Royal: Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, 1446-1503

Today Burgundy is one of the historical regions of France, famous for its fine wines.  During the Medieval area, Burgundy was an independent Duchy whose power rivaled that of the French kings.  The court of the Burgundian dukes was known for its opulence and style.  Later, Burgundian court ceremonial would become the precedent for English and French kings.  An ally of England throughout the Hundred Years War, the Burgundian ducal family was staunchly pro-British.  One reason for this may have been that the then Duke of Burgundy was married to a Portuguese princess who was a granddaughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.  She wanted an English wife for her son Charles, the future Duke Charles the Bold, the last Duke of an independent Burgundy.  Margaret of York, 1446-1503, the daughter of Richard, 3rd Duke of York and his formidable wife, Cecily Neville, was an obvious choice.  Margaret was described as being nearly six feet tall, with grey eyes, an attractive woman but not beautiful by the standards of the time.  Intelligent and articulate, she had an outgoing personality.

Charles' father believed that a French alliance was in the best interest of Burgundy and overruled his wife, marrying Charles to Isabella of Bourbon.  Charles and Isabella had a daughter, Mary, but no surviving sons.  When Isabella died, Charles needed to find a new wife and father an heir, pronto.  At 19, Margaret of York was still unmarried, and her brother, Edward IV was now king of England.  Charles quickly offered for her hand in marriage.  Immediately there were snags.  Edward IV wanted Charles' daughter Mary for his brother, George, Duke of Clarence.  Charles didn't want to tie both himself and his daughter to England and backed off.  The King of France weighed in, because he didn't want a marriage between the two traditional allies, England and Burgundy.  Negotiations dragged on and Margaret was promised to a Portuguese prince who'd been offered the throne of Catalonia.  Eventually he died, and she was recycled back onto the marriage market.  Then, Phillip of Burgundy died, making Charles the new Duke of Burgundy.  Richard Neville, the Kingmaker, Earl of Warwick was plotting against Edward, who needed to make an alliance with someone.  Margaret left England in 1468, making a dangerous channel crossing despite threats that she would be seized and held hostage if any French ships encountered the English flotilla bearing her to her new home.  Luckily, she arrived safely and in June, 1468, she met her future husband Charles and her stepdaughter Mary.  The three bonded immediately and remained a happy, blended family for the rest of their lives.

The wedding was an extravagant affair, even by Burgundian standards.  Scenes from the wedding festivities are reenacted every few years in the former Burgundian capital of Bruges.  Margaret's golden crown remains today in the treasury of the Cathedral of Aachen.  She was instantly popular with her husband's subjects.  The only downside was that Margaret and Charles remained childless.  Meanwhile, back in England, Edward IV's throne was on shaky ground.  In 1469, George of Clarence and his father-in-law Warwick marched on London, forcing Edward and Richard to flee.  They had a welcome in Burgundy.  Charles intervened by ordering the London merchants to swear loyalty to Edward or face losing trading rights in Burgundy.  That worked and London rose against Warwick and Clarence.  Not to be outdone, they backed a Lancastrian-French invasion that put Henry VI back on the English throne.  Once again, Edward IV fled to stay with Margaret in Burgundy.  At first, Charles was reluctant to support his brother-in-law against the French-backed Lancastrians.  He was learning the hard way that to marry into the Plantagenet family meant an overload of drama.  Margaret won out and Charles agreed to back Edward, who would have to do most of the heavy lifting of putting together an invasion force and reclaiming his throne.

During all of this turmoil it was Margaret and her mother-in-law Isabella who monitored events in London and kept each other and Charles updated on what was going on.  Margaret hoped to bring about a reconciliation between Clarence and Edward IV.  Then, with Isabella, Henry VI and his son dead, Charles chose to use his mother's Lancastrian descent as a pretext to claim the English throne for himself.  Margaret ultimately convinced him to back her brother Edward instead.  But the once happy marriage between Margaret and Charles was disintegrating, as was the fortunes of Burgundy.  Charles became more grandiose, occupying himself with grand schemes for making Burgundy a larger kingdom by conquering neighboring territory.  To do this, he picked continuous fights with erstwhile allies.  France was able to lure away Burgundy's international customers and wreak havoc on the economy.  Charles arranged the marriage of his daughter Mary with Maximilian of Austria, one of the other love stories of history that ended tragically, and died in battle in 1477.

Margaret was now a widow, without a son to protect her interests.  Mary was still a young girl and it would be many years before she and Maximilian would marry.  Meanwhile, she had a kingdom to rule and dangerous enemies to pacify.  Margaret provided Mary with guidance and advice.  Despite offers of marriage to Mary from the King of France to his own son, Margaret encouraged Mary to remain committed to Maximilian.  In 1477, Margaret oversaw the elaborate marriage festivities of Maximilian and Mary.  France remained a threat, carving off pieces of Burgundian territory for itself.  Margaret secured aid for Mary and Maximilian from Edward IV to keep what little territory remained of Mary's inheritance.  When Mary's oldest son Phillip was born, the French attempted to spread rumors that the child was a girl.  Margaret, as Phillip's godmother, held up the naked baby to the assembled crowd, to prove that he was very much a boy.  Mary's next child, a girl, was named Margaret, after the stepmother who had stood so loyally by her.  Margaret was a patron of learning and letters, including Englishman William Caxton, who introduced printing to England.

Tragedy struck in 1478, when Margaret's brother Clarence was secretly murdered or executed in the Tower of London.  Then, in 1482, Mary of Burgundy fell from her horse while hunting and died.  Maximilian was forced to make land concessions to France to stave off an invasion.  The Dutch people resented his rule and he was imprisoned in 1488, forced to make more concessions to gain his release.  When Maximilian returned to Austria, he left Margaret in charge as regent of what was left of his son's inheritance in Burgundy, which wasn't much.  Then, Edward IV died in 1483 and Richard, at Bosworth, in 1485.  The Plantagenet family was no longer the ruling family of England.  Margaret supported several pretenders to the lost Yorkist claim, but none of them were successful.  Margaret herself died in 1503, after a long and tumultuous life fighting for, and with, the ones she loved most of all.