Black Jack, in turn fell on his knees before her and then led her and her son to a secret cave in Deepden Woods, where she sheltered until de Brezé found her. 7
Less romantic, if perhaps also exaggerated, is the fact that, as Chastellain tells it, Marguerite was now so poor she had to borrow a groat from a Scottish archer to make an offering on St Margaret’s feast day. Indeed, for five days Chastellain claims, she and her husband and son were forced to subsist on a single day’s ration of bread, and ‘one herring between the three’.
There is, of course, an air of unreality about Chastellain’s story, but there is no doubt that Margaret went back to the continent, leaving her husband behind to roam as a fugitive in the north, hiding in friendly houses. Over the next few years she attempted to rally support from the rulers of Brittany, Burgundy, Germany and Portugal, as well as France. Chastellain describes not only her forcible pleading with the European monarchs but the ‘wonder’ caused by her arrival in Burgundy, since she had once been the duke’s mortal enemy. ‘Wherefore were heard divers murmurs against her in many mouths, and many savage comments on the nature of her misfortune.’ Marguerite, Chastellain says, arrived in Burgundy:
poor and alone, destitute of goods and all desolate; [she] had neither credence, nor money, nor goods, nor jewels to pledge. [She] had her son, no royal robes, nor estate; and her person without adornment befitting a queen. Her body was clad in one single robe, with no change of clothing. [She] had no more than seven women for her retinue, and whose apparel was like that of their mistress, formerly one of the most splendid women of the world and now one of the poorest; and finally she had no other provision nor even bread to eat, except from the purse of her knight… . It was a thing piteous to see, truly, this high princess so cast down and laid low in such great danger, dying of hunger and hardship.
For all his sympathy, it is hard not to feel that the Burgundian chronicler was relishing the drama of Marguerite’s ‘lowliness and abasement’ as he describes how the English in Calais were trying to capture her, how she had been forced to travel in a farm cart ‘covered over with canvas and harnessed with four mares like a poor woman going unknown’. The Burgundian duke tried to dodge her for a time, but when Marguerite sent word that: ‘Were my cousin of Burgundy to go to the end of the world I would follow him’ he gave way, and after meeting her sent both financial aid and his sister the Duchess of Bourbon as a companion. The two women struck up an eager friendship, with Marguerite recounting amazing adventures. The duchess agreed that if a book were to be written on the troubles of royal ladies, Marguerite’s would be acknowledged as the most shocking of catastrophes.
Marguerite was finally forced to retreat to her father’s estate at St Michel-sur-Bar, living on an inadequate pension from him and paying visits to her European relatives. Letters from her officers detail the continued extreme shortage of ready money – hardly enough coins to pay the messenger – ‘but yet the Queen sustaineth us in meat and drink, so as we be not in extreme necessity’. Early in 1465 she tried again to get help from King Louis, but, realising she was in no position to make demands, he merely mocked her plea. In July that year the fugitive Henry VI was finally captured and, after a humiliating journey south with his legs tied to his horse’s stirrups and a straw hat on his head, placed in comparatively lenient imprisonment in the Tower. Here he was at liberty to receive visitors, even though Lancastrian chroniclers complained that he was not kept clean as a king should be. He would remain in captivity for the next five years while – for an England settling into Edward’s rule and Elizabeth’s queenship – Marguerite on the continent was a threat that refused to go
Less romantic, if perhaps also exaggerated, is the fact that, as Chastellain tells it, Marguerite was now so poor she had to borrow a groat from a Scottish archer to make an offering on St Margaret’s feast day. Indeed, for five days Chastellain claims, she and her husband and son were forced to subsist on a single day’s ration of bread, and ‘one herring between the three’.
There is, of course, an air of unreality about Chastellain’s story, but there is no doubt that Margaret went back to the continent, leaving her husband behind to roam as a fugitive in the north, hiding in friendly houses. Over the next few years she attempted to rally support from the rulers of Brittany, Burgundy, Germany and Portugal, as well as France. Chastellain describes not only her forcible pleading with the European monarchs but the ‘wonder’ caused by her arrival in Burgundy, since she had once been the duke’s mortal enemy. ‘Wherefore were heard divers murmurs against her in many mouths, and many savage comments on the nature of her misfortune.’ Marguerite, Chastellain says, arrived in Burgundy:
poor and alone, destitute of goods and all desolate; [she] had neither credence, nor money, nor goods, nor jewels to pledge. [She] had her son, no royal robes, nor estate; and her person without adornment befitting a queen. Her body was clad in one single robe, with no change of clothing. [She] had no more than seven women for her retinue, and whose apparel was like that of their mistress, formerly one of the most splendid women of the world and now one of the poorest; and finally she had no other provision nor even bread to eat, except from the purse of her knight… . It was a thing piteous to see, truly, this high princess so cast down and laid low in such great danger, dying of hunger and hardship.
For all his sympathy, it is hard not to feel that the Burgundian chronicler was relishing the drama of Marguerite’s ‘lowliness and abasement’ as he describes how the English in Calais were trying to capture her, how she had been forced to travel in a farm cart ‘covered over with canvas and harnessed with four mares like a poor woman going unknown’. The Burgundian duke tried to dodge her for a time, but when Marguerite sent word that: ‘Were my cousin of Burgundy to go to the end of the world I would follow him’ he gave way, and after meeting her sent both financial aid and his sister the Duchess of Bourbon as a companion. The two women struck up an eager friendship, with Marguerite recounting amazing adventures. The duchess agreed that if a book were to be written on the troubles of royal ladies, Marguerite’s would be acknowledged as the most shocking of catastrophes.
Marguerite was finally forced to retreat to her father’s estate at St Michel-sur-Bar, living on an inadequate pension from him and paying visits to her European relatives. Letters from her officers detail the continued extreme shortage of ready money – hardly enough coins to pay the messenger – ‘but yet the Queen sustaineth us in meat and drink, so as we be not in extreme necessity’. Early in 1465 she tried again to get help from King Louis, but, realising she was in no position to make demands, he merely mocked her plea. In July that year the fugitive Henry VI was finally captured and, after a humiliating journey south with his legs tied to his horse’s stirrups and a straw hat on his head, placed in comparatively lenient imprisonment in the Tower. Here he was at liberty to receive visitors, even though Lancastrian chroniclers complained that he was not kept clean as a king should be. He would remain in captivity for the next five years while – for an England settling into Edward’s rule and Elizabeth’s queenship – Marguerite on the continent was a threat that refused to go
Similar Books
