalry, desired a different queen for his sumptuous court. And her he found in Margaret, a woman then of three-and-twenty, both learned and witty, and with a charm more attractive than beauty in her slender carriage and tender smile—Margaret, young, de moult joyeuse vie, et la meilleure compagnie possible. Margaret was virtually the Queen of France. ”

“ For home was still to Margaret in France. She had no children in her Castles of Béarn. Her little son had died soon after birth. Her daughter, Jeanne, was not quite two years old when Francis placed the poor solemn baby in a castle of her own at Plessis-les-Tours, afraid to leave her with her parents, lest Henry d'Albret should betroth her to a prince of Spain. Margaret was childless, and her husband was unfaithful. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was my father's desire at one time to unite Styria and Burgundy by marriage. I myself sent you a letter and a ring that you doubtless still possess. Are you pleased with my offer?"
Max fell to his knee before the princess:--
"Your Highness's condescension is far beyond my deserts. There are few men who could refuse your offer, but I am pledged to another, and I beg Your Highness--"
"Enough, enough," cried the princess, indignantly. "No man need explain his reasons for refusing the hand of Mary of Burgundy." ”

“ But the face is one which can be imagined as much more beautiful than it seems in the not very attractive portraiture of the time, and her actual attractions are attested by her contemporaries with something more than the homage-to-order which literary men have never failed to pay to ladies who are patronesses of letters. Besides Margaret of Valois, she is known as Margaret of Angoulême, from her place of birth and her father’s title ”

“ The sad little romance presents Margaret as a dignified great lady, who for one short space allowed herself to be simply a trustful woman in love, only to find that to such as she duty must be paramount over the promptings of the heart, and that a wooer, though he may be a duke, is not always a gentleman. Thenceforward, for many years, Margaret's life was that of a wise Vice-Regent for the Emperor whom she had reared from his childhood; until death relieved her from the task to which she devoted the best of her life. ”

“ Just as they reached them also trumpets were blown, and from the back of the hall, walking hand in hand, appeared their Majesties of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, whereat all the audience rose and bowed, remaining standing till they were seated on the thrones.
The king, whom they now saw for the first time, was a thickset, active man with pleasant eyes, a fair skin, and a broad forehead, but, as Margaret thought, somewhat sly-faced—the face of a man who never forgot his own interests in those of another. ”

“ In Margaret's nature ambition was scarcely so eminent a factor that she should break her heart over what, after all, was a fair match for her daughter. The Estates of Béarn had long ago pleaded that their princess should marry no stranger, but rather some great French noble who would strengthen her hands at home. So that this marriage pleased the King of France, the bride herself, and the subjects of the bride. ”

“ The king was pleased to welcome his sister-in-law and his nephew. Friendly faces were not always plentiful, and the fierce energy of his wife, queen Margaret, had often hindered rather than helped his cause. With the countess of Richmond he had many tastes in common; both loved books, and would spend many hours poring over the pictured scrolls of the monks, and although she had been married so young, and was 159 even now but seventeen, Margaret had the name of being the most learned as well as the best lady in the whole of England. ”

“ Men speak much concerning the valorous conduct of Queen Margaret, and all which she has done and suffered in order to replace her husband on the throne. But they speak more of the gentle Elizabeth; how she had sat down in meekness and in patience within the walls of that dismal place, where murderers and traitors had harboured in other times, waiting quietly till it pleased the Most High to send her better days, sojourning, indeed, in trouble, heaviness, and sorrow, yet sustaining it as became a Christian woman, having much to fear, yet hoping against hope. ”

“ Margaret was seated in a magnificent litter, surrounded by a guard of twenty-four archers on horseback, dressed in black suits edged with velvet, and followed by a train of ladies mounted on palfreys. At the abbey, where rooms had been retained for her and her ladies, she alighted, and awaited the arrival of the queen-regent. Two hours later Louise of Savoy made her entry, accompanied by her daughter, the Queen of Navarre, and the Countess of Vendôme; and were immediately conducted to Margaret's apartments, where they remained in conversation with her for two hours. ”

“ Margaret of Austria, Anne of Brittany, Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I., writes the historian, "cousant, filant, lisant, ces trois fatales Parques ont tissu les maux de l'Europe" (sewing, spinning, reading, these three fatal Parcae were the misfortune of Europe) , and the student of French history will follow the career of all three with interest after the clue here given them. Margaret, bitter, vindictive, and designing, seems to have had one poetic thread in her life only, namely, her passion for her husband, whose beauty lives in marble before us. ”

“ When her father, René, was released, Margaret went to live in Italy with her father and mother; she inherited her father’s taste for learning and love of art. “There was no princess in Christendom more accomplished than my lady Margaret of Anjou,” said a writer of these times.
The news of her charms, beauty, talent and courage reached Henry’s ears in England, and he sent for a portrait of the princess. The picture delighted him, and it ended in a truce being signed between the two countries, and Margaret starting for England to marry King Henry. ”

“ On a prancing steed, decked with rich draperies, bearing the arms of Burgundy, its beautiful head plumed with tossing white feathers, rode Marguerite, wearing the ducal crown. Through the folds of her silver veil, spectators could obtain a glimpse of a gracious face, and long fair tresses. Her dress was of crimson velvet, embroidered in gold, showing upon the skirt the escutcheons of Austria and Savoy. In one hand she held her reins, the other was lifted in gracious salutation to the crowd. At her right ambled the Duke Philibert, proud of the reception that Bourg was according his lady. ”

“ Margaret of Alençon, from the fief of her first husband; Margaret of Navarre, of which country, like her grand-niece, she was queen, by her second marriage with Henry d’Albret; and even Margaret of Orleans, as belonging to the Orleans branch of the royal house. She was not, like her nieces, Margaret of France, as her father never reigned, and Brantôme properly denies her the title, but others sometimes give it. When it is necessary to call her anything besides the simple “Margaret,” Angoulême is at once the most appropriate and the most distinctive designation. ”

“ 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 alliance was openly countenanced by Louis XII., and the young Duke of Valois—as Francis of Angoulême was now called—readily acceded to it. Margaret brought with her a dowry of sixty thousand livres, payable in four instalments, and Charles, who was on the point of attaining his twenty-first year, was declared a major and placed in possession of his estates. (1) The marriage was solemnised at Blois in October 1509.
1 Odolant Desnos’s Mémoires historiques sur Alençon, vol. ii. p. 231
Margaret did not find in her husband a mind comparable to her own. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a substantial claim of Margaret to the respect of posterity, that the influence thus enjoyed was, apparently, never prostituted to the advancement of selfish ends, but constantly exerted in the interest of learning, humanity, and religious liberty.
Margaret was first married, in 1509, to the Duke of Alençon, a prince whose cowardice on the battle-field of Pavia (1525) , where he commanded the French left wing, is said to have been the principal cause of the defeat and capture of his royal brother-in-law. ”