The Valois Children: Marguerite of Angoulème
Château du Clos Lucé, Amboise. Mark Playle.
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.
Charles, a prince of the blood in line for the throne, had numerous mistresses. One was lady-in-waiting to Louise who seemed not to mind his dalliances. Marguerite grew up with three of his illegitimate daughters, Jean, Madeleine and Souveraine.
The family moved to Château Cognac just before her brother Francis was born. She was two. Marguerite fell in love with her brother when he was born and never fell out.
She was three when her father died.
Her brother took his place in the pecking line for the Crown.
Louis XII, who had no sons, brought Louise, Marguerite and Francis to Amboise. They lived for a while in Château Clos Lucé before moving into Château Amboise.
Louise made sure they had a happy childhood and an education second to none although Marguerite was much brighter than Francis. He was Action Man, she was bookworm.
When she was seventeen Marguerite married Charles, Duke of Alençon from Normandy. He was nineteen. It was not a love match, or indeed any kind of match on any level.
France had Brittany in its clutches, it now had its eye on Normandy.
Marguerite’s brother became Francis I when she was twenty-three. Always very close he needed her intellectual gifts and good sense to help him govern so she and her mother joined his Court.
Marguerite was fluent in several languages. She knew about the arts, was an important political advisor and a key figure in the burgeoning cultural life of France.
Always open to new ideas, although she never converted to Protestantism, she was fascinated with Martin Luther and The New Religion. The Sorbonne branded her a heretic.
Her husband died not long after her brother’s disastrous Battle of Pavia.
When Marguerite was thirty-four she fell in love for the first time in her life. The object of her affection was Henry, king of Navarre. He was twenty-three.
Marguerite should be remembered for being a talented writer. Instead she has gone down in history as the sister of Francis I. He was more than a brother to her. He was her god. She worshipped him. To her, he was like the Pope, infallible.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art).
Pamela-Shields.com
Author
A Royal Childhood In The Loire Valley
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