Marguerite of France
Queen consort of England and Hungary
Marguerite of France (1158 - 1197) was the eldest daughter of Louis VII of France by his second wife Constance of Castile. Her maternal grandparents were Alfonso VII of Castile and Berenguela of Barcelona. Berenguela was a daughter of Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona by his third wife Douce of Provence.Marguerite was a younger half-sister to Marie de Champagne and Alix of France. She was an older sister to Alys, Countess of the Vexin. She was also an older half-sister to Philip II of France and Agnes of France.
She was betrothed to Henry the Young King of England on November 2, 1160. Henry was the second of five sons born to Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was five years old at the time of this agreement while Marguerite was only two.
Her husband became co-ruler of his father in 1170. They were formaly married on August 27, 1172. Marguerite became pregnant and gave birth to their only son William on June 19, 1177. The child was born prematurely and died on June 22 of the same year.
She was accused in 1182 of having a love affair with William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke. Henry had their marriage annulled and Marguerite was sent back to France.
She became the third Queen consort of Béla III of Hungary in 1186. The difficult delivery of her only known child seems to have rendered her sterile, as she had no further children by either Henry or Béla. She became a widow in 1196 and died in 1197.
Queen consort of England
Marguerite of France (1282 – 14 February 1317) was a daughter of Philip III of France and Maria of Brabant. She was also the second Queen consort of King Edward I of England.Three years after the death of his beloved first wife, Eleanor of Castile, at the age of 48 in 1290, Edward I was still grieving. But news got to him of the beauty of Blanche, sister to King Philip IV of France. Edward decided that he would marry Blanche at any cost and sent out emissaries to negotiate the marriage with Philip. Philip agreed to give Blanche to Edward on the following conditions:
a truce was concluded between the two countries
Edward was now 60 years old. The wedding took place at Canterbury on September 8, 1299. Edward soon returned to the Scottish border to continue his campaigns and left Marguerite in London. After several months, bored and lonely, the young queen decided to join her husband. Nothing could have pleased the king more, for Marguerite's actions reminded him of his first wife Eleanor, who had had two of her sixteen children abroad.
Marguerite soon became firm friends with her stepdaughter Mary, a nun, who was two years older than the young queen. In less than a year Marguerite gave birth to a son, and then another a year later. It is said that many who fell under the king's wrath were saved from too stern a punishment by the queen's influence over her husband, and the statement, Pardoned solely on the intercession of our dearest consort, queen Marguerite of England, appears.
In all, Marguerite gave birth to three children: Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk; Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent; and a daughter, named Eleanor in honor of Edward's first queen, who perished in infancy.
The mismatched couple were blissfully happy. When Blanche died in 1306 (her husband never became Emperor), Edward ordered all the court to go into mourning to please his queen. He had realised the wife he had gained was "a pearl of great price". The same year Marguerite gave birth to a girl, Eleanor, a choice of name which surprised many, and showed Marguerite's un-jealous nature. After Edward died, as a widow at twenty six, she never remarried saying "when Edward died, all men died for me", but she used her immense dowry to relieve people's suffering.
