Women of the White Queen: Marguerite of Anjou
From the beginning Marguerite of Anjou was a controversial queen. Few queens of England have so divided opinion; few have suffered more from the propaganda spread by their enemies. Historians over the years have portrayed her as vengeful and ambitious. In Shakespeare’s trilogy, she is the she-wolf of France, vilifying her as an adulteress and warmonger. In Richard III, she is depicted as a one-woman Greek chorus. Marguerite’s marriage was supposed to bring peace with France, but instead England dissolved into civil war during her husband’s reign, due to his mental illness and general unfitness to rule. She acted with the best of all possible motives, to support first her husband, and then her son. Marguerite has borne the brunt of the responsibility for what went wrong during Henry’s reign. Like Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella, she is seen as an unnatural woman for meddling in affairs of state. Marguerite was born on March 23, 1430, t...
