MARGUERITE OF FRANCE,

SECOND QUEEN OF EDWARD I.

THE early death of the brave son and successor of St. Louis, king Philip le Hardi, left his youngest daughter, the princess Marguerite, fatherless at a very tender age. She was brought up under the guardianship of her brother, Philip le Bel, and carefully educated by her mother, queen Marie, a learned and virtuous princess, to whom Joinville dedicated his immortal memoirs. Marguerite early showed indications of the same piety and innate goodness of heart which, notwithstanding some superfluity of devotion, really distinguished the character of her grandfather.

If Marguerite of France possessed any comeliness of person, her claims to beauty were wholly overlooked by contemporaries, who surveyed with admiration the exquisite persons of her elder brother and sister, and surnamed them, by common consent, Philip le Bel and Blanche la Belle. The eldest princess of France was full six years older than Marguerite, and was withal the reigning beauty of Europe, when Edward I. was rendered the most disconsolate of widowers, by the death of Eleanora of Castille. If an historian may be believed, who is so completely a contemporary that he ceased to write before the second Edward ceased to reign, Marguerite was substituted in a marriage-treaty, commenced by Edward for the beautiful Blanche, by a diplomatic manœuvre, unequalled for craft since the days of Leah and Rachel.

It has been seen that grief in the energetic mind of Edward I.

assumed the character of intense activity; but after all was done that human ingenuity could contrive, or that the gorgeous ceremonials of the Roman church could devise, of Funeral honors to the memory of the chère reine, his beloved Eleanora, the warlike king of England sank into a morbid state of melancholy. His contemporary chronicler emphatically says

"His solace all was reft sith she was from him gone.

On fell things he thought, and waxed heavy as lead,
For sadness him o'ermastered since Eleanor was dead."

A more forlorn widowerhood no pen can portray than is thus described by the monk of Piers.

It is exceedingly curious to observe how anxious Edward was, to ascertain the qualifications of the princess Blanche. His ambassadors were commanded to give a minute description not only of her face and manners, but of the turn of her waist, the form of her foot and of her hand; likewise sa façoun, perhaps dress and demeanor.

The result of this inquisition was, that Blanche was perfectly lovely, for ne plus bel creature nul trouve. Moreover, sire Edward, at his mature age, became violently in love (from report) of the charms of Blanche la Belle. The royal pair began to correspond, and the damsel admonished him by letter, that he must in all things submit to her brother, king Philip. In truth, the extreme wish of king Edward to be again united in wedlock with a fair and loving queen, induced him to comply with conditions too hard, even for a young bride to exact, who had a hand, a waist, and a foot perfect as those of Blanche la Belle. Philip demanded that Gascony should be given up by Edward for ever, as a settlement on any posterity Edward might have by his beautiful sister. To this our king agreed; but when he surrendered the province, according to the feudal tenure, to his suzeraine, the treacherous Philip refused to give it up, or let him marry his beautiful sister; and just at this time the name of Marguerite, the youngest sister of Blanche, a child of little more than eleven years of age, is found in the marriage-treaty between England and France.

A fierce war immediately ensued, lasting from 1294 to 1298, during

which time Edward, who at sixty had no time to lose, was left half married to Blanche; for, according to Piers of Langtoft, who seemed intimately acquainted with this curious piece of secret history, the Pope's dispensation had already been completed.

It was not till the year 1298 that any pacific arrangement took place, between Edward and the brother of Blanche. The treaty was then renewed for Marguerite, who had grown up in the mean time. The whole arrangement was referred to the arbitration of the Pope, who decreed "that Guienne was to be restored to the right owner; that Edward I. should marry Marguerite, and that she should be paid the portion of fifteen thousand pounds left her by king Philip le Hardi, her father." This sum, Piers verily believes, Philip le Bel meant to appropriate to his own use.

Piers does not say why the younger sister was substituted instead of Blanche, but he seems to insinuate in these lines that she was the better character:

Not dame Blanche the sweet,

Of whom I now spake,

But dame Marguerite

Good withouten lack.

Marguerite was married to Edward, who met her at Canterbury, by Robert de Winchelsea, September 8th, 1299, when she was in her seventeenth year.

Marguerite of France is the first instance of a queen consort of Eng land who ventured to stand between a mighty Plantagenet in his wrath and his intended victim. We learn, by the statement contained in an act of pardon by Edward I., that Godferey de Coigners "had committed the heavy transgression and malefaction of making the coronal of gold that crowned the king's rebel and enemy, Robert de Brus, in Scotland, and that he had secretly hidden and retained this coronal till a fitting occasion, but that these treasonable doings had since been discovered and convicted by the king's council." No doubt, Godferéy the goldsmith would have been dealt with, according to the tender mercies shown to Wallace and Fraser, if he had not found a friend in queen

Marguerite; "for," says Edward I., "we pardon him solely at the intercession of our dearest consort, Marguerite queen of England."

The citizens of Winchester were likewise deeply indebted to queen Marguerite, whose beneficent interference relieved them from the terrible consequences of king Edward's displeasure To the mayor of Winchester had been confided the safe keeping of Bernard Pereres; a hostage of some importance, whom the city of Bayonne had delivered to the king, as a pledge of their somewhat doubtful loyalty. Bernard made his escape. On which king Edward sternly commanded his sheriff of Hampshire to seize upon the city of Winchester, and to declare its liberties void; thus reducing the free citizens to the state of feudal villeins. The mayor he loaded with an enormous fine of 300 marks, and incarcerated him in the Marshalsea till it was paid. In despair the Winchester citizens appealed to the charity of queen Marguerite. She recollected that when she was first married she had been received at Winchester, with the most affectionate demonstrations of loyalty; moreover, she remembered that her husband had given her a charter, which entitled her to all the fines levied from the men of Winchester. Armed with this charter, she went to her loving lord, and claimed the hapless mayor and his fine as her personal property. She then remitted half the fine; took easy security for the remainder, and set the mayor at liberty; nor did she cease pleading with her consort, till he had restored to Winchester the forfeited charters.

During her husband's absence in Scotland, queen Marguerite retired for security to Winchester, where she was deservedly beloved; here she gave birth to a princess-her third, but the king's sixteenth child. The infant was called Eleanora, after Edward's first queen and his eldest daughter, who was deceased at that time. She died in a few months.

Before king Edward reached the Scottish border he fell ill, at Burgh on Sands. He survived a few days, till the prince of Wales came up with the remaining forces, time enough to receive his last commands, which breathed implacable fury against the Scots. The dying warrior, moreover, commanded his son "to be kind to his little brothers Thomas and Edward, and, above all, to treat with respect and tenderness his mother, queen Marguerite."

The original MS. of the queen's chronicler, John o'London, is a great