Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/167

MARGARET 155 MARGARET, titular queen of Navarre, or MAR- GARET OF ANGOULEME, born in Angouleme, April 11, 1492, died at the chateau of Odos, in Bigorre, Dec. 21, 1549. She was the daughter and eldest child of Charles of Orleans, count of Angouleme, and of Louise of Savoy. Her father died when she was in her 12th year, and she was educated by her mother at the court of Louis XII. She was married in 1509 to Charles, duke of Alencon, a prince of the blood royal, and the five years immediately following were passed in the duchy of Alen- con ; but on the accession of her brother to the throne of France as Francis I. (1515), she be- came attached to his court, and had a large part in the government. She was superior to her brother in ability, spoke several languages fluently, a,nd her learning and wit made her the fit companion of the statesmen of those times. After the defeat and capture of her brother at Pavia, in February, 1525, Margaret aided her mother to carry on the government for some months ; but in August she went to Madrid, where Francis was then a prisoner. During this visit she was efficient in negotia- ting the treaty of January, 1526, which even- tually led in 1530 to the marriage between Francis and Eleanor, sister of the emperor, and queen dowager of Portugal. The duke of Alencon, her husband, died in 1525, and in January, 1527, she became the wife of Henri d'Albret, count of Be"arn and titular king of Navarre, whose kingdom was held by Spain. Francis, besides bestowing a lib- eral portion on Margaret, pledged himself to effect the restoration of her husband to the throne of Navarre, for which Margaret, as her correspondence shows, was anxious; but cir- cumstances baffled his purpose. In 1529 she and her husband retired to the principality of Beam, where they labored with success for the improvement of the country. Margaret also paid much attention* to the government of her duchy of Alencon. She sympathized with the reformers, several of whose leaders, and especially Calvin, were protected by her in Beam against their persecutors. How far she favored the new doctrines is unknown, and it has been asserted by adherents of the old faith that she admitted, some time before her death, that she had been in error, and when dying declared that what she had done for the reformers was more from compassion for them than from ill will to Rome. It is certain, however, that the zealous Catholics regarded her as a heretic, and that one of her works, Le miroir de Tame pecheresse (1533), contains Protestant doctrines. The Sorbonne censured it, and it was denounced in other ways. Francis was told that if he wished to destroy the heretics, he must begin with the queen his sister; but he never would allow her to be injured, and punished some of those by whom she had been insulted, or who had sought to poison his mind against her. Mar- garet was a voluminous, writer in verse and prose, and one of her works, the Heptameron, is an old French classic. It was published in Paris in 1559 (best ed., 1863), and has been translated into English by W. K. Kelly (Lon- don, 1855). It is written in imitation of the Decamerone of Boccaccio, but was left incom- plete at her death, as it contains but 72 tales, instead of 100 as originally intended. It is so far an original work, that most of the adven- tures described befell some of the author's contemporaries. She wrote many poems, dramas, poetical epistles, rondeaux, and the like, several of which have been printed, while others remain in manuscript. Her letters to her brother Francis were published in Paris, from the originals, in 1842. 4 On the death of Francis I. (1547) Margaret", who was much afflicted by his loss, became devout, passed most of her time in seclusion, and solaced her mind with religious thoughts and literary pur- suits. Her daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, who married Antoine de Bourbon, became the mother of Henry of Navarre, afterward Henry IV. of France, and founder of the royalty of the house of Bourbon. The best life of Mar- garet of Navarre is that by Martha Walker Freer (2 vols., London, 1854). MARGARET, queen and patron saint of Scot- land, born in Hungary in 1046, died in Edin- burgh, Nov. 17, 1093. She was the niece of Edward the Confessor, and daughter of Ed- ward, son of Edmund Ironside, and of Agatha, daughter of the emperor Henry III. With her brother Edgar Atheling and her sister Chris- tina she was reared at the court of Hungary till 1056, when she returned to England. She fled to Scotland in 1070 with Edgar, and was re- ceived at Dunfermline by King Malcolm Can- more, whose wife she became soon afterward. Margaret was gentle, pious, learned, and ac- complished, and anxious to introduce among the people of Scotland a higher civilization. She enlightened her husband's mind and soothed his fierce spirit ; invited the Scottish clergy and monks to a council, in which she prevailed on them to adopt the Roman man- ner of celebrating Easter ; and put into prac- tice several wise regulations for the instruc- tion of their flocks. She also prevailed on the king to encourage commercial intercourse with other countries. She regulated the royal house- hold, introducing the ceremonial of European courts. She was lavish in her charities to the poor, and founded a number of churches, work- ing with her own hands for their embellish- ment. She bestowed her chief care on the education of her nine children, especially her six sons ; the youngest, David I., was called by Buchanan "the perfect exemplar of a good king," and his sister, Queen Matilda or Maud, who founded London bridge, inherited all their mother's virtues. King Malcolm and Edward, his eldest son, having been slain before the walls of Alnwick, Nov. 13, 1093, the news of their death so affected the queen that she died four days afterward (though according to