Margaret of Anjou
| Margaret of Anjou | |
|---|---|
Margaret of Anjou, detail from the Talbot Shrewsbury Book
|
|
| Queen consort of England | |
| 1st tenure | 23 April 1445 – 4 March 1461 |
| Coronation | 30 May 1445, Westminster Abbey |
| 2nd tenure | 30 October 1470 – 11 April 1471 |
| Born | 23 March 1430 Pont-à-Mousson, Lorraine |
| Died | 25 August 1482 (aged 52) Anjou |
| Burial | Angers Cathedral, Anjou |
| Spouse | Henry VI of England |
| Issue | Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales |
| House | Valois-Anjou |
| Father | René of Anjou |
| Mother | Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine |
Margaret of Anjou (French: Marguerite; 23 March 1430 – 25 August 1482) was the wife of King Henry VI of England. As such, she was Queen of England from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471. Born in the Duchy of Lorraine into the House of Valois-Anjou, Margaret was the second eldest daughter of René of Anjou and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.
She was one of the principal figures in the series of dynastic civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses and at times personally led the Lancastrian faction. Owing to her husband's frequent bouts of insanity, Margaret ruled the kingdom in his place. It was she who called for a Great Council in May 1455 that excluded the Yorkist faction headed by Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, and thus provided the spark that ignited a civil conflict that lasted for over thirty years, decimated the old nobility of England, and caused the deaths of thousands of men, including her only son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.
Margaret was taken prisoner by the victorious Yorkists after the Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury. In 1475, she was ransomed by her cousin, King Louis XI of France. She went to live in France as a poor relation of the French king, and she died there at the age of 52.
Margaret was born on 23 March 1430 at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire east of France ruled by a cadet branch of the French kings, the House of Valois-Anjou. Margaret was the second daughter of René of Anjou and of Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine. She had five brothers and four sisters, as well as three half-siblings from her father's relationships with mistresses. Her father, popularly known as "Good King René", was duke of Anjou and titular king of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem; he has been described as "a man of many crowns but no kingdoms". Margaret was baptised at Toul in Lorraine and, in the care of her father's old nurse Theophanie la Magine, she spent her early years at the castle at Tarascon on the River Rhône in Provence and in the old royal palace at Capua, near Naples in the Kingdom of Sicily. Her mother took care of her education and may have arranged for her to have lessons with the scholar Antoine de la Sale, who taught her brothers. In childhood Margaret was known as la petite créature.
...
Wikipedia