Margaret Stewart, Dauphine of France

Lady Margaret of Scotland
Dauphine of Viennois
Spouse	Louis, Dauphin of Viennois
Father	James I of Scotland
Mother	Joan Beaufort
Born	1424 Perth
Died	16 August 1445 Châlons-sur-Marne

Margaret Stewart (French: Marguerite d'Écosse) (Perth, Scotland 1424 – 16 August 1445 in Châlons-sur-Marne, Marne, France) was a Scottish Princess and the French Dauphine by her marriage to the future Louis XI of France.

She was born to James I of Scotland and Joan Beaufort. Joan was a daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and Margaret Holland. Somerset was a son of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and Katherine Swynford. John of Gaunt was in turn the third son of Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault.

Margaret was the eldest child of her parents and an older sister to James II of Scotland.

She married the Dauphin Louis on 24 June of 1436 in Tours, France. Margaret was lovely, gracious and very beautiful ("facie venusta valde" says the compiler of the Book of Pluscarden, "a very lovely face"), with a certain ability to write poesy and rhymes (no example of her compositions survived destruction at her husband's hands after her death). She was also superficial and very interested in the Court's social and gallant life. She was a favourite of her father-in-law Charles VII of France and popular among the courtiers. However, she felt herself alien amongst the French court and became depressed.

She had a strained relationship with her husband, the future king of France, mainly because of Louis' hatred of his father. Charles VII ordered the marriage, and Margaret frequently supported the king against her husband. It is said that she wore a strongly-tied corset because of her fear of pregnancies, ate green apples and drank apple vinegar. Her unhappy marriage furthered her depression, as did the gossip spread regarding her by supporters of Louis.

She died 16 August 1445, between ten and eleven at night, at the age of 20. On Saturday, 7 August, she and her ladies joined the court on a short pilgrimage. It was very hot, and when she returned, she took off almost all her clothes in her stone chamber. The next morning she was feverish, the doctor diagnozed the inflammation of lungs. She died, raving against a Jamet de Tillay, a Breton soldier, in favour of her father-in-law, King Charles (James surprised Margaret at her habitual poetry reading, when there were no candles, only a good fire in the mantelpiece; he stuck a candle into her face, sniggered and afterwards went around, talking about "wanton princesses". Louis was cold to Margaret, and she attributed his coldness to the gossip spread by Jamet. She died, protesting her faithfulness to her husband, and accused Jamet of killing her with his words). ¹ Melancholy and distressed by slander against her, she sank into a final languor before dying. Her last words, in response to urging to rouse herself and live, were supposedly Fi de la vie! qu'on ne m'en parle plus ("Fie on life! Speak no more of it to me"). She was buried in St Laon Abbey, Thouars, Deux-Sevres, France. After her death, her husband married Charlotte of Savoy, mother of Charles VIII of France. Louis XI is buried in Notre Dame de Clery, Orleans next to Charlotte of Savoy.

Margaret is also famous for the legend that she was kissed or almost kissed by poet Alain Chartier while asleep in her own rooms (another variant of this legend has Anne of Brittany as its protagonist), though her age and location at the time of Chartier's death would have made that impossible.

Ancestry

Sources

• Ruth Putnam, Charles the Bold

1. Kendall P.M. Louis XI: The Universal Spider - London, 2001, pp. 66, 393-395