Marguerite de Sablé

Marguerite de Sablé, Dame de Sablé (c.1179 – after June 1238), was a French noblewoman and one of the wealthiest heiresses in the counties of Anjou and Maine. She was the eldest daughter of Robert de Sablé, and the wife of William des Roches, Seneschal of Anjou, who two years after his marriage to Marguerite became one of the greatest barons in Anjou and Maine, her considerable inheritance having passed to him upon her father's death in 1193.

Marguerite was born in about 1179, the eldest daughter of Robert de Sablé, and Clémence de Mayenne (died before 1209). Her paternal grandparents were Robert III de Sablé and Hersende, and her maternal grandparents were Geoffroy, Seigneur de Mayenne and Isabelle de Meulan (died 10 May 1220), daughter of Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester, Count of Meulan, and Agnès de Montfort. Marguerite had a brother Robert who died as a child, and a younger sister, Philippa, wife of Geoffroy Marteau. Her maternal uncle was Juhel III de Mayenne (1168- 12 April 1220), a celebrated Crusader.

Her father was a Grand Master of the Knights Templar (1191–1193), and Lord of Cyprus (1191–1192); he was also a wealthy and powerful Angevin baron and landowner. Upon his death in the Holy Land on 23 September 1193, the lordships and lands, mostly in the River Sarthe valley passed to Marguerite, making her one of the wealthiest heiresses in Anjou and Maine. However, her honours and vast landholdings went to her husband, whom she had married two years earlier.

In 1191, Marguerite became the second wife of William des Roches, Seneschal of Anjou; a knight during the Third Crusade in the service of the Angevin kings of England and King Philip II of France. He was the son of Baudoin des Roches and Alix de Châtellerault. His first wife, Philippa had died childless. Upon the death of her father in 1193, Marguerite, being the eldest daughter had consequently succeeded him. She brought to William the lordships of Sablé, La Suze, Briollay, Mayet, Loupeland, Genneteil, Precigné, and the Norman manor of Agon; this made him one of the greatest barons in Anjou and Maine.