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For other people with the same name see Marguerite of France.

Margaret of France
Queen consort of England
Tenure	8 September 1299 – 7 July 1307
Spouse	Edward I of England
Issue
Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent
House	Capetian Dynasty House of Plantagenet
Father	Philip III of France
Mother	Maria of Brabant
Born	1279 ? Paris, France
Died	14 February 1318 Marlborough Castle, Wiltshire
Burial	Greyfriar's Church, Greenwich

Margaret of France (1279 ?^[1] – 14 February 1318^[1]), a daughter of Philip III of France and Maria of Brabant, was Queen of England as the second wife of King Edward I of England.

Marriage

Three years after the death of his beloved first wife, Eleanor of Castile, at the age of 49 in 1290, Edward I was still grieving. But news got to him of the beauty of Blanche, daughter of the late King Philip III. Edward decided that he would marry Blanche at any cost and sent out emissaries to negotiate the marriage with her half-brother, King Philip IV. It was also much to Edward's benefit to make peace with France to free him to pursue his wars in Scotland. Philip agreed to give Blanche to Edward on the following conditions:

1. A truce was concluded between the two countries.
2. Edward gave up the province of Gascony.

Edward agreed and sent his brother Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, to fetch the new bride. Edward had been deceived, for Blanche was to be married to Rudolph III of Habsburg, the eldest son of King Albert I of Germany. Instead, Philip offered her younger sister Margaret, a young girl of 11, to marry Edward (then 55). Upon hearing this, Edward declared war on France, refusing to marry Margaret. After five years, a truce was agreed, under the terms of which Edward would marry Margaret, would regain the key city of Guienne, and receive £15,000 owed to Margaret.

Marguerite of France's arms as Queen consort^[2]

Edward was then 60 years old. The wedding took place at Canterbury on 8 September 1299. Marguerite was never crowned, being the first uncrowned queen since the Conquest.^[3]

Edward soon returned to the Scottish border to continue his campaigns and left Margaret in London. After several months, bored and lonely, the young queen decided to join her husband. Nothing could have pleased the king more, for Margaret's actions reminded him of his first wife Eleanor, who had had two of her sixteen children abroad.

Margaret soon became firm friends with her stepdaughter Mary, a nun, who was two years older than the young queen. She and her stepson, Edward (who was two years younger than her), also became fond of each other: he once made her a gift of an expensive ruby and gold ring, and she on one occasion rescued many of the Prince's friends from the wrath of the King. In less than a year Margaret 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 Margaret of England, appears.

The mismatched couple were blissfully happy. When Blanche died in 1305 (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 Margaret gave birth to a girl, Eleanor, named in honour of Edward's first queen, a choice of which surprised many, and showed Margaret's unjealous nature.

French Monarchy
Direct Capetians
Philip III
Philip IV
Charles III, Count of Valois
Louis d'Evreux
Margaret, Queen of England
Blanche, Duchess of Austria

Children

In all, Margaret gave birth to three children:

• Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk (1300 - 1338)
• Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent (1301 – 1330)
• Eleanor of England (4 May 1306 - 1311)

Ancestry

Later life

She never remarried after Edward's death in 1307, despite being only 26 when widowed. She lived out the remainder of her life in Marlborough Castle, by this time a dower house, and used her immense dowry to relieve people's suffering. Her saying was, "when Edward died, all men died for me". She died just 10 years after her husband, at the age of 36, and was buried at Greyfriar's Church, Greenwich.

Notes and references

1. ^ ^{a b} John Carmi Parsons, ‘Margaret (1279?–1318)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008.
2. ^ Boutell, Charles (1863), A Manual of Heraldry, Historical and Popular, London: Winsor & Newton, pp. 275  
3. ^ Williamson, D. (1986), Kings and Queens of Britain, p. 75, Salem House, ISBN 0-88162-213-3.