Madeleine of France

Madeleine of France

Madeleine of France (born August 10, 1520 in St-Germain-en-Laye , † July 7, 1537 in Edinburgh ) was Queen of Scotland.

She was born as the fifth child and third daughter of the French King Francis I and his wife Claude of France . The Treaty of Rouen between Scotland and France stipulated that James V , who had become King of Scotland at the age of 17 months in 1513, would marry a daughter of Francis I.

Around 1534, Jacob initially considered marrying Margaret Erskine, his mistress and mother to his son James Stewart, Earl of Moray, but his parliament persuaded him to marry a foreign princess. When he came back to the idea of ​​a French marriage, his choice fell on 14-year-old Madeleine, who, although not yet born at the time of the Treaty of Rouen, was now the eldest princess as her older sisters died early. Her father, however, replied that she was still too young and offered him three other high-ranking French noble ladies, Marie de Bourbon, Marie de Guise and Isabelle von Navarre. In 1536 Jakob traveled to Paris to meet Marie de Bourbon, but was not taken with her. Instead, he and Madeleine, now 16, fell in love. Her father was reluctant to consent to marriage because of concerns about the health of the sensitive girl.

On January 1, 1537, the couple were married in the Paris Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris , stayed at the French court until spring and then traveled to Scotland in May. Upon arriving in Leith, Madeleine took two handfuls of Scottish soil as a public gesture that she was now Queen of the Land.

As her father had feared, the young princess fell ill and died in Edinburgh in July before she could be crowned. There were no children from marriage. A year after her death, her husband married Marie de Guise , who had also only been widowed for a year , and who had previously attended the wedding of Jakob and Madeleine with her then husband.

Madeleine was buried in Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh. Sir David Lindsay lamented Madeleine's death in a poem in which he describes how joy turned into sudden grief in preparation for her coronation.

Pedigree

8. Jean de Valois, Count of d'Angoulême

4. Charles de Valois, Count of d'Angoulême

9. Marguerite de Rohan

2. Francis I (France)

10. Philip II (Savoy)

5. Luise of Savoy

11. Marguerite de Bourbon

1. Madeleine of France

12. Charles, Duke of Orléans

6. Louis XII.

13. Maria of Cleves

3. Claude de France

14. Francis II (Brittany)

7. Anne de Bretagne

15. Margaret of Foix, Princess of Navarre

Web links

Commons : Madeleine of France  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Madeleine de Valois on thepeerage.com , accessed July 26, 2015.

Individual evidence

1. ^ François I, Roi de France on thepeerage.com , accessed July 26, 2015.
2. ^ Treaty of Rouen on the homepage of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (English)
3. ^ Perry, Maria: The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France, Da Capo Press Edition, 2000, pp. 272f.
4. ^ Perry, Maria: The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France, Da Capo Press Edition, 2000, p. 292
5. ^ Perry, Maria: The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France, Da Capo Press Edition, 2000, p. 293
6. ↑ Link to "The Deploratioun of the Deith of Quene Magdalene" on archive.org In: Poetical works. With memoir, notes and glossary (Volume 1) - Lindsay, David, Sir, fl. 1490–1555

predecessor	Office	Successor
Margaret Tudor	Queen Consort of Scotland 1537	Marie de Guise