No sooner had Margaret secured Edward’s agreement to all these matters than the news reached England that Maximilian had made a settlement with France. On 21 August a seven month truce was agreed, with plans for a full peace conference to take place in October of that year. When Margaret heard this she anticipated a strong reaction from Edward. Nor was that the only matter which needed explaining to the English King. England was at war with Scotland and even while Margaret was in London her brother Richard had hurried north to defend the borders. Yet Maximilian continued to maintain good relations and trade with Scotland. However, Margaret was successful in placating her brother. She explained that it was merely a question of news of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance arriving too late to prevent the signing of the Franco-Burgundian truce and she assured Edward that Maximilian would give him his full support in the war against Scotland.37
Well satisfied that the negotiations were at last completed, Margaret prepared to leave London. She paid a farewell visit to the city where she was presented with a purse containing £100. She then set off for the coast accompanied by her brother Edward who had decided to see her on her way. When she reached Rochester she found another letter from Maximilian awaiting her. In this he invited Edward to join a tripartite conference with Louis XI and himself. Her reply of 14 September summarised both the achievements of her mission and her impatience with all the double dealing. Some of the Archduke’s actions had left ‘me and your said ambassadors … very troubled’ and she feared that his methods of diplomacy would leave Edward ‘annoyed and angry’.38
The Dowager passed a week in Kent visiting the shrine of St Thomas à Becket and staying on the private estates of Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers. These two bibliophiles must have had much in common especially now that Rivers was the patron of Margaret’s former protégé, William Caxton. No doubt she was shown Woodville’s translation of the ‘Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers’ which was one of the first books printed on Caxton’s press at Westminster.39 With the King still in attendance, Margaret finally left for Dover, where the ‘Falcon’ waited to take her back to Calais. Edward seemed to be genuinely sad to see her departure and he wrote to Maximilian on 22 September announcing the return of his ‘well-beloved sister’. She left behind her in England Jacques de la Villeon, who was to act as an agent for the Burgundian ally, the Duke of Brittany.40
Louis was annoyed that his truce with Maximilian had not caused a breach in the Anglo-Burgundian negotiations. He was angered to hear about the shipment of the English archers across the Channel and once more he saw Margaret as responsible for the failure of his stratagems. He grumbled to the Chester Herald about her activities and claimed that she hated him because he had prevented the marriage of Mary and Clarence. He was determined not to have her nearby during his negotiations at St Omer and postponed the conference until she was out of the area.41
Her return was celebrated at the Burgundian court with a reception held in her honour. Margaret, however, seems to have been far from satisfied with the outcome of her mission and she wrote again on 3 October to Maximilian to put the record straight. She assured the Archduke that she would always be very willing to help her ‘very dear and well-beloved son’ but she would be able to help him more successfully if she was always quite clear as to his own intentions.42 She was visibly irritated by Maximilian’s devious and evasive methods. Had she also heard the rumour that Maximilian had been pleased to send her off to England, so as to avoid any consideration of a new marriage proposal for her (which was on its way through Cardinal della Rovere, the Pope’s nephew)? Since the only reference to this proposal comes from French sources it is more than likely that this was another attempt by Louis to remove Margaret from his sphere of operations. Nothing further is heard of the proposal and if the French King had had any serious intentions in this matter he could easily have raised the proposal again.43
After her embassy to England, Margaret settled back into her life as Dowager. The Franco-Burgundian truce did not last and as soon as the war restarted Margaret was again busy gathering troops for the defence of her properties in the south. She continued to spend long periods at the court with Mary and she went on a tour of her dower towns. In April 1481 she was at the Hotel de la Salle at Binche, a house she had rebuilt as her residence there. Her agent in the city was Pierre des Bins and her treasurer was Corneille le Cordier.44 Like all her officials, these men were expected to keep closely in touch with the Dowager and to obey her orders with alacrity.
In the Low Countries 1481 was a troubled year. Early in the year, Jehan van Dadizele was murdered at Antwerp on the orders of the Lord of Gaasbeek, one of Maximilian’s closest counsellors. Dadizele had been the Lieutenant General for Flanders and a prominent member of the Flemish nobility. Olivier de La Marche commented that his death was most unfortunate, since he had kept Flanders in good order. He was one of the leading negotiators for the Great Privilege and he had strenuously defended the Privilege against Maximilian’s attempts to evade its limitations on his own power and authority. At Dadizele’s funeral in Ghent there were angry demonstrations and Maximilian was accused of complicity in his murder, especially when the Lord of Gaasbeek was not brought to trial.45 The Archduke had never signed the Great Privilege although he had acknowledged the rights of the individual cities. The opposition complained that Maximilian was becoming as great a tyrant as Charles had been, and that with his German advisers he was ruling the country in his own interests.
Mary was still well respected even though her husband had become the target of all opposition to the policies of the ducal government. In September 1481, their third child was born. This son was named after his godfather and Maximilian’s ally, Francis, Duke of Brittany, but the infant died when only a few months old.
Within six months, another disaster struck Burgundy which was to threaten all the hard won gains of the last five years. Mary had always loved physical exercise, skating on the frozen ponds of the Coudenberg Palace at Brussels or hunting in the Flemish Campine. Her great seal, like that of previous Duchesses of Burgundy, showed her on horseback with a falcon on her wrist.46 Falconry was her especial passion and Maximilian had been surprised to find that within a few nights of their marriage she had brought her falcons back into her bedchamber. In March 1482 Lord Ravenstein, who was her Master of Horse, organised a falcon hunt in the marshes of Wijnendaele near Bruges. Perhaps her horse stumbled on the icy ground or perhaps she miscalculated a jump, but somehow or other this very competent horsewoman was thrown. Although there were no visible wounds, Mary was in great pain and had to be carried back to Bruges in a litter. The Archduchess may have been in the early stages of her fourth pregnancy and gradually her condition worsened and there was nothing her doctors could do. Margaret hastened to her and the relic of the Holy Blood was brought from its chapel to her bedside, but all in vain.
On 27 March Mary died.47 She was buried in the Church of Our Lady at Bruges, where her coffin was re-interred in 1502 beneath a magnificent bronze monument made by Pierre de Beckere of Brussels. There, in the only church north of the Alps to possess a statue by Michelangelo, the young Archduchess lay at peace while rebellion broke out all over her territories.
On her deathbed, Mary had begged Margaret to watch over her two children, the heir Philip, an infant of four years old, and Margaret of Austria who was two.48 This was to be no easy task for, in her will, Mary named Maximilian as the sole governor of the heir and as the Regent of Burgundy until Philip should come of age. This was bitterly opposed. The Estates of Flanders and the cities of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres were resolved to uphold the original marriage treaty which had excluded Maximilian from the succession. Their proposals for the establishment of a regency council which would govern the duchy for the next ten years had extensive support throughout the whole of the Low Countries. Once more it was Ghent which held the upper hand, because the two children were installed in the castle of Ten Waele and the city refused to allow Maximilian to take them away.
>
French agents did all they could to encourage his opponents. Louis hastened to offer terms to the Estates which would end the war in the best interests of France. He proposed a betrothal between Margaret of Austria and the Dauphin. Franche Comté and Artois would be a part of her dowry. Maximilian was resolved to oppose this treaty and Margaret gave him her full support. She withdrew to Malines where she sent off more troops for the defence of Hainault and she prepared for the arrival of the two infants who should be placed in her care. Olivier de La Marche expressed the view of her household when he wrote that ‘our lord the archduke is like St Eustace, a wolf [Louis] had seized his daughter and a lion (the lion of Flanders) had taken his son’.49
In October the Estates met again at Alost and Maximilian wrote to Margaret asking her to give him her support,50 but there was little they could do with Flanders resolved upon peace with France at almost any price. On 23 December Maximilian was forced to agree to the treaty of Arras. Margaret of Austria was to marry the Dauphin. She would be handed over immediately to France as a surety for the marriage. Her dowry would include Artois, Franche Comté and the lordships of Mâcon, Auxerre, Noys and Bar-sur-Seine. The French possession of the Duchy of Burgundy and Picardy had to be accepted, only Hainault and Flanders were saved from the French grasp.
Louis tried to win Margaret’s support for the treaty. Her full rights were restored in all her dower properties, including Chaussin and Le Perrière and she was reimbursed for her losses to the sum of 20,000 gold crowns.51 The Flemish and French pushed the treaty through with great haste. Margaret of Austria was sent off from Ghent under guard to prevent any rescue attempt by her father and on 24 April she was handed over to the French at Hesdin. In June she was officially betrothed to the Dauphin who at the age of thirteen was not impressed by his three-year-old bride. She was fortunate to pass into the care of Louis’ intelligent and able daughter Anne de Beaujeu. With Margaret of Austria went her nurse the Lady de Bouzanton, who kept the Burgundians informed of her charge’s progress at the French court. The Lord de Bouzanton had been appointed by Margaret as captain of the garrison at Le Quesnoy, a useful location for one who would await messages from France.52
In spite of the completion of the treaty of Arras, Ghent still refused to hand Philip over to the care of either Maximilian or Margaret and throughout the next two years a harsh war was fought in the Low Countries as Maximilian tried to recover control. Margaret’s tuteur Josse de Lalaing, Lord of Montigny, died of wounds he received fighting for Maximilian at the siege of Utrecht.53 Throughout these harsh years Margaret gave Maximilian all the help she could.54 She did not accept the convention of Hoogstaten which had set up a regency council which included Maximilian, Lord Ravenstein and his son, to govern for the infant Duke. Instead she upheld Mary’s will and the amended marriage treaty. After all, her representative Guillaume de Baume had been the only Burgundian to witness the amendments made by Mary by which Maximilian had been named as Mary’s heir.55
Maximilian appealed to his English ally for help and Edward might well have moved against France since the treaty of Arras had deprived him both his annuity and the marriage of his daughter to the Dauphin. But Edward was dead within four months of Arras. Although his successor Richard III had major problems within England, he sent Maximilian 6,000 more English archers.56
Gradually Maximilian made some progress. In the summer of 1483 he received the welcome news of the death of his old enemy Louis XI. Margaret must have rejoiced. By the end of the following year Utrecht and Liège had submitted and Oudenaarde and Dendermonde were also recovered from the rebels. The intervention of France, who sent Anthony, Count of La Roche, to rally the rebels against Maximilian, worked in the latter’s favour. The Grand Bastard, Anthony, was regarded as a traitor in Burgundy because of his defection in 1477 and his very name rallied support for Maximilian. Ravenstein and his son Philip both resigned from the regency council in January 1484 and supported Maximilian’s authority.
Now it was the French government that was no longer as strong as it had been under Louis XI. The authority of Anne de Beaujeu, the sister and regent of the infant Charles VIII, was challenged by the Duke of Orleans. By November 1484 the rebels in Flanders were forced to admit defeat and Margaret personally intervened to persuade Maximilian to show clemency towards Ghent.57 The city was granted an amnesty but, when Maximilian entered to collect his son, riots broke out again and the Archduke’s men fled fearing some sort of trap. This time order was restored after a series of executions and at last in a well-publicised scene of fatherly tears Maximilian was reunited with his son.58
In July 1485 Margaret rode over to Dendermonde. She went to receive Philip who was to be placed in her care at Malines. She had prepared everything for his reception. In February of that year she sold her palace at Malines to the city corporation for 12,000 crowns. The city then gave the house to Maximilian and Philip. This transaction ensured that the young heir would live in his own property, although Margaret would continue to live there as well. It also provided a very useful cash settlement for the Dowager who had been hard pressed by the costs of the civil wars. In May 1485 she received a further 800 livres from Mons to defray her heavy expenses.59
By the time Margaret went to collect Philip she had already established a household for her step-grandson. Olivier de La Marche became the master of the new ducal household. With La Marche at its head we may be sure that the Archducal household was set up with every propriety. Margaret selected Francis van Buysleyden, the brother of Jerome, a colleague of Erasmus, to become the boy’s tutor.60 She took every care of Philip and saw to it that he became well-known throughout his domains. As early as October 1485 she escorted him to Binche where he made a triumphal entry into the town.61
Considering the strife which faced Margaret and Maximilian from 1482 to 1485, the Dowager must have had little time to ponder on the news which reached her from London. Edward IV’s death in April 1483 could not have come at a worse time for his dynasty. His foreign policy was in tatters. Indeed Mancini commented that the treaty of Arras had been the cause of Edward’s death.62 The Croyland chronicler agreed that Edward had been enraged by the treaty:
this spirited prince now saw and most anxiously regretted that he was thus deluded by King Louis who had not only withdrawn the promised tribute, but had declined the alliance which had been solemnly agreed upon between the dauphin and the King’s eldest daughter … and, taking part with the burghers of Ghent, used his utmost endeavours to molest the party of the Duke of Austria, the King’s ally … upon this the King thought of nothing else but taking vengeance.63
Edward’s failure to support Maximilian had certainly rebounded against him and the collapse of his foreign policy followed so soon by his death was to lead to the deaths of both his sons and the usurpation of Richard III. It is possible to see in the extraordinary behaviour of Richard of Gloucester the actions of a man who had, for a long time, felt frustrated by his brother’s policies, especially the Anglo-French alliance. Maximilian and Margaret accepted the usurpation of Richard III. They surely hoped that the warlike Richard, who was commonly supposed to have opposed the treaty of Picquigny, would now intervene on behalf of Burgundy and send over some real assistance. Maximilian at once sent an embassy to greet him, explaining his problems over the detention of his son at Ghent and justifying his own right to act as regent. The heralds were also to impress upon Richard Maximilian’s determination to recover the Duchy of Burgundy. They were further to inform Richard that the rebels had ‘ousted my most dread lady the duchess (Margaret) from the enjoyment of her dower being in the said county of Flanders’ but to assure him that Dendermonde and Oudenaarde had already been recovered. The English King was asked to boycott all trade with Flemish merchants and to let Maximilian have 6,000 archers whose wages the Archduke would pay.64
Although Richard was favourable to a Burgundian alliance he had little opportunity to respond. After the seizure of the young King Edward V at Stoney Stratfor
d and with the arrests of Earl Rivers, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Grey in April, the Queen had fled with the rest of her children into sanctuary at Westminster. The heir, Edward, was already twelve years old, and there was no time for a long regency in which a gentle jostling for power might take place. If Richard wanted to seize power he must act ruthlessly and he did. With his ally the Duke of Buckingham he set his course ‘swiftly and with the utmost vigilance’65 and was also able to get control of his second nephew, Richard of York. The two boys disappeared into the Tower and the executions of Rivers, Vaughan, Grey and Hastings secured Richard’s position for the time being.
As Anthony Woodville prepared to die he wrote a poem, which is a remarkably accurate reflection of his own thoughts and of those who were observing all these astonishing events:
Somewhat musing
And more mourning
In remembering
The unsteadfastness
This world being
Of such wheeling
Margaret of York: The Diabolical Duchess Page 20