issue was the revolt of the Netherlands. In 1567 Margaret resigned her post into the hands of the duke of Alva and retired to Italy. She had the satisfaction of seeing her son Alexander Farnese appointed to the office she had laid down, and to watch his successful career as governor-general of the Netherlands. She died at Ortona in 1586.
See L. P. Gachard, Correspondance de Marguérite d’Autriche avec Phillippe II. 1554–1568 (Brussels, 1867–1887); R. Fruin, Het voorspel van den tachtig jarigen vorlog (Amsterdam, 1856); E. Rachfahl, Margaretha von Parma, Statthalterin der Niederlande, 1559–1567 (Munich, 1895); also bibliography in Cambridge Modern History, iii. 795–809 (1904).
MARGARET OF PROVENCE (1221–1295), queen of France,
was the daughter of Raymond Berenger V., count of Provence.
She was married to Saint Louis at Sens on the 27th of May
1234, and was crowned the next day. Blanche of Castile,
the queen-mother, arranged the marriage to win over to the
cause of France the powerful count of Provence, but treated
her daughter-in-law most unkindly, and her jealousy of the
energetic young queen was naturally shared by Louis, whose
coldness towards and suspicion of his wife are well known.
Margaret did not lack courage, she followed the king on his
crusade, and bore herself heroically at Damietta. But her
ambition and strong personal prejudices often led her to actions
injurious to the realm. This is most noticeable in her hostility
to her brother-in-law Charles of Anjou, who had married her
sister Beatrice, and her devotion to Henry III. of England,
who had married her other sister Eleanor. Aspiring during
the reign of her son to the same rôle which she had seen Blanche
of Castile play, she induced, in 1263, the young Philip, heir to
the throne, to promise to obey her in everything up to the age
of thirty; and Saint Louis was obliged to ask for a bull from
Urban IV. which would release the prince from his oath. After
Saint Louis’ death, Margaret continued obstinately to claim
her rights on the county of Provence against Charles of Anjou.
She sought to employ force of arms, calling upon her son,
her nephew Edward II. of England, and the German king
Rudolph of Habsburg. She did not give up her claim until
after the death of Charles of Anjou (1285), when Philip the
Bold succeeded in getting her to accept an income from the
county of Anjou in exchange for her rights in Provence. She
died on the 31st of December 1295.
See E. Boutaric, Marguérite de Provence, in Revue des questions historiques (1867), pp. 417–458.
MARGARET MAULTASCH (1318–1369), countess of Tirol,
who received the name of Maultasch (pocket-mouth) on
account of the shape of her mouth, was the daughter and heiress
of Henry, duke of Carinthia and count of Tirol. When Henry
died in 1335 Carinthia passed to Albert II., duke of Austria;
but Tirol was inherited by Margaret and her young husband, John
Henry, son of John, king of Bohemia, whom she had married in
1330. This union was not a happy one, and the Tirolese disliked
the government of Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles IV.,
who ruled the county for his brother. The result was that
John Henry was driven from Tirol, and Margaret’s cause was
espoused by the emperor Louis IV., who was anxious to add
the county to his possessions. Declaring her marriage dissolved
on the ground that it had not been consummated, Louis
married Margaret in 1342 to his own son Louis, margrave of
Brandenburg. But as this action on the emperor’s part entrenched
on the privileges of the Church, Pope Clement VI.
placed father and son under the ban, from which they were
not released until 1359. In 1361 Margaret’s husband died,
followed two years later by her only son, Meinhard, when she
handed over Tirol to Rudolph IV., duke of Austria, and retired
to Vienna, where she died on the 3rd of October 1369. She
lived long in the memory of the people of Carinthia, who regarded
her as an amazon, and called her the Wicked Gretl.
See A. Huber, Geschichte der Vereinigung Tirols mit Oesterreich (Innsbruck, 1864).
MARGARINE, the name, first given by Chevreul, to an
artificial substitute for butter, made from beef and other animal
fats, and sometimes mixed with real butter. The name of
“butterine” has also been used. Artificial butter, or “margarine-mouries,” was for some years manufactured in Paris
according to a method made public by the eminent chemist
Mège-Mouries. Having surmised that the formation of butter
contained in milk was due to the absorption of fat contained
in the animal tissues, he was led to experiment on the splitting
up of animal fat. The process he ultimately adopted consisted
in heating finely minced beef suet with water, carbonate of
potash, and fresh sheep’s stomach cut up into small fragments.
The mixture he raised to a temperature of 45° C. (113° F.).
The influence of the pepsine of the sheep’s stomach with the
heat separated the fat from the cellular tissue; he removed
the fatty matter, and submitted it when cool to powerful
hydraulic pressure, separating it into stearin and oleomargarin,
which last alone he used for butter-making. Of this fat about
the proportions of 10 ℔ with 4 pints of milk, and 3 pints
of water were placed in a churn, to which a small quantity
of anatto was added for colouring, and the whole churned
together. The compound so obtained when well washed was
in general appearance, taste and consistency like ordinary
butter, and when well freed from water it was found to keep
a longer time. Margarine is a perfectly wholesome butter-substitute,
and is now largely used, but the ease with which
it may be passed off as real butter has led to much discussion
and legislative action. (See Adulteration.)
MARGARITA, an island in the Caribbean Sea belonging
to Venezuela, about 12 m. N. of the peninsula of Araya, and
constituting, under the constitution of 1904,—with Tortuga,
Cubagua and Coche—a political division called the Eastern
Federal District. The island is about 40 m. long from east
to west, has an area of 400 sq. m., and consists of two mountainous
extremities, nearly separated by the Laguna Grande
on the south, but connected by a low, narrow isthmus. The
highest elevation on the island is the peak of Macanao, 4484 ft.,
in the western part, the highest point in the eastern part
being the peak of Copei, 4170 ft. The higher valleys of the
interior are highly fertile and are well adapted to grazing and
stock-raising. The principal industries are fishing and the making
of salt. The pearl fisheries, which were so productive in the
16th and 17th centuries, are no longer important. A domestic
industry of the women is that of making coarse straw hats,
which are sold on the mainland. The products of Margarita,
however, are insufficient to support its population, and large
numbers periodically emigrate to the mainland, preventing
the increase in population which its healthful climate favours.
The population was estimated in 1904 at 40,000, composed
in great part of half-caste Guayqueri Indians. The capital
is Asunción (pop. about 3000), on the east side of the island,
and its principal port is Pompatar on the south coast. The
two small ports of Puebla de la Mar (Porlamar) and Puebla
del Norte are merely open roadsteads.
The island of Margarita (from Span. Margarita, pearl) was discovered by Columbus in 1498, and was bestowed in 1524 upon Marceto Villalobos by Charles V. In 1561 the freebooter Lope de Aguirre ravaged the island, and in 1662 the town of Pompatar was destroyed by the Dutch. For a long time Margarita was attached to Cumana, but in the eighteenth century it was made administratively independent. Its traders and sailors rendered invaluable assistance to the revolutionists in the war of independence, and the Spanish general, Morillo, was driven from its shores in 1817; in recognition of this it was made a separate state and was renamed Nueva Esparta (New Sparta). In 1904–1909 it was a part of the Federal District with Asunción as its capital. The first Spanish settlement in South America was Nueva Cadiz, founded in 1515 on the barren island of Cubagua; but the place was abandoned when pearl-fishing and slave-trading ceased to be profitable.
MARGATE, a municipal borough and seaside resort in the Isle of Thanet parliamentary division of Kent, England, 74 m. E. by S. of London by the South Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1891), 18,662; (1901), 23,118. It lies on the north coast
