Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/147

 Margaret was just fifteen when she arrived in England. She was a good-look well-grown ('specie et forma præstans,', L 156), and precocious girl, inheriting fully the virile qualities of her mother and grandmother, and also, as events soon showed, both the ability and savagery which belonged to nearly all the members of the younger house of Anjou. She was well brought up, and inherited something of her father's literary tastes. She was a 'devout pilgrim to the shrine of Boccaccio' (, vii. 100. ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove), delighting in her youth in romances of chivalry, and seeking consolation in her exile and misfortunes from the sympathetic pen of Chastellain. Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, presented her with a gorgeously illuminating volume of French romances, that 'after she had learnt English she might not forget ber mother-tongue' (, Dresses, &c, of the Middle Ages, ii. 49). The manuscript is now in the British Museum (Royal MS. 15 E. vi.) She was also a keen lover of the chase, constantly ordering that the game in her forests should be strictly preserved for her own use, and instructing a cunning master of hounds 'to make two bloodhounds for our use' (Letters of Margaret of Angou, 90, 100, 106, 141, Camden Soc.) The popular traditions which oasign to her a leading part in the events of the first few years succeeding her marriage are neither likely in themselves nor verified by contemporary authority. She came to England without political experience. But »he soon learned who were her friends, and identified herself with the Beaufort-Suffolk party, recognising in Suffolk the true negotiator of the match, and being attached both to him and to his wife, Ohoucer's grand-daughter, by strong personal ties. Unluckily for her and for the nation, she never got bevond the partisan's view of her position (see, Mémoires, ii. 280-1, ed. Dupont). A stranger to the customs and interests of her adopted country, she never learned to play the port of a mediator, or to raise the crown above the fierce faction light that constantly raged round Henry's court. In identifying her husband completely with the one faction, she almost forced the rival party into opposition to the king and to the dynasty, which lived only to ratify the will of a rival faction. Nor were Margaret's strong, if natural French sympathies, less injurious to herself and to her husband's cause.

To procure the prolongation of the truce with France was the first object of the English government after her arrival in England. Her first well-marked political acts were devoted to this same object. A great French embassy sent to England in July 1445 agreed to a short renewal of the trure.and to a personal meeting between Henry and Charles; but immediately afterwards a second French embassy, to which René also gave letters of procuration, urged the surrender of the English possessions in Maine to Henry's brother Charles. 'In this matter,' Margaret wrote to René, 'we will do your pleasure as much as lies in our power, as we have always done already' (, i. 164). Her entreaties proved successful. On 22 Dec. Hery pledged himself in writing to the surrender of Le Mans (ib. ii. 039-42). But the weakness and hesitating policy of the English government prevented the French from getting possession of Le Mans before 1448.

Margaret was present at the Bury St. Edmunds parliament of 1447, when Duke Humphrey came to a tragic end, but nothing is more gratuitous than the charge sometimes brought against her of having any share in his death; though doubtless she rejoiced in getting rid of an enemy, and she showed some greediness in appropriating part of his estates on behalf of her jointure on the very day succeeding his decease (, ii. 77; Fœdera, xi. 155; Rot. Parl. v. 133). Suffolk's fall in 1449 was a great blow to her. She fully shared the unpopularity of the unsuccessful minister. The wildest libels were circulated about her. It was rumoured abroad that she was a bastard and no true daughter of the king of Sicily (, i. 303-4). The literature of the next century suggests that Margaret had improper relation a with Suffolk; but this is absurd. Suffolk was an elderly man, and his wife was very friendly with Margaret during his life and after his death. Margaret now transferred to Somerset the confidence which she bad formerly felt for Suffolk. But the loss of Normandy, quickly followed by that of Guienne, soon involved Somerset in as deep an odium as that Suffolk had incurred. It also Strongly affected Margaret's position. She came as his representative of the policy of peace with France, but that policy and been so badly carried out that England was tricked out of her hard-won dominions beyond sea.

The leaders of the contending factions were now Richard, duke of York, who had popular favour on his side, and Edmund, duke of Somerset, who was popularly discredited. Margaret's constant advocacy of Somerset's faction drove York to violent courses almost in his own despite. When in 1460 Somerset was thrown into prison, he was released by Margaret's agency, and again made chief of the council. When York procured his second imprisonment, Margaret visited him in the