Margaret of Anjou - Early Life and Marriage

Early Life and Marriage

Margaret was born on 23 March 1430 at Pont-à-Mousson in the Duchy of Lorraine, an imperial fief east of France that was ruled by the cadet branch of the French kings, the House of Valois-Anjou. Margaret was the second eldest daughter of René of Anjou and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine. She had five brothers and four sisters, as well as three half-siblings from her father's relationships with mistresses. Her father, popularly known as "Good King René" was Duke of Anjou and titular King of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem; he has been described as "a man of many crowns but no kingdoms". Margaret was baptised at Toul in Lorraine and, in the care of her father's old nurse Theophanie la Magine, she spent her early years at the castle of Tarascon on the River Rhône in southern France and the old royal palace at Capua in Naples. Her mother took care of her education and may have arranged for her to have lessons with the scholar Antoine de la Sale, who taught her brothers. In childhood Margaret was known as la petite creature.

On 23 April 1445, Margaret married King Henry VI of England, who was eight years her senior, at Titchfield in Hampshire. Henry at the time also claimed the Kingdom of France and controlled various parts of northern France. Margaret's uncle Charles VII, who also claimed the crown of France, agreed to the marriage of his niece to his rival on the condition that he would not have to provide the customary dowry and instead would receive the lands of Maine and Anjou from the English. This provision was kept secret from the English public, since a highly negative reaction was feared.

Margaret was crowned Queen consort of England on 30 May 1445 at Westminster Abbey by John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury. She was fifteen years old. She was described as beautiful, and furthermore "already a woman: passionate and proud and strong-willed". It was felt that she already understood her duty to protect the interests of the Crown fervently. She seems to have inherited this indomitability from her mother, who fought to establish her husband's claim to the Kingdom of Naples, and her paternal grandmother Yolande of Aragon, who actually governed Anjou "with a man's hand", putting the province in order and keeping out the English. Thus by family example and her own forceful personality, she was fully capable of becoming the "champion of the Crown".