Margaret of Anjou

Timeline

1. c. 1430–1450Angers · AnjouMargaret was born around 1430, daughter of René, Duke of Anjou, and grew up in the environment of the French noble court. In April 1445 she married King Henry VI of England as part of an Anglo-French agreement. After the marriage she actively integrated into the English court, but her French background and her role in the Anglo-French truce aroused dissatisfaction among some English nobles.
2. 1451–1460Coventry · MidlandsHenry VI suffered a mental collapse in 1453, and Margaret gave birth that same year to her only son Edward of Westminster, firming her resolve to defend the Lancastrian line. In the First Battle of St Albans in 1455 her ally the Duke of Somerset was killed; she thereafter shifted her political focus to Coventry, a key northern English town, actively building a Lancastrian military network. At the Battle of Blore Heath in 1459 the Lancastrian army she supported crushed the Yorkist army, and she promptly had the Duke of York and others declared traitors by Parliament. After the defeat at the Battle of Northampton in July 1460 and Henry VI's capture, Margaret personally went to Scotland and France seeking military aid and organized the northern Lancastrian army to continue resistance. That December, the Lancastrian army she led or authorized killed Richard, Duke of York, at the Battle of Wakefield, achieving the most important victory of the Wars of the Roses to date.
3. 1461–1482Angers · AnjouAfter Edward IV acceded in 1461, Margaret fled to France with her son, maneuvering for years in the French court to win Louis XI's support. In 1470 she reached an agreement with the Earl of Warwick, jointly bringing about Henry VI's brief restoration, but at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 her son Prince Edward was killed and Henry VI was soon murdered, extinguishing the House of Lancaster entirely. After being captured, Margaret was ransomed by France in 1475, lived in poverty in France, died in 1482, and was buried in Angers Cathedral.