Marriage To Piers Gaveston
She was married to Piers Gaveston, the favourite (and possible lover) of her uncle Edward II, in October 1307 around the time of her 14th birthday. According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, this marriage was arranged by the King "to strengthen Piers and surround him with friends." Gaveston celebrated the marriage with a lavish tournament at Wallingford Castle. The marriage of such a high-born heiress to a foreigner did not please the English nobility and engendered a great deal of unpopularity. They had one child:
- Joan Gaveston, born probably 12/18 January 1312, at York.
King Edward arranged a lavish celebration after the birth of this little girl, complete with minstrels. However, Piers Gaveston was executed only six months later, leaving Margaret a widow with a small child. Her dower rights as Countess of Cornwall were disputed, and so King Edward instead assigned her Oakham Castle and other lands. She joined the Royal household and in 1316 accompanied the King in his journey from London to York.
Read more about this topic: Margaret De Clare
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or piers:
“And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)