On 18 February 1478, George, duke of Clarence was murdered in the Tower of London on the orders of his brother Edward IV, king of England. Families!

Biographies have been written about Louise of Savoy and her children Marguerite of Angoulème and Francis I but few, if any, point out their cruel sides.

Marguerite was born in 1492 in Angoulême. Her mother, Louise of Savoy, was sixteen. Her father, Charles, Count of Angoulême, a member of the House of Valois-Angoulême, was thirty-three.

In 1483 two little girls arrived at Chateau Amboise to be brought up by the Regent of France, Anne of Beaujeu.

Louis XI’s daughter, Anne of France, was born when he was the Dauphin living on charity in the splendid Court of the duke of Burgundy.

Of all the children from the Courts of France who stay in my mind, Louis (XI) is right up there. The boy came into the world when the English army was at the peak of its brutal strength and his father, the Dauphin Charles (VII) had been disinherited in favour of Henry V of England.

The Capital of France was wherever the King was. Because Paris was under English occupation, Charles VII established his Court in Tours. All of his and Marie of Anjou’s children were born and grew up in the Loire Valley.

Marie, who grew up an orphan in the magnificent Pitti Palace in Florence, was the richest heiress in Europe.