The French Noblewoman Who Became England's Fiercest Queen | Margaret of Anjou | Wars of the Roses

Margaret of Anjou was destined for royalty and greatness from birth but she would go on to prove herself a powerful politician a formidable Queen and capable of Leading Armies despite being a woman in the 15th century and her actions would form the nucleus of the bloody wars of the Roses Margaret was born on the 23rd of March 1430 in pontamoson or nonsi in Lorraine she was the second daughter of Renee Duke of Anjou also known as good King Renee and Isabella Duchess of Lorraine she would not be an only child as she also had five brothers four sisters and three half-siblings from her father's affairs with Mistresses Margaret certainly wasn't raised to be anything but a queen as her family were part of the web of Royal and Noble connections that spread across Europe and her father would even be king of Naples for seven years but other examples in her family would have a greater impact on the young Margaret her mother Isabella was the only surviving child in her family and so ruled the duchy in her own right but more than this when her husband Renee was held captive by the Duke of burgundy Philip the good it was Isabella who ruled Naples in his Stead she even took control of an army to repel competitors to her husband's Throne Margaret's paternal grandmother Yolanda of Anjou also acted as Regent in anju during her son's captivity repelling English forces she also protected the dofan when his life was threatened keeping him safe in her lands and he would later become Charles VII and her son-in-law Margaret therefore had more than one example in her family of strong female governance no doubt this had a great effect on her while women were still secondary players in their lives alongside the men they lived with royal women in Western Europe was slightly different they were able to hold political and Regal power when there was no male presence for the role whether this was temporary or not in France this was partly down to the ancient salic laws saying that women could not inherit the throne this meant they could hold the power of the throne without threat it was not the same in Britain where women were expected to be subordinate to their husband at all times the idea of a woman holding Authority was not news to Margaret we also know Margaret had a tutor who also taught her brothers arranged by her mother so she was certainly well educated and the young French noblewoman had a ponchon for hunting in chivalric romances after a few marriages suggested that didn't come to fruition a marriage was finally agreed between Margaret and the King of England Henry VI this agreement would be hammered out over five years from 1439 until 1444 with hopes that the union would stop the wars between England and France Margaret was just 14 when she was formally betrothed to Henry by proxy on the 24th of May whereas her prospective groomed was 23 years old there was only a small Dowry of 20 000 crowns and some claims to a few small lands on Margaret's maternal side but the the real promise was the 23-month truce with France people were very divided about the marriage but the promise of Peace was a good lure theme of Margaret bringing peace would continue as the government strove to raise money to transport their King's bride to England the cost offset by the promise of peace with France on the 9th of April 1445 Margaret finally reached the shores of her new country but she was too ill to take part in the celebrations for her arrival she instead stayed in Southampton to recover and the Milanese Ambassador reported that supposedly the young king anxious to see his new bride visited her secretly whether or not that really happened Margaret was well enough by the 22nd of April for the marriage ceremony at titchfield Abbey Henry giving his new bride the gift of a gold ring set with a large Ruby Margaret made her formal State entry into London on the 28th of May as with all new Queen consorts entering the city Margaret was regaled with pageants and festivities as well as plays yet again enforcing the message that the marriage would create a lasting relationship between France and England it's possible Margaret was a little nervous at the continued pushing of this message or perhaps with the confidence of Youth she agreed the problem was that when the French Embassy arrived in London that summer to hammer out the details the talks were indecisive this was made worse by Henry VI carrying out diplomatic talks of his own without including his advisors and often making decisions that went against theirs on Christmas Day 1445 Henry wrote a letter to Charles VII of France his wife's uncle and the French King he offered to surrender Maine to Renea vonjour by April of the following year which would give Charles a reason to go to war a few years later Margaret was given instruction from Charles's advisors to assist the peace process by encouraging her husband to keep his promise while Henry later acknowledged her involvement he would also make it clear that he would always personally prefer peace over War unfortunately while Maine was given up Renee never created the alliance he had promised this started rumors that Maine had actually been given up as part of Margaret's marriage settlement not helped by the knowledge that she had tried to mediate for her husband she was set up with an income fit for a queen it states a grant from Parliament and an annuity all added up to over ten thousand pounds a year plus she was allowed to ship wool from any port in the realm free of Customs Margaret's gifted Estates were mostly comprised of tutbury Leicester and Kenilworth with other parts of lands near Essex and London and many older Estates in Oxfordshire Devon Cornwall and Hertfordshire her main lands in the Midlands were to become vitally important in the years to come for they would form the main power base for the queen there is little evidence for the beginning of Margaret's Reign but that really just proves she was behaving exactly as a late medieval queen should have been basically she was supporting her husband and Margaret's main role Lane being a patroness her other role was to produce a Royal heir But anxiety Rose when this did not immediately happen however she and Henry seemed happy together and they spent much of their free time together by their own choice the couple found they shared an interesting culture and education and in 1448 Margaret was given permission to found Queen's College Cambridge a college that exists to this day she helped derange marriages for members of her own household some of her own French ladies in Waiting married into the king's household she intervened on behalf of judicial Matters by letter and sorted the collection of arms there is little evidence of the strong Warrior Queen who would come later it was also around this time that Margaret formed a close relationship with William de la pole the Duke of Suffolk and his wife Alice Chaucer he had helped arrange the marriage between Margaret and Henry and in later years after his downfall ugly rumors would spread that Margaret and Suffolk had an affair but there is no evidence for this it's much more likely that especially with the age gap between them Suffolk and his wife became father and mother figures for the young Queen especially in a country where many were hostile to her simply because of her nationality at last in early 1453 nine years after getting married Margaret was able to tell Henry that she was pregnant people were Overjoyed that at last the king had an heir on the way Henry's kingship for the time being at least felt a little stronger for the news then disaster struck in August after complaining one evening of feeling sleepier than usual Henry VI had awoken in a stupor his head lolling and unable to communicate with anyone after weeks of 15th century medicine including exorcism bleeding and cautery it appeared the King was conscious but unable to conduct business in court it is now thought he suffered from catatonic schizophrenia or severe depression either one being a mental condition he may have inherited from his maternal grandfather Charles VI of France in October Margaret had no choice but to go into her confinement and on the 13th of October a healthy baby boy was born named Edward The Little Prince sadly could not be acknowledged by his catatonic father and Whispers of the queen means infidelity Rose their head once more but Margaret had bigger things to worry about with her husband unable to rule and their son only an infant she had to accept that the Reigns of government were likely to be in the hands of one of the many competing Nobles at court however this didn't stop her in January 1454 from drawing up a bill of five articles outlining her own bid to be Regent while things were different in England no doubt Margaret was pulling from her own experience watching her mother and grandmother rule in the stead of their absent husbands but the person chosen to be Lord protector was instead Richard plantagenet the Duke of York contrary to popular opinion there is little evidence that Margaret immediately regarded York as an enemy and at first was okay with his protectorship but York was an intelligent politically ambitious man who held a claim to the throne through both of his parents prior to this it can be seen that Margaret considered both Richard and his wife Cecily Neville fondly as they were recipients of many of her gifts and the two women exchanged letters however the Duke of York had an enemy at court who would become an ally of the Queens Edmund Beaufort the Duke of Somerset who was the leader of the House of Lancaster at court no doubt Summer Set used his friendship with the queen to turn her further against your finally on Christmas Day 1454 Henry VI seemed to awaken from his catatonic State he acknowledged joyfully that he was indeed the father of Prince Edward a Margaret must have breathed a sigh of relief but things got a little difficult when York had to be extricated from his protectorship many of the Nobles who had grown in power under his leadership stated they were disaffected with the current state of affairs and York used this as a way to be rid of his longtime enemy the Duke of Somerset a great Council was called to which the Duke of York was not invited near Saint Albans using the excuse that he was on the king's side but wanted rid of the Apparently corrupt Somerset from government York marched his forces towards Somerset and Henry meeting them outside the town and kicking off the first battle of Saint Albans the two houses were now at each other's throats there were few casualties but Somerset was killed along with other leading lancastrian Nobles the King was captured and Henry was taken back to London a prisoner in theory but publicly still ruler of his kingdom York couldn't risk the king dying as then the crown would simply pass to his son Prince Edward with the death of the head of the lancastrian faction Margaret's dislike of York and her household made up of the remaining lancastrian Nobles who sided with her husband the queen found herself now heading the House of Lancaster for Henry the Duke of York named himself Constable of England and so began his second protectorate as he claimed for at least part of it that the King was once again ill however when Henry recovered in February 1456 York was forced once again to give up power Henry seemed resigned to the fact that the yorkist Nobles around him would play a part in his government but judging by his quiet kind personality he probably hoped for some sort of peace to be found in compromise in March 1458 he attempted to force peace between the two houses by holding a love day in which Margaret of Anjou and the Duke of York even walked hand in hand along the Streets of London it was all for show however and secretly both sides had been building up their forces in April of that year the queen went with her young son to Coventry and the Royal Palace of Kenilworth joined later by Henry she then went on a tour of her Midland Estates with Prince Edward ensuring the Loyalty of the nobleman base there it proved to be necessary tensions bubbled over and on the 10th of July 1460 the Battle of Northampton erupted on a field near the river Neen before the fighting began Richard Neville the Earl of Warwick and later to be known as the kingmaker in the 19th century sent a message to the king the rebel stated that they merely wished to talk to the king to settle their dispute but in a surprising show of taking charge Henry refused after gaining access to the lancasterian camp the battle took a mere 30 minutes and many of the lead lancastrians such as Humphrey Stafford the Duke of Buckingham were killed trying to prevent the Yorkers advancing on Henry VI Margaret of Anjou and their seven-year-old son Edward were present in the camp and as they saw the oncoming army they were forced to flee we have no way of knowing exactly how Margaret felt about leaving her husband behind knowing Henry would almost certainly be captured we also don't know what words if any the couple exchanged before she fled but it's almost certain that both Henry and Margaret's first thoughts would have been to get little Edward to safety if he had been captured by the yorkists they would have the ultimate leverage the details of Margaret and Edward's Escape are hazy but it seems they made their way from Coventry to Wales and from there to Scotland Scotland was at that time ruled by a female Regent Queen Mary of gelders and so Mary was now holding the throne for her six-year-old son James III her position with the events in England were mainly to keep playing the two sides against each other but her Chief advisor Bishop James Kennedy wanted an alliance with their southern Neighbors when Margaret arrived over Scotland's borders however it is almost certain that part of Mary's decision to take them into her home was because Margaret was a mother looking out for her son's interests as she was a woman fighting through male medieval politics the two women now both proved they were capable of organizing political alliances and decisions on their own not only did Queen Mary take young Edward of Westminster into her household to keep him safe but a marriage Alliance was also agreed between the two mothers that he should be betrothed to Mary's daughter Princess Margaret in exchange Margaret of Anjou agreed to give up Barrick upon Tweed but almost more importantly Mary also aided Margaret of Anjou with men a force made up of Scottish soldiers Margaret would bolster this by also drawing men from England represented in the livery of the Prince of Wales during Margaret's time in Scotland her principal commander in England had been busy as well he was Henry Beaufort third Duke of Somerset after the death of his father Edmund on the 30th of December 1460 he gained a major victory for the House of Lancaster at the Battle of Wakefield his army defeated both the Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury in a vicious moment of Victory the two men were not only killed but beheaded their heads displayed in York on the city walls Richard plantagenet's son Edward Earl of March was infuriated by this and became set on Revenge but the victory for the House of Lancaster meant that Margaret was able to be reunited with her husband King Henry and they set off towards London despite their Victory and the lancastrian Nobles still on their side the king and queen were denied entry into the capital yet again it was the women involved in the conflict who came to the fall and The Duchess is a Bedford and Buckingham and Lady scales tried to mediate with the people of London attempting to convince them that the lancastrian Army was under control but to no avail instead when the Earl of March turned up it became clear which way everything was going and Margaret and Henry had no choice but to turn back they retreated back to Scotland as the Earl entered London easily being crowned as Edward IV from there the exiled royal family went to France in 1462 and Margaret found an ally in her cousin Louis XI now King of France in return for Calais Louis agreed to fund an expedition to England to regain the throne for Henry or Prince Edward the fleet went to the coast of Northumberland capturing anik as well as other nearby Estates but eventually they were all back in yorkist hands before the year was out in August 1463 Margaret once again went back to France to do what she could to drum up support taking Edward with her Henry VI stayed behind it was the last time they would see each other Margaret now went to her father's lands in Nancy using this as a base to convince the kings of Europe to back the lancastrian cause as well as convincing Louis XI but it wasn't until the marriage of Edward IV Sister Margaret of York to Charles the Bold Duke of burgundy that the French king became convinced of throwing his lot in with the lancastrians against the yorkist alliance with burgundy Richard Neville had by now fallen out with Edward IV over his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and so in an attempt to regain his political position he threw himself on the mercy of Queen Margaret his daughter Anne Neville was married to Prince Edward in 1470 but Margaret didn't trust this to be enough of a link especially as she had taken two weeks to be persuaded to go ahead with the marriage she demanded Warwick prove himself before she would follow him back to England he immediately set off for blighty with a fleet of 60 ships and upon reaching London was able to enter unopposed and set Henry VI free from the Tower of London it would have seemed all was well now but in fact Warwick faced difficulties in keeping control of the country under Henry's fading rule Margaret refused to set foot in England with her son until she could be certain it was safe the Earl of Warwick had hoped to escort them home himself but instead he ended up at the Battle of Barnet where he was killed Margaret had just landed at Weymouth in April 1471 when she heard the news the tentative short and second reign of Henry VI was over and he was once again placed as a prisoner into the Tower of London Margaret traveling with her daughter-in-law and Neville had no choice but to lead her lancastrian forces to meet the yorkist Army coming towards them camping near Tewkesbury the fighting broke in the morning and Margaret must have been anxious as her now 17 year old son Edward was to lead the Army into battle it was a disaster for the lancastrians they were soundly defeated but the worst news was yet to come although it's unclear whether he was killed in the fighting or executed after the battle Margaret and Henry's only child the heir to the English Throne Prince Edward died sources say that Margaret staying with her daughter-in-law in a nearby religious house was told about her son's death it broke her it's hardly surprising Queen Margaret's sole Focus since Edward was born had been to secure his place on his father's Throne from trying to keep control while Henry was catatonic to asking every ruler from Scotland to Portugal and Castile for men in support to Leading her lancastrian Army into battle and now her only son and the lancastrian hope for England was gone Margaret and her ladies in Waiting were found three days later and Margaret was taken prisoner she was at first placed in the tower taken in a carriage ahead of the King on his triumphant return to the city on the 21st of May unfortunately she would never get to see Henry VI also in the tower as that very night he died there is still discussion of whether the king died of melancholy has reported or more likely if someone smothered him with a pillow but either way Margaret was now grieving and no longer of any importance as Edward IV once more took the English crown for his own at the end of 1471 Margaret was placed into the care of Alice Chaucer but King Edward was Keen to be rid of her as he had to pay for her expenses in 1475 Edward finally negotiated a truce with Louis XI at the Treaty of pikony and part of the agreement was the turning over of Margaret of Anjou finally the former English Queen was able to return to France but she also had to agree to giving up her lands and rights in England Margaret was technically free but now couldn't afford anything she had to exist on the pity of the French King this continued until 1482 on the 25th of August when Margaret passed away and was interred next to her parents in Alger Cathedral Margaret Avon Zoo as the real red queen of the House of Lancaster has for a long time suffered from defamation of her character writers such as Shakespeare would influence the historical report to the queen well beyond the century in truth Margaret was a strong woman with a sharply political mind she was an unrelenting strategist willing to take the fight to her enemies she had originally taken on her role as a dutiful wife very seriously eventually changing only when the political elements of her husband's rule needed attention she was a mother in the truest sense of the word doing everything possible for her son fighting an entire section of her country she believed to be in the wrong Margaret had fought for Edward even when it seemed impossible and she had lived through the loss of her son and husband Margaret was a strong and able Queen who did her duty to the letter a queen who fought for her husband and then her son's rightful place and still lost everything Margaret of Anjou was no she-wolf but a woman rightly deserving of her place in history [Music] if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like And subscribe so you don't miss any new documentaries [Music]

Channel: History's Forgotten People

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Length: 28min 22sec (1702 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023