Youngest daughter of Cecily Neville, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, Margarets childless marriage to Charles, Duke of Burgundy never deterred her from intervening in the affairs of her native country. Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation. Hometown Pasadena, February 7. http://hometown-pasadena.com/events/the-rose-queen/119794. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. Shakespeares Heroines: Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, & Historical. JSTOR. [14] He had reigned since he was only a few months old, and his actions had been controlled by protectors, magnates who were effectively regents. King, T.J. 2009. 2001. Id. In 1470 Margaret, then in France, became reconciled with her former Yorkist enemy, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, who was plotting to overthrow Edward IV and restore Henry VI to the throne. Probably she felt she had no other options, but generations of historians have struggled to explain a pragmatism that seems to verge on sheer insensibility. Soon she became a key member of the kings party, which was bitterly opposed by the powerful Richard, duke of York. Urbana: University of Illinois. 3 (2006): 5056, quoted in Martha Jane Kidnie, Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation (London: Routledge, 2009), 67. Hurwitt, Sam. Shakespeare Adaptations from the Restoration: Five Plays. Current Productions. Real Live Theatre. [deleted] 5 yr. ago. April 22. http://www.charlottenow.com/queen_margaret-e-15847/. She had five brothers and four sisters, as well as three half-siblings from her father's relationships with mistresses. Reflections of Power: Margaret of Anjou and the Dark Side of - JSTOR Queen of England In April 1445, Margaret of Anjou departed France for England. A French princess, Margaret of Anjou, came with a fine pedigree but no money or land. Edward J. Esche (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 32138. Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482) was the daughter of Ren, Duke of Anjou (also Duke of Bar, Lorraine, Calabria, Count of Provence and Piedmont, and titular King of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem), and wife of King Henry VI of England.. She issued her Charter to establish the Queen's College of St Margaret and St Bernard on 15 April 1448, the same day as the foundation stone was laid by her . [18], Margaret's biographer Helen Maurer, however, disagrees with earlier historians having dated the much-vaunted enmity between the Queen and York to the time he obtained the office of the protectorship. Shakespeare and the Shrew: Performing the Defiant Female Voice, Palgrave Shakespeare Series. She went to live in France as a poor relation of the French king, and she died there at the age of 52. It was two other women, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville, who brokered the marriage that sealed the peace deal. King Henry VI Part 2. 2012. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Margaret not only persuaded Henry to recall York from his post as governor in France and banish him instead to Ireland, she repeatedly attempted to have him assassinated during his travels to and from Ireland, once in 1449 and again in 1450. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Naomi C. Lieber and Lisa Scancella Shea, Shakespeares Queen Margaret: Unruly or Unruled? in Henry VI: Critical Essays, 79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. After Henry recovered in 1454, Margaret became involved in Lancastrian politics, defending her son's claim as the rightful heir. In May 1455, just over five months after Henry VI recovered from a bout of mental illness and Richard of York's protectorship had ended, Margaret called for a Great Council from which the Yorkists were excluded. Margaret's current popularity is primarily due to several high-profile productions of the Henry VI plays (sometimes in repertory with Richard III) since the 1950s, most significantly John Barton and Peter Hall's The Wars of the Roses (1963) at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), famously starring Peggy Ashcroft as Margaret. Pioneer Valley Theatre News October 29, 2015. Margaret, Henry, and their son went to Scotland; Margaret then went to France and helped arrange French support for an invasion of England, but the forces failed in 1463. 1970. September 8. http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/08/review-new-shakespeare-play-strikes-feminist-chord/. [6] Ultimately, the agreement ended without an alliance with Anjou and with the loss of Maine. Nicholas Grene, Shakespeares Serial History Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 33. By William Welsh The life of Margaret of Anjou was not that of a meek noblewoman content with the companionship of her ladies in waiting. 2002. Peter Holland, Shakespeare Survey 63 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1745. 2004. 2009. While Margaret was attempting to raise further support for the Lancastrian cause in Scotland,[25] her principal commander, Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset,[26] gained a major victory for her at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460 by defeating the combined armies of the Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury. Sharplin, conversation with author, January 11, 2013. Margaret of Anjou was born on March 23, 1429, probably in Pont--Mousson,France, in the Lorraine region. McDonald, Russ. at p.517, n8. London: Faber and Faber. New York: Benjamin Blom. Margaret of Anjou - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2023, April 5). Margaret lived in France for seven years as a poor relation of the king. 1989. Margaret of Anjou - The warrior Queen - History of Royal Women Angers.Disliked by many English as a meddlesome foreigner, Margaret of Anjou made a gallant attempt to preserve the throne for her hapless husband and young son; by the time Edward was born in 1453, Henry had lapsed into insanity, and . It was an important lesson for her. Margaret of Anjou's Supposed Lovers - Susan Higginbotham I write historical fiction and nonfiction set in medieval and Tudor England and, most recently, nineteenth-century America. William Shakespeare, King Henry VI Part 2, ed. Brief Chronicles: A Survey of the Plays of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans in Actual Performance. Yet at least one scholar identifies the source of the eventual Lancastrian downfall not as York's ambitions nearly so much as Margaret's ill-judged enmity toward York and her over-indulgence in unpopular allies. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1983), 101. Margaret was forced to lead her own army at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, at which the Lancastrian forces were defeated and her seventeen-year-old son Edward of Westminster was killed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Margaret (1430-1482) She battled her arch enemy Richard, duke of York over the royal succession and unsuccessful tried to place her son, Edward, on the throne. [32][33] Margaret's letters, which typically began with the words "By the Quene,"[34] are compiled in a book edited by Cecil Munro published for the Camden Society in 1863. The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon. Marianne Novy (New York: St. Martins Press, 1999), 25. Ralph Carhart, conversation with author, March 13, 2013. The events of the middle and late 15th century were, we have always been told, driven by men. When just fourteen she was betrothed to Henry VI, King of England, and in the following year was brought to England and married at Titchfield Abbey, near Southampton, on the 23rd of April 1445. In 1453, Henry was taken ill with what has usually been described as a bout of insanity; Richard, duke of York, again became protector. Public indignation was so high that Margaret, with great reluctance, was forced to give the Duke of York's kinsman Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, a commission to keep the sea for three years. Margaret of Anjou, (born March 23, 1430, probably Pont--Mousson, Lorraine, Fr.died Aug. 25, 1482, near Saumur), queen consort of England's King Henry VI and a leader of the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses (1455-85) between the houses of York and Lancaster. Don't miss out on the chace to claim your copy of Tracy Borman's latest book when you subscribe today. . 2016. Dugas, Don-John. Warwick, called "Kingmaker," helped Edward IV in his initial victory over Henry VI. 1983. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www.pioneervalleytheatre.com/2015/10/pioneer-valley-theatre-news-october-29.html. Catholicism. Renaissance Quarterly Aldershot: Ashgate. By then, just as she gave birth to Edward, their only son, her husband fell into a catatonic stupor. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. Thus she had no reason to think of King Henry as anything but an enemy. Where, firstly, did she stand over the dissent between Edward IV and his younger brother Clarence? [35], Elizabeth Woodville (born ca 1437), later Queen of England as the wife of Margaret's husband's rival, King Edward IV, purportedly served Margaret of Anjou as a maid of honour. Henry was a weak-willed man and an indecisive leader. Contemporaries In France Among POLITICIANS In France Margaret of Anjou Margaret of Anjou (French: Marguerite; 23 March 1430 - 25 August 1482) was Queen of England and nominally Queen of France by marriage to King Henry VI from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471. 2016. Efforts to make peace between the victors of the First Battle of St Albans and the families of their victims culminated in the Loveday Procession on 25 March 1458. So why choose a she-wolf? Yet the actions of the women forged during the Wars of the Roses would, ultimately, prove to matter as much as the battlefields. Smith, Ashley. Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Nights Dream, King Lear, Twelfth Night, King Henry VIII. Chernaik, Warren. Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!" [6], On 23 April 1445, Margaret married King Henry VI of England at Titchfield Abbey in Hampshire. Palmer, Henrietta L. 1859. The French dauphin Charles was crowned as Charles VII with the aid of Joan of Arc in 1429, and Henry had lost most of France by 1453. York apparently was prepared for conflict and soon was marching south to meet the Lancastrian army marching north. She was a ravenous learner and an obsessive with hobbies that ranged from romantic literature to more manly pursuits like hunting. After this battle, she ordered the execution of two Yorkist prisoners of war, William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, the rival of the loyal Lancastrian, the Earl of Devon, and Sir Thomas Kyriell. The association "black people = slaves" is rather recent, as Africans were not more likely to be slaves during Roman times than any other ethnic group. Margaret was something of a dark horse throughout the years of Yorkist power yet, crucially, she was through her descent from John of Gaunt a vital carrier of the Lancastrian bloodline. With David Warner, Peggy Ashcroft, Ian Holm, Donald Sinden. In 1476, the king of France paid a ransom to England for her, and she returned to France, where she lived in poverty until her death on Aug. 25, 1482, in Anjou. In Henry VI, Part 2 Margaret has an affair with the Duke of Suffolk and mourns his death by carrying around his severed head. Morbyrne, Dan. Quoted in Richard Pearson, A Band of Arrogant and United Heroes: The Story of the Royal Shakespeare Company Production of The Wars of the Roses (London: Adelphi Press, 1990), 48; Agate, Brief Chronicles: A Survey of the Plays of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans in Actual Performance (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1971), 115. She was the second daughter and fourth surviving child of Ren, duke of Anjou, and his wife, Isabelle, daughter and heir of Charles II, duke of Lorraine. Terry, Ellen. Prophetess. Did Margaret of Anjou have a lover? BarryJackson, On Producing Henry VI, in Shakespeare Performance, ed. She also is the subject of a fictional biography, The Royal Tigress by a fictional character, David Powlett-Jones who is the main subject of To Serve Them All My Days, R. F. Delderfield's novel of a Welsh schoolmaster at a Devon public school from World War I to the Battle of Britain in the 1940s. Maurer bases this conclusion on a judicious study of Margaret's pattern of presenting gifts; this revealed that Margaret took a great deal of care to demonstrate that she favoured both York and Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, equally in the early 1450s. One was written to the Corporation of London regarding injuries inflicted on her tenants at the manor of Enfield, which comprised part of her dower lands. The predicted turnout for her arrival and procession was so large that on 8 May, an inspection of roofs and balconies was ordered due to the expectation that spectators would use them as vantage points for her progress. Do you find the BBC to "blackwash" things? : r/AskEurope - Reddit 1986 Cambridge University Press First Public Reading of Shakespeares Most Feminist Play. 2016. Welcome! Elerding, The Rose Queen, Hometown Pasadena, February 7, 2016, http://hometown-pasadena.com/events/the-rose-queen/119794. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. RandallMartin, A Womans Generall, What Should We Feare?: Queen Margaret Thatcherized in Recent Productions of 3 Henry VI, in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries in Performance, ed. John D. Cox and Eric Rasmussen, Arden 3rd Series (London: Bloomsbury, 2001), 5; Ashley Smith, email message to the author, February 18, 2014. As We Like It: How a Girl Can Be Smart and Still Popular. In The Womans Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, ed. For more information see Edward Burns introduction to King Henry VI Part 1, ed. Henry, who was more interested in religion and learning than in military matters, was not a successful king. 1994. [7][9] The marriage was negotiated principally by William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and the settlement included a remarkably small dowry of 20,000 francs and the unrealised claim, via Margaret's mother, to the territories of Mallorca and Menorca, which had been occupied for centuries by the Crown of Aragon. London: M. Joseph. Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England (1430-1482) [Wars of the Roses] Program for Queen Margaret. RLTs Staged Reading of Queen Margaret, Brown Paper Tickets (website), http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2161461. Shakespeare at the Old Vic: Hamlet, King Henry VI, Parts I, II and III. Hinchcliffe, Judith. New York: Benjamin Blom. Her uncle, Charles VII of France, who may have suggested the marriage as part of peace efforts between France and England near the conclusion of the Hundred Years' War, was present. Born in the Duchy of Lorraine into the House of Valois-Anjou, Margaret was the second eldest daughter of Ren, King of Naples, and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine. 2013. This concept of the wolf as nurturing as well as fiercely protective of her cubs or sons is clearly what is being picked up on by later writers. Opening Up the Text: Shakespeares Henry VI Plays in Performance. In Drama and Society, ed. But once again there is a question mark a hint of something stranger and stronger behind the placid facade. 1. Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today. It is possible that Cecily took a large step away from the spotlight in the years following Clarences death. The union certainly fulfilled the main, dynastic imperative, producing the prince who would become Henry VIII. Hodgdon, Barbara. She fled to Scotland with her husband and son. Margaret of Anjou Biography - 15th-century Queen of England It was a story of the battlefields on which kings, dukes and earls fought for control of the country during the Wars of the Roses; a great dynastic confrontation that saw the houses of York and Lancaster battle for control of the English crown from 145585. After both the prince and Warwick himself were killed in a crushing Yorkist defeat of the Lancastrians at the 1471 battle of Barnet, Anne (the great niece of Cecily Neville) passed into the hands of the Duke of Clarence. Brantley, Battles for the Throne at a Galloping Pace, New York Times, December 19, 1996, Factiva. Prince Edward replied that their heads should be cut off, despite the king's pleas for mercy.[28]. Sweet, The Falcons Pitch (unpublished manuscript, November 1, 2006), Rich Text Document. When Parliament met, the demands could not have been less acceptable to Margaret: not only were both Edmund Beaufort and Suffolk impeached for criminal mismanagement of French affairs and subverting justice, but it was charged as a crime against Suffolk (now a duke) that he had antagonised the king against the Duke of York. 2005. Jackson, Barry. Owing to her husband's frequent bouts of insanity, Margaret ruled the kingdom in his place. When York and the king and queen met again, on a field of truce at Blackheath in 1452, he found himself ambushed and taken prisoner while Edmund Beaufort was again restored to honours. But time and again, reports would speak of Margarets Lancastrian forces rather than of her husbands and at the second battle of St Albans in 1461 one reporter, the Milanese Prospero di Camulio, seems to suggest that she was in the fray. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. Murray, Barbara A., ed. Both men had kept watch over King Henry, a prisoner to Warwick, to keep him out of harm's way during the battle. In those years, the company has fully produced Shakespeares canon (as it was currently defined) three times. Hirsch, Foster. Queenship and Power. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/margaret-of-anjou-3529625. Coursen, H.R. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland. at 18." Hall, Edward, and Roger Warren. Sexton, Michael. Her marriage to the ineffectual, mentally unbalanced Henry VI in April 1445 was arranged as part of a truce in the Hundred Years War between France and England. In the second series of The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses, a three-part television adaptation of the Tetralogy first broadcast in 2016, Margaret was portrayed by Sophie Okonedo. Hostilities between the rival Yorkist and Lancastrian factions soon flared into armed conflict. Hampton-Reeves, Stuart, and Carol Chillington Rutter. Unpublished Manuscript. Cecily is perhaps the best example of the comparatively poor biographical legacy of the last Plantagenet women. Her mother Isabella, duchess of Lorraine in her own right, was well educated for her time. One theory that of historian Michael K Jones suggests that Cecily supported Clarences claim that his elder brother (Edward IV) was illegitimate, and that he himself was the rightful heir. The Queen of Last Hopes: The Story of Margaret of Anjou - Goodreads Despite Shakespeares verdict, its possible that Margaret would never have figured so prominently in the political arena if events had not forced her hand. Margaret was the daughter of Ren I of Anjou, titular king of Naples. Id. 1430, da. Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England - Goodreads Stuart Hampton-Reeves and Carol Chillington Rutter, The Henry VI Plays, Shakespeare in Performance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 23. PeggyAshcroft, King Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3, in Introductions to Shakespeare: Being the Introductions to the Individual Plays in the Folio Society Edition: 195076, ed. "Fair son", she allegedly asked, "what death shall these knights die?" The idea of a king making a love match with a commoner was itself controversial, and no less anger was aroused by the sudden rise to prominence of the whole Woodville family. Many letters written by Margaret during her tenure as queen consort are still extant. Ed. James Redmond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 268. Lorraine. [4], Her family included several prominent women who exercised power in politics, war, and administration as regents and queen-lieutenants. Lieber, Naomi C., and Lisa Scancella Shea. Pendleton Thomas, 235252. [31] Another letter was written to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Marketing the Bard: Shakespeare in Performance and Print, 16601740. Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, 100116. Edmund Beaufort, the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Clifford were killed, Wiltshire fled the battlefield and King Henry was taken prisoner by the victorious Duke of York. In May 1471, Margaret and her supporters were defeated at the battle of Tewkesbury, where Margaret was taken prisoner and her son Edward was killed. Shakespeare Around the Globe: A Guide to Notable Postwar Revivals. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Richard and Joan Bell, email to author, February 11, 2013. Judith Hinchcliffe, King Henry VI, an Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1984), xv. 2000. Shakespeare, the Queens Men, and the Elizabethan Performance of History. In 1470, Warwick married (or perhaps formally betrothed) his second daughter Anne Neville to Edward, prince of Wales, son of Margaret and HenryVI, so both Warwick's bases were covered. The fact that Margaret was able to offer her son any support at all was, in itself, quite an impressive achievement. Sextion, Margaret: A Tygers Heart (unpublished manuscript, October 31, 2011), PDF, 108. [6] It is uncertain whether these pageants represented a propaganda effort on the part of the Crown[11] or reflected popular sentiment. Though appearing in four plays attributed to Shakespeare, Margaret of Anjou then disappeared almost completely from the English-speaking stage for 350 years. Margaret was not at first influential in his government, but after the . Daughter of Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Henry VII, mother of Henry VIII. Catherine M.S. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Warwick's daughter, Anne Neville, was married to Margaret's son Edward, Prince of Wales, in order to cement the alliance, and Margaret insisted that Warwick return to England to prove himself before she followed. London: Bloomsbury. * * * The first point of reference has to be Margaret herself and any at-tempt to depict her as she really was, must begin by admitting first, that such a portrait will combine fact with conjecture and second, that much that we would like to know about her ideas and feelings is In 1472 she was placed in the custody of her former lady-in-waiting Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk, where she remained until ransomed by Louis XI in 1475.[29]. The terms of marriage were doubtful for England, Margaret had no dowry, and England had to give the lands of Maine and Anjou to France. She suggests the mutual antagonism came about two years later in 1455 in the wake of the First Battle of St Albans, when Margaret perceived him as a challenge to the king's authority. House of Plantagenet | History, Kings, & Facts | Britannica First Public Reading of Shakespeares Most Feminist Play, Royal Holloway University of London (website), March 1, 2016, https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/aboutus/newsandevents/news/newsarticles/margaretofanjou.aspx. He did so, restoring Henry VI briefly to the throne on 3 October 1470. Renaissance Quarterly is the leading American journal of Renaissance studies, encouraging connections between different scholarly approaches to bring together material spanning the period from 1300 to 1700 in Western history. Margaret of Anjou, (born March 23, 1430, probably Pont--Mousson, Lorraine, Fr.died Aug. 25, 1482, near Saumur), queen consort of Englands King Henry VI and a leader of the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses (145585) between the houses of York and Lancaster. Dick, conversation with author, January 2, 2013. London: Bloomsbury. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/margaret-of-anjou-3529625. The next decade saw her tirelessly touting for support around the continent and in Scotland, where she won help from another prominent woman, Mary of Guelders, ruling as regent for her infant son James. [4] Most of her surviving letters were written during this period, and the majority pertain to acts of intercession, mediation, and intervention in matters on which she had been asked to act, such as the arranging of marriages, the return of wrongfully taken property, and the collection of alms. Tony Wright, email message to author, March 5, 2014. The sources for this particular period are notoriously intractable, as JR Lander, an expert on the Wars of the Roses, put it and more so for women who fought on no battlefields and passed no laws. New York: Greenwood Press. [5][7] Attitudes to women's exercise of power were different in Western Europe than in England, and England at the time was more opposed to women exercising authority.
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