Episode 35: Mary and Margaret
As Charles the Bold spent the final years of his life campaigning, two women became integral parts of Burgundian society and politics - his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret of York. Mary, whose mother Isabella of Bourbon died when she was young, is often portrayed as little more than a pawn in her father’s machinations. Those machinations sent him to an icy demise when Mary was just nineteen years old, however, and she was thrust into the centre of the political upheavals which rocked the Low Countries. But Mary did not face this turmoil alone, because in 1468 her father had married Margaret of York, an English princess who directly linked the political tumult of England during the War of the Roses, with that of Burgundy. These two, step-mother and step-daughter, formed a particular bond which they would need to rely on after Charles’ death in order to protect the Burgundian state from the threats it faced. In this episode we are going to rewind-in-time a little and explore the lives, characters, connections and actions of Mary of Burgundy and Margaret of York before Charles the Bold’s death.
Birth and early years of Mary of Burgundy
Mary of Burgundy was born the night before St Valentine’s day, February 13, 1457. Her father, Charles, was at this time still Count of Charolais and her mother, Isabella of Bourbon, was one of eleven children born to Charles, Duke of Bourbon, and Agnes of Burgundy. Isabella and Charles were cousins, both being grandchildren of John the Fearless. Chastallaine tells us that at the moment before Mary’s birth, the otherwise clear skies above the Coudenberg palace in Brussels were wrought by an immense thunderclap, that “was so violent, that everyone believed the whole village must have been hit and set on fire.”
Charles was not present at the birth of his child, choosing instead to leave his wife shortly after labour started to go hunt deer in nearby woods. In her description of Mary’s birth, Eleanor of Poitiers writes one paragraph about the family tree of Mary’s parents, one line mentioning that she was born in Brussels, one more saying that Duke Philip did not come to the birth, before she launches into a detailed three page description of the arrangements of the room, the colour of the canopies on the bed, the material which hung on the walls and the gold, silverware and furniture in the chamber. This tells you a little about the priorities of some of the contemporary writers. The only people actually nearby when Mary was born were her mother (for obvious reasons), her grandmother, Isabella of Portugal, and the then-Dauphin of France, Louis, who waited outside. When the new-born child was carried out to him he asked that she be named Mary after his mother, Marie of Anjou, who was the aunt of the recently crowned Queen of England, Margaret of Anjou. Duke Philip apparently asked not to be disturbed unless the child was a boy, which says a lot about the ducal family’s priorities.
Despite the low-key reaction to her birth within the family, the celebrations in Brussels were much more in line with what you would expect for the arrival of the first child to the heir-apparent of the realm. There were torches and celebratory fires were lit, while bells rang out across the city. Two weeks later, according to Chastellaine, Mary’s baptism was marked by scenes “of such great magnificence that had never before been seen for a girl”. Again, hundreds of torches were lit across Brussels, two thirds of which were supplied by the town council and the other third by Count Charles. Coudenberg’s church was richly decked out in green tapestries, cloths, torches and candles. A pavilion was set up and a who’s who of nobles and Brussels’ elite came to witness and take part in the baptism. One person who was conspicuously absent was, again, Duke Philip. According to Chastellaine, Philip could not bd bothered attending because “it was only for a girl”. During the baptism, Isabella of Portugal doubled up and became Mary’s godmother as well as being her grandmother. Louis, the dauphin, was made her godfather. We know that Louis and Charles would, in time, become implacable enemies. But still, Louis was to be Mary’s godfather presumably to gain Philip’s approval. He was, at the time, busy seeking to restore relations between Burgundy and France.
From the moment of birth, Mary of Burgundy’s life was embroiled in the complicated world of European politics, caught in the web of designs between Burgundy and France. Every other major decision made about Mary’s life would also be politically influenced. This was not unusual; almost every child born into a powerful family was used in this way. If not, their alternatives were to be appointed to some kind of ecclesiastical position or sent off to a monastery/nunnery. The problem for Mary, however, was that being a woman made the matters of her inheritance to the Burgundian lands much more complicated than if she had been born with male genitalia. In this series we have seen how Jacqueline of Bavaria struggled with this in Holland and Zeeland, earlier in the century. In some territories women could inherit lands from their fathers without any problem, but in others, particularly the areas which owed their allegiance to the King of France, Salic law determined that lands without a male heir could potentially be claimed by the crown. Mary’s childhood, defined by this characteristic, would have been weighted with expectation, experienced in the court of a father who had to find a male-successor to himself. but who was also convinced that he was chosen by God to be the preeminent prince in Europe.
During the first years of Mary’s life, these decisions gravitated mostly around Charles’ uneasy relationship with his own father, the Duke, which had arisen due to Charles’ enmity with the powerful Croy family, which we covered in Episode 28, Strained reins of a waning reign. Rather than staying at Coudenberg in Brussels, or residing in Ghent where the citizens expected a constant ducal presence, Charles, Isabella and Mary moved away from the centres of power and Mary spent her youngest years in Le Quesnoy in Hainaut with both her mother and father. Although there is no direct information about Mary’s experiences there, it is likely that these were the most carefree years of her life.
Death of Isabel of Bourbon
By the end of 1464, Charles had gotten back into his dad’s good books and was set to take over from the ailing, old Duke. Plans were set in motion for the young family to leave Le Quesnoy and instead reside at the Hof ten Walle palace in Ghent. Great preparations were made; the gardens were done; courts were repaved; a whole lot of renovations took place and twenty-eight fireplaces in the residence were swept and cleaned. All the rooms underwent several treatments to make them as clean as possible for the family’s arrival. But, before they could move in, tragedy struck when Mary’s mother Isabella died of tuberculosis while in Antwerp in September, 1465. She was just 31 years old. You may recall that when she died, Charles was deeply involved in negotiations with Louis XI which would lead to the Treaty of Conflans, and he was, apparently, largely unaffected by his wife’s death. He didn’t even attend her funeral.
That might have been a rational decision for the singularly focused Charles, but let’s spare a thought for the 8 year old Mary, who lost her mother and then must have been alone at the funeral without her father there to comfort her. Then she was sent to live in Ghent anyway, but now under the care of a woman called Philipotte de Rochebaron. She was actually the half-sister of Duke Philip, being one of the many bastard children of John the Fearless, and she acted as a kind of nurse/governess for Mary for the next couple of years. Charles had begun to take a firmer grasp on the Burgundian strings of power by this stage and although he was in Ghent quite often between 1465-67, he was obliged to follow the course of his predecessors and constantly move his court around his domains, in order to rule them with any real efficacy. Mary, however, stayed mostly in Ghent from then on, residing at the Hof ten Walle.
Daughter of a duke
Mary was 10 years old when Philip the Good died and Charles officially took over as Duke of Burgundy. You’ll no doubt remember that immediately upon promotion, Charles made an ill-timed Joyous Entry into Ghent, after which the people of Ghent gave him their customary gift of a spontaneous popular uprising against him. After being talked down by a rabble on the market square, Charles was forced to flee Ghent with his treasure chest and young daughter in tow. We can only speculate about what effect this event might have had on the young Mary and whether it informed any opinions she held about the rights of citizens, or decisions which she would later make in adulthood. What we can say for certain, however, is that fleeing for her life from a rabble of angry Gentenars must have contrasted greatly with the experience Charles had as a child, when he heard the stories of how his father had been treated like the second coming of Jesus during his Joyous Entry into Bruges in December 1440.
Regardless of what Mary might have felt about Ghent and its burghers, until she became Duchess in her own right she spent the majority of her adolescence in that town, some years not even leaving the city at all. This, too, has been looked at mainly as an act of political necessity decided upon by Charles. He knew, firsthand, how restless the important city could be. He either kept Mary there to assuage the sensibilities of Gentenars and to show them that he loved them so dearly that he entrusted his only heir to grow up within their walls, or to remind them that he very much had his eye on them. Most likely is that his intentions were to communicate a little bit of both.
In 1468, Mary’s nurse/governess, Philipotte de Rochebaron, died and the duty of her educational instruction and general welfare passed between a few different women, before Jeanne de Commynes, the Lady of Halewijn, took up the role which she would occupy until the end of Mary’s life. If that name rings familiar to you, it’s because she was the cousin of everyone’s favourite booted-head Philippe de Commynes, the Burgundian-cum-French court chronicler. Otherwise, Mary’s companionship came in the form of her aunt, her late-mother’s sister Catherine of Bourbon, who was 17 years older than her, but who became one of Mary’s ladies-in-waiting. Another woman responsible for educating Mary was another aunt, one of Philip’s many illegitimate children, Anne of Burgundy, who would also later marry a different Adolf, this one the Lord of Ravenstein. In their essay “Maria van Bourgondië in Hof ten Walle” historians Jelle Haemers and Daniel Lievois make the point that although the women in the Burgundian court might not have been the ones in the limelight, making the military decisions and giving the commands, they were still able to play an important part behind the scenes. Being so close to the motherless Mary, whose father was mostly absent, gave these women the opportunity to guide her education, shape her opinions and teach her how to react, think and behave. It’s a pretty powerful position when you consider that Mary was the sole heiress to the Burgundian realms.
As to what Mary was like as a person at this stage, it is difficult to say. She was apparently good at languages and able to speak Dutch and French, as well as later learning English and German. Throughout her life, she had a great affection towards animals. She had a menagerie of them to entertain her, which included birds, monkeys, dogs and even a giraffe, which must have been very cold in the Low Countries, whilst being able to see very far in the distance. She was also a great fan of hunting, which probably gave her something to bond with her father over, especially given he missed her birth to do the same. Above all, though, Mary loved horse riding and falconry and in many pictures of her you will see her with a falcon, on a horse, or both, as appear in her personal seal.
As Charles became embroiled in the lofty political and territorial ambitions that we have explored over the previous episodes, Mary remained in Ghent with her human and animal entourage. But while she was being groomed to become a suitable bride for whichever man her father eventually chose to succeed him, Charles also needed to find himself a wife. This presented him with an opportunity to not only strengthen an alliance, but to also find someone who could really show Mary how to be a Duchess. And so it was that when she was eleven years old, yet another political decision made by her father brought one of the most influential people Mary would ever meet into her life, Margaret of York.
A foray into English history
Towards the end of the Hundred Years War, as the French were regaining their strength, fixing their relationship with Burgundy, and building up their armies and artillery, the English were desperately trying to hang on to the territory they had won on the continent, such as Normandy and Gascony. English King Henry VI was only one year old when he got the crown, meaning that regents ruled in his stead during the early parts of his reign. So from a young age, Henry was surrounded by powerful nobles, each with their own strong opinions about what needed to be done regarding France. Henry himself was apparently a shy and quiet young man, who was also mentally unstable and prone to bouts of insanity, so the advisors around him were able to take advantage of this, tending to make the most important decisions themselves.
One such man was William de la Pole, who led a faction which dominated the young, English king throughout the 1440s. He tried his best to use diplomacy to solve the conflict in France, by arranging for Henry to marry Margaret of Anjou. But the terms of this match resulted in England giving up territories in France, including Anjou and Maine. De la Pole also had the King’s uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucestor arrested for treason. After Humphrey mysteriously died in custody, William de la Pole was blamed for his death and, for all of this, he became increasingly unpopular. He did earn himself the title of Duke of Suffolk and was now the central influencing figure over the King, but this esteem would not last. When the war with France restarted and the English completely lost Normandy in early 1450, there was a whole bunch of finger-pointing, and blame games started amongst the nobility in England. Opposing factions assembled and seeds of rebellion against the crown began to germinate. William de la Pole was accused of treason, arrested and chucked in the Tower of London. But before he could be put on trial by parliament, the king stepped in and chose to instead banish him from England, which is a fantastic punishment and one which should definitely be brought back. On his expulsion across the Channel, however, the Duke of Suffolk was captured by people who thought banishment insufficient, and he was promptly beheaded.
Another of these nobles who had been at the centre of English power was Richard, Duke of York. He was of the overarching Plantagenet line and had his own claim to the line of royal succession, being both a great grandson, and a great great great grandson of Edward III, the English king who had been crowned King of France by Jacob van Artevelde in Ghent way back at the beginning of this whole conflict. Hold up, I can hear you asking, how was he simultaneously the great grandson and the great great great grandson of somebody? Well the answer, dear listeners, is inbreeding. Does it sound better if we say that he was therefore also his own second-cousin? Anyway, Richard had held an esteemed role as the lieutenant of France but his time away from England led to him becoming isolated from an English court increasingly under the influence of the new Queen, Margaret of Anjou, and her loyalists. She and Henry continued to be childless, however, leading to rumblings about succession. This was in stark contrast to Richard of York’s own brood of six, who would come into line for succession should the king not produce an heir of his own. One of this hefty haul of children was their wife’s third daughter, Margaret of York.
Wars of the Roses
It was in Margaret of Anjou’s interest to keep Richard and his family firmly on the outer, especially while there was still no clear heir to the throne. He was made the lieutenant of Ireland in 1447, which put him even further from the central court. When the crisis hit England that saw them losing so much territory in France he might have expected to be called upon to return properly into the fold, to help deal with it, but this did not occur. Instead, he saw his reputation and esteem dwindling even further. There is a lot of mystery around what role Richard exactly played in the swell of rebellion, but in 1452 he led an army of four thousand from Ireland to England, intent on defending his honour and taking his rightful role at court. The next year the king had a complete mental breakdown and Margaret of Anjou unsuccessfully attempted to reign in his place but Richard was able to establish himself on the regency council. Despite great opposition from some very powerful people, Richard became Protector of the Realm. When the King’s mental state recovered in 1455, the in-fighting amongst these nobles re-erupted into what we call the Wars of the Roses.
As this all began to unravel in England, the various courts on the continent adjusted their alliances and allegiances accordingly. For simplicity’s sake, relevant to the Low Countries, there was somewhat of a balance between four hubs of power, which were the French king’s royal court, the Burgundian duke’s court and the respective courts of their sons. This is the period when the French king, Charles VII and his son, the future Louis XI, were pitted against each other and, in Burgundy, Duke Philip and his son were not really talking to each other either. The new English Queen Margeret of Anjou was the French King Charles VII’s niece, so he remained in favour of the Lancaster royals, while Louis, you may recall, consistently stationed himself in whatever camp was the opposite to his father’s policy. He was more favourable to York. Duke Philip the Good, at this stage eagerly endearing himself to the exiled dauphin resident in his lands, had also earned the enmity of the Lancastrian king Henry VI when he had revoked the Anglo-Burgundian alliance in the treaty of Arras in 1435. His support was therefore behind the Yorkist challengers, while his son, Charles, from whom he was currently estranged and whose mother was a Lancastrian, positioned himself accordingly in the Lancaster camp.
In 1459, Margaret of York was 13 years old and settled at Croxby House in London, alongside her two younger brothers, George and Richard. Their father had built up a strong base in Ireland, from which he continued his political struggles. Meanwhile, their mother and older brothers were based in Ludlow, west of Birmingham. Ludlow was attacked by Lancastrian forces late in the year and with the victory came a proclamation of attainder against a bunch of pro-Yorkist dukes, by which they were stripped of their lands and titles, as well as the right to pass these onto their offspring. Richard of York was one of these and it left him with no option but to go all in on his claim to the throne. Supporting him were numerous, disheartened earls who were biding their time to invade England and regain their lands. One of these was Richard’s oldest son, Edward, Earl of March, who was 18, built like a brick outhouse and already experienced in battle.
Edward led a Yorkist army on the offensive, took London and managed to capture King Henry VI. Richard then went about pushing for himself to be crowned but received surprisingly little support from the clergy, or even his sons, and had to make do with being a regent in possession of a king. He managed to get the Act of Accord signed, which named him as the heir to Henry VI, and also disinherited the son Henry had had with Margaret of Anjou, Edward of Westminster. So Richard was pretty much in control of England when he made his way to the Castle of Sandal in late 1460, but unfortunately for him, the Lancastrians were by no means defeated and less than willing to accept the Act of Accord. Richard found himself for all intents and purposes, holed up there and surrounded by enemy forces. A foray from there brought spectacular results at the Battle of Wakefield, when both Richard and one of his sons, Edmund, were brutally killed.
Margaret is thought to have been with the rest of her family at Baynard’s Castle in London when this tragic news came through in the first week of January. The family’s prospects now teetered on a knife’s edge. Margaret’s mother, Cecily, must have had a million thoughts running through the grief in her mind about how to protect her remaining children, but also to ensure the legacy of what her and her late-husband had worked so hard for. She knew that the Lancastrians would take any advantage they could to rid themselves of Yorkist claimants to the throne, so sent her two youngest sons, George and Richard, to safety...in Utrecht. Spoiler alert, this particular Richard will become one famous King Dick. It will much later be written that, on the day of his death, he sought to trade his kingdom for a horse.
These two, young, exiled princes of York stayed in Utrecht under the tutelage of David of Burgundy, Bishop of Utrecht, that puppet bishop bastard son of Philip the Good, until it was safe for them to return to England. Cecily’s quick-thinking pragmatism showed a blueprint of how a duchess might best act in the face of personal trauma and grief. As historian Christine Weightman wrote: “Cecily acted swiftly, exhibiting calmness in the face of a serious crisis which Margaret would later emulate.” About five months passed following the deaths of Richard and Edmund, during which the Yorkists had control of London and other important chunks of the country, while the northern Lancastrian forces behind Margaret of Anjou and her young, disinherited son, were rallied to hit back at London. The late Duke of York’s son Edward, Earl of March, responded to his father’s death with fierce brutality, attacking royal forces at Mortimer’s Cross in early February. This resulted in the capture and execution of Henry VI’s stepfather and signalled a new ruthlessness in Edward’s intentions. But it did not mean a decisive victory for the Yorkist clan.
Another key player in England was the Duke of Warwick, Richard Neville. His shifting allegiance from Lancaster to York had been one of the major turning points in the brewing conflict. In early 1461, he was in personal possession of the king, and set up a north facing defense of London in the latter half of February, which was routed in an ambush by the Queen’s men. The Lancastrian army somehow knew the exact position and formation of Warwick’s, suggesting that there was a serious leak in his ranks. During the battle the Lancastrians were able to recapture the king and put themselves in a position to march on to London. For some reason, though, Margaret of Anjou allowed herself to be convinced not to bring a northern army into the capital, hesitating long enough to lose her chance.
Edward marched to London to meet up with the Duke of Warwick, whose eminence and support for the 18 year old was enough to feed a groundswell of popular approval for Edward to be named King Edward IV in March. In case you’re getting a bit lost on our meandering wander in non-Dutch history, he’s the same Edward IV who Charles the Bold would, some fifteen years later, strive to have also crowned the King of France in an abortive attempt to revive the Hundred Years War, as we covered in Episode 33 - No more mister Neuss guy.
Edward was still young and vigorous at this stage and he quickly marched off to try and finish the civil war and assert himself as king. The resulting Battle of Towton in late March is often cited as the largest and bloodiest to ever take place in England. It is thought that between 50-75,000 troops were involved. Edward reported after that nearly 30,000 troops had perished. It was a decisive Yorkist victory, leaving the deposed and sometimes-mentally-unstable king Henry VI, his embittered wife Margaret of Anjou and their young son and heir, Edward of Westminster, to flee England to Scotland, before she made her way to France, continuing to push their case to regain control of the crown.
Margaret turned fifteen years old just a few months after her brother became king and she a royal princess. As for her younger brothers, Richard and George who had been sheltered in Utrecht, they were brought to Bruges where the then-Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, hosted them at his court. He had until now only given tacit support to the cause of York, providing indirect succour to the young Yorkists. The boys represented important political capital and his keeping them in the Bishopric of Utrecht with his bastard son was a way of keeping them under his control without technically holding them in his lands. Philip had been hedging his bets until the results at the Battle of Towton were known. Now that it was clear who had come out on top (WinViz had Yorkists 95% at this stage), Philip did his typical thing and had the boys brought to him from Utrecht. He laid out a lavish banquet for them, deliberately leaving an impression on the young princes of how spectacular the Burgundian court was. After at least a week in Bruges, when everyone was certain that their older brother Edward was to be crowned, they returned to England and had lands, honours and titles heaped upon them, becoming George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, respectively. From here on they will be referred to as such. Now there was another link by which power brokers in Burgundy could communicate in a direction close to the English throne. The two youngsters, upon their return, were put up in Greenwich with Margaret, and would have had a few stories to tell their sister of the lands across the channel which, unbeknownst to her, she would later come to rule.
Learning how to become a duchess
For whatever reasons, a suitable groom was not found for Margaret for a full seven years after her brother became king. This meant that she had an extended, first-hand and relatively mature experience observing how a ruling court functioned. Her mother was a big influence on her, not only in how she had reacted to shore up her family’s fortunes immediately following the murder of her husband, but also in how she set about her administrative and business duties in the years after.
Like her mother, Margaret was extremely devout on both public and personal fronts. She learned that rigid observance of religious dates and celebrations by rulers were the mark of a properly functioning realm. Her piety would likewise hold her in good stead for rule over the societies of the Burgundian Low Countries which, while diverse in so many respects, ubiquitously held the trait of religious devotion in high esteem. It would also hold her in good stead with the man who would, eventually, become her future husband, the extremely serious and pious Charles the Bold. Lastly, it has also been argued that Margaret and her mother both fitted a trope of high-noble women of this period, for whom religion was a central feature of life and one which girded them against the traumas they endured via the frequent violence that the males of their society engaged in. This is probably a bit too reductive and dismissive of Margaret as an individual, but still informative of the type of culture in which Margaret was brought up in.
One example of Margaret’s individualism was in her love of literature, manuscripts and books, which would account for her greatest personal expenses over the course of her life. It does not seem that this was something that she inherited from her parents, neither of whom were renowned for commissioning written works. In her mother’s case the only exception was religious works, which she encouraged Margaret to do much reading of. In her late-father’s case, he only had a prayer book, a couple of histories and an English translation of a poem about a Roman politician/general called Stilicho. Margaret, on the other hand, was extremely bookish and in this regard her world would open up when she became the Duchess of Burgundy, given how extensive a collection had been garnered under the keenly cultural and literate eyes of the Burgundian Dukes and was readily available for her perusal and enjoyment.
In 1464 another influential woman came into Margaret’s life, when her brother King Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville. We are not going to go into the whole Woodville family, who were and still are rather controversial. Their heritage included some high-born people, from the Low Countries no less, but also some lesser ranked blood-lines, her father having been a mere knight before being elevated to Lordship. Some people saw them as too low-born to be bearing royal titles and this included Margaret’s mother, Cecily, who did not even attend the new Queen’s coronation. None-the-less, at the same coronation Margaret was not only present, but sat at Elizabeth’s left-hand as a defined member of the inner circle.
Elizabeth Woodville took on the job of finding a suitable match for Margaret, with the first serious proposal coming from a contender for the throne of Aragon, called Don Pedro, in 1465. Negotiations proceeded on a positive note, until an insurmountable obstacle to the deal appeared in the form of Don Pedro’s death the following year. The shifting nature of European politics, however, suited the agility of the English court at this time. In late 1465 another proposal had emerged with far more enticing prospects. It was from no less than one of the three most powerful princes of western Europe, Charles the Bold. He had only a daughter as heir to his wealthy realm and was looking for a wife who could give him a son. Margaret, a royal princess and coming from a hefty brood of which seven grew to maturity, seemed the ideal candidate. There was a great effort by the French king, Louis XI, to disrupt the negotiations and get Margaret married to a French prince instead. The Duke of Warwick, who had been so important in putting Edward IV on the throne, was already secretly plotting to remove him and shifted to a pro-French position, courting and being courted by Louis. Warwick was steadfastly against the prospective Anglo-Burgundian union. He refused to contribute to Margaret’s dowry and failed to attend her formal acceptance of the proposal. Despite all of their best efforts, however, the Duke of Warwick and King of France were unable to prevent the conclusion of negotiations and stop Margaret from embarking for the Low Countries in June, 1468.
Margaret’s marriage & meeting Mary
Margaret of York was not the first woman to board a ship in her homeland and set sail for a place called Sluis to become Duchess of Burgundy. Her soon-to-be mother-in-law, Isabella of Portugal, had endured torrid seas and weather on her delayed and extended bridal trip from Portugal to the Low Countries. Margaret only needed put up with the threat of attacks by French ships and pirates, part of a last-ditch effort from Louis XI to stop her from getting there. On board with her was a fantastic collection of wealth, much of it belonging to the important people who were escorting her towards her future. But except for one report of a ship that stole some silks, the journey turned out to be a rather uneventful one and they arrived in Sluis in the early evening of the 25th of June, 1468. Margaret and her entourage disembarked and, amidst fanfare and a following a greeting party of the Duke’s representatives, she made her way to designated accommodations, along specially carpeted streets, lit by torches held by locals welcoming her. She deliberately wore a Burgundy-crimson and black-trimmed dress, specific colours that paid respect to the realm she was marrying into. It was evident from the beginning that she was very politically astute and/or had very good guidance and counsel.
The next day, Margaret of York met Mary of Burgundy, who was only eleven years her junior, for the first time, alongside her grandmother Isabella of Portugal. Margaret and Mary’s lives would become inextricably intertwined from here on. There is no record which recounts the details of this meeting, which lasted around three hours, but all of them were aware that this union was directly connected to the current events and diplomatic relationships between the power networks of England, Burgundy and France. Isabella, being a granddaughter of the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, had long pushed for stronger connections with England, regardless of which faction was in power there. Meeting her new daughter-in-law, she must have felt some satisfaction at bearing witness to such an historic connection being forged.
Margaret’s wedding to Charles was a spectacular affair, which we only touched upon briefly in Episode 33. Besides their rather intimate, religious bonding in a quiet house in Sluis, there were weeks of celebrations from Sluis to Bruges and on to other towns and cities in Flanders and beyond. For years, every time Margaret would enter a town they would seek to outdo the Joyous Entry she had received at the towns before but it is difficult to imagine that any matched the splendour of the wedding. Tournaments, feasts, church programmes and more occupied the retinues of both parties, while the scale of celebrations must have been impressive, no less to the young Mary. Burgundian lavishness, after all, was famously spectacular.
Lavishness, however, contrasted greatly with the image that Margaret had learned to fashion for herself. From the beginning of her time in the Low Countries, she showed an ability to project the perception of a serious, devout and dignified lady. She had great commitment to her new role, putting this on full display when she entered the preeminent town of Bruges, whose citizens witnessed the arrival of a golden litter, drawn by two white horses and draped in Brugundian-crimson cloth. The new duchess was dressed to match, in white gold and crimson. It would have been fairytale stuff, if not for the inclement weather, the kind Low Country folk often bemoan, wind and sweeping sheets of rain. But none of this discouraged her nor was used as an excuse to neglect her duties.
Immediately after the elongated wedding celebrations, Margaret set off on a tour through Flanders to Brabant with Mary by her side, where she was received with even more honour and celebration. This was no honeymoon, however, since Charles was only around intermittently, busy with his stately affairs like negotiating the Treaty of Peronne with Louis XI to once more regain the Somme towns. While Charles visited Margaret somewhat regularly during their first four years of marriage, it was rarely for extended periods - the longest they ever spent together was 145 days. When it became fairly clear that they were not going to reproduce, he spent considerably less time with her. In total, they spent around one year together during their first seven years of marriage and she did not see him at all after 1475 because, you know, he had to go and make a king of himself by fighting everybody in the Rhineland.
There is no evidence that suggests Charles was unhappy with Margaret, he was just that kind of guy who did not see much value in women beyond their ability to make babies. He had grown up with a father who basically slept with and impregnated anybody he could, and it has been postulated that his disdain for such behaviour contributed to a certain level of distrust in women and disbelief that they could be participants in the kind of activities that mattered, like military expansion and conquest. Strangely, though, this conflicts with what we know of the woman who, herself, bore him; the intelligent and capable Isabella of Portugal. Anyway, the point is that Margaret’s marriage to Charles meant first trying to produce him an heir and then coming to terms with how the Burgundian state functioned and what her role in it was to be. She had to make administrative and political connections and earn the trust of her new subjects, all while teaching young Mary how to be a duchess in her own right.
Resumption of fighting in England
In 1470 another wave of violence came over England as the civil conflict once more surged, this time dividing the York faction. Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, as well as his pro-Burgundian diplomacy, had caused a lot of angst among others close to the crown, such as his former ally the Duke of Warwick, Richard Neville. Edward knew how crucial Neville’s support was and, in early 1469, he even gave Neville the honour of representing him in Burgundy, to exchange with Charles membership in each other’s fancy, heraldic orders, the Order of the Garter and the Order of the Golden Fleece. But Neville was not to be won over. To keep a long story short, the Neville clan and other high nobles were put off by some of the king’s actions, leading them to foment rebellion. Included in this group was George, Duke of Clarence, one of the two younger brothers of the king who had spent time in Utrecht. Now 18 and keen for his own star to shine, he felt shunned in his own marriage prospects in favour of the Woodville family and when Edward IV refused to let him marry the daughter of Richard Neville, Clarence defied him, married her anyway and joined the rebels. The other younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, remained loyal to Edward. This internal conflict was exploited by Louis XI (of course), who convinced Warwick to come to terms with the exiled Queen, Margaret of Anjou. After Warwick did this, he measured the unpopularity of Edward at IV home and decided the situation was ripe for him to bring an invading force to England and depose the king he had earlier supported, in order to take the madness-prone Henry VI out of imprisonment in the Tower of London where he had been languishing and to restore the old king who he had previously helped depose. By the summer of 1469 Warwick and the king’s (and Margaret’s) treacherous brother, George, invaded England and, in battle in July, managed to capture Edward IV, who was promptly imprisoned. England was now in the odd situation of having two kings, both of whom were locked up.
Margaret, of course, was intimately connected to the quarrel between her brothers but she was now the Duchess of Burgundy and knew that her responsibilities in this role superseded any affiliation other than her marriage to Charles. The Duke of Burgundy was trying to sustain the gains he had made against the French king, and it was in his best interest to prevent any sort of alliance between the French and English thrones, which would be the case if Louis XI succeeded in helping to restore the Lancastrian Henry VI. Before this could happen, Charles made it clear to the commercial sector of London that their trade security with Flanders depended on their continued support of Edward IV. The English capital city took this extremely seriously, which put pressure enough on Warwick to make him hold his hand a while yet. He had little choice but to release Edward, allow him back to London and manufacture a PR exercise where all of Edward, Warwick and Clarence publicly reconciled. This was short-lived, however, when Edward soon after made his daughter his heir, deliberately over-looking Clarence in favour of the young princess. Despite many attempts to find peace terms between the two, by the spring of 1470 another rebellion had broken out and civil war was well and truly on the cards.
Margaret was heavily involved, shooting off letters to all of her feuding brothers, but maintained her husband’s position. When the Duke of Warwick captured some merchant ships from the Low Countries, he took them to France and found safe harbour there. This was a violation of the recently signed Treaty of Peronne between Charles and Louis XI. Chastellaine tells us that in response to this, Charles strangely invoked his Iberian heritage and declared for Louis’ benefit that “among us Portuguese it is a custom that when those we had regarded as friends make peace with our enemies we consign them to hell.”
So it looked like the quarrel in England was going to re-ignite the war between France and Burgundy. Louis, however, had a lot of enemies beyond just Charles, and was dealing with too many other issues at this moment to afford doing more than just provoking Burgundy.
The troubles continued into the summer, although Edward IV did not take it as seriously as perhaps he should have. According to Weightman, “Throughout the summer of 1470 the court in Burgundy appeared to be more concerned about the situation in England than Edward was himself.”
Charles persistently warned Edward that the invasion was coming, but still Eddie was ill prepared for it when it did happen. By September the combined French-Warwick-Clarence-Lancaster force had landed in Devon and within a few weeks Edward, together with his non-treasonous brother, Richard and about 1500 loyalists were forced to flee. In October, Henry VI was restored to the throne and everybody lived happily ever after.
Edward, Richard and the other Yorkists in exile followed the traditional course of exiled English folk and sought refuge in the Low Countries. It wasn’t the easiest crossing, however, given both storms and enemy ships harried their fleet throughout. Richard made landfall in Zeeland, where reports of accounts from the towns of Middelburg and Veere show that he borrowed money there, including “3 pounds, 2 shillings and 3 pennies” from the Lord of Boucham, the bailiff of Veere. The deposed king Edward seems to have landed on Texel with between 300-400 men, which might have been nice had it not been so late in the year. At least there would have been fewer German tourists. They were taken to Alkmaar where they were greeted by Lord Louis of Gruuthuyse, who was Charles’ governor in Holland. He then took them on a lovely little tour of Holland, visiting Egmont, Haarlem, Noordwijk and Leiden before going to the Hague where they stayed for months and were most likely joined by Richard. Edward’s months with Gruutehuyse made a strong impression on him, as he became impressed by the luxury of the Burgundian courts. Gruuthuyse’s library, which was famous throughout the continent, particularly left an impression on him, and was the inspiration for him to start a royal library if he ever took power again. It was also later purchased by the French King Louis XII, becoming the basis of the French royal library.
As for the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, Charles was less than happy with having all of these exiled English nobles in his lands. Edward IV had become a liability and, even though Margaret corresponded privately with him, the ducal pair remained publicly distant, keeping the party of exiles in the north, away from their own court, not visiting them and publicly congratulating their enemy, Henry VI. This conciliatory missive to the Lancastrians was a slight on Edward IV and it did not pass him by unnoticed. It is interesting to think about whether Edward’s later backflip when he chose not to invade France with Charles, which we went into in episode 34, might have been influenced by the perceived lack of support from his brother-in-law during this exile.
The success in bringing the Lancastrian king Henry VI back to the throne had improved Anglo-French relations, giving Louis the courage to once again push for war against Burgundy, in defiance of the Treaty of Peronne. As is the way with internecine relations between the three domains, this impelled Charles to change his approach to the exiles in the Hague and he allowed Margaret to finally invite them to Bruges. If he was to keep France at bay, Charles needed to get Eddie back on the throne.
Over the turn of the year Margaret became heavily involved in nurturing the alliance between her brothers, Edward and Richard, and her husband, as plans were made for an invasion fleet of their own. She met frequently with both Edward and Richard, and petitioned the cities of the Burgundian territories to fork out cash, men and ships for the endeavour. They established a propaganda campaign, trying to pit Charles as a heroic redeemer of England but, in many circles, the idea of another successful coup of England seemed a bit too far fetched. A great quote came from one of the Milanese ambassadors who thought that Edward would find it “difficult to leave by the door and return by the window”. Charles leant him £20000, somewhere between 1-2000 and four big ships from Zeeland with which to sail back to try and reclaim his throne. On their part, Louis XI and Warwick were in correspondence with each other and by February 1471 had agreed to invade Burgundy together. In Zeeland, people were so concerned about the possibility of an English invasion, that in the town of Veere a huge wall and gate were built called the “Warwijkse perort”. Although the wall is long gone, a street in Veere still bears the name “Warwijksestraat” for this reason today. But, the invasion by Warwick - Warwijk - never happened.
A major factor in this whole situation was Edward’s treacherous brother, the Duke of Clarence, who had jumped in bed with the Lancasters. Apparently he had started to regret this decision, which had pushed him back on the line of succession. Oops. Other members of his family, like his mother Cecily, urged him to once more switch allegiances but it was Margaret whose entreaties had the most impact. By the time Edward’s invasion fleet departed Zeeland from Vlissingen in March, 1471, he had taken his sister’s advice and decided to do so. Edward and his army landed in Hull in mid-March and within two months and after a few major battles, Warwick was dead, Henry VI was dead and his son and heir Edward of Westminster was also dead. So after enjoying a roughly 6 month holiday in the Low Countries, and with the help of Margaret and Charles, Edward was once again in London and once again King of England.
William Caxton
It was also around this time that Margaret of York wrote her way into history by commissioning the first book to ever be printed in the English language. In around 1441, a young Englishman by the name of William Caxton had moved to Bruges to try his hand at becoming a merchant and by the 1460s he had risen to such prominence that he became governor of the English Nation of Merchant Adventurers there. Some time shortly after Margaret’s wedding with Charles, Caxton had been brought into her court, probably acting as a financial advisor. In 1471, Caxton was sent to Cologne during which time he witnessed that city’s thriving printing industry and was trained in it. At this time the printing press with moveable type was still just a relatively new invention, having been developed around 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz (although some may claim that it was actually invented by Dutchman Laurens Coster in Haarlem in the late 1430s, but we are going to resist the great temptation to get into that right now). During his time in Bruges, Caxton had seen first hand the trade of manuscripts and books for the rich Burgundian (and English) aristocracy, such as we’d seen with Gruuthuyse earlier, and was savvy enough to bring his new skills back to Bruges and help set up a printing company. Caxton began translating a French-language history of Troy into English which he showed to Margaret under the pretence that he was finding the work difficult and thinking about giving up. This appeal to Margaret’s language skills and her love of literature proved to be a masterstroke, because after personally helping him with the translation, she then ordered him to finish it. So it was that the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye was published at the end of 1473 in either Bruges or Ghent. A first edition copy of the book, which today belongs to the Huntington Library in California, shows on the first page an engraving of Caxton at the Burgundian court, on bent knee, presenting the book to Margaret of York… with a monkey bizarrely on the ground between them.
Mary and Margaret managing affairs in the Low Countries
In the nine years that followed her arrival in Burgundy, Margaret spent only five months away from Mary. She adopted the Burgundian ducal trait of moving around her territories, followed by a huge retinue of knights, soldiers and advisors, most preeminent among which was the Duke of Ravenstein. Step-mother and daughter travelled extensively and Margaret’s training by her mother and Elizabeth Woodville came into effect as each tour she did was carefully planned and organised to coincide with the obligations of the religious calendar and all manner of different observances and celebrations therein. She took Mary on a bunch of pilgrimages, no doubt trying to instil the same sense and respect of virtue with which she had been brought up.
Like Margaret had been, Mary became an extremely potent political device in the eyes of the man who made decisions for her. Her marriage, as we have covered before, would come endowed with the rule of the Burgundian lands and Charles readily used Mary’s eligibility as suited him. It must have been taxing for Mary to be a part of such intense diplomatic wranglings without having any power over it at all. Imagine being her. One minute you would be thinking you were going to marry some guy called Ferdinand of Aragon, and be trying to apply this knowledge to imagining what your life would entail. Then word would come from your father that, actually, you are now going to marry Nicholas of Lorraine. Before that could happen, however, Nicholas of Lorraine was dead and you were being engaged to somebody else entirely. All this time, however, you are spending longer and longer not married and not bearing children, which you have been taught from childhood is your biggest purpose in life, whether or not it is what you actually want to do in life. For Mary, at least she had Margaret to help her negotiate through the emotions and imaginings that came attached to all of this; who, herself, had spent years in a very similar situation. In the end, it was an Austrian called Maximillian, son of the emperor, whose name was carried to the finish line in the negotiations. As we have touched upon before, he had been discussed as a prospect for Mary since as early as 1463, but it was only in 1476 that an agreement was reached for them to tie the knot the following year. Surely a part of Mary must have thought ‘...I’ll believe it when I see it’.
During these final years, as Charles ambitions saw him campaigning far and wide, Margaret and Mary played a more active political role, doing what they could to support Charles from the Low Countries. Whilst he was bogged down at Neuss, it was Margaret who was in Flanders, ensuring that Edward IV had the ships he needed to get his troops across to Calais from England, and who actually met Edward when he eventually landed there himself. You will also remember that Louis XI had taken advantage of Charles’ follies in Neuss by launching an invasion into Hainault and Artois in May 1475. It was Margaret who was busy making sure there were sufficient armies to defend those lands and firing off letters to important people throughout Flanders to get their troops ready to fight. The powerbrokers in Flanders must have felt somewhat sympathetic towards her, despite the increasingly desperate military situation Charles found himself in. Wim Blockmans writes that in 1475 the cities of Flanders agreed to give her a pretty substantial amount of money, though only half of what she had requested. “This compliance is to be interpreted as evidence of a distinctly positive attitude toward Margaret, despite the probability that the money went to support the duke’s warfare” Remember, by this stage the Flemish had already paid more than 6 years worth of aides to Charles in advance and were no longer feeling generous towards him.
This was hammered home in 1476, when the Estates General of the Low Countries refused to give more money to fund Charles’ military escapades. It was Margaret and Mary who had been given the unenviable task by Charles to convene the Estates in order to ask for more money. Together with the Lord of Ravenstein, the bishop of Tournai and the Burgundian chancellor Guillame Hugonet, Margaret and Mary spent that final year doing all they could to try and raise money, get troops and convince the cities of the Low Countries to help Charles. Margaret crisscrossed Flanders, Brabant and Holland, visiting the towns and cities and pleading for more help. By the end of December, 1476, Margaret and Mary were in Ghent, beginning to make plans for Mary’s wedding to Maximillian. Charles, meanwhile, was camped in the snow outside Nancy.
And it is here where we are going to leave things in this episode. When Charles did eventually die at Nancy, Margaret of York found herself in a somewhat similar situation to the one which her mother, Cecily, had faced when her father, Richard of York, had been killed at Wakefield. Both men had died as a result of their ambitious military designs to consolidate their own power and both women were the ones left behind to pick up the pieces and do their best to protect their children and their family’s interests. Margaret would now have the responsibility of guiding Mary through the turmoil of transition from Charles’ rule to her own, whilst Burgundy was immediately invaded by France and the citizens of Flanders went into revolt against her. If the Burgundian state was going to have any chance to survive, it was going to depend heavily on whether this English princess was able to impart the lessons she had learned from her home country onto the young Duchess of Burgundy at this moment of crisis.
Sources used:
Ouvres, Vol 3 by Georges Chastellaine
Maria van Bourgondië in Hof ten Walle by Jelle Haemers and Daniel Lievois
Richard in Holland, 1461 by Oliva Visser-Fuchs
Margaret of York: The Diabolical Duchess by Christine Weightman
King Edward IV in Exile by Maaihe Lulofs
Isabel of Burgundy by Aline Taylor
The Outbreak of War between England and Burgundy in February 1471 by AR Myers
William Caxton: The Merchant Printer by Brian Shetler
“Wanting the First Blank”: Frontispiece to the Huntington Copy of Caxton’s Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye by Joseph A Dane
Devotion of a Lonely Duchess by Wim Blockmans
Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States by Robert Stein
Charles the Bold by Richard Vaughan
Philip the Good by Richard Vaughan
Charles the Bold, the Last Duke of Burgundy by Ruth Putnam
The Promised Lands by Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier
Women at the Burgundian Court: Presence and Influence edited by Dagmar Eichberger, Anne-Marie Legaré and Wim Hüsken
“Élénore de Poitiers: Les États de France (Les Honneurs de la Cour)” by Jacques Paviot in Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France, nuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France (1996), pp. 75-118
Margaret of Austria by Jane de Iongh