Marie of Anjou
Marie of Anjou was the first Queen of France to live in Château Amboise. She lived there with her daughters. When her son the Dauphin Louis finished his formal education at Château Loches, he joined his mother and sisters there.
The title of Out of the Shadows: the Ladies of Château Amboise certainly applies to Marie who seems to have been airbrushed from history. It’s probably fair to say that only history buffs know anything about her.
Her life, which was not unhappy, was defined by her loving but formidable mother, Yolande of Aragon, her pathetic husband Charles VII and his mistress Agnès Sorel. Marie was not with Charles when he died in 1461.
She wrote to her son from the Château congratulating him on his accession to the throne as Louis XI. Louis inherited the Château from his father but gave it to his mother. Louis was not fond of many people but he was fond of his mother. In October 1461, Marie welcomed him at the Château following his coronation in Rheims. He told her that he would be living in Tours but his wife Charlotte and their daughter Anne, would live with her in Château Amboise.
With Charles gone Marie flowered. When her daughter-in-law and grand-daughter moved into the Château, Marie, free at last from duty, moved into her favourite Château, The Royal Fortress of Chinon, overlooking the Vienne. Some sources say Marie was given it as a wedding present. Apart from a few blips it had always been in her family.
Marie’s life changed for the better. In Chinon she reigned over a lively court. No longer subservient to her husband, to her mother or to Agnès Sorel, she came into her own. As is often the case with a downtrodden wife, Marie blossomed after her husband’s death. She had seen him and his mistress off. She led a life as comfortable as any Dowager Queen before her. She had a hundred servants and spent lavishly on fabrics, goldsmiths, illuminated books and works of art. She took control of the finances paying craftsmen personally for the refurbishing of her private apartments in the old fortress, which she converted into a comfortable palace.
Sadly, she did not enjoy her new life of freedom for long, just two years.
For reasons which remain a mystery, she set out in the middle of winter by boat on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, eight hundred miles away.
It may be that her son, a middle-aged Louis desperate for a son and heir, hoped that his mother praying at the famous shrine on his behalf might get him one. If so, it worked. Some sources say a paranoid Louis sent her on a secret spying mission under the pretence of the pilgrimage. He was not called The Universal Spider for nothing. He was always scheming against someone or other. If true he must have been devastated when Marie died on her way home in 1463. She was fifty-nine.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art). Artwork by Mark.
Out of the Shadows
The Ladies of Royal Château Amboise
