Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/564

Rh 536 M A R M A R impregnable; and, the approaches being extraordinarily steep, narrow, and well arranged for purposes of defence, it was able to offer a protracted resistance to the Mongolian conqueror Hulagu, and to the armies of Timur. The castle was for hundreds of years the residence of princes more or less independent. The town has not much commerce or industry, but the surrounding country is distinguished for its excellent water and general fertility, and more especially for its fruit trees and, melons. As regards their capacity and the honesty of their dealings, the people of M&rdin do not enjoy the best reputation. They are estimated to number from 15,000 to 18,000; in 1870 Professor Sochi was informed in the town that there were 600 Jacobite, 300 Catholic Armenian, 200 Catholic Syrian, 30 Chaldean, and 57 Protestant families. Among the Jacobites are included a few remnants of the old sect called Shemsiye. See Ritter, ErJkunJe von Asien, 2d ed., vol. vii. MARGARET OP ANJOU, who became the queen of Henry VI. of England, was born at Pont a Mousson in Lorraine on the 24th 1 March 1429. Her father, &quot; the good King ReneY as he was called in later years, did not at the time of her birth possess any of the pompous titles to which he afterwards laid claim, but was simply count of Guise, and younger brother of the existing duke of Anjou. He had, however, married Isabella, daughter of Charles II., duke of Lorraine, and during Margaret s infant years he succeeded to two dukedoms, first Lorraine and then Anjou, and afterwards to the crowns of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem. Some of these acquisitions, however, were no more than empty titles. He had a competitor for the duchy of Lorraine against whom he was unsuccessful in war, and he was actually a prisoner in the hands of the duke of Burgundy whew the death of Joan II. of Naples first made him nominally a king. He deputed his wife Isabella to go to Naples and take possession of his new kingdom for him, and she took with her while on this enterprise her second son Louis and her second daughter Margaret, then in her seventh year. Rene himself obtained his liberty after a time, and followed his wife to Naples, but, being defeated by a rival there also, he returned to France after more than four years absence. Before revisiting Lorraine or Anjou, he spent some time in Provence, and there received a proposal for the marriage of Margaret, who had by this time nearly completed her fourteenth year, from Charles, count of Nevers. It was accepted, and the contract was actually signed ; but the marriage was delayed on account of some disputes about the settlement, and next year it was set aside for the more splendid match offered by the king of England. This was in 1444. The earl, afterwards duke ; of Suffolk, had proposed the match to Henry VI. as a means of terminating the long war with France, and securing peace upon a solid basis. Henry fully entered into the scheme, and was content for so great an object, not only to accept a bride without a dowry, but to give up to King Rene the provinces of Anjou and Maine. A great embassy was sent over to France, with Suffolk himself at its head, ti negotiate the matter, and some months liter, the . marriage was celebrated by proxy at Tours, Suffolk acting as Henry s representative. In April of the following year, 1445, Margaret crossed the Channel, and was received by Henry on her landing at Porchester. A few days later, 22d April, they were married in Tichfield Abbey, or, as some other authorities say, at Southwick,- and on Sunday 1 Most authorities say the 23d, but according to the MS. Heures of Rene, cited in the Noi velle Biuyraphie Generate, the day was the 24th. - Southwick, according to Fabyan, who is followed by Hall and later writers ; but William Wyrcestre and the anonymous author of the English Chronicle edited by Davies for the Caniden Societ/, who are both strictly contemporary, say Tichlield. the 30th of May Margaret was crowned at Westminster. Suffolk was now high in favour at court, but the policy he had pursued of giving up territory for the sake of peace was not likely to be generally acceptable in itself, and the events of the next few years completed his unpopularity. War broke out again with France in 1449, and in the course of a single year the whole of Normandy was lost to the English. Suffolk was impeached by the Commons, and the king was persuaded that the best way to protect him was to order him to quit the country. But he was taken and murdered at sea, and for some time the country was in a state of fearful anarchy. Margaret s position was now one that required great tact and delicacy. The king s marriage was already unpopular, and the fact was soon manifest that his wife possessed far higher abilities and greater power of governing than himself. This, together with the king s occasional attacks of mental imbecility, was really the great source of her misfortunes. During Henry s intervals of sanity it was she who really governed, and unfortunately she gave her whole support to the duke of Somerset, whose mismanagement abroad had been the immediate cause of the loss of Normandy. The duke of York vainly endeavoured to procure Somerset s removal, but he was so protected by the court that the complaints of his accuser were utterly unheeded, except during the king s periods of total incapacity, when the lords made York protector. Civil war at last broke out, and Somerset fell at St Alban s in 1455. Party feeling was bitterly exasperated, and Margaret, as we learn from a contemporary French historian, actually instigated an attack on Sandwich by the French out of hatred to the duke of York. At length, in 1460, that nobleman openly challenged the crown as his right and obtained from parliament, with the consent of Henry himself, a settlement of the succession in his favour. But at this time Margaret was out of the way. The king had been taken prisoner the year before by the Yorkists at the battle of Northampton, and she had sought refuge in Wales and Scotland along with her only son Edward, prince of Wales, then seven years old, who was now disinherited. Margaret s friends took up her cause in the north of England, and the duke of York, going to meet them, fell at the battle of Wakefield, 30th December 1460. Margaret naturally endeavoured to improve her victory by marching on to London. But Edward, earl of March, the duke of York s son, defeated her adherents on the borders of Wales, while the earl of Warwick with the king in his custody left London to oppose her. The ill- disciplined troops that she brought with her from the north ravaged the country as they went, and made themselves generally detested. But they overthrew Warwick s forces at St Alban s (the second battle fought there in this war), and liberated the king. The earl of March, however, soon came up and entered London, where he was proclaimed king by the name of Edward IV., amid the shouts of the citizens, who had always been devoted to his father. Margaret then thought it advisable to withdraw into the north along with Henry and her son, and Edward and Warwick pursued them into Yorkshire, where the bloody battle of Towton (29th March 1461) utterly crushed for the time the hopes of the house of Lancaster. Henry and Margaret fled to Scotland, and surrendered Berwick to the Scots as the price of their assistance. Margaret and her son soon after entered England with a body of Scots, win) besieged Carlisle, but they were driven back by Lord Montague. Then King Henry accompanied another invasion into the county of Durham which was equally unsuccessful. Next year (1462) Margaret sailed from Kirkcudbright to seek aid in France, and offered the surrender of Calais to Louis XI. if Louis enabled her husband to regain bis kingdom. Louis gave her two