In-Laws: Margaret of France, 1157-c. 1197

Margaret's story belongs in the "you can't make this stuff up" file.  Not even a reality show producer could conjure the twists and turns of this woman's life.

Margaret was born in 1157.  Her father was Louis VII of France and her mother was Constance of Castile.  Sounds simple enough until the extended family factors into the equation.  Constance was Louis' second wife, the mother of Phillip II Augustus, Alys and Margaret.  But Louis had been married before, to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was now married to Henry II of England.  This gave young Margaret some interesting connections around the various courts of Europe.  Her half-sisters were Eleanor's two older daughter's Marie of Champagne and Alix, Countess of Blois.  Margaret's own sister Alys was betrothed to Richard the Lionhearted and may have been the underage (even for that time) and unwilling sexual victim of her own prospective father-in-law Henry II.  Henry and his sons had no use for Margaret's brother, Phillip II, who was their rival in power, land and everything else, and Phillip felt likewise about them.

But politics is business and the Capets and Plantagenets had to find a way to co-exist.  While Alys' betrothal to Richard dragged on, Henry proposed a sop to Phillip's injured family pride by offering the hand of his son Henry, called the Young King, and Margaret.  Henry's status had been elevated to a junior king under his father, both to designate the ultimate successor to the throne of England and to make him an attractive enough suitor for Margaret.  Thus, Margaret stepped into the hornet's nest that was the Plantagenet family on any given day.  What her mother-in-law thought of her.  Whether she was able to connect with her sister Alys is anyone's guess.  The mixed blessing might have been that these families lived in separate residences, often in separate countries most of the time.  Putting up with one another only happened infrequently, usually during holidays or treaty parleys.

Henry the Young King and Margaret were crowned together at Winchester in 1172, against the backdrop of the Becket controversy.  Margaret was lucky enough to have her first and only child, William in Paris, in 1177, likely surrounded by her own family.  Tiny William only lived a few days and Margaret herself almost died in childbirth.  That most likely factored into why she was never able to have a child again.  From that point, Margaret and Henry's marriage deteriorated and there was talk of having the marriage annulled for her inability to conceive when Henry the Young King died during the campaign against his own brother, Richard, in 1183. 

Princesses of the era weren't allowed to remain widows for long and Phillip had Margaret back on the marriage market.  She became the wife of Bela III of Hungary in 1186.  She wasn't able to bear children by him, either.  He died ten years later in 1196, leaving Margaret a widow yet again.  She decided to take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a common thing at the time for those who could afford it.  She arrived in Acre and died eight days later, in 1197.  She was buried at the cathedral of Tyre, there being no way at the time to ship the body back home and because being buried in the Holy Land was considered an honor.