Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/144

 the king, that she was unfaithful to Louis. Her health declined, she took a chill after a pilgrimage with the king to a neighbouring shrine on 7 Aug., and inflammation of the lungs declared itself and made rapid progress. She repeatedly asserted her innocence of the conduct imputed to her by Tillay, whom, until almost the last moment, she revised to forgive, and was heard to murmur, 'N'etoit ma foi, je me repentirois volontiers d'etre venue en France.' She died on 16 Aug. at ten in the evening ; her last words were, 'Fi de la vie de ce monde ! ne m'en parlez plus' (ib. iv. 105-10).

Her remains were provisionally buried in the cathedral of Chalons, until they could be removed to St. Denis, but Louis next year interred them in St. Laon at Thouars, where ber tomb, adorned with monuments by Charles, survived until the revolution (, i. 191). If the heartless Louis did not feel the loss of his childless wife, it was a heavy blow to his parents, with whom Margaret had always been a favourite. The shock further impaired the queen's health, and Charles, hearing how much Margaret had taken to heart the charges of Tillay, and dissatisfied with the attempt of the physicians to trace her illness to her poetical vigils, ordered an inquiry to he held into the circumstances of her death and the conduct of Tillay (ib. iv. 109. 111). The depositions of the queen, Tillay, Margaret's gentlewomen, and the physicians were taken partly in the autumn, partly in the next summer. The commissioners sent in their report to the king in council, but; we bear nothing more of it, Tillay certainly kept his office and the favour of the king (li. iv. 181-2).

A song of some beauty on the death of the dauphine, in which she bewails her lot, and makes her adieux, has been printed by M. Vallet de Viriville (Revue dea Sociétés Savantes, 1857, iii. 713-15), who attributes it to her sister, Isabel, duchess of Brittany, and also by Michel (i. 193). A Scottish translation of another lament is printed by Stevenson (Life and Death of King James I of Scotland, pp. 17-27, Maitland Club). The Colbert MS. of Monstrelet contains an illumination, reproduced by Johnes, representing Margaret's entry into Tours in 1436.

 MARGARET (1430–1482), queen consort of Henry VI, was born on 23 March 1430 (, Le Roi René, i. 434). The place of her birth is not quite clear. It was probably Pont-à-Mousson or Nancy (, Marguerite d'Anjou-Lorraine, pp. 26-7). She was the fourth surviving child of René of Anjou and his wife Isabella, daughter and heiress of Charles II, duke of Lorraine. René himself was the second son of Louis II, duke of Anjou and king of Naples, and of his wife Yolande of Aragon. He was thus the great-grandson of John the Good, king of France. His sister Mary was the wife of Charles VII, king of France, and René himself was a close friend of his brother-in-law and as strong a partisan as his weakness allowed of the royal as opposed to the Burgundian party. At the time of Margaret's birth René possessed nothing but the little county of Guise, but within three months he succeeded to his grand-uncle's inheritance of the duchy of Bar and the marquisate of Pont-à-Mousson. A little later, 25 Jan. 1431, the death of Margaret's maternal grandfather, Charles II of Lorraine, gave him also the throne of that duchy, but on 2 July René was defeated and taken prisoner at Bulgnéville by the rival claimant, Antony of Vaudemont, who transferred his prisoner to the custody of Duke Philip of Burgundy at Dijon. He was not released, except for a time on parole, until February 1437. But during his imprisonment René succeeded, in 1434, by the death of his elder brother Louis, to the duchy of Anjou and to the county of Provence. In February 1435 Queen Joanna II of Naples died, leaving him as her heir to contest that throne with Alfonso of Aragon. With the at best doubtful prospects of the monarchy of Naples went the purely titular sovereignties of Hungary and Jerusalem. René had also inherited equally fantastic claims to Majorca and Minorca.

Her father's rapid succession to estates, dignities, and claims gave some political importance even to the infancy of Margaret. The long captivity of René left Margaret entirely under the care of her able and high-spirited mother, Isabella of Lorraine, who now strove to govern as best she could the duchies of Lorraine and Bar. But after 1435 Isabella went to Naples, where she exerted herself, with no small measure of success, to procure her husband's recognition as king. Margaret was thereupon transferred from Nancy, the ordinary home of her infancy, to Anjou, now governed in René's name by her grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, under whose charge Margaret apparently remained until Queen Yolande's death, on 14 Nov. 1442,