#historian: b. m. cron

[une-sanz-pluis]

Is it true that Margaret convinced Henry to execute the two York soldiers who were guarding him?

We don't know. This is quite often stated as fact but the reports about the two Yorkist soldiers guarding him at the Second Battle of St Albans is quite confused. Edward IV's 1461 Parliament, for example, blamed only Henry for their deaths and it seems odd, in my opinion, that they did not emphasise Margaret's role if they knew she had been involved, especially given how heavily the Yorkists had been attacking her. Possibly the view that Margaret "convinced" Henry to do so or was the person who made the decision to execute them is building on the Yorkist narrative of Henry as an empty figurehead and Margaret's vicious, subversive seizure of power.

From B. M. Cron's “Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian March on London, 1461.” The Ricardian, vol. 11, no. 147, 1999:

There are considerable discrepancies between different reports of this incident, some of which involve King Henry and the Prince of Wales. Four chronicles report that Bonville and Kyriell remained with Henry VI because he promised them protection. Perhaps King Henry made a promise at the behest of Warwick that anyone who took the field would be pardoned if the day went against them. It would be like him, and cannot be discounted, but that he made a specific promise to Bonville and Kyriell, who therefore stayed to protect him, is less likely. This is the official version in the rolls of parliament, from which the chronicle accounts may well be drawn. It was important for the Yorkists to stress that King Henry was ‘faithless,’ as the basis of Edward IV’s claim to the throne was that Henry VI broke his oath when he abandoned the Yorkists at St Albans. This, together with hereditary descent, justified Edward IV in proclaiming himself king. The part played by the Prince of Wales is possibly a later addition, or it may contain an element of truth. Either the prince passed judgement on the ‘traitors’ or he and the queen watched their execution. In Gregory’s Chronicle the prince condemns Bonville, but Kyriell ‘that manly knyght’ was slain (in the battle?) An English Chronicle, which particularly hostile to Margaret of Anjou, contains the most detailed English account: the men were executed on the queen’s orders but the prince sat in judgement upon them and they had been betrayed by King Henry. In Waurin’s dramatic version, Kyriell plays the central role and Bonville is not mentioned. Kyriell has the temerity to bandy words with an angry Queen Margaret who demands of her son what death this arrogant man shall die, to which the prince makes the predictable response.

Cron speculates that they were executed precisely because they were men of Henry VI's household and that their refusal to assist the Lancastrian troops to free Henry from the Yorkists amounted to treason. The idea that Margaret was motivated by revenge is spurious, since there were other Yorkists - including the Earl of Warwick's brother - who were spared. Cron also makes this insightful comment on the idea of Margaret executing Kyriell and Bonville out of revenge:

An instructive comparison is the behaviour of Edward, Earl of March after the battle of Mortimer’s Cross. Edward of Lancaster, Prince of Wales, was the dynastic heir to the throne; so, legally, was Edward of March, now Duke of York, and both could claim the authority to execute traitors. The younger Edward ‘authorised' the execution of two household men. The older Edward beheaded no less than ten men, among them Owen Tudor, the father of King Henry’s half brother Jasper Tudor, the Lancastrian commander defeated at Mortimer’s Cross. Owen Tudor was not a traitor but a loyal subject of the king whose mother he had married. It was Edward of York, not Margaret of Anjou, who was motivated by revenge. Richard of York was killed at Wakefield so Edward of York executed Jasper Tudor’s father, who posed no political threat. Yet Edward is portrayed as exacting justice, whilst Queen Margaret is a ruthless vengeful woman who put to death unnecessarily two ‘faithful’ servants of the king.

[richmond-rex]

hi there! i was wondering, what would your book recs be on the topic of margaret of anjou and henry vi? preferably nonfiction. thank you!

Hi! I'm sorry for taking so long to reply, here goes my answer:

For Margaret of Anjou I would recommend:

Helen Maurer's biography Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England

The Letters of Margaret of Anjou, a collection by Helen Maurer and B. M. Cron.

Joanna Laynesmith's The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503, a study on Margaret and her three royal successors (focusing on the exercise of queenship)

There are also some pop history books like Amy Licence's Red Roses: Blanche of Gaunt to Margaret Beaufort, and Sarah Gristwood's Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses but I wouldn't particularly recommend them. I understand they may be more accessible, though!

For Henry VI, I would recommend:

R. A. Griffiths' The Reign of Henry VI, a classic (and giant) work

James Ross' Henry VI: A Good, Simple and Innocent Man (Penguin Monarchs series), a more accessible biography recommended to me by @nuingiliath ♡

Katherine Lewis' Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England, a study on the exercise of medieval kingship and masculinity focusing on the lives of Henry V and Henry VI

Lewis has also written about Henry VI in Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages and Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages. I don't know much about pop history books when it comes to Henry VI but I was warned against Lauren Johnson's The Shadow King. I can't personally vouch for it either way, though!

I hope this answer was helpful! 🌹x

[une-sanz-pluis]

Hello! I have a question.

Do you know what did Margaret of Anjou spent her time doing during her last years in France? Was she helping her family run estates, did she go hunting, or devoted her time to any hobby?

There's not much about her life after the downfall of House Lancaster...

Thanks!

Hi! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like a lot is known about Margaret's last years in France. I don't know whether that's because there's a lack of evidence or because historians haven't been looking because it's not a terribly important to English or French history, plus the associated barriers (travel, expense, language) for non-French historians. The best coverage I've found is B. M. Cron's Margaret of Anjou and the men around her and Margaret L. Kekewich's The Good King: René of Anjou and Fifteenth Century Europe

We know that Louis XI required Margaret to sign over all claims she might have to her parents' lands in exchange for 6,000 livres tournois a year. Her father, René, allowed her to live at his manor of Reculée near Angers but that she later lived at the castle Dampierre, near Saumur, along with a small household and her damsel, Katherine Vaux. We might imagine that she was acting as head of the household during that time and carrying the duties that a gentlewoman would have been expected to perform, which probably did include visiting family members (though possibly not her sister Yolande, who Kekewich notes was said to be hostile to her). We don't know if Margaret attended René's funeral in Angers after his death in 1480. We know that Louis XI required her to vest in him anything she received from her father's will. At the time of her death, the only thing of value (or of interest to Louis) she possessed were hunting dogs. This indicates that she probably did hunt - I find it tempting to imagine Margaret also taking up dog breeding as a hobby in these years too. She was buried near her parents' tombs at St. Maurice

Susan Higginbotham's novel about Margaret (Queen of Lost Hopes) depicts her visited by Jasper Tudor shortly before her death to foreshadow Yorkist defeat in 1485 as a kind of vindication for Margaret. I don't know enough about Jasper Tudor at this time to say whether that's plausible and frankly, given the way Tudor-era writers continued the Yorkist denigration of Margaret, I don't find it a satisfying or vindicating end for Margaret.

Hopefully that helps! I'm sorry there's truly not much known about Margaret's last eleven years of life.

[une-sanz-pluis]

How is the relationship between Margaret of Anjou and Jacqueta of Luxembourg? (Jacquetta was one of the three people who convinced her not to enter London, which made me fantasize about their relationship.)

We simply don't know a lot about their relationship. Jacquetta does seem to be prominent at court during Margaret's time as queen consort but we don't know if this indicates - or led to - any personal closeness between the women. We know the Woodvilles had a close affiliation with the House of Lancaster and Jacquetta was the widow of Henry VI's uncle, John, Duke of Bedford and the dowager Duchess of Bedford so that may well have been the reason for her prominence. Jacquetta could also claim a familial connection with Margaret herself: her sister, Isabel, had married Margaret's uncle, Charles of Anjou, Count of Maine. The idea that Jacquetta and Margaret were especially close seems to have been popularised by Philippa Gregory in her novel, The Lady of the Rivers, and her biography of Jacquetta in The Women of the Cousins' War but historians are more cautious.

Jacquetta and her husband were part of Margaret's escort to England in 1445. According to B. M. Cron, Jacquetta attended Margaret's coronation banquet and was seated on Margaret's right - this is far more likely to be due to her being the first lady in the land after Margaret than an indication of their closeness; Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester was seated on Margaret's left and the idea of Gloucester being a close friend of Margaret is not credible. Cron also claims that Richard Woodville was Margaret's champion in the jousting festivities that followed. Lynda J. Pidgeon claims it is "significant" that Richard Woodville was not created a baron until after Henry VI's marriage to Margaret, but credits it more to Henry's desire to "create a royal family around him" than to any relationship between Margaret and her escort.

Jacquetta's servants were regularly given gifts by Margaret in the New Years celebrations. In 1446, her servants received 53s. 4d. and in 1447, 1449 and 1452, Jacquetta's servants received 66s. 8d. This is on a par with other gifts to ducal servants - in 1446, this was the same amount given to the servants of the Duke of York and Duchesses of Buckingham and Exeter, while in 1447, the same amount was given to the servants of the Duke of Gloucester, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duchess of Buckingham. Jacquetta herself was only given gifts by Margaret in 1447 and 1452 according to Pidgeon but I'm not sure what the source is for that and neither Helen Maurer nor A. R. Myers mention it when discussing Margaret's accounts. Not all of Margaret's accounts survive so we don't have the full picture.

Jacquetta attended Margaret's churching after the birth of Edward of Lancaster in 1453. Jacquetta and her husband were part of Margaret's court during her extended stay in the midlands beginning in 1456, though, according to Pidgeon, they are only rarely mentioned as being present. This is may have been due to the frequency of Jacquetta's pregnancies keeping her away from court.

And yes, Jacquetta was one of three women (the others being Lady Scales and Anne, the dowager Duchess of Buckingham) who accompanied a delegation of London aldermen who convinced Margaret to send her army away. As Helen Maurer says:

Both Jacquetta, the dowager duchess of Bedford, and Ismania, Lady Scales, had been among the women who had escorted Margaret from France, and Lady Scales had remained in her household as a personal attendant. All three ladies had been recipients of New Year's gifts at various times, and Anne, duchess of Buckingham had stood godmother to Prince Edward. Though the personal relationships that existed between Margaret and these women are difficult to assess, it is apparent that the mayor and aldermen believed that they would be received with trust and favor.

Jacquetta's prominence at the Lancastrian court may explain the tradition that her daughter, Elizabeth Woodville, was a lady-in-waiting to Margaret. There is, however, no evidence of that Elizabeth served Margaret and historians have generally poured doubt on the idea. One exception is Susan Higginbotham who suggested that it is still possible that Elizabeth was one of Margaret's damsels, saying if that Elizabeth did serve Margaret , it's "more likely that she did so in the late 1450s, a period for which Margaret's household records do not survive".

There is no evidence to tell us what Margaret thought of the marriage of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV or the Woodvilles' defection to the House of York. There is no evidence Jacquetta and Elizabeth feared Margaret especially during the Readeption - it would be very, very surprising if they feared her more than Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (after all, it was in Warwick's attempt to depose Edward IV in favour of George, Duke of Clarence that had seen Jacquetta's husband and son executed, presumably without trial).

Nor do we know if, in the aftermath of the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury and Margaret's capture by Yorkist forces, whether Jacquetta met with or attempted to advocate for Margaret before her own death in 1472. We do not know if anyone advocated for Margaret's imprisonment to made more bearable, who decided her jailer would be Alice Chaucer, dowager Duchess of Suffolk and an old friend. If anyone did, I suspect it would be Jacquetta or Elizabeth Woodville (possibly in memory of her mother's friendship). It is tempting to speculate that Margaret's entry into the London Skinners’ Fraternity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in c. 1475 came about due to Elizabeth's influence (Elizabeth had entered the fraternity in c. 1472) but there's simply no evidence of it. It makes for a nice story, though.

In contrast to Maurer, Pidgeon is fairly doubtful of the idea that Jacquetta and Margaret were friendly, citing first the lack of mention of their attendance on Margaret and the lack of New Year's years gifts given to Jacquetta, saying:

Margaret’s apparent lack of friendship for Jacquetta might also be explained by Jacquetta’s Burgundian connections. Jacquetta’s father had been responsible for the capture of Margaret’s father at the Battle of Bulgnéville in 1431, following which René had been held prisoner by the Duke of Burgundy for some years until his ransom was paid. Margaret was also concerned to promote French interests to Henry and any reminder of a previous Burgundian policy might have been frowned upon. It was widely believed that it was through Margaret’s prompting that Henry had agreed to surrender Maine to René of Anjou in 1445.

However, Pidgeon bases some of this on the claim that Margaret "probably detested" the English, which we don't know and seems to be drawn from Yorkist and Tudor stereotypes of Margaret. As for the claim that Margaret pushed for Henry VI to surrender Maine to her father, it is true that she was blamed for it but what role, if any, she actually played is unknown. It is more likely that the surrender of both Maine and Anjou was an unofficial promise made by the English delegation in the negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of Tours (1444). Given Margaret was a 14-year-old girl at the time, it is incredibly unlikely she was responsible for that promise. She was urged to intercede with Henry to ensure the fulfilment of that promise but we simply don't know if she did or even what she thought about it. As I say here, she was still in her teens when the handover occurred and we must be wary of the misogyny embedded in the narrative that a teenage girl was responsible for the actions of an adult man - who, after all, was surrounded by experienced and mature advisors.

In short, the answer is that we don't know what the relationship between Margaret and Jacquetta was like. We see Jacquetta given favour in keeping with her status as a duchess and in keeping with her family connections to both Margaret and Henry. If any special relationship grew up between Jacquetta and Margaret, if they became close friends, there is little evidence to show it.

The Woodvilles were loyal to the Lancastrians throughout the resumption of the Hundred Years War until the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Towton. How much of that can be credited to the Woodvilles' traditional loyalties or Jacquetta's personal ties to Henry VI (who, after all, was her nephew by marriage) versus a (hypothetical) close relationship between Margaret and Jacquetta is unknown.

Philippa Gregory made much of this limited evidence, while Maurer more cautiously suggests that Margaret looked on Jacquetta as someone she could trust. Pidgeon, on the other hand, argues that there was no friendship between the women. I have my suspicions about why Pidgeon argues that (I haven't read her whole book so I can't say for sure).

Personally, I've tended to imagine a connection that dimmed over time due to diverging lives - Jacquetta's frequent pregnancies kept her away from court, Margaret's life became absorbed by the political struggles of the Lancastrian court. The simple fact is that we don't know - there isn't anywhere enough evidence to judge - and you're free to imagine what you like.

Sources

B. M. Cron, Margaret of Anjou and the Men Around Her (History and Heritage Publishing 2021)

Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother (Atria Books 2011)

Susan Higginbotham, The Woodvilles (The History Press 2013)

Helen Maurer, Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England (Boydell Press 2003)

A. R. Myers, "The Jewels of Queen Margaret of Anjou", Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 42, no. 1 (1959)

Lynda J. Pigdeon, Brought Up Of Nought: A History of the Woodville Family (Fonthill 2019)

[une-sanz-pluis]

Was Margaret of Anjou's murder of Humphrey proposed by the Tudor dynasty?

Margaret's involvement in Humphrey's downfall was first proposed in the sixteenth century according to B. M. Cron in her MA thesis, "Margaret of Anjou: tradition and revision". I'm yet to discover who was the "first" to claim she was involved in Humphrey's murder, however. Polydore Vergil, followed by Holinshed and Hall, claimed that Margaret was involved in a conspiracy to deprive Humphrey of power and influence but he doesn't explicitly connect her with the plot to murder him. I've included an excerpt from Vergil on Humphrey's death behind the cut.

Whether or not Margaret was actually involved is something we'll probably never know. Although most contemporaries believed Humphrey was murdered, most historians think he died of a stroke or heart attack brought on by the stress of his arrest. Margaret gave Humphrey a New Year's gift in 1447 which might suggest (as Cron suggests and Maurer perhaps hints at) that Margaret was uninvolved in the plot against him.

Henry VI certainly approved of the plan to arrest Humphrey on charges of treason, while William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk has traditionally been seen as the architect and prime mover of the plot against Humphrey. Margaret, plausibly, could have been aware of the plot or even involved, especially given her close links to Henry and Suffolk. However, the claim he had opposed Henry's marriage to Margaret, thus earning Margaret's enmity, seems to have originated in Polydore Vergil's 16th century account rather than any contemporary sources.

I've taken this extract of Vergil from Dana F. Sutton's hypertext critical edition of the 1555 version of Anglica Historia.

But his wife Margaret was a very prudent woman, eager for glory, full of reason, counsel, officiousness, and manlike enterprises, in whom you could see much intelligence, much diligence, much vigilance, much carefulness. But she was not free of a womanly nature, being headstrong and fickle. When she came to realize that her husband Henry was ruling in accordance with Gloucester’s will rather than his own, and that he was devoting no great diligence or thought to the war, she decided to take that care upon herself, and gradually to deprive the duke of all the great power he enjoyed, so that she herself would not be called a goose for allowing her husband, now growing to maturity, to be governed by another man. Therefore a little later Margaret strove to put her plan into practice. But when the woman had once attempted this of her own volition, suddenly some men ready for sedition, prompt for violence, prone to crime and murder, rose up who sought to make Gloucester unpopular and egged her on [...] Fired by these urgings, the woman seized control of the kingdom, together with Henry her husband, and although this was nothing else but to plow a field by yoking together an ox and a donkey, as the saying goes, she nevertheless began spiritedly to undertake that responsibility. First she not only barred Gloucester from all public affairs, but also declined to shield him from his enemies’ insults. For not long thereafter some nobles conspired against the duke, accusing him of many misdemeanors, and particularly that he punished men convicted of crimes with greater severity than the laws of England prescribed. [...] Although the duke made a very creditable response to his accusers, he failed to help his case because he had already been marked down for death, save that he freed his mind from distress in that he was not obliged to listen to his condemnation and did not know the time appointed for his death. For the conspirators, fearing that there would be rioting if they subjected this popular man to a public execution, they decided to take him unawares. Therefore by authority of the Privy Council they summoned the nobility to appear on an appointed day at a parliament at the Abbey of Bury. When Gloucester made his appearance with the rest, he was suddenly arrested and on the following night, setting the worst example in human memory, he was strangled, with all his retinue thrown into prison at a single stroke.

Vergil's account is at odds at what we know - that is, we know that Humphrey's political influence had been waning for some time before his marriage to Margaret and that Henry had rarely, if ever, governed according to Humphrey's will (Humphrey wishes that was the case!). It is, however, close to how we see in Shakespeare depict Margaret and Humphrey's relationship in Henry VI, Part Two. Vergil's characterisation of Humphrey is in the "Good Duke Humphrey" vein and it's possibly for that reason he makes no mention of Eleanor Cobham's existence let alone the witchcraft accusations.

While Margaret's depiction isn't wholly negative, her flaws are associated with her feminity ("she was not free of a womanly nature, being headstrong and fickle") and her behaviour is linked to internal division and the death of the Good Duke, even if she is not actively involved.

[une-sanz-pluis]

In the summer heat of 1482 Margaret fell ill and, with the faithful Katherine Vaux at her side, she made her last will and testament on 2 August. Louis XI, who had once mocked her proud writing style, would have found little to displease him in the humble petitions that filled this short document.

Margaret should have made a will

JOHNSON, Lauren. “Life and Death of Henry VI”.

Okay, so, I got it wrong in the previous ask and B. M. Cron does make a single-line reference to Margaret having written a will. She cites a 19th century French biography of Rene of Anjou by Lecoy de la Marche. Lauren Johnson's reference is to a single line in Cora L. Scofield's biography of Edward IV which you can read here. Scofield says that Margaret requested burial near her parents and that

in case “le petit de biens” which God and he had given her did not suffice to pay all her debts, to provide for the payment of the rest of them for his soul’s sake and hers

It also notes that her will was made 2 August 1382. Scofield's reference is the same as Cron's - the 19th century French biography of Rene of Anjou. You can find the appropriate volume of the biography here and it should open on the correct page (p.195). My understanding of French is very, very, very basic and this is 15th century French, so I cannot comment on whether it was a "very careful" document and the only translation I could provide would be sourced from Google Translate, which you could easily do yourself and I think would be irresponsible for me to post. About the only thing I would tell you for certain looking at the Google Translate reading of the text is that Margaret notes several witnesses: Jelan Lespinay, esquire, Macé de Lespinay, esquire, Jehan Whithil, esquire, and Jehan, eschançon (cupbearer?), and Catherine de Vaulx (Katherine Vaux), Perreete de la Rivière and Blanche Alorrete. The names are likely rendered differently in other sources (for instance, Jehan might be John or Johan).

I must say, though, I am very confused why you are asking me, a random tumblr user with no history qualifications, to confirm things you read in a book by a historian who provided an citation for her claim.

[richmond-rex]

Currently reading the article @nuingiliath so kindly recommended to me and to know that Margaret of Anjou actually wrote to the citizens of London in late 1460 to let them know that, contrary to the rumours Warwick and other Yorkists were spreading, her army wouldn’t despoil the city and yet her letter was probably never circulated is 💔 In her letter, Margaret told the Londoners that the Duke of York ‘upon an untrue pretense, feigned a title to my lord’s crown’, and she knew of the rumours saying:

‘that we and my lord’s said son and ours should newly draw toward you with an uncounted power of strangers, disposed to rob and despoil you of your goods and possessions, we will that you know for certain that ... you, nor none of you, shall be robbed, despoiled nor wronged by any person that at that time we or our said son shall be accompanied with.’

Seeing how decisive the possession of London was to Edward IV’s victory, it’s truly a curious what-if of history if the citizens had listened to her words.