CHAPTER 5

Madame La Grande

‘THE UNSTEADFASTNESS OF THIS WORLD BEING.’

The years 1477-1494 were one of the most troubled periods in the whole history of the Burgundian Netherlands. The war with France continued with few respites and civil unrest resulted in a series of confrontations which led ultimately to the imprisonment of Archduke Maximilian. Throughout these difficult years Margaret remained a prominent centre of loyalty to Mary and Maximilian and their heirs. Indeed there were times when her court at Malines was one of the few places where ducal power and authority was entirely secure.

Yet in spite of all the troubles in the Low Countries, Margaret never lost contact with her native land. After her marriage she only visited England once, but she remained a figure to be reckoned with in English affairs. Both Edward IV and his brother, the Duke of Clarence, named daughters after her, a sign of their esteem and respect and a recognition of her role in healing the family rift of 1470. No documentary evidence has remained of her personal contacts with England, though there are signs that her commercial dealings continued steadily, at least until the death of Richard III. But she had plenty of opportunities to keep herself well informed of what was going on. English embassies were often in the Low Countries, though frequently the news they brought must have been both alarming and astonishing.

At few times can she have been more perplexed than at the news which reached her in June 1477. Coming as it did in the midst of the succession crisis in Burgundy, Margaret would have had little opportunity to react or to intervene. To hear that Clarence on whom ‘her affections were fixed beyond any of the rest of her kindred’ had been arrested and imprisoned in the Tower, must surely have caused her a great deal of concern.¹ Only six years earlier she had worked hard to secure his return to the family allegiance, and when she had seen him last in 1475, his old treason appeared to have been forgiven and forgotten. There is, it is true, little to support the opinion of the Croyland chronicler that Margaret was particularly fond of Clarence. She had certainly passed much of her youth in the company of her brothers George and Richard and, during the 1460s, she and George had both been in residence at Greenwich where their annuities and expenses had been paid out by the same royal officials.² However from the beginning of the negotiations for Margaret’s marriage to Charles, their interests had begun to diverge.

It was the King and the Woodvilles who had promoted the Burgundian marriage and Clarence’s interests had been set aside. He had been present at the famous Smithfield Tournament and he had accompanied his sister on her departure at least as far as Canterbury, but none of her brothers had accompanied her to Bruges, where her presenter had been Anthony Woodville. By the time that Margaret had sailed from Margate, Clarence had already begun his drift into rebellion. He may well have considered that Margaret’s marriage had been given priority over his own, and he was hardly a man to show patience and understanding, as is only too clear in his dealings with his brother Richard over the Beauchamp fortune.³

In spite of their divergence of interest over her marriage and his later treason, Margaret may still have had a personal attachment to Clarence, who was certainly handsome and likeable, ‘seemly of person, right witty and well visaged, a great almsgiver and a great builder’.⁴ He was also apparently more chaste than either of his two brothers (he left no illegitimate children). But there is little to show that she was eager to arrange a marriage between him and her stepdaughter in 1477.⁵ A marriage between Mary and Clarence would only have been really valuable to Burgundy if it could have secured full military support for the duchy and this was most unlikely.

There was also little to commend the match to Edward IV since Mary already had, through her father, a very substantial claim to the English throne, and any children born to Clarence and Mary would have been a real threat to the inheritance of Edward’s own children. Moreover the English King was resolved to maintain his French pension and the French marriage for his daughter. By early March both Margaret and Mary were pushing ahead with the Habsburg marriage and any consideration of Clarence had been at most a passing fancy. A more positive indication of her interest in her brother George is the dedication to him of ‘The Game and the Playe of Chesse’ printed by her protégé William Caxton.⁶ Caxton brought this book with him when he came to England, and its inscription to Clarence suggests that Margaret had recommended him to the patronage of her brother, though the author’s emphasis on the proper duties of each piece on the board may indicate that the book was intended as an instructive homily. By the time Caxton arrived in London it was too late and Clarence’s fortunes were already in decline.

The cause of Clarence’s fall in 1477 is obscure but there were many problems between the King and his brother. Clarence may have had private ambitions to become the next Duke of Burgundy and if so, once more his matrimonial advantage was being set aside, this time for the sake of the marriage of his niece Elizabeth to the Dauphin. There was another marriage proposal for Clarence which may have aggravated the situation. The King of Scotland was proposing a double marriage between the House of Stuart and the House of York: Clarence was to marry Margaret, James III’s sister, and his brother Alexander, Duke of Albany, was to marry Margaret, the Dowager of Burgundy (Albany was portrayed kneeling behind King James III on the altar-piece painted by Hugo van der Goes).⁷ King Edward rejected these proposals on the grounds that both Margaret and Clarence were too recently widowed to consider remarriage:

We thank him as heartily as we can, and for as much also as after the old usages of this our realm no estate nor person honourable communeth of marriage within a year of their doole, we therefore as yet cannot conveniently speak in this matter.⁸

Edward replied to the Scottish proposals without consulting either Margaret or Clarence. He had no intention of promoting his unreliable brother, nor of becoming involved in Burgundian matters. If Clarence ever heard anything of this proposal he could only have been irritated.

Clarence may have disagreed with the royal policy of non-intervention in the Franco-Burgundian war. Paston expected him to be sent to Burgundy with an army and this idea could have been circulated by Clarence himself. The additional rumours, that Margaret and English lords were conspiring to kidnap Mary and marry her off to Clarence, may also have served to fuel Edward’s suspicions even if he publicly disregarded them. There is a certain similarity in the impact of these French rumours both in Ghent and London. In Flanders they resulted in Margaret’s exile from the Burgundian court and in England the arrest of Clarence came at much the same time.

However the main reason for his arrest was that the relations between Edward and his brother had reached breaking point. Royal suspicion and Clarence’s own genuine distress over the death of his wife in December 1476 caused the headstrong Duke to fear for his own safety. In his panic he precipitated the events which led to his death in the famous barrel of malmsey wine. He openly challenged royal justice, he accused persons of poisoning his late wife and he publicly defied the King. He may also have threatened the succession, reviving the rumours that Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid due to Edward’s pre-contract with another. There were plenty of reasons for his arrest in June 1477, besides any involvement he may have had with Burgundy. But the Burgundian angle is persistent. Clarence was also accused of planning to send his heir, the two year old Edward, to safety in Burgundy.⁹ This may have been seen by contemporaries as a plausible idea, since George had himself been sent there in 1461. However, Burgundy of 1477 was a far cry from the peaceful country of the previous decade. It is unlikely that Clarence would have thought of despatching his son to a country in the throes of invasion and civil war.

The Duke’s contemporaries and the early Tudor historians were perplexed by his arrest and subsequent death. Polydore Vergil claimed that no one could give him a satisfactory explanation why Clarence had been killed. The Croyland chronicler laid the blame squarely on King Edward himself ‘for not a single person uttered a word against the Duke except the King, and not one individual made answer to the King except the Duke’.¹⁰ It was indeed ‘a sad strife carried on before these two brothers of such high estate’. Edward had finally had more than he could tolerate from his provocative brother and being especially angered at ‘the conduct of the before named Duke as being derogatory to the laws of the realm and dangerous to judges and jurors throughout the kingdom’ he decided to arrest and imprison him.

As Clarence was held at the Tower for seven months, Edward’s original intention may have been merely to intimidate rather than to kill him. He was executed in January 1478, during the last days of the festivities accompanying the marriage of Edward’s second son Richard to Anne Mowbray, the infant heiress of the Duke of Norfolk. Was the famous malmsey wine a gift from someone at court who thought the Duke should not be entirely excluded from the celebrations?¹¹ The conclusion that the Woodvilles finally persuaded Edward to kill Clarence because of their fears for the succession as long as he was still alive, is convincing. During the seven months that he was in the Tower there is no evidence that Margaret or anyone else intervened to save his life. His mother was silent, his sister Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk, was satisfied by grants of lands and his brother, Richard of Gloucester, was one of the chief beneficiaries of his removal, acquiring some of his lands and his offices.¹² Richard salved his conscience by founding chantries at Middleham and Barnard Castle, where prayers would be said for Clarence’s soul and for his other deceased relatives.¹³ Margaret no doubt made similar intercessions in her private prayers. Nobody however acted to protect Clarence. The handsome Duke had made too many enemies and had too few friends.

Although the death of Clarence was the first case of brother murdering brother in the House of York, it was not greeted by contemporaries with much horror or astonishment, being upstaged by another assassination which took place in the same year. The removal of Clarence, even by drowning in a butt of malmsey, was nothing compared with the high drama of the Pazzi conspiracy in Florence where, with the connivance of the Pope, one of the Medici princes was murdered during mass in the cathedral. It was this event which caught the public eye rather than the removal of one whose survival since 1472 had only been due to the magnanimity of the King.

Margaret spent most of the seven months that Clarence was in the Tower at the ducal court. After the marriage of Mary and Maximilian she remained at Ghent until September, when she left for Malines, visiting Antwerp on her way. She was at Malines late in January when the Archduke Maximilian visited the city for the first time and he was given a Joyeuse Entrée.¹⁴ She must have been celebrating this event when she heard that Clarence was dead.

By summer Margaret was back at Bruges and when Mary’s first child was born, it was the Dowager who carried the infant Philip to his christening on 28 June.¹⁵ Maximilian, busy with the campaign against France, did not see his son until August. The heir had been named after his grandfather, Philip the Good whose reputation was honoured throughout the Low Countries, and his christening was celebrated with great splendour designed to rally the people behind their new ducal family. Stately processions escorted the child from the castle to the Church of St Donatian nearby. The infant was resplendent in crimson cloth of gold trimmed with ermine and his long train was supported by the Lady Ravenstein. On either side of Margaret, who was the godmother, walked the two godfathers, Lord Ravenstein and Pierre of St Pol, the Count of Luxembourg. Margaret was attended by her own chevalier, the Lord of Irlon and her own bodyguard. The corporation of Bruges presented the new heir with a purse containing 40,000 crowns and the gifts from the godparents were in keeping with his princely inheritance: a sword from Lord Ravenstein, a helmet and a golden lily from the Count of Luxembourg and from Margaret, a gold chain valued at 20,000 crowns.¹⁶

In the midst of all the ceremony of the ducal christening there was an incident which well illustrates both the personal nature of ducal power and Margaret’s own shrewd appreciation of the need for public support. Rumours that the infant was a girl had been put about by French agents. Margaret’s delight in the arrival of the long awaited male heir is manifest in the promptness of her letter to Malines announcing Philip’s birth and she must have been very displeased by these rumours. She was therefore resolved to expose the lies, and as the procession was returning to the palace, she undressed the baby and showed him to the people. The Flemish were delighted to be sure that the child was a boy and were also suitably impressed by Margaret’s ‘real spirit’ (veel pit). It was not the first time nor would it be the last that Margaret showed herself capable of making a direct appeal to the people.

Margaret and Mary continued to spend most of their time together just as they had done during Charles’ military campaigns. They were together at Ghent for the Christmas of 1478 and, in January, Margaret accompanied Mary on her Joyeuse Entrée at Dendermonde. Maximilian’s victory at Guinegatte, on 7 August 1479, succeeded in driving the French away from south Flanders and two days later Mary and Margaret attended the procession of the Holy Blood at Bruges to give thanks. Christmas 1479 found them at Brussels where Mary’s second child was born.

This time the baby was a girl who was named after the Dowager herself. Once more Margaret was the godmother and she carried the baby to its baptism, at the great Church of St Michael and St Gudule. These two Margarets, although separated by two generations, were to have much in common. Both were married to foreign princes and both remained childless. Margaret of Austria, like her English namesake, made Malines her chief residence and, as governor of the Low Countries during the minority of Charles V, her nephew, she showed the same efficient and practical approach to government as her godmother. She would inherit her godmother’s library and her pictures, her servants and officials, even her chevalier d’honour came from the family of de Baume.¹⁷

When Maximilian was at court, Margaret was often still in residence and she established an excellent relationship with him. She was careful to show him every consideration. In the Weisskünig Maximilian paints a pleasant picture of the ducal court where he took French lessons from Mary and Dutch lessons from the ‘old duchess’ or ‘the old lady’ (alte fuerstin’ or ‘die alte fraw).¹⁸ This is interesting on several counts, not least since it indicates that Margaret was proficient enough in Dutch to be teaching it to Maximilian. Unlike her thirteenth century predecessor Margaret, the daughter of King Edward I, who had married Duke John of Brabant,¹⁹ Margaret was never reproached for an ignorance of Dutch. Perhaps this is why she found it so easy to make the Low Countries her home and why she was such a respected figure there. The description also indicates that the Dowager had a secure and permanent place at court.

The ‘old duchess’ was in fact only thirty-four years old in 1480. She was quite young enough to have married again. Her aunt Catherine Neville was still remarrying at twice her age. Yet apart from the proposed marriage to the Duke of Albany and a French rumour concerning a proposal from an unknown source in 1480, there are no other references to a second marriage for Margaret. There were several reasons for this. Primarily, a barren woman was hardly the most desirable of wives, but there were also few dukes or princes who could offer Margaret a status equivalent to her establishment as the Dowager of Burgundy. Margaret herself never seems to have considered the question either out of respect for her late husband or simply because she preferred her widowhood in the Low Countries. Both Mary and Maximilian found Margaret a valuable asset in the government of the duchy, her marriage would have caused unnecessary complications and she was perhaps too useful to lose.

Throughout the war with France, Margaret busily raised money and men for the struggle. She was especially active in the defence of her dower properties which were threatened and besieged by France, and she called on her other dower cities such as Malines to help them. She wrote to the Malines magistrates in 1477 ordering them to send their troops as promised to ‘our cousin Lord Ravenstein’ under ‘a good chief Phelippe Ceeman [Neman or Kerman who acted as commander for the Malines troops for several years] or another as you wish’. They were to march at once for the defence of Oudenaarde. Two years later the Dowager wrote again, from Antwerp, sending a series of ordinances for the deposition and service of the Malines battalions and ordering the magistrates to see that all her commands were carried out with ‘good diligence’.²⁰ Sixty companies of troops were sent to Le Quesnoy, where they were very useful to Maximilian and he wrote thanking Malines for their service. More men were despatched to Binche and La Motte, where they were to perform garrison duty and four arbalestriers or culvriniers were sent to Oudenaarde. These were a type of small canon or field gun, notable for their long barrels and were manufactured by the armourers of Malines. The Dowager kept troops in the field with the ducal armies for many years and letters written to Malines by Maximilian in 1481 refer to men from the city who were defending the Dowager’s lands at Le Quesnoy, Binche, Cassel and other places.²¹

In spite of all the troops and money that were pumped into the war effort, the ducal armies were hard stretched and successive revolts in Utrecht and Guelders distracted Maximilian from the main war with France. Large areas of Flanders and Hainault were laid waste by the invading armies, pirates attacked the Dutch herring fleets, riots broke out in Ghent over the imposition of an unpopular beer tax and the Archduke was accused of selling off the ducal treasures to English and Italian merchants. Eager to terminate the war with France so that they could concentrate on their other problems, Mary and Maximilian resolved to try once more to draw England into an alliance. Edward too was showing himself to be more sympathetic towards the Burgundian cause and in 1480 Margaret headed an embassy to her brother. Her presence was a public indication of the rapprochement between England and Burgundy. It certainly alarmed Louis, who immediately increased his own efforts to retain both his English alliance and negotiate a settlement with Burgundy.

Margaret left Bruges on 24 June and was in England for more than three months. She travelled with a large retinue headed by Guillaume de Baume and the embassy included two officials who were well-known to her, Thomas Plaines and Jean Gros, the treasurer of the Order of the Golden Fleece. She received aides from the Estates to cover her expenses with the Hainault Estates contributing 4,000 livres.²² Her mission had several goals, but the immediate need was to obtain some military help in the form of English archers to reinforce Maximilian’s hard pressed armies.

The main purpose of the embassy was to achieve a full Anglo-Burgundian alliance and commit Edward to military intervention against France. She was also to negotiate a treaty of marriage between the ducal heir Philip and Edward’s daughter Anne of York. This proposal had first been discussed in August 1479, when Edward agreed to send 500 archers to help Maximilian.²³ The negotiations for the marriage were not easy. The Archduchess and her husband were hoping for a dowry of 200,000 crowns, the same as the one Edward had promised with Margaret in 1468. Edward, on the other hand, was expecting to pay no dowry at all and even to be offered a Burgundian replacement for his French annuity. The marriage negotiations were the focus of the embassy and the chronicler of the Abbey of the Dunes thought that Margaret would be bringing her niece Anne home with her.²⁴ Maximilian, however, viewed Margaret’s visit to England as a two-edged weapon which could be used to force Louis into negotiations for a realistic peace with Burgundy, and while Margaret was busy in England he kept up the diplomatic pressure on France.

King Edward sent Sir Edward Woodville, the Queen’s younger brother, aboard the royal ship ‘Falcon’ to bring his sister across the Channel. It was twelve years since she had sailed to her marriage. Sir Edward had been part of her marriage party and he had won the honours in the famous joust of the Golden Tree. This time Margaret took the shorter route from Calais to Gravesend, where she was received by Sir John Weston, the Prior of the Knights of St John.²⁵ She then transferred to a royal barge which had been sent to bring her up the Thames to London.

The barge was specially refitted for the occasion. The master and the twenty-four oarsmen had been supplied with new liveries in the Yorkist colours of murrey and blue with white roses embroidered on their jackets. The knights and squires who formed the escort of honour wore fine black velvet jackets which were decorated with a pattern of silver and purple.²⁶ Two residences had been prepared for Margaret’s use, the palace at Greenwich where she had spent so much time before her marriage, and the London house of Coldharbour near her mother’s home at Baynard’s Castle. New beds with red and green hangings had been sent up to the Coldharbour house and the finest bedlinens and coverlets had been ordered. Curtains, screens and tapestries were provided for both the houses, including a piece of arras which depicted the story of Paris and Helen. For her travel during her stay in England, Margaret was sent ten ‘hobbeys and palfreys’ all newly harnessed and caparisoned in rich saddle cloths. The King encouraged everyone to be generous towards his sister and used ‘right large language’ with the Archbishop of Canterbury who failed to offer Margaret a gift. His own final present to his sister was a luxurious pillion saddle in blue and violet cloth of gold, fringed with ‘Venetian gold’ thread.²⁷

While she was in England, Margaret renewed her contacts with all her old friends and family. She was received by the Queen and introduced to her royal nephews and nieces. Her youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was busy dealing with Scottish incursions in the north, made time to come south to see his sister, and the King gave a state banquet at Greenwich in honour of Margaret and their mother, the old Duchess Cecily. It was also attended by Margaret’s sister Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk. It seems that Margaret admired the wine, for on the day after the banquet, Edward sent her ‘a pipe of our wine’ valued at 36s 8d. As well as enjoying the company of her living family, Margaret could not have failed to remember all her dead relations. It was perhaps with a chantry in mind that she persuaded Edward to introduce the reformed Order of the Observant Friars into England. Soon after her departure the King sent for the Vicar-General of the Order and offered him a site for their new monastery near to the palace of Greenwich.²⁸ Building began in 1482 and the abbey chapel was dedicated to the Holy Cross. Was the dedication in honour of Margaret, and does it provide further evidence of her connection with Waltham Abbey?²⁹

Margaret’s visit to England was not merely a social occasion. She proved to be a conscientious and earnest ambassador and was very fully involved in the tricky diplomatic negotiations.³⁰ The Burgundians were well aware that Edward was keenly attached to his French annuity and knew that throughout the Anglo-Burgundian negotiations he was still in close correspondence with Louis XI. The King was using Margaret’s presence in England to achieve a better deal with France. Even while the Dowager was in London, Lord Howard returned from France accompanied by a French delegation who brought over the King’s annuity and promised to pay a further annuity of 15,000 crowns to the Princess Elizabeth until her marriage to the Dauphin should take place.

Edward used all his wiles to extract the maximum benefit from both France and Burgundy. He offered an immediate invasion of France in return for a substitute annuity from Burgundy. He also made it clear that he had no intention of paying out a dowry for his daughter Anne. Faced with these excessive demands the Dowager played for time. She sent back messengers to consult with Mary and Maximilian. Michel de Berghes, one of Maximilian’s closest advisers, was sent across to reinforce the delegation. The Burgundians argued that they would only pay an annuity to Edward if the French pension had been lost as a direct consequence of an English invasion of France. They tried to persuade the King that it would be dishonourable for him to offer no dowry with his daughter, but they were determined to get an alliance even if they had to pay heavily for it. They also wanted Louis to know that an Anglo-Burgundian treaty was imminent. In spite of the counter embassy and the annuity from France, Margaret was able to assure Maximilian that Edward was certainly moving towards their side and that she was very hopeful of reaching a satisfactory accord.

Throughout the summer the negotiations dragged on. Margaret must have been very relieved when between the 1 and 5 August a series of deals were finally agreed.³¹ In answer to the immediate request for armed help, the Burgundians were permitted to recruit 6,000 English archers at their own expense. The King agreed that 2,000 men could be recruited at once and, on sureties from the whole Burgundian delegation promising that he would be repaid by Christmas, he provided an immediate loan of 2,000 crowns to cover their wages and the expense of shipping them across the Channel. Margaret began to recruit these men straight away but she had only enough money to raise 1,500 archers and 30 men at arms. On 8 August she signed indentures with three captains: Sir John Middleton, Sir John Dichefield, later the governor and captain of Guernsey, and Sir Thomas Everingham. The latter was to take his men from Hull to Sluis and the other two were to embark from Dover. Some of these soldiers were in the Low Countries in time for Maximilian’s summer campaign against Guelders, but the number recruited fell far short of the hoped for 6,000.³²

On the question of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, Margaret persuaded Edward to make a commitment. The King agreed to support the claims of Mary and Maximilian for the return of Artois and the Duchy of Burgundy. He also promised that if France failed to agree to make peace by Easter 1481, then Edward would declare war in support of Burgundy. In return Mary and Maximilian promised to pay 25,000 crowns within six months if Edward’s French pension should be cancelled and they would thereafter continue to pay Edward his annuity. The Burgundian promises were guaranteed by the Estates of Holland, Zeeland, Flanders and Brabant.³³

The marriage treaty was agreed on 5 August. Anne would marry Philip in six years time, bringing with her a dowry of 100,000 crowns, only half of the dowry agreed for Margaret. Half of this dowry was to be paid within two years of the marriage; even here, Margaret was unable to get terms as favourable to Burgundy as the 1468 treaty had been. Moreover supplementary treaties signed a few days later related the dowry payments to the French annuity, signifying that Edward would in fact pay no dowry at all. Furthermore, from the age of twelve until her marriage, Anne was to receive an income of 6,000 crowns a year from Burgundy for her living expenses and all the costs of her transport to the Low Countries were to be born by the duchy. As a symbol of the marriage agreement, Margaret bought a ring for the infant princess. It was ‘a beautiful ring in the style of a circlet with eight fine diamonds and a central rose of three hanging pearls with a gold chain on which the ring may be hung’ and it cost about ten times more than thegracieuse ring which was given to Philip in Anne’s name.

Edward was certainly driving a hard bargain but he was in a strong position to do so. By 1480 the Yorkist King was very secure on his throne while the position of Burgundy was considerably weaker than it had been in 1468.³⁴ To obtain any agreement Margaret and her team had had to work hard. In addition to the main negotiations there were several minor matters to be resolved such as the debt still owing on Margaret’s own dowry and the restoration of the French lands of Pierre de St Pol, Count of Luxembourg and cousin of Elizabeth Woodville.³⁵ Edward was prepared to add his support to the Count’s claims but on the subject of her dowry Margaret made no progress. She seems to have accepted that there would be no more payments and she returned to Edward the letters of 1474 in which he acknowledged his debts. But from the Burgundian archives it is clear that Margaret kept the originals of these letters, so perhaps she hoped to press the matter at a future date. Once more Edward renewed and extended her commercial licences, allowing her to export from England 1,000 oxen, 200 sheep and 630 ‘sleyghtewolles’, all free of customs duties. The imported livestock were fattened up on the Dowager’s pastures near Dendermonde.³⁶

No sooner had Margaret secured Edward’s agreement to all these matters than the news reached England that Maximilian had made a settlement with France. On 21 August a seven month truce was agreed, with plans for a full peace conference to take place in October of that year. When Margaret heard this she anticipated a strong reaction from Edward. Nor was that the only matter which needed explaining to the English King. England was at war with Scotland and even while Margaret was in London her brother Richard had hurried north to defend the borders. Yet Maximilian continued to maintain good relations and trade with Scotland. However, Margaret was successful in placating her brother. She explained that it was merely a question of news of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance arriving too late to prevent the signing of the Franco-Burgundian truce and she assured Edward that Maximilian would give him his full support in the war against Scotland.³⁷

Well satisfied that the negotiations were at last completed, Margaret prepared to leave London. She paid a farewell visit to the city where she was presented with a purse containing £100. She then set off for the coast accompanied by her brother Edward who had decided to see her on her way. When she reached Rochester she found another letter from Maximilian awaiting her. In this he invited Edward to join a tripartite conference with Louis XI and himself. Her reply of 14 September summarised both the achievements of her mission and her impatience with all the double dealing. Some of the Archduke’s actions had left ‘me and your said ambassadors … very troubled’ and she feared that his methods of diplomacy would leave Edward ‘annoyed and angry’.³⁸

The Dowager passed a week in Kent visiting the shrine of St Thomas à Becket and staying on the private estates of Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers. These two bibliophiles must have had much in common especially now that Rivers was the patron of Margaret’s former protégé, William Caxton. No doubt she was shown Woodville’s translation of the ‘Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers’ which was one of the first books printed on Caxton’s press at Westminster.³⁹ With the King still in attendance, Margaret finally left for Dover, where the ‘Falcon’ waited to take her back to Calais. Edward seemed to be genuinely sad to see her departure and he wrote to Maximilian on 22 September announcing the return of his ‘well-beloved sister’. She left behind her in England Jacques de la Villeon, who was to act as an agent for the Burgundian ally, the Duke of Brittany.⁴⁰

Louis was annoyed that his truce with Maximilian had not caused a breach in the Anglo-Burgundian negotiations. He was angered to hear about the shipment of the English archers across the Channel and once more he saw Margaret as responsible for the failure of his stratagems. He grumbled to the Chester Herald about her activities and claimed that she hated him because he had prevented the marriage of Mary and Clarence. He was determined not to have her nearby during his negotiations at St Omer and postponed the conference until she was out of the area.⁴¹

Her return was celebrated at the Burgundian court with a reception held in her honour. Margaret, however, seems to have been far from satisfied with the outcome of her mission and she wrote again on 3 October to Maximilian to put the record straight. She assured the Archduke that she would always be very willing to help her ‘very dear and well-beloved son’ but she would be able to help him more successfully if she was always quite clear as to his own intentions.⁴² She was visibly irritated by Maximilian’s devious and evasive methods. Had she also heard the rumour that Maximilian had been pleased to send her off to England, so as to avoid any consideration of a new marriage proposal for her (which was on its way through Cardinal della Rovere, the Pope’s nephew)? Since the only reference to this proposal comes from French sources it is more than likely that this was another attempt by Louis to remove Margaret from his sphere of operations. Nothing further is heard of the proposal and if the French King had had any serious intentions in this matter he could easily have raised the proposal again.⁴³

After her embassy to England, Margaret settled back into her life as Dowager. The Franco-Burgundian truce did not last and as soon as the war restarted Margaret was again busy gathering troops for the defence of her properties in the south. She continued to spend long periods at the court with Mary and she went on a tour of her dower towns. In April 1481 she was at the Hotel de la Salle at Binche, a house she had rebuilt as her residence there. Her agent in the city was Pierre des Bins and her treasurer was Corneille le Cordier.⁴⁴ Like all her officials, these men were expected to keep closely in touch with the Dowager and to obey her orders with alacrity.

In the Low Countries 1481 was a troubled year. Early in the year, Jehan van Dadizele was murdered at Antwerp on the orders of the Lord of Gaasbeek, one of Maximilian’s closest counsellors. Dadizele had been the Lieutenant General for Flanders and a prominent member of the Flemish nobility. Olivier de La Marche commented that his death was most unfortunate, since he had kept Flanders in good order. He was one of the leading negotiators for the Great Privilege and he had strenuously defended the Privilege against Maximilian’s attempts to evade its limitations on his own power and authority. At Dadizele’s funeral in Ghent there were angry demonstrations and Maximilian was accused of complicity in his murder, especially when the Lord of Gaasbeek was not brought to trial.⁴⁵ The Archduke had never signed the Great Privilege although he had acknowledged the rights of the individual cities. The opposition complained that Maximilian was becoming as great a tyrant as Charles had been, and that with his German advisers he was ruling the country in his own interests.

Mary was still well respected even though her husband had become the target of all opposition to the policies of the ducal government. In September 1481, their third child was born. This son was named after his godfather and Maximilian’s ally, Francis, Duke of Brittany, but the infant died when only a few months old.

Within six months, another disaster struck Burgundy which was to threaten all the hard won gains of the last five years. Mary had always loved physical exercise, skating on the frozen ponds of the Coudenberg Palace at Brussels or hunting in the Flemish Campine. Her great seal, like that of previous Duchesses of Burgundy, showed her on horseback with a falcon on her wrist.⁴⁶ Falconry was her especial passion and Maximilian had been surprised to find that within a few nights of their marriage she had brought her falcons back into her bedchamber. In March 1482 Lord Ravenstein, who was her Master of Horse, organised a falcon hunt in the marshes of Wijnendaele near Bruges. Perhaps her horse stumbled on the icy ground or perhaps she miscalculated a jump, but somehow or other this very competent horsewoman was thrown. Although there were no visible wounds, Mary was in great pain and had to be carried back to Bruges in a litter. The Archduchess may have been in the early stages of her fourth pregnancy and gradually her condition worsened and there was nothing her doctors could do. Margaret hastened to her and the relic of the Holy Blood was brought from its chapel to her bedside, but all in vain.

On 27 March Mary died.⁴⁷ She was buried in the Church of Our Lady at Bruges, where her coffin was re-interred in 1502 beneath a magnificent bronze monument made by Pierre de Beckere of Brussels. There, in the only church north of the Alps to possess a statue by Michelangelo, the young Archduchess lay at peace while rebellion broke out all over her territories.

On her deathbed, Mary had begged Margaret to watch over her two children, the heir Philip, an infant of four years old, and Margaret of Austria who was two.⁴⁸ This was to be no easy task for, in her will, Mary named Maximilian as the sole governor of the heir and as the Regent of Burgundy until Philip should come of age. This was bitterly opposed. The Estates of Flanders and the cities of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres were resolved to uphold the original marriage treaty which had excluded Maximilian from the succession. Their proposals for the establishment of a regency council which would govern the duchy for the next ten years had extensive support throughout the whole of the Low Countries. Once more it was Ghent which held the upper hand, because the two children were installed in the castle of Ten Waele and the city refused to allow Maximilian to take them away.

French agents did all they could to encourage his opponents. Louis hastened to offer terms to the Estates which would end the war in the best interests of France. He proposed a betrothal between Margaret of Austria and the Dauphin. Franche Comté and Artois would be a part of her dowry. Maximilian was resolved to oppose this treaty and Margaret gave him her full support. She withdrew to Malines where she sent off more troops for the defence of Hainault and she prepared for the arrival of the two infants who should be placed in her care. Olivier de La Marche expressed the view of her household when he wrote that ‘our lord the archduke is like St Eustace, a wolf [Louis] had seized his daughter and a lion (the lion of Flanders) had taken his son’.⁴⁹

In October the Estates met again at Alost and Maximilian wrote to Margaret asking her to give him her support,⁵⁰ but there was little they could do with Flanders resolved upon peace with France at almost any price. On 23 December Maximilian was forced to agree to the treaty of Arras. Margaret of Austria was to marry the Dauphin. She would be handed over immediately to France as a surety for the marriage. Her dowry would include Artois, Franche Comté and the lordships of Mâcon, Auxerre, Noys and Bar-sur-Seine. The French possession of the Duchy of Burgundy and Picardy had to be accepted, only Hainault and Flanders were saved from the French grasp.

Louis tried to win Margaret’s support for the treaty. Her full rights were restored in all her dower properties, including Chaussin and Le Perrière and she was reimbursed for her losses to the sum of 20,000 gold crowns.⁵¹ The Flemish and French pushed the treaty through with great haste. Margaret of Austria was sent off from Ghent under guard to prevent any rescue attempt by her father and on 24 April she was handed over to the French at Hesdin. In June she was officially betrothed to the Dauphin who at the age of thirteen was not impressed by his three-year-old bride. She was fortunate to pass into the care of Louis’ intelligent and able daughter Anne de Beaujeu. With Margaret of Austria went her nurse the Lady de Bouzanton, who kept the Burgundians informed of her charge’s progress at the French court. The Lord de Bouzanton had been appointed by Margaret as captain of the garrison at Le Quesnoy, a useful location for one who would await messages from France.⁵²

In spite of the completion of the treaty of Arras, Ghent still refused to hand Philip over to the care of either Maximilian or Margaret and throughout the next two years a harsh war was fought in the Low Countries as Maximilian tried to recover control. Margaret’s tuteur Josse de Lalaing, Lord of Montigny, died of wounds he received fighting for Maximilian at the siege of Utrecht.⁵³ Throughout these harsh years Margaret gave Maximilian all the help she could.⁵⁴ She did not accept the convention of Hoogstaten which had set up a regency council which included Maximilian, Lord Ravenstein and his son, to govern for the infant Duke. Instead she upheld Mary’s will and the amended marriage treaty. After all, her representative Guillaume de Baume had been the only Burgundian to witness the amendments made by Mary by which Maximilian had been named as Mary’s heir.⁵⁵

Maximilian appealed to his English ally for help and Edward might well have moved against France since the treaty of Arras had deprived him both his annuity and the marriage of his daughter to the Dauphin. But Edward was dead within four months of Arras. Although his successor Richard III had major problems within England, he sent Maximilian 6,000 more English archers.⁵⁶

Gradually Maximilian made some progress. In the summer of 1483 he received the welcome news of the death of his old enemy Louis XI. Margaret must have rejoiced. By the end of the following year Utrecht and Liège had submitted and Oudenaarde and Dendermonde were also recovered from the rebels. The intervention of France, who sent Anthony, Count of La Roche, to rally the rebels against Maximilian, worked in the latter’s favour. The Grand Bastard, Anthony, was regarded as a traitor in Burgundy because of his defection in 1477 and his very name rallied support for Maximilian. Ravenstein and his son Philip both resigned from the regency council in January 1484 and supported Maximilian’s authority.

Now it was the French government that was no longer as strong as it had been under Louis XI. The authority of Anne de Beaujeu, the sister and regent of the infant Charles VIII, was challenged by the Duke of Orleans. By November 1484 the rebels in Flanders were forced to admit defeat and Margaret personally intervened to persuade Maximilian to show clemency towards Ghent.⁵⁷ The city was granted an amnesty but, when Maximilian entered to collect his son, riots broke out again and the Archduke’s men fled fearing some sort of trap. This time order was restored after a series of executions and at last in a well-publicised scene of fatherly tears Maximilian was reunited with his son.⁵⁸

In July 1485 Margaret rode over to Dendermonde. She went to receive Philip who was to be placed in her care at Malines. She had prepared everything for his reception. In February of that year she sold her palace at Malines to the city corporation for 12,000 crowns. The city then gave the house to Maximilian and Philip. This transaction ensured that the young heir would live in his own property, although Margaret would continue to live there as well. It also provided a very useful cash settlement for the Dowager who had been hard pressed by the costs of the civil wars. In May 1485 she received a further 800 livres from Mons to defray her heavy expenses.⁵⁹

By the time Margaret went to collect Philip she had already established a household for her step-grandson. Olivier de La Marche became the master of the new ducal household. With La Marche at its head we may be sure that the Archducal household was set up with every propriety. Margaret selected Francis van Buysleyden, the brother of Jerome, a colleague of Erasmus, to become the boy’s tutor.⁶⁰ She took every care of Philip and saw to it that he became well-known throughout his domains. As early as October 1485 she escorted him to Binche where he made a triumphal entry into the town.⁶¹

Considering the strife which faced Margaret and Maximilian from 1482 to 1485, the Dowager must have had little time to ponder on the news which reached her from London. Edward IV’s death in April 1483 could not have come at a worse time for his dynasty. His foreign policy was in tatters. Indeed Mancini commented that the treaty of Arras had been the cause of Edward’s death.⁶² The Croyland chronicler agreed that Edward had been enraged by the treaty:

this spirited prince now saw and most anxiously regretted that he was thus deluded by King Louis who had not only withdrawn the promised tribute, but had declined the alliance which had been solemnly agreed upon between the dauphin and the King’s eldest daughter … and, taking part with the burghers of Ghent, used his utmost endeavours to molest the party of the Duke of Austria, the King’s ally … upon this the King thought of nothing else but taking vengeance.⁶³

Edward’s failure to support Maximilian had certainly rebounded against him and the collapse of his foreign policy followed so soon by his death was to lead to the deaths of both his sons and the usurpation of Richard III. It is possible to see in the extraordinary behaviour of Richard of Gloucester the actions of a man who had, for a long time, felt frustrated by his brother’s policies, especially the Anglo-French alliance. Maximilian and Margaret accepted the usurpation of Richard III. They surely hoped that the warlike Richard, who was commonly supposed to have opposed the treaty of Picquigny, would now intervene on behalf of Burgundy and send over some real assistance. Maximilian at once sent an embassy to greet him, explaining his problems over the detention of his son at Ghent and justifying his own right to act as regent. The heralds were also to impress upon Richard Maximilian’s determination to recover the Duchy of Burgundy. They were further to inform Richard that the rebels had ‘ousted my most dread lady the duchess (Margaret) from the enjoyment of her dower being in the said county of Flanders’ but to assure him that Dendermonde and Oudenaarde had already been recovered. The English King was asked to boycott all trade with Flemish merchants and to let Maximilian have 6,000 archers whose wages the Archduke would pay.⁶⁴

Although Richard was favourable to a Burgundian alliance he had little opportunity to respond. After the seizure of the young King Edward V at Stoney Stratford and with the arrests of Earl Rivers, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Grey in April, the Queen had fled with the rest of her children into sanctuary at Westminster. The heir, Edward, was already twelve years old, and there was no time for a long regency in which a gentle jostling for power might take place. If Richard wanted to seize power he must act ruthlessly and he did. With his ally the Duke of Buckingham he set his course ‘swiftly and with the utmost vigilance’⁶⁵ and was also able to get control of his second nephew, Richard of York. The two boys disappeared into the Tower and the executions of Rivers, Vaughan, Grey and Hastings secured Richard’s position for the time being.

As Anthony Woodville prepared to die he wrote a poem, which is a remarkably accurate reflection of his own thoughts and of those who were observing all these astonishing events:

Somewhat musing
And more mourning
In remembering
The unsteadfastness
This world being
Of such wheeling
Me contrarying
What may I guess

Methinks truly
Bounden am I
And this greatly
To be content
Seeing plainly
Fortune doth awry
All contrary
From mine intent.⁶⁶

The final coup came on 26 June when Richard set aside his nephew on the grounds of illegitimacy and assumed the crown himself. This news must have reached Margaret at the height of the civil wars in Flanders. With the death of Louis XI in August a minor had also come to the French throne but in spite of the challenge from Orleans, France rallied behind the regent, Anne de Beaujeu, who had no designs on her brother’s throne. The troublemakers in France received a stern warning from the Chancellor, Cardinal Rochefort, who told the French Estates General at Tours in January 1484 that they must not follow the terrible example of England:

Regard the events which have occurred in that land since the death of King Edward. See how his children already quite old and brave have been murdered with impunity and the crown has been transferred to their assassin by the consent of the people.⁶⁷

If these stories were abroad in France we may be sure that they also reached Burgundy. Molinet recorded the seizure of the young King and his brother, although he called the younger boy George, a confusion with the Duke of Clarence. The Burgundian chronicler also described a pathetic scene, which he set in the Tower, when Edward V was still officially awaiting his coronation. The eldest prince was ‘utterly and entirely melancholy’ recognising the evil intent of his uncle. The younger prince, however, not appreciating the danger they were in, was full of joy and high spirits and urged his brother to learn how to dance. The unfortunate Edward V replied that he would do better to learn how to die. Molinet added that they were imprisoned in the Tower for about five weeks and then killed by order of the Constable of the Tower, Duke Richard, who made himself King. He also reported Richard’s assertion that Edward IV had himself been illegitimate and that, of his mother’s sons, only he was legitimate. These slanders against Cecily Neville were clearly common knowledge in Burgundy. But Molinet brings his authenticity into doubt when he adds that Richard reigned cruelly and spoiled the Church. This was certainly not true, for Richard like his sister Margaret was publicly particularly pious.⁶⁸

Whatever Margaret made of all these rumours, that Richard had impugned the honour of their mother Cecily and had murdered his nephews, there is simply no evidence of her opinions. She must have been well informed, her chaplain was in England in 1484, her commercial agent was also there and a large Burgundian embassy visited Richard later in the same year.⁶⁹ She would have known that Richard had announced his accession to the throne from his mother’s house and that his declaration of accession referred only to Edward IV’s pre-contract, which illegitimised his nephews.

Moreover she would also have heard that, only shortly after the reported disappearance of the two young princes, their mother, the late Queen Elizabeth Woodville, had come to court and entrusted herself and her daughters to Richard’s care. Commynes thought that Buckingham may have killed the princes and the actions of the Queen Dowager seemed to bear this out.⁷⁰ After the execution of Buckingham, some English exiles may have begun arriving in Flanders though most of them made for Brittany and the young Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Margaret may have regarded the worst rumours against her brother as mere scandal. She may also have supported Richard’s usurpation on the grounds that Edward’s Woodville marriage was indeed illegal. However, whatever her private opinions, Maximilian needed an alliance with England and it was her duty to try to draw Richard into one. After all, an Anglo-Burgundian alliance was her very raison d’être and by the early summer of 1485 it seemed that a new and stronger alliance was at last in the making.

Before the new Anglo-Burgundian alliance could be negotiated, a little army which had gathered in the valley of the Seine under the Lord of Esquerades, Philip de Crevecoeur, was on its way to England. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, had taken an oath to marry Elizabeth of York. With his vestiges of a Lancastrian claim and his marriage to a Yorkist princess, this most implausible pretender was ready to stake his claim to the throne. France, fearful of a Burgundian recovery and of a military alliance between Richard and Maximilian, was only too willing to help him on his way. Once more, dynastic changes in England would be the by-product of the struggle between France and Burgundy, a struggle which formed the constant political framework for Margaret’s life.