Inglorious Royal Marriages

by Leslie Carroll

  Negotiating on England’s behalf, the Earl of Suffolk discovered that René of Anjou lacked the funds to adequately dower his daughter. René also had the chutzpah to demand the counties of Maine and Anjou in exchange for his blessing. But the blood of countless fathers, husbands, and sons had been shed to conquer these territories for England. René’s terms, plus an impoverished Margaret, would make Henry’s countrymen livid.

  But peace at any price was Henry’s goal. So he and his council kept the terms of his marriage negotiations a secret from his subjects. At least England got to retain Normandy in the north and Aquitaine in the south. Henry also agreed to waive his right to Margaret’s dowry and promised to pay for their wedding out of his privy purse.

  Only a temporary truce was concluded through these negotiations, but the union of Henry and Margaret was viewed as a first step down the path to peace. The terms of the royal marriage were cemented by the Treaty of Tours, signed on May 22, 1422.

  In order to save his future son-in-law some face (and money), at the eleventh hour the father of the bride appealed to the clergy of Anjou to kick in a few sous toward his daughter’s nuptials. They spent 10.5 percent of their revenues to purchase a trousseau for Margaret and to pay for her betrothal celebration on French soil. Two days after the treaty was signed, Margaret and Henry were formally betrothed in Tours, amid tremendous pomp and ceremony, with Suffolk representing Henry.

  Margaret’s proxy wedding to Henry didn’t take place until March 1445, when the French court, itinerant as most medieval courts were, had moved to Nancy. Once again, the Earl of Suffolk stood in for Henry at the altar. Margaret was gowned in white satin embroidered with gold and silver marguerites (the French word for daisies), her personal emblem. Marguerites were also embroidered on banners and hangings and on the bride’s other garments.

  An opulent banquet followed the ceremony, inaugurating a week of celebratory feasting and tournaments—presided over not by Margaret’s aunt, queen Marie, but by Charles VII’s glamorous blond mistress, Agnès Sorel. (Charles’s love affair with Agnès is profiled in another volume in this series, Royal Romances.)

  Although Henry’s treasury was threadbare, he never stinted on gifts for his wife, even before their wedding. One was a hackney, “splendidly equipped, with an empty saddle,” which he had sent to Rouen, where Margaret was enjoying some of the proxy wedding festivities prior to her departure for England.

  On March 15, 1445, Margaret entered Paris. On Henry’s behalf, she was welcomed by the thirty-three-year-old Richard, Duke of York, and a parade of six hundred archers. York presented Margaret with another one of Henry’s wedding gifts: a palfrey handsomely caparisoned in crimson and gold velvet embellished with golden roses.

  As the church bells pealed, Margaret’s entourage promenaded through the streets of the capital. From there, her party continued to make its way toward the coast. She was York’s guest at Pontoise, where he hosted two state dinners in her honor. At the time, their relationship was perfectly civil—although some two decades later, the pair would become mortal enemies.

  England’s Parliament had voted Henry VI more than £5,129 to bring his bride across the Channel, but expenses had skyrocketed, with delays due to weather, and the cost of transporting an entourage of hundreds of noblemen and women in fifty-six ships.

  The Earl of Suffolk coached Margaret on her new role as queen of England prior to her departure from France. Although she spoke no English, she would turn out to be a quick student of her new tongue. Aware of the young queen’s impoverished state—not merely her lack of a dowry, but her unglamorous attire—the earl was concerned that despite the contribution from her local clergy, fifteen-year-old Margaret was being sent abroad looking more like a pauper than a princess. The trousseau was paltry, although a merchant of Angers had contributed eleven ells of violet and crimson cloth of gold at thirty crowns per ell, plus a thousand small pieces of fur, and another furrier had furnished 120 pelts of white fur edging to embellish her robes.

  Her arrival came on the heels of an embarrassing scandal. Margaret was so poor that she had to pawn some of her silver plate to pay her sailors’ wages, and was compelled to purchase secondhand plate to replace it when she arrived at Rouen. Already there was grumbling in England that René of Anjou had “too short a purse to send his daughter honourably to the King, her spouse.” An early foe of the royal marriage was Henry’s uncle and former regent, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who complained that Parliament had “bought a queen not worth ten marks.”

  Despite the massive cost overruns in bringing his bride to England, Henry wanted to see her well bestowed, authorizing the treasurer of his exchequer to deliver a number of jewelry items, including “Rubees, Perles,” diamonds, and “greet Saphurs” (great sapphires) to “oure right entierly Welbeloved Wyf the Queene.”

  Meanwhile, Margaret’s bridegroom so anxiously awaited her arrival that he disguised himself as a squire so that he could deliver a letter to her. As she perused it, he observed her. According to the Milanese ambassador, Henry was convinced that “a woman may be seen over well when she reads a letter.”

  Some scholars claim that Margaret became so absorbed in the correspondence that she scarcely noticed the messenger; nor did she appreciate Henry’s trick. The Milanese ambassador reported that “the Queen was vexed at not having known it, because she had kept him on his knees.” However, “Afterwards the King wrote to her, and they made great triumphs.”

  This messenger-with-a-letter charade was straight out of the playbook of courtly love. Margaret’s father was France’s most renowned poet and troubadour, and she was raised in sophisticated courts. It’s more likely that she knew the game and was playing her part—the innocent damsel caught unawares who is “shocked” when the messenger reveals himself to be her swain.

  So, now that the twenty-three-year-old Henry, long in the tooth for a royal bridegroom of his era, finally had the chance to see his queen in person, what did Margaret really look like?

  She was only fifteen, which was not unusual for royal brides of the Middle Ages. Beyond that, it is difficult to separate her actual physical characteristics from the usual hyperbolic descriptions of medieval queens and the generic depictions in the fine art of the era. The nineteenth-century historian Georges Chastellain described her as “all that is majestic” in woman, believing her to be one of the most beautiful in the world. “She was indeed a very fair lady, altogether well worth the looking at, and of high bearing withal.” Chastellain’s portrayal of Margaret as “fair” corresponds to the depictions of her as honey haired, because queens of her day were portrayed as earthly representations of the Virgin and generally idealized as blondes, the era’s belle idéale. And most artists who made portraits of Margaret likely never saw her. But it contradicts the Milanese ambassador’s description to his boss’s wife, Bianca Maria Sforza, that the queen of England was “a most handsome woman, though somewhat dark and not so beautiful as your serenity.” So perhaps Margaret had a sallow, if not dusky complexion, and she may have been a brunette.

  A contemporary French chronicler, Thomas Basin, described Margaret as “a good-looking and well-developed girl, who was then mature and ripe for marriage.” From this description, which nonetheless remains in the eye of the beholder, one might conjecture that by the age of fifteen, Margaret had the body of a nubile young lady, rather than that of a coltish girl. But we still lack verifiable details on her hair and eye color, or her height and weight. Her personality and temperament, however, were described by Charles, duc d’Orléans, who observed that “this woman excelled all others, as well in beauty as in wit, and was of stomach and courage more like to a man than a woman.”

  Margaret would prove to be mercurial, too, known to change her mind “like a weathercock”—a complaint voiced by her male contemporaries. And she could be terribly vindictive to those who crossed her. But she was also fiercely loyal, and chiefly so to her husb
and, even when his ineffectiveness as a ruler and military leader exasperated her.

  Margaret of Anjou had likely been told little about her husband before they met. So what did she see when she first laid eyes on the king of England after her arrival at Southampton on April 9, 1445?

  Remarkably, no contemporary physical description of Henry VI survives, other than the observation that he had a childlike face. In 1910, after his skeleton was exhumed, it revealed that he had been well built and about five foot ten, which was considered quite tall for the day, with a fairly small head covered with brown hair. With respect to his personality, fifteenth-century chronicler Philippe de Commynes, who wasn’t born until two years after Henry’s marriage, ungenerously described the king as “a very ignorant and almost simple man,” the word “simple” meaning “gullible” or “guileless” at the time.

  Officiated by the king’s confessor, Master William Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, the royal wedding took place on April 22, at Titchfield Abbey. Unlike the proxy wedding on French soil, the English ceremony was a quiet affair. Henry had pawned the crown jewels to pay for the event, only to realize that he needed them for the ceremony! So he redeemed the glittering treasures, placing some of his personal jewelry and plate into hock instead. Handsomely reset for her, Margaret’s wedding band was a “ryng of gold, garnished with a fayr rubie” that Henry’s cousin, Cardinal Beaufort, had given to him at his coronation. Clearly clueless regarding the etiquette about bringing wedding gifts to the church, an anonymous admirer gave Margaret a unique present—a pet lion—that was actually brought to the abbey. The king of the beasts was promptly sent to the royal menagerie, located at the Tower of London.

  Because the treasury was so low on funds, Margaret would not receive the customary dower for fifteenth-century English queens until eleven months after her wedding. Her dower (the portion of her husband’s property allotted for her use and enjoyment during her widowhood) amounted to ten thousand marks per annum, estates in the midlands worth two thousand pounds per annum, and additional lands in other parts of the kingdom.

  On May 28, 1445, Margaret made her state entrance by barge into London, where for the next three days she was feted with numerous pageants and allegorical tableaux emphasizing her role as the bringer of peace and plenty. Lyrical poetry compared her to the Virgin Mary.

  The streets of London were abundantly decorated with marguerites, both actual and figurative. But her parade met with a mixed reception. While some cheered her and sported marguerites in their caps, others scowled and grumbled, still smarting over the lack of a dowry from her father.

  Nevertheless, Margaret looked positively bridal in a white damask gown, her golden coronet studded with precious gems. A pair of white palfreys whose caparisons matched her ensemble drew her carriage along the route to Westminster Abbey, where she was crowned on May 30, 1445. Three more days of celebration followed.

  The royal honeymoon had begun at Titchfield Abbey, but according to one report that has been handed down through history, the newlyweds may not have had much fun, because the bishop had cautioned the groom against self-indulgence. When it came to having his “sport” with his new bride, Ayscough had put the fear of damnation into his protégé, warning Henry not to “come nigh her” any more often than absolutely required for procreative purposes. This admonition makes little sense, however. The bishop understood the importance of siring an heir for the health, security, and stability of the realm. It would, however, take Margaret eight years to conceive, so Henry might not have tried very often after all.

  At least he was faithful to her, unlike many a royal husband. Henry also treated Margaret generously and kindly, and according to John Blacman’s memoir, the king “kept his marriage vow wholly and sincerely, even in the absences of the lady,” which “were sometimes very long.” Nor “when they lived together did he use his wife unseemly, but with all honesty and gravity.”

  Yet the pair were hardly well mated, despite their mutual respect. Temperamentally, Margaret and Henry were polar opposites, with divergent interests in their leisure activities. Henry preferred to pore over scripture and other pious tracts, while Margaret liked the light and lascivious writings of Boccaccio.

  At the outset, these differences didn’t seem to cause much of a problem. During their first several years of marriage, Henry and Margaret spent considerable time together, evidently enjoying each other’s company. At that time, she was no more than a traditional consort, acting as an intercessor and mediator for subjects and servants who sought the king’s ear or his aid. She made philanthropic gifts, distributed patronage, and devoted her energies to the welfare of husband and household. And Margaret performed all her duties well. The one thing that was atypical of her was her failure to provide an heir.

  Yet even though she was careful to tread softly, the English resented Margaret from the get-go. She was poor, she was French, and, where one issue was concerned, she was politically active. When it became known that the price of peace between England and France was the forfeiture of the hard-won territories of Maine and Anjou, Margaret was viewed as a meddler, sticking her female nose into the masculine sphere of government when she should have been making babies instead.

  In December 1445, when the queen was still a newlywed, she wrote to Charles VII of France, agreeing to do her best to advance the peace process by delivering Maine. Clearly this topic had been a frequent source of discussion between husband and wife. Henry alluded to as much in his subsequent letter to Charles, written on December 22, in which he agreed to surrender Maine to him by April 30, 1446, not only because he desired peace, but “favouring also our most dear and well-beloved companion the queen, who has requested us to do this many times. . . .”

  Contrary to the contention put forth by Margaret’s enemies—that the teenage queen nagged her much older husband into such a major foreign policy decision—Henry had already promised the forfeiture of Anjou and Maine as the price of a lasting peace. The correspondence at the end of 1445 was just another step toward transforming words into deeds. And although Margaret was a good daughter and a loyal niece, after she married Henry—and particularly in later years, after the birth of their only son—her primary allegiance was to her husband, and her unceasing aim was to keep the English throne secure for their heir. In acting to return the two provinces to France, she was being less pro-French than pro-Henry. Margaret’s biographer Helen Maurer suggests that she might have been well versed in Christine de Pisan’s Treasure of the City of Ladies, a popular handbook and survival guide for medieval noblewomen that stressed, among other necessary skills and virtues, those of the mediator, playing the yin to her husband’s yang.

  Etiquette at the English court was rigid, and Margaret expected to be treated with the same respect and obeisance from her inferiors that they accorded to her husband. Her fans might view this behavior as fair enough, but her enemies saw it as arrogance. The mayor of Coventry was particularly chagrined when Margaret demanded that he carry his mace of office when he was escorting her from his city, even in the king’s absence, and every supplicant seeking aid or redress from her—from the lowliest tradesman to a duchess or prince of the blood—was expected to approach her throne on their knees.

  Having grown up poor, for a princess, Margaret soon learned to turn her power and authority as queen into personal financial advantage. Soon after her marriage, she obtained a license to export wool and tin, enabling her to evade customs duties and pocket the profits.

  Margaret also introduced France’s art of silk weaving to England, becoming patroness of a guild comprised solely of women, the Sisterhood of Silk Women, located in Spitalfields in the East End of London. Spitalfields silk remained internationally renowned through the nineteenth century. In the furtherance of England’s interests in the textile market, Margaret also paid for the outfitting of merchant ships bound for Mediterranean ports.

  Her own wardrobe was fairly modest f
or a queen. She did wear Venetian silk and cloth of gold, as well as jewelry, but her purchases were not unduly extravagant. However, during the first year of their marriage, Henry ordered extensive, and expensive, renovations to her rooms at Eltham Palace, which boasted their own kitchen and scullery as well as halls for entertaining—and Margaret did love to throw parties. It was common knowledge that her satellite court was much livelier than her husband’s. Henry’s focus was on religion and education instead, founding Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, although shortly after Henry’s 1448 foundation of the latter institution, Margaret was inspired to found Queens’ College, Cambridge. Henry, however, was actively involved in his educational projects, whereas Margaret does not appear to have taken any further personal interest in her own foundation.

  By July 27, 1447, the terms were concluded for Henry to quit delaying and turn over Maine by November 1. On the following day, he nominated commissioners to transfer both Maine and Anjou to Charles VII. The English blamed Margaret for this surrender.

  By this time, two of Henry’s most powerful mentors—the Duke of Gloucester and Cardinal Beaufort—had died, and Margaret’s influence on her husband increased. Every time Henry wrote a letter to someone, his queen followed up with a similar missive, demanding that she, too, be kept apprised of events and political matters, particularly if negotiations with France were involved. She also insisted on being kept in the loop with regard to financial and military affairs. All official papers were to be submitted to her for inspection, and even the highest-ranking government officials, including Suffolk, lacked the authority to act without her approval. At the time, she was only eighteen years old!