Hi history lovers and welcome or welcome back to the channel, where I bring you new videos
every week on all aspects of the past.
Today on History Calling we’re looking at the later life of Margaret of Anjou, the she-wolf
of France (to use William Shakespeare’s description) and one of the women who fought
the Wars of the Roses.
It’s a story of a decade long fight to regain the throne, of a life on the run, often reliant
on the charity of others and of hard won successes and terrible tragedies.
Ultimately it’s the tale of how and why a person who I think deserves to be known
as a warrior queen of England, is more often remembered as the woman who lost the Wars
of the Roses and what happened to her after everything and everyone she’d fought for
were gone.
This video is part of a series on the women of the Wars of the Roses.
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life and the Wars of the Roses more generally, in the description box below.
When we left her last week, it was March 1461 and Margaret’s husband, the mentally unstable
Henry VI, had just been ousted from the throne by the new King, Edward IV.
The couple and their son, Prince Edward of Wales (also known as Edward of Westminster),
fled into Scotland and the road ahead now looked very bleak for this exiled royal family.
In Scotland they all remained for a year, living first at Linlithgow Palace, then the
Dominican convent in Edinburgh.
They still had supporters amongst the English nobility, among them the Duke of Somerset,
whose father had been one of Henry’s favourites and Jasper Tudor, who was Henry’s half-brother.
Other sometime allies, including Margaret and Henry’s uncle Charles VII of France,
were lost though, as Charles died in the summer of 1461.
In April 1462 the Queen and her son left Henry behind and sailed to Brittany where they met
with its Duke, Francis II.
They then travelled on to meet with her father, Rene of Anjou and the seneschal of Normandy,
Pierre de Brézé.
Finally, they met the new King of France, Louis XI, at Chinon in June.
Margaret needed Louis’s financial and military help if she ever wanted to take back the throne
for her husband and she used one of the only bargaining chips she had at her disposal to
try to secure it; the town of Calais.
Though located in France, the town was in the hands of the English and after the huge
territorial losses suffered during Henry VI’s reign, it was the only outpost England had
left in that country.
In exchange for 20,000 livres, Margaret agreed that when the town was retaken from the forces
of Edward IV, it would be given to Louis if she and Henry were unable to repay the loan
within a year of that date.
At that point Louis would then need to give the couple an additional 40,000 livres.
This was all very optimistic as it relied on Calais being retaken in the first place
and the plan would be exceptionally unpopular in England, but it got Margaret the money
she needed.
Just a few days later, on 28 June 1462, a 100 year truce was announced between the French
and the Lancastrian royals.
The Lancastrians by the way are Margaret, Henry and their supporters, while the Yorks
are Edward IV and his family.
For a full explanation as to the background of these two factions of the Plantagenet family,
see my previous video on Margaret’s life, which I’ll leave linked on screen and below
for you.
Margaret now prepared to invade England with her 800 French-bought troops and 42 ships,
though Louis was already proving to be an unreliable ally and this force had to be paid
for by Pierre de Brézé.
Due to adverse weather, it was October by the time they set off.
They went first to Scotland where she reunited with her husband then entered England near
the end of that month.
They took 3 English Castles, including Bamburgh, but Edward IV sent his cousin, Richard Neville,
Earl of Warwick to deal with them.
They fled by boat only to hit a storm, lose their ship and be forced to take to the medieval
equivalent of a lifeboat, which got them to Berwick Castle, just south of the Scottish
border but then in Scottish hands.
It was back to Scotland after this.
Bamburgh Castle was retaken for the Lancastrains in March 1463, but after the 11 year old King
James III led a failed invasion of England that July Margaret opted to return to France
with her son a few weeks later.
She couldn’t have known it at the time, but they would never see her husband, Henry
VI, again.
After two failed attempts to take England, Louis was even less disposed to help Margaret
further.
He agreed a one year truce with Edward IV in October 1463 and stipulated that he would
no longer assist the Lancastrian cause.
In December the Scots also made a truce with the Yorks by which they too refused to continue
supporting his rivals for the throne.
Henry had to leave Scotland, where he was then staying and moved back to Bamburgh Castle.
Margaret meanwhile, set up a little exiled court in the castle of Koeur in the Duchy
of Bar which was owned by her father, who gave her an annuity of 6000 crowns to live
off.
This sounds like a lot, but it was hardly enough to run her household on and Margaret
was, by royal standards, now very poor.
From Kouer she spent the next 4 years, with Henry’s approval and consent, attempting
to rally supporters to their cause but with little success.
Back in England, the Lancastrian attempts to retake the throne were going just as badly.
The Yorks won the Battles of Hedgely Moor on 25 April 1464 and Hexham a few weeks later
on 15 May.
After Hexham the Duke of Somerset and other leading Lancastrian loyalists were also executed.
All remaining Lancastrian strongholds in the area fell to Edward IV and a rag-tag little
band of exiles then went to Margaret, who had to feed them as well as her pre-existing
household.
To add insult to injury, Edward IV announced his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in the
Autumn of 1464, meaning Margaret’s place as Queen of England had now been taken by
another woman.
Then, in July 1465 came another disaster.
Henry VI, who had been on the run since the defeat at Hexham, was captured at Ribblesdale
and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
His half-brother, Jasper Tudor, was still trying to help as well and was on good terms
with Louis XI who provided him with troops to try to retake the crown for Henry in the
summer of 1468.
Though Jasper did manage to take Denbigh Castle in Wales, his success didn’t last long.
He was chased out and back to France in August by the forces of William Herbert, the man
to whom Edward IV had given what had been Jasper’s earldom of Pembroke as well as
custody of Jasper’s nephew, Henry Tudor (more on that when I do videos on Henry’s
mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort though if you see my video on the life of Henry VII part
1, that will also tell you about this future King’s dangerous childhood).
It must have seemed as though all was lost and the Yorks were unassailable, but as happened
so often in the Wars of the Roses, the pendulum of fortune did gradually swing back in the
opposite direction, towards the Lancastrians.
In the summer of 1468 Edward IV married his sister, Margaret of York, to the Duke of Burgundy,
angering Louis XI, who now decided that perhaps he would continue to support Margaret of Anjou’s
cause after all, despite Jasper’s failed invasion.
Edward had also lost the support of his brother, George, Duke of Clarence and their cousin,
the Earl of Warwick thanks to his secret marriage to a lowly Lancastrian widow rather than a
rich and well-connected European princess, his pro-Burgundian foreign policy and his
refusal to allow George to marry Warwick’s daughter, Isabel Neville.
The Duke and the Earl then took Isabel to Calais and married her to George in September
1469 without Edward’s permission.
Next they went back to England and succeeded in beating the King at the Battle of Edgecote
Moor on 26 July, briefly imprisoning Edward in Warwick Castle, then Middleham Castle and
attempting to rule in his place with the King no more than a puppet.
This failed, Edward secured his freedom and despite some attempts to heal the breach,
Warwick and George tried to oust him once more in March 1470 in order to replace him
with his brother.
They failed again and had to flee back to France.
For more on these events, see my videos on the life of Edward and George’s mother,
Cecily Neville, linked below for you.
George and Warwick first approached Louis XI for assistance and on 25 June 1470 Queen
Margaret and her son arrived at Amboise where they met with Louis themselves.
He was very keen to promote an alliance between the Lancastrians and the Warwick/George duo.
Margaret took quite some convincing though.
We have a letter written on 29 June by Ambassador Sforza de Bettini of Florence to his master,
the Duke of Milan, in which he says that Louis:
has spent and still spends every day in long discussions with that queen to induce her
to make the alliance with Warwick and to let the prince, her son, go with the earl to the
enterprise of England.
Up to the present the queen has shown herself very hard and difficult, and although his
Majesty offers her many assurances, it seems that on no account whatever will she agree
to send her son with Warwick, as she mistrusts him.
Her reticence is understandable.
Warwick was Margaret’s long-standing enemy, the man who she blamed for all her troubles
perhaps just as much as she blamed Edward IV and someone who had spread rumours that
she was an adulteress and that her son was illegitimate.
As for George, he was the brother of the man who had usurped and imprisoned Margaret’s
husband.
Eventually though, she was talked round.
De Bettini wrote to the Duke of Milan again on 24 July, this time from Angers that:
the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales, her son, arrived here the day before yesterday,
and on the same day the Earl of Warwick also arrived.
The same evening the king presented him to the queen.
With great reverence Warwick went on his knees and asked her pardon for the injuries and
wrongs done to her in the past.
She graciously forgave him and he afterwards did homage and fealty there, swearing to be
a faithful and loyal subject of the king, queen, and prince as his liege lords unto
death.
To seal the deal, Warwick’s younger daughter, Anne Neville, was betrothed to Prince Edward
in Angers Cathedral before the month was out.
The stage was now set for another epic showdown in the Wars of the Roses.
On 9 September 1470 Warwick set sail for England with 60 French ships, leaving his daughter
in France.
Prince Edward did not accompany him, but Jasper Tudor did.
After so many years of setbacks for the Lancastrians, finally they were victorious.
Edward IV was in the north and not in a position to defend his capital and London fell to the
Lancastrians with ease.
Henry VI was freed from captivity and restored to his throne in October (an event known as
the readeption), Edward IV was forced to flee to the Low Countries, under the control of
the Duke of Burgundy and his pregnant Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, had to go into sanctuary
in Westminster Abbey with her children.
The marriage between Prince Edward and Anne Neville now went ahead in December in Amboise.
It was finally time for Margaret, her son and her new daughter-in-law to return to England.
There was a problem though.
Louis XI refused to let them go until Warwick declared war on the Duke of Burgundy, which
had been part of their negotiations prior to Warwick’s departure.
When he got his wish though, Duke Charles (who was married to Edward IV’s sister,
Margaret of York remember) was suddenly much more disposed to help his exiled brother-in-law
regain the throne.
So it was that Edward managed to regroup and return to England with Burgundian support
in March 1471.
His brother Clarence now reassessed his options yet again and having calculated that he was
never going to get the throne if the Lancastrians continued to hold it, he defected back to
his brother in early April, bringing him further troop reinforcements.
Clarence by the way came to a very unpleasant end in 1478 which I have a video about if
you’re interested.
I’ll leave it linked onscreen and below for you.
Edward and his forces entered London unopposed on 11 April.
Queen Elizabeth and her children came out of sanctuary and Henry VI was reimprisoned
in the Tower of London.
As for Queen Margaret and the Prince and Princess of Wales, thanks to further delays caused
by bad weather, it was 14 April 1471 by the time they landed at Weymouth and when they
did they received terrible news.
That very same day, Edward and Warwick’s forces had clashed at the Battle of Barnet
in Hertfordshire and Warwick had been killed.
It was a serious blow and combined with events in London, it meant that Edward IV had the
upper hand again.
The end of all Margaret’s dreams and struggles was now very near.
She, Prince Edward, Anne Neville and their followers headed for Wales to join forces
with Jasper Tudor, but they never made it.
Edward IV was hot on their heels and he caught up with them at Tewkesbury on 4 May.
Margaret, Anne and some other noblewomen took shelter in a nearby religious house, though
we don’t know which one, while her son went to fight for the throne.
The 17 year old Prince of Wales lost.
He was killed that day by Edward IV’s forces and when his mother and wife were found in
their sanctuary, they were taken prisoner by the Yorks.
Margaret was carted back to London as a trophy and on the very night she arrived, 21 May,
her husband died in the Tower of London, very possibly murdered on the York king’s orders.
It was all over.
The family and throne Margaret had fought so hard for since her marriage in 1445 and
the birth of her son in 1453 were gone.
She now had no husband, no child, no position and no importance in England.
She’d lost the Wars of the Roses.
Though we don’t know her exact reaction, I think overwhelming grief, particularly for
the loss of her son (who, very unusually for the time, had actually spent most of his short
life with his mother), is the most likely.
Compared to the drama of her married life, her remaining years were much quieter.
She stayed in England for several years as a prisoner of Edward IV, though for much of
that time she was actually in the household of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk.
Finally, in 1475, Edward agreed to ransom her back to Louis XI for 50,000 crowns.
She was returned to France in January 1476, having been made to renounce all claims to
any titles or possessions in England, such as her dower lands and belongings as Queen,
which would have provided her with a high income.
Louis also forced her to renounce all claims to her father and mother’s lands in France.
She lived first in the Chateau of Reculee, then the château of Dampierre in Anjou and
was supported by a pension of 6000 crowns from Louis; again, not really enough to run
her household on.
Margaret of Anjou, former and arguably dowager Queen of England died impoverished and mostly
forgotten in Dampierre on 25 August 1482 at the age of 52.
As per her request, she was buried with her parents in St Maurice Cathedral in Angers.
When we look at Margaret’s life as a whole, I find it hard not to feel a great deal of
pity and admiration for someone whose story wouldn’t be out of place in a Greek tragedy.
She was dealt an incredibly difficult hand when she was married off to Henry at the age
of just 15.
She was a French woman in a country where that wasn’t a popular nationality to be
and saddled with a husband who was ill-equipped to be a King, had severe mental health problems
and with whom she struggled to have a much needed heir.
There were constant threats to their position, most notably from Richard, Duke of York, then
his son, Edward IV and Margaret had to fight for her own and her immediate family’s position
in a way that few English royals (and even fewer royal women) have ever had to.
History as they say, is written by the winners though and had Margaret’s son survived Tewkesbury
and taken the throne, I think she would be venerated and esteemed for her struggles in
the way that her sister-in-law, Lady Margaret Beaufort, often is (not that Margaret Beaufort
wasn’t also a very strong woman who deserves our admiration too).
Instead, as she was on the losing side, her reputation was maligned for centuries, not
least by William Shakespeare with his ‘she-wolf of France’ description of her in one of
his plays, which certainly wasn’t meant as a compliment.
It’s hard to know how she could have done much better with the options available to
her though and in modern times her actions and reputation have been reassessed much more
favourably.
Hopefully now her strength, intelligence and fighting spirit are more readily recognised.
Let me know in the comments below what your opinion of her is and if you enjoyed learning
about her, please remember to give this video a like and subscribe to the channel.
If you fancy learning more about the Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses, try one of these
videos next.
Whatever you select, please enjoy and until next time, keep learning.