Margaret of York

Early life

Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, the mother of Charles the Bold, was, through her blood ties and her perception of Burgundian interests, pro-English. As a granddaughter of John of Gaunt, she was consequently sympathetic to the House of Lancaster. She believed that Burgundian trade, from which the Burgundian State drew its vast wealth, depended upon friendly relations with England. For this reason she was prepared to favour any English faction which was willing to favour Burgundy. By 1454, she favoured the House of York, headed by Margaret's father, Richard, 3rd Duke of York. Although the King of England, Henry VI, was the head of the House of Lancaster, his wife, Margaret of Anjou, was a niece of Burgundy's bitter enemy, Charles VII of France, and was herself an enemy of the Burgundians. The Duke of York, by contrast, shared Burgundy's enmity towards the French, and preferred the Burgundians.

Because of this, when the Duke of York came to power in 1453–1454, during Henry VI's first period of insanity, negotiations were made between himself and Isabella for a marriage between Charles the Bold, then Count of Charolais, and one of York's unmarried daughters, of whom the 8-year-old Margaret was the youngest. The negotiations petered out, however, due to power struggles in England, and the preference of Charles's father, Philip the Good, for a French alliance. Philip had Charles betrothed to Isabella of Bourbon, the daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, and Agnes of Burgundy, in late March 1454, and the pair were married on 31 October 1454.

Margaret, being a useful bargaining tool to her family, was still unmarried at age 19, when Isabella of Bourbon died in September 1465. She had borne Charles only a daughter, Mary, which made it an imperative for him to remarry and father a son. The situation had changed since 1454: Charles was now highly respected by his father, who had in his old age entrusted the rule of Burgundy to his son. Charles was pro-English, and wished to make an English marriage and alliance against the French. For her own part, Margaret's family were far more powerful and secure than they had been in 1454: her father had been killed at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, but her brother was now King Edward IV, opposed ineffectively only by Margaret of Anjou and her son, Edward of Westminster. This made Margaret a far more valuable bride than she had been as the mere daughter of a duke. Because of this, Charles sent his close advisor, Guillaume de Clugny, to London weeks after the death of his wife, to propose to Edward IV a marriage between himself and Margaret. Edward responded warmly, and in spring 1466 sent his brother-in-law, Lord Scales, to Burgundy, where Scales made a formal offer of Margaret's hand in marriage to Charles, and put forward Edward's own proposal of a reciprocal marriage between Charles' daughter Mary and Edward's brother, George, 1st Duke of Clarence.

Marriage

The marriage did not take place immediately, however. Continued talks were required, particularly since Charles was unwilling to marry his only child and potential heiress to George, Duke of Clarence, and these talks were undertaken by Anthony, Grand Bastard of Burgundy, Charles's half-brother. But added problems were introduced by the French: Louis XI did not want an alliance between Burgundy and England, his two greatest enemies. Louis accordingly tried to break the two apart, by offering the hand of his elder daughter, Anne, to Charles, that of his younger daughter, Joan, to Edward's youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and that of his brother-in-law, Philip of Bresse, to Margaret. Edward showed interest in the latter two propositions, offending Charles the Bold, and delaying the Anglo-Burgundian relations.

Instead, in 1466, Margaret was betrothed to Peter, Constable of Portugal, whom the rebellious Catalans had invited to become their King. Peter was himself a nephew of Duchess Isabella of Burgundy, and the betrothal thus signified an attempt to placate Burgundy. It was not to be, however; worn out by illness, disappointments, sorrow and overwork, Peter died on 29 June 1466, leaving Margaret available once more.

By 1467, the situation had changed again. Philip the Good had died, and Charles the Bold had become Duke of Burgundy. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, had turned against Edward IV, and was plotting against him with French support. Edward in such circumstances needed the support of Charles, and provided no further obstacles to the marriage negotiations, formally agreeing to it in October 1467. Negotiations between the Duke's mother, Isabella, and the King of England's in-laws, Lord Scales and Earl Rivers, then proceeded between December 1467 and June 1468.

During this time, Louis XI did all he could to prevent the marriage, demanding that the Pope refuse to give a dispensation for the marriage (the pair were cousins in the fourth degree), promising trade favours to the English, undermining Edward's credit with the international bankers to prevent him being able to pay for Margaret's dowry, encouraging a Lancastrian invasion of Wales, and slandering Margaret, claiming that she was not a virgin and had borne a bastard son. He was ignored, and a dispensation was secured after Burgundian bribes secured Papal acquiescence. A complex agreement was drawn up between England and Burgundy, covering mutual defence, trade, currency exchange, fishing rights and freedom of travel, all based on the marriage between the Duke and Margaret. By the terms of the marriage contract, Margaret retained her rights to the English throne, and her dowry was promised to Burgundy even if she died within the first year (often, the dowry would return to the bride's family under such circumstances). For his own part, Charles dowered Margaret with the cities of Mechelen, Oudenaarde and Dendermonde.

Crown of Margaret of York

When the Duke and Duchess appeared there, both wore magnificent crowns. Margaret's crown was adorned with pearls, and with enamelled white roses for the House of York set between red, green and white enamelled letters of the Latinization of her name ("Margarita de York", m ar ga ri ta de yo rk), with gold Cs and Ms, entwined with lovers' knots. Though it seems to have been made some years earlier, Margaret wore this crown at her wedding to Charles the Bold in Bruges in 1468. Its original leather case still bears traces of old gilt. The initials CM as well as the coats of arms of York and Burgundy are again found on the lid. The rest of the case is decorated with tendrils and small dragons embossed in the leather.

The crown is much too small to fit around a head, and was probably intended to be worn around a pointed hennin, or on top of piled-up hair. It may always have been intended to be presented at some point after the coronation as a votive crown for a famous statue of the Virgin Mary. Margaret presented the crown to the Church of Our Lady during a visit to Aachen in 1475. Today the statue, placed next to the altar in the cathedral, wears the crown on festive days. In 1475 a matching crown was fashioned for the child.

Margaret's donation of the crown to Aachen spared it the fate of much royal regalia in the English Civil War which saw the destruction of all the main English Crown Jewels. It thus remains one of only two medieval royal English crowns still surviving, the other being the Crown of Princess Blanche, now in the Munich Residenz in Germany. Margaret's crown can still be seen in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury.

Charles's crown was larger and accompanied by a golden gown encrusted with diamonds, pearls and jewels. The parades, the streets lined with tapestries hung from houses, the feasting, the masques, and the jewels impressed all observers as "the marriage of the century". It is re-enacted at Bruges for tourists every five years as the Procession of the Golden Tree.

Duchess of Burgundy

Although the marriage produced no children, Margaret proved a valuable asset to Burgundy. Immediately after her wedding, she journeyed with her step-daughter Mary through Flanders, Brabant and Hainaut, visiting the great towns: Ursel, Ghent, Dendermonde, Asse, Brussels, Oudenaarde and Kortrijk were all impressed by her intelligence and capability. Less valuable, perhaps, were the family connections she brought. In May 1469, her brother, Edward IV, attempted to present Charles the Bold with the Order of the Garter, an honour which would have made Charles guilty of treason against Louis XI had he accepted it; although the Dowager Duchess Isabella warned her son to refuse the offer, which he did, giving Louis XI an excuse for further machinations against Burgundy.

In August 1469, Edward IV temporarily lost power, when his brother the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick rebelled and took the King into custody; Charles was forced to intercede on the part of his brother-in-law, ordering the London merchants to swear loyalty to Edward under threat of losing their trading rights in Burgundy, a threat that proved successful. But the next year, Margaret was left despairing when Clarence and Warwick supported a French-backed Lancastrian invasion of England: although she, together with her mother Cecily, Dowager Duchess of York, attempted to reconcile Clarence and Edward IV, the rebellion continued, and on 2 October 1470 the Lancastrians were returned to power and Edward had fled to Margaret and Charles in Burgundy.

Her brother's overthrow lessened Margaret's dynastic worth; this, together with regard for her brother, made her plead passionately to her husband that he support Edward and make measures to restore him. Nonetheless, her husband paid little attention to her begging; when he decided to support Edward, it was when he had decided for himself that it was in his best interests to oppose the Lancastrian rule of England, backed as it was by a France which had in early December 1470 been encouraged by the English situation to declare war on Burgundy. Even so, by 4 January 1471, Charles had agreed to support the King-in-exile in regaining the English throne, and this renewal of friendship between the two men was followed by Edward visiting Margaret at Hesdin until 13 January, the first time the pair had seen one another since Margaret's departure from England.

By April 1471, Edward was back in England: Margaret followed events carefully, requesting meticulous details of events in England, and was pleased to note the reconciliation between her brothers George and Edward. She also provided her mother-in-law, Isabella, with information on the progress of Edward's campaign to regain the throne: it was she, for example, who replied to Isabella's questions over alleged disrespectful treatment of the Earl of Warwick, by explaining that Edward had "heard that nobody in the city believed that Warwick and his brother were dead, so he [Edward] had their bodies brought to St Paul's where they were laid out and uncovered from the chest upwards in the sight of everybody." Edward IV was successfully restored; Edward of Westminster, the son and heir of Henry VI, had died in battle, and Henry VI, who had been briefly restored, died or was murdered in his cell in the Tower of London two weeks later. The two deaths brought to an end the direct line of the House of Lancaster.

Dowager duchess

It was in the wake of her husband's death that Margaret proved truly invaluable to Burgundy. She had always been regarded as a skillful and intelligent politician; now, she went beyond even that. To her step-daughter, Mary, now Duchess of Burgundy, she gave guidance and help using her own experiences in the court of Edward IV, where she had largely avoided being used as a pawn and contributed to the arrangement of her own marriage; against the wave of marriage offers that flooded to the two duchesses in Ghent (from the recently widowed Duke of Clarence, from Charles, the 7-year-old Dauphin of France, and from a brother of Edward IV's wife, Elizabeth Woodville) she stood firm and advised Mary to marry Maximilian of Austria. Maximilian, the 18-year-old son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III to whom Charles the Bold had betrothed Mary, was ambitious and active enough, in Margaret's opinion, to defend Mary's legacy.

She strongly advised Mary to accept Maximilian's suit and marry him immediately; he arrived in Burgundy on 5 August 1477, and by 17 August had arrived at Ten Waele Castle, in Ghent. He met Mary there—they were both "pale as death", but found each other to their mutual liking—and Margaret took part in the traditional courtly games of love, telling Maximilian before the assembled nobility that his bride "had about her a carnation it behoved him to discover." The carnation duly proved to be in the Duchess's bodice, from which Maximilian carefully removed it. The pair were married the next day, on 18 August.

Burgundy was far from safe: the Duchy of Burgundy itself had already been conquered by the French, who were continuing to attack from all sides, taking advantage of the state's instability. Margaret now moved to secure military support from her brother, Edward IV; he sent enough support to allow Mary and Maximilian to resist the French advances any further, although the Duchy itself remained lost. Louis XI, recognising the danger Margaret posed to him, attempted to buy her off with a French pension and a promise of personally protecting her; she contemptuously refused, and instead sailed in summer 1480 to London, where she was again attended by Richard Boyville and negotiated a resumption of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance and renewed trade. Nor did she stop there in supporting Mary and Maximilian; when, on 22 July 1478, Mary gave birth to a son and heir, Philip, Louis XI had rumours spread that the child was, in fact, a girl. Margaret, who was standing godmother to the child, matter-of-factly disproved the rumour: as the Christening party left the church of St Donat, she conclusively proved that the child was an undoubted male, by undressing him and presenting him to the assembled crowd. In 1480, the next child of Mary and Maximilian was a girl: the Duke and Duchess named her Margaret, after the dowager Duchess.

Death

Margaret died on 23 November 1503, at the age of 57, shortly after the return of her step-grandson, Philip the Handsome, to Burgundy. Her death in that year allowed her to be spared the grief of Philip's untimely death of typhoid fever in 1506. She was buried in the Church of the Cordeliers in Mechelen.

Legacy and personal life

William Caxton, who introduced the new art of printing into the Kingdom of England and was a staunch Yorkist supporter, counted Margaret as one of his patrons. A presentation copy of Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, the first book printed in the English language (late 1473 – early 1474), has a specially made engraving showing Caxton presenting the book to Margaret. The volume is now in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. This "patronage" may be more advertising than analogous to traditional medieval patronage.

Of the many illuminated manuscripts commissioned by Margaret when she was Duchess of Burgundy, one of the most celebrated is The Visions of Tondal, illustrated by Simon Marmion and currently in the Getty Museum (a facsimile has been published).

Margaret was described as having fine features, and was considerably tall at almost 6 feet. When she met Charles the Bold, who was shorter than her, she was forced to bend in order to receive his kiss.

With her husband's family, she got on excellently: she became a mother figure to her step-daughter, Mary, who shared Margaret's interests in reading, riding, hunting, and falconry; her mother-in-law, Isabella of Portugal, said of Margaret that she was "well pleased with the sight of this lovely lady, and pleased with her manners and virtues". A capable ruler, she proved a masterful Duchess; she was a Yorkist in sympathies, but she was before that the Duchess of Burgundy. She bore no male heir to succeed to Burgundy, but she preserved it from ruin; to her actions can be ascribed the survival of the Burgundian state, and the prevention of French dominance in Europe.

In fiction and media

Margaret is the major character in the 2008 novel A Daughter of York by Anne Easter Smith. The book begins with Margaret mourning her father and brother and continues through her marriage and the aftermath of her husband's death. She also features in Easter Smith's 2009 The King's Grace.

In the video game Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, there is a contract mission in London where Margaret is killed on behalf of Henry VII.

In the 1972 BBC drama The Shadow of the Tower she was played by Rachel Kempson.

In the 2017 Starz drama The White Princess (not to be confused with its predecessor The White Queen), she was portrayed by English actress Joanne Whalley.

In the 2017 German-Austrian TV series Maximilian about Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, she was portrayed by French actress Alix Poisson.