Ancestral Trails 2016 » Marguerite de VALOIS (1553-1615)

Personal data Marguerite de VALOIS 

• She was born on May 14, 1553 in Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines, France.
• She died on March 27, 1615 in Hostel de la Reyne Margueritte, Paris, Ile de France, France, she was 61 years old.
• A child of Henri de FRANCE and Catherine de MEDICI

Household of Marguerite de VALOIS

She is married to Henri de FRANCE.

They got married on August 18, 1572 at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France, she was 19 years old.

Notes about Marguerite de VALOIS

Margaret of Valois (French: Marguerite, 14 May 1553 - 27 March 1615) was Queen of Navarre and of France during the late sixteenth century. She is also known as "Margaret of France" because she was a princess of France by birth, who later incidentally became Queen of France by marriage. Notably, she was the last surviving member of the House of Valois.

A daughter of King Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici, Margaret was the sister of Kings Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III of France, and of Elizabeth of Valois. Her brother King Charles IX arranged for her to marry a distant cousin, King Henry of Navarre, and she thus became the Queen of Navarre in 1572. In 1589, after all her brothers had died without fathering sons, Margaret's husband, who was the senior-most agnatic heir to France (the "Prince du sang"), succeeded to the French throne and became King Henry IV, the first Bourbon King of France. Margaret thus became Queen of France as his wife.

A Queen twice over, Margaret was subjected to many political manipulations, including being held prisoner (albeit at a comfortable castle) by her own brother, Henry III of France, for many years. However, her life was anything but passive. She was famous for her beauty and sense of style, notorious for a licentious lifestyle, and also proved a competent memoirist. She was indeed one of the most fashionable women of her time, and influenced many of Europe's royal courts with her clothing. As a corollary to the obsession with beauty and style, Margaret took many lovers both during her marriage and after its annulment, of whom the best-known are Joseph Boniface de La Môle, Jacques de Harlay, Seigneur de Champvallon and Louis de Bussy d'Amboise. When imprisoned by her brother Henry III for eighteen years, she took advantage of the time to write her memoirs, which included a succession of stories relating to the disputes of her brothers Charles IX and Henry III with her husband Henry IV. The memoirs were published posthumously in 1628.

Margaret was born Marguerite de Valois on May 14, 1553, at the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the seventh child and third daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. Three of her brothers would become kings of France: Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. Her sister, Elisabeth of Valois, would become the third wife of King Philip II of Spain. In 1565, her mother Catherine met with Philip II's chief minister Duke of Alba at Bayonne in hopes of arranging a marriage between Margaret and Philip's son Don Carlos. However, Alba refused any consideration of a dynastic marriage.

Margaret was secretly involved with Henry of Guise, the son of the late Duke of Guise. When Catherine found this out, she had her daughter brought from her bed. Catherine and the king then beat her and sent Henry of Guise from court.

The marriage of the 19-year-old Margaret to Henry, who had become King of Navarre upon the death of his mother, took place on 18 August 1572 at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The groom, a Huguenot, had to remain outside the cathedral during the religious ceremony. It was hoped this union would reunite family ties (the Bourbons were part of the French Royal family and the closest relatives to the reigning Valois branch) and create harmony between Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots.

Just six days after the wedding, on St Bartholomew's Day, Roman Catholic factions instigated a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave of mob violence, both directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants). Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de' Medici, the marriage was an occasion on which many of the most wealthy and prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris.

This event took place during the period 1562 to 1598, known as the French Wars of Religion, which consisted of factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise (Lorraine).

She settled her household on the Left Bank of the Seine, in the Hostel de la Reyne Margueritte that is illustrated in Merian's 1615 plan of Paris (illustration); the hostel was built for her to designs by Jean Bullant in 1609. It was eventually demolished and partially replaced in 1640 by the Hôtel de La Rochefoucauld.

Reconciled to her former husband and his second wife, Marie de' Medici, Queen Margaret returned to Paris and established herself as a mentor of the arts and benefactress of the poor. She often helped plan events at court and nurtured the children of Henry IV and Marie.

Margaret died in her Hostel de la Reyne Margueritte, on 27 March 1615, and was buried in the funerary chapel of the Valois in the Basilica of St. Denis. Her casket has disappeared and it is not known whether it was removed and transferred when work was done at the chapel, or destroyed during the French Revolution.
SOURCE: Wikipedia

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Timeline Marguerite de VALOIS

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