Margaret of Scotland

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Margaret of Scotland, Dauphine of France

Princess Margaret of Scotland from the House of Stewart ( French Marguerite d'Écosse ; English Margaret of Scotland , Margaret Stuart or Margaret Stewart ; * December 25, 1424 in Perth , Scotland ; † August 16, 1445 in Châlons-sur-Marne , France ) was the first wife of the Dauphin Ludwig (later King Louis XI. ) from 1436 to 1445 Crown Princess of France ( Dauphine de France ).

Parentage, childhood, and early marriage negotiations

Margaret was the eldest child of the Scottish King James I Stewart and his wife Joan Beaufort , daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset . A younger brother of Margaret ascended to the Scottish throne in 1437 as James II as a minor. Margarethe also had five sisters, including Eleonore , who married Sigmund von Tirol and, like Margarethe, was supposed to show literary interests.

In 1428 Margarethe and her sisters came into the custody of Michael Ramsay, the owner of the now dilapidated Lochmaben Castle , which is located in what is now the Scottish administrative district of Dumfries and Galloway . In the same year, an embassy sent by the French King Charles VII came to Scotland, which included the court poet and diplomat Alain Chartier . It should renew the alliance between the two countries. France and England fought each other in the Hundred Years War , and Charles VII, who was excluded from rule by his own parents, was in great distress. He asked reinforcement troops for 6,000 Scottish soldiers and proposed a marriage alliance by marrying his eldest, only four-year-old son, Ludwig, with the only three-year-old Margarethe. James I promised to send his daughter and the army he had requested to France within a year on a fleet to be provided by Charles VII, but demanded that the county of Saintonge, among others, be assigned . At the French court, the demands of the Scottish king, which were regarded as too high, met with rejection, and after the situation of Charles VII had improved significantly at the beginning of 1429 with the support of Joan of Arc , the marriage project was on hold for the next few years.

The English, who disliked a possible Franco-Scottish alliance, tried to torpedo the planned marriage by all means and made offers to Jacob I. He negotiated the marriage of one of his daughters to the underage English king Henry VI. In order to counter this danger, Charles VII expressed in a letter to the Scottish king in 1433 the desire to implement the marriage plan agreed upon in 1428 into reality. In his reply of January 8, 1434, Jacob I asked for a binding commitment. On January 25, 1435, a French delegation led by Regnault Girard arrived in Edinburgh to apologize for the long postponement of the planned marriage and to request the dispatch of Margaret with a military escort of 2,000 soldiers. James I gave his consent, but wished that his daughter would be granted her own Scottish court until the marriage was consummated.

The fleet, finally sent by Charles VII, whose task was to pick up Margaret, arrived in Dumbarton on September 12, 1435 . From there she did not leave for France until a good six months later. In addition to the expected Crown Princess, her servants, Scottish nobles and the promised military escort were on board.

Marriage to Ludwig XI.

English ships were supposed to intercept the fleet Margarethe was on, but this undertaking was unsuccessful. The future Dauphine landed with her entourage on April 17th, 1436 on the Île de Ré on the French west coast, stayed for a while in nearby La Rochelle and on June 24th came to the then French residence Tours . Their archbishop had issued the necessary dispensation to marry 11 days earlier due to the minority of the spouses . On the afternoon of June 25, 1436, the wedding of the 11-year-old Margarethe with the almost 13-year-old Dauphin Ludwig, led by the Archbishop of Reims, took place in the chapel of the Castle of Tours. Charles VII, who never had a good relationship with his eldest son, had only appeared at the last moment in riding breeches and even with spurs on his boots to the wedding, which he had also had a shamefully simple ceremony.

Most of Margaret's Scottish companions were quickly sent back after the wedding ceremony, a behavior they perceived as scandalous. Presumably, the French king found it too expensive to continue accommodating the high-ranking guests. Charles VII also waived longer service with the Scottish troops who had traveled with him.

Dauphine

Because Margarethe and her husband were still young, their marriage was consummated about a year after the wedding. Margarethe had previously lived with Marie d'Anjou , the wife of Charles VII, while the Dauphin had accompanied his father on trips for the first time. The king and his wife treated the Dauphine, described as lovable, very warmly, but Margaret's marriage, which was concluded for purely political reasons, turned out to be unhappy and remained childless. After Jacob I of Scotland fell victim to a nobility conspiracy in 1437, Margaret became heir to the throne of her underage brother Jacob II.

Margarethe, who was not granted political influence, developed a great interest in the French language and literature. She emerged as the patroness of poets, and not a few poets like her lady-in-waiting Jehanne Filleul belonged to her court. She, too, is said to have written verses for many nights, but nothing of her literary work is left. According to a well-known anecdote passed down by Jean Bouchet , a French historian of the early sixteenth century, she once kissed the poet Alain Chartier in public when she found him sleeping and replied to the excuse that she could kiss such an ugly man, that she had not kissed the man, but the mouth from which so many beautiful words could be heard.

Charles VII got on very well with Margarethe and disapproved of the fact that she was constantly neglected by his son Ludwig. The Dauphine, in turn, often sided with her father-in-law and against her husband. Some of her court activities are known for 1445/45, such as attending festivals in Nancy and Châlons. So she attended the wedding of Margaret of Anjou and King Henry VI. part of England.

Premature death

Jamet de Tillay, a courtly nobleman and favorite of Charles VII, surprisingly entered Margaret's room, which was not lit by candles, but only by a glow from a fireplace, when she was sitting on her bed talking to her ladies-in-waiting, although the Sire d 'Estouteville was present. Tillay took this incident as an opportunity to assume her shameless behavior. He tried to irritate the Dauphin with the rumor that Margarethe had been unfaithful to him, which the accused vehemently denied. Margarethe was also accused of eating unripe fruit, drinking vinegar and wearing tightly laced corsets to avoid having children as much as possible. She had already become gloomy from her husband's dismissive attitude, and Tillay's accusations seem to have struck her very badly, which also affected her health. When she returned from a short pilgrimage on August 7, 1445, on which she had accompanied the king with her court ladies, she caught a feverish cold, which probably led to pneumonia . Just nine days later, she died in Châlons-sur-Marne at the age of only twenty. During her last phase of illness, she had often affirmed her loyalty to her husband, accused Tillay of fatally injuring her with his slander and regretted having come to France in the first place. According to tradition, before taking her last breath she said: “Fi de la vie! qu'on ne m'en parle plus ”(ie“ Ugh to life! You don't talk to me about it anymore. ”).

Soon after Margarethe died, three surviving lamentations were written for her, one of which is believed to have come from her sister Isabella , who was married to Duke Francis I of Brittany . Charles VII initiated an investigation against Tillay and agreed to this as well as Margaret's doctors and staff, but the proceedings ultimately remained inconclusive and without consequences. On March 9, 1451, Louis (XI.), Who had not shed tears for his deceased wife, married Charlotte of Savoy , who bore him several children, including the heir to the throne Charles (VIII) . It was not until 1479, more than 30 years after Margaret's death, that her body was discovered at the instigation of Louis XI. buried in the church of Saint-Laon in Thouars according to her wishes , after he had previously rested in the cathedral of St. Etienne in Châlons-sur-Marne.

literature

Web links

Commons : Margaret Stuart, Dauphine of France  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ^ Jean Bouchet, Annales d'Aquitaine , edition of 1644, p. 252.
personal data
SURNAME Margaret of Scotland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stewart, Margaret
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish princess, by marriage French princess
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1424
PLACE OF BIRTH Perth
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1445
Place of death Châlons-sur-Marne