14
Margaret of Anjou was the first queen of England to be nicknamed the ‘She-Wolf of France’ and, in spite of losing this name to Isabella of France, she is still remembered as a notorious queen. Portrayals of Margaret over the years show her as a vengeful and ambitious woman who brought war and misery to England and it is in Shakespeare’s portrayal of her as an adulteress and warmongerer that she is best remembered. As the leader of the House of Lancaster, Margaret participated in one of the bloodiest civil wars that England has known and her actions certainly helped prolong the war by almost a decade. However her actions, in support of first her husband and then her son, are entirely understandable and without the benefit of hindsight she can never have realised just how futile her actions were. Margaret of Anjou genuinely acted with the best possible motives. She was not a bad woman, in spite of her terrible reputation but, as the wife of an ineffectual and doomed king, she was forced to take on a role that, for a woman, was deemed to be savage. Margaret of Anjou was forced to take the course of action she did but, in the eyes of her contemporaries and many later historians, this did not redeem her.
Margaret of Anjou grew up to be a powerful and dominant woman and she may have learnt the lessons of female power during her childhood. She was born in March 1430 and was the fourth child of Rene of Anjou and Isabel, Duchess of Lorraine.1 Margaret’s childhood was dominated by women following the capture of her father in 1431 at the battle of Bulgneville. On 12 November 1435, Rene’s elder brother died and he inherited the county of Anjou as well as the crowns of Jerusalem and Naples. Early the following year, Rene also inherited the kingdom of Sicily.2 In spite of these grand titles, Rene was only able to exercise authority over Anjou and Lorraine although, as a prisoner, it was his wife Isabel who ruled. Isabel of Lorraine was an indomitable figure and it is likely that Margaret gained much of her idea of queenship from her.
In 1435 Isabel set out with an army to conquer Naples, leaving Margaret in the care of her paternal grandmother, Yolande of Aragon.3 Yolande was Margaret’s second model of a powerful woman. Yolande had ruled Anjou for several years and had also raised the French king, Charles VII, marrying him to her daughter Marie. She could also lay claim to being the most powerful woman in France, something of which Margaret is likely to have taken note.4 Margaret’s mother and Rene (who had been released in 1436) returned to Anjou in 1442, following defeat in Naples, and Margaret passed back into her mother’s custody soon after her grandmother’s death in that year.
Margaret’s childhood must have been overshadowed by the war between England and France. In 1444, a meeting was held at Tours between the French and the English in an attempt to come to peace.5 It was at this meeting that a marriage between the English king, Henry VI, and a French princess was first suggested and Margaret, as the niece of the Queen of France, was chosen as the most suitable candidate. According to Hall’s Chronicle, Rene agreed in return for a promise from the English that they would surrender lands in Anjou and Maine to him. Rene was renowned across Europe for his poverty ‘callyng himself kyng of Scicile, Naples, and Hierusalem, hauyng onely the name and stile of the same, without any pay profite, or fote of possession’.6 Henry VI was also eager for the match and asked for a portrait of Margaret to be sent to him.7 He also agreed to pay for Margaret’s journey to England. ‘For kyng Reyner her father, for all his long stile, had to short a purse, to sende his doughter honourably, to the kyng her spouse’.8 To save face, however, Margaret was dowered with the islands of Minorca and Majorca.9 The only problem with this generous gift was that, as with so many of Rene’s ‘lands’, Henry would have to conquer them if he wanted to assert Margaret’s rights there.
Margaret was living with her mother in Angers when the marriage treaty was signed and the two of them set out to meet the English at Tours.10 On 23 May 1444, Margaret underwent a proxy marriage in St Martin’s Cathedral at Tours with the Earl of Suffolk playing the part of Henry VI.11 Early the following year, Margaret again travelled with her mother and at Nancy she may have undergone another betrothal ceremony. Certainly, her time in Nancy was filled with banquets and entertainments. Margaret then set out for England, accompanied part of the way by both her father and her uncle, Charles VII. She also had an escort of 1,500 people.12
Margaret landed in England on 9 April 1445.13 Henry had been waiting impatiently for Margaret’s arrival and, according to one report, determined to visit her in disguise.14 Henry dressed himself as a squire and took a letter to Margaret. If he intended this to be a romantic meeting, he was to be disappointed. Margaret took the letter from the ‘squire’ but was so engrossed in reading it that she did not notice Henry and kept him on his knees. It was only later, after Henry had left, that Margaret was told who the squire had been.15 The couple met officially soon afterwards and were married at Tichfield Abbey on 22 April, before travelling on to London together.16 Margaret and Henry appear to have got on well with each other from the beginning and Margaret would have been relieved to find her husband congenial. She was crowned in London on 30 April and is recorded as having worn her hair loose under a coronet of pearls and jewels.17 Margaret probably once again enjoyed being the centre of attention.
Margaret gained a great influence over Henry from early in their marriage.18 Henry was a gentle and compassionate man and was eager to please his young bride and place her at her ease.19 Margaret had been conditioned by her family before she left France. On 17 December, for example, she wrote to her uncle, Charles VII to say that she would do all she could to persuade Henry to surrender Maine to France.20 Her pleas to Henry obviously had their effect and five days later Henry wrote himself to Charles, agreeing to surrender Maine and saying that he did so as a favour to Margaret. Unfortunately, however, whilst Henry’s gesture was romantic, it also appears to have been inappropriate and Henry’s ministers refused to surrender the territory until April 1446.21 Margaret must have been jubilant at her success but it did not augment her popularity in England.
In July 1449 Charles declared war on England once again, ending the truce that Margaret’s marriage had ushered in. This also damaged Margaret’s image since she was seen as being in league with Henry’s hated chief minister, Suffolk. According the Hall’s Chronicle, it was Margaret and Suffolk who ruled England and the chronicler considered the pair to be lovers, calling Suffolk ‘the Quenes dearlynge’.22 Shakespeare also implies that the pair were lovers and it was a common rumour during Margaret’s lifetime.23The allegation that Margaret and the much older Suffolk were lovers is untrue and invented to smear the queen. It was Suffolk and his wife who escorted Margaret to England and arranged her marriage and she appears to have looked upon the couple as surrogate parents. Certainly, both she and Henry were close to Suffolk and grieved for him when he was murdered in 1450.24 Margaret, apparently, refused to eat for three days on hearing the news of Suffolk’s death.25 Touching though her grief is, it did nothing for her reputation which was already shaky, due primarily to the fact of her French birth.
Margaret was also heavily criticised during the early years of her marriage for her failure to conceive. It seems likely that this delay was due more to her youth at the time of her marriage than any failure of Henry to consummate the marriage. Certainly, a delay in childbearing was not unusual in this period and Margaret’s contemporary, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York is known to have produced twelve children after a childless decade of marriage.26 Nonetheless Margaret’s childlessness must have caused her considerable worry. Henry had no siblings, uncles or first cousins and the continuation of the House of Lancaster relied on Margaret’s ability to produce an heir. It must have been a great relief to Margaret when she finally found that she was pregnant early in 1453. With her pregnancy, Margaret must have finally felt secure in her position as Queen of England, despite the criticism that had been previously levelled at her.
Margaret’s joy must have been short-lived, however, and, on 16 July 1453, the English army was decisively defeated in France at the Battle of Castillon, leaving the English in effective control only of Calais.27 The news of this disaster caused consternation in England which again was unreasonably directed at Margaret as a Frenchwoman. The news of the battle also had a great impact on Henry. On 15 August 1453, he apparently felt very tired and went to bed early.28 Wheathampstead’s Register describes how that night, ‘a disease and disorder of such a sort overcame the king that he lost his wits and memory for a time, and nearly all his body was uncoordinated and out of control that he could neither walk, nor hold his head upright, nor easily move from where he sat’.29Henry was in a catatonic state, unable to take in anything around him. It seems likely that this condition was hereditary and was inherited from his grandfather, the mad King Charles VI of France. Margaret must have been devastated when she heard of Henry’s condition but there was little that she could do and it must have been with a heavy heart that she entered her confinement in London in September.
On 13 October 1453, Margaret gave birth to her only child, Edward of Lancaster, at Westminster.30 She must have been delighted to have borne a healthy son but this delight would have been tempered with sadness at Henry’s continuing incapacity. Edward’s birth brought out a fierce maternal instinct in Margaret and from that day onwards her focus was always on his future. Margaret’s first concern was to obtain Henry’s recognition of his son. This was crucial to Margaret as, according to Hall’s Chronicle, there were rumours that Edward was not the son of the king, with claims that he was either a changeling or the son of the Duke of Somerset.31 These rumours again had no basis in fact and Henry himself never doubted Edward’s paternity. They may have been stories spread by the rival House of York and throughout her time as queen Margaret, as a prominent member of the House of Lancaster, was a target for Yorkist propaganda. Soon after Edward’s birth, the baby was taken to Henry at Windsor in the hope of raising some response in Henry.32 The Duke of Buckingham presented the prince to Henry, but Henry gave no response:
Natheless the Duke abode stille with the Prince by the Kyng; and what he coude no maner answere have, the Queene come in, and toke the Prince in hir armes and presented hym in like forme as the Duke had done, desiring that he shout blisse it; but alle their labour was in veyne, for they departed thens without any answere or countenaunce saving only that ones he loked on the Prince and caste doune his eyene agen, without any more.33
The lack of response from Henry made Margaret determined to protect her son by herself.
Soon after her visit to Henry, in February 1454, Margaret returned to London and presented a bill of five articles to parliament claiming the regency for herself.34 This was an unprecedented step for a queen of England to take and it is likely that Margaret based her political ambition on the examples of her grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, and her mother, Isabel of Lorraine, both of whom had ruled as regents when their husbands were incapacitated. The political role open to an English queen had diminished since the times of the Angevin and early Plantagenet queens and by the mid-fifteenth century it was unthinkable for a woman to be made regent for any length of time, particularly a Frenchwoman. Henry VI’s own mother, Catherine of Valois, had been denied any political position during her son’s minority and Margaret’s claims to the regency were never countenanced by parliament. On 27 March 1454, the Duke of York, was named Protector of England.35 Margaret had allied herself with York’s enemy, the Duke of Somerset, and this appointment must have horrified her. It seems likely that the investiture of Edward of Lancaster as Prince of Wales in June may have been carried out to appease Margaret. Certainly, she emerged as the leader of the Lancastrian faction during the crisis of Henry’s illness.
Margaret joined Henry at Windsor following the declaration of York’s Protectorate. She must have been greatly troubled about the future and may have feared that York would take all the power from the crown. It seems likely that during this period she continued to try to wake Henry from his stupor and her efforts appear to have finally become successful in late December 1454, when Henry suddenly recovered:
The Queen came to him, and brought my lord Prynce with her. And then he askid what the Princes name was, and the Queen told him Edward; and than he hild up his hands and thankid God thereof. And he seid he never knew til that tyme, nor wist not what was seid to him, nor wist where he had be whils he hath be seke til now.36
Margaret must have been relieved to finally have Henry’s recognition of her son and, soon afterwards, she travelled with Henry to London where he relieved York of his Protectorate and released Somerset from the Tower where he had been imprisoned. Henry’s recovery was only partial and Margaret quickly established herself as the real power behind the throne.
Henry’s return to power proved to be short-lived and, following his removal from office, York began raising troops. In late May 1455, Henry set out from London to travel to a parliament in Leicester with a number of his important ministers, whilst Margaret remained in London. On 21 May, Henry’s men were attacked by an army headed by York at St Albans. This was the first battle of the Wars of the Roses and signified the start of a period of great political instability in England. The Duke of Somerset and other leading Lancastrians were killed and Henry, who was slightly wounded, was taken prisoner by York and escorted back to London.37 When news reached Margaret of the first Battle of St Albans she withdrew to the Tower with her son. Without an army, however, she was powerless and was forced to accept York’s second protectorate, which was declared on 17 November 1455.38
Margaret realised that she had little scope for opposition to the Yorkists. On 25 March 1458 she took part in the public ‘loveday’ reconciliation between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. The two sides walked in formal procession at St Paul’s to symbolise their reconciliation, with Margaret holding York’s hand.39 The loveday was seen as a great symbol of hope but the reconciliation completely fell apart in October 1458, when an attempt was made to assassinate the Duchess of York’s nephew, the Earl of Warwick, at Westminster. Warwick fled to Calais where he began raising troops whilst his father, the Earl of Salisbury, raised an army in the north and York began recruiting in Wales. This must have greatly alarmed Margaret and she travelled to Cheshire where she began to raise troops in her son’s name.40
By 1459, Margaret was the acknowledged military and political leader of the house of Lancaster and she would have known that there was no one else with the capability to protect her son. By October, she had raised a sizeable army and headed to confront the Yorkists in the Welsh marches. Her army greatly outnumbered York’s and the Yorkists fled from her, York travelling to Ireland and Salisbury, Warwick and York’s son, Edward, Earl of March, to Calais. Margaret must have been jubilant at her victory and, with the Yorkists dispersed, must have been confident that her cause would succeed. In June 1460, however, Warwick and Salisbury returned, defeating a Lancastrian army at Northampton and taking Henry prisoner once again.41 Margaret and her son must have been waiting near the site of the battle. When they heard of their defeat they fled. During their journey they were robbed of all their possessions and deserted by their guards but made it safely to Harlech Castle.42 Margaret’s determination to remain at large demonstrates that she intended to continue to fight on her son’s behalf.
On 10 October 1460, York arrived at parliament in London and sat on the king’s throne, formally claiming the crown.43 When Henry IV usurped the crown from Richard II in 1399 he also ignored the claims of Edmund Mortimer, Richard’s acknowledged heir and the greatgrandson of Edward III’s second son, Lionel of Clarence. York was the son of Edmund Mortimer’s sister, Anne Mortimer, and therefore descended from Edward III’s second son. Henry VI was only descended from his third. Parliament listened to York’s claims and it was decided that, whilst Henry VI should not be unthroned, York would be named as his heir, in preference to Edward of Lancaster.44
Margaret was furious when she heard the news of her son’s disinheritance and immediately began raising an army again, intent on reasserting her son’s rights. According to Hall’s Chronicle, she marched north with 20,000 men and, on 31 December 1460, met an army commanded by York and Salisbury at Wakefield.45 The Lancastrians won a decisive victory and York was killed on the field. York’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, was also captured and executed soon afterwards, without trial. Margaret’s men ‘came to the place wher the dead corps of the duke of Yorke lay, and caused his head to be stryken of, and set on it a croune of paper, and so fixed it on a pole, and presented it to the Quene’.46 Margaret must have been jubilant to have the head of her son’s greatest enemy before her and she cannot truly be blamed for being pleased at the death of the man who had so threatened her son. She had York and Salisbury’s heads set on poles over the gates of York as an act of revenge, before beginning to march south in triumph.
Margaret met a second Yorkist army at St Albans soon after Wakefield and won another decisive victory. Henry VI had been brought from London as a puppet to lead the Yorkist army and was reunited with his wife and son after the battle. Margaret’s feelings on this reunion are unclear. She may have resented Henry’s disinheritance of their son and she certainly never seems to have held his interests as paramount after Edward of Lancaster’s birth. Nonetheless, Henry was an important political figure and Margaret must have felt that her cause was bolstered by his presence in her army. Following the battle, Margaret marched on London, intending to enter the city. Margaret’s army was known for being unruly and, outside the city walls, Margaret received a delegation headed by the Duchesses of Bedford and Buckingham and Lady Scales, who begged her to spare the city and not allow her army to enter, a clear indication of just how unpopular she had become.47 Margaret agreed to leave and took her army back towards the north. This was probably her greatest mistake and, a few days later, the Yorkists, led by Edward, Earl of March, entered London. On 4 March, Edward was proclaimed King as Edward IV.48 This proclamation must have come as a shock to Margaret and, on 29 March, her army was decisively defeated at Towton by a force commanded by Edward IV. Margaret, Henry and their son fled to Scotland, hotly pursued by the Yorkists.49
For the next two years, Margaret waged a guerrilla campaign in the north against Edward IV. In April 1462 she and her son travelled to France to ask her cousin Louis XI for aid. Louis was not eager to help, but Margaret appealed to his mother, her aunt Marie of Anjou and he finally agreed to help her in exchange for the surrender of Calais.50 By agreeing to surrender Calais, Margaret obtained important military aid but at the cost of any remaining popularity she had in England. As the last area of English rule in France, Calais held a special place in the hearts of the English and it is clear that Margaret never understood this position.51 Margaret was given 500 French soldiers and sailed for Scotland in October 1462. She attempted to land at Tynemouth but was repulsed by canon fire, which scattered her fleet. This must have been an arduous journey for Margaret and they finally landed at Berwick, which Margaret used as a base to attack northern England. In May 1464, Edward IV met Margaret in battle on the edge of Hexham Forest. This proved to be a disaster for her and she and her son were forced to flee into the forest where they were attacked by robbers and only survived when one robber took pity on Margaret in her misery.52 Margaret seems to have given up following her defeat at Hexham Forest. Soon afterwards she and her son sailed again to France, this time not planning an immediate return.
Margaret refused to concede that her cause was lost whilst in France and continued to lobby Louis XI over the years, with little success.53 She must have spent the lonely years raising her son and attempting to keep his cause alive. The news, in 1465, that Henry VI had been captured hiding in northern England must also have been a blow and she must have considered it unlikely that she would ever see him again once he had been taken to the Tower – and she was correct.
Margaret was something of an embarrassment to Louis XI and it was only in 1470 that she became a useful political figure for him. Relations between Edward IV and his closest ally, the Earl of Warwick, had become increasingly strained during the 1460s and, in 1470, Warwick had fled to France. Louis XI saw an opportunity to attack Edward IV and offered to reconcile Margaret and Warwick so that they could launch a joint invasion of England. Margaret regarded Warwick as her greatest enemy and responsible for all her misery and it took Louis a great deal of effort to persuade her to even see him.54 Margaret, however, must have recognised the possibilities for the revival of her son’s cause and finally agreed to a reconciliation with Warwick. A formal reconciliation was staged on 22 July 1470 and, after keeping Warwick on his knees for quarter of an hour, Margaret formally forgave him.55 It was agreed that Warwick would restore Henry VI to the throne with French aid. To seal their alliance Margaret’s son would be married to Warwick’s daughter. Margaret cannot have been happy with this clause but, as a pragmatist, she must have seen it as a small price to pay for the restoration of her son’s position.
Warwick sailed to invade England before the marriage but, true to her word, Margaret allowed Edward of Lancaster to marry Warwick’s daughter, Anne Neville. Soon after the wedding, news reached her that Warwick had been successful and that Henry VI was restored and Edward IV fled. Margaret must have been jubilant and attempted to sail immediately to England. Bad weather, however, kept her party stranded in France.56 Finally in April 1471 Margaret and her son and daughterin-law were able to sail for England, landing on 18 April 1471. Almost immediately upon landing Margaret’s hopes would have been dashed. On the day that she set foot once again in England, Warwick had fought a battle with the now returned Edward IV at Barnet and had been heavily defeated and killed and Henry VI had been returned to the Tower.57 Polydore Vergil writes:
When she heard these things the miserable woman swooned for fear, she was distraught, dismayed and tormented with sorrow; she lamented the calamity of the time, the adversity of fortune, her own toil and misery; she bewailed the unhappy end of King Henry, which she believed assuredly to be at hand, and, to be short, she behaved as one more desirous to die than live.58
This disaster so sudden after Margaret’s landing must have dented her confidence but she had spent the last twenty years fighting and she was determined to continue to uphold her son’s rights.
Margaret immediately began raising an army in the West Country before marching on to Tewkesbury. There she found Edward IV’s army waiting for her and prepared to do battle. According to Hall’s Chronicle, Margaret and her son rode among the troops encouraging them, although Margaret was not present during the battle.59 She must have had an anxious wait for news, knowing that her son was fighting and that all his hopes depended on the day. She would have been distraught when news was brought to her that her army was completely destroyed and that her son was among the Lancastrians killed.60 With the loss of her son, Margaret lost the will to escape and was captured by Edward IV at a religious house near the battlefield.
With her son dead, Margaret was a broken woman with nothing left to fight for. She was taken as a prisoner to London and led through the streets and jeering crowds as the prize captive in Edward IV’s victory procession. Margaret was then imprisoned in the Tower, arriving the very night that her husband Henry V was murdered by the victorious Yorkist king. With the death of her husband and son, Margaret was no longer a political force and after a few months in the Tower Edward IV turned her over to the custody of her friend, the Countess of Suffolk at Wallingford.61 Margaret appears to have borne her imprisonment and may have found some comfort in being lodged with her greatest friend.
In August 1475, Edward IV set out to invade France. At a meeting with Louis XI at Picquigny on 25 August 1475, it was agreed that there would be a nine-year truce between the two countries and that Louis would pay Edward a pension.62 A further condition of the treaty was that Louis would ransom Margaret for 50,000 crowns. In late January 1476, Margaret sailed for France, landing in Dieppe. Margaret’s feelings about her release are unrecorded although it is possible that she was glad to see the back of a country which held such unhappy memories. Margaret travelled to meet Louis’s envoys at Rouen where she was made to renounce all her claims to Anjou and Maine as compensation for the ransom Louis had paid for her.63 Margaret was given a modest pension by her father and was allowed to live in his castle at Reculee. In July 1480, her father died and Margaret found herself entirely dependent on Louis XI. She died in misery and poverty on 25 August 1482 at Dampierre Castle, leaving her few poor possessions to Louis XI.
Margaret of Anjou was forced by necessity to take on an extraordinary role for a medieval queen. Through adverse circumstances, she found herself the leader of a political faction and a military commander. There is no evidence that Margaret ever desired this role; she was motivated by concern for her son throughout. Despite this, Margaret was a hated figure in her own lifetime and has been criticised ever since. There is no doubt that Margaret helped to prolong a war that was already lost and that her actions often did not help her own cause. She was proud, domineering and bloodthirsty at times although much of what made her disliked was forced upon her by the weakness of her husband and his rule. Furthermore there is no doubt that she was the victim of Yorkist propaganda and as she rose to prominence with the growing weakness of Henry VI she was increasingly vilified. To the male propaganda writers, writing to a mostly male audience, Margaret must have made an easy target and as a powerful woman there was no shortage of people prepared to believe the worst of her. However, Margaret never sought the role she was forced to take and all her actions were on behalf of her only child. The Wars of the Roses, like any civil war, forced people into positions that they would not otherwise have taken and Margaret was forced to compromise her reputation for the sake of her child. Margaret of Anjou lived during a difficult period of English history and much of her unpopularity was due to the circumstances in which she found herself. This is very similar to the position of her successor, the first Yorkist queen, Elizabeth Woodville, who was also the victim of propaganda and rumours both from the Lancastrian faction and, more damagingly, the Yorkist side.