Margaret of Anjou

Margaret of Anjou was the French-born queen of Henry VI and became the most forceful Lancastrian leader during the Wars of the Roses. As Henry’s mental health failed, she defended the inheritance of their son Edward and opposed Richard, Duke of York. After repeated battles, exile and a brief Lancastrian restoration, her forces were defeated at Tewkesbury in 1471 and her son was killed. Margaret spent later years in custody and poverty before returning to France.

Margaret is central to Conn Iggulden’s Wars of the Roses series and appears in Philippa Gregory’s Cousins’ War novels. Fiction has long inherited the image of Shakespeare’s violent “she-wolf,” but modern treatments more often present a queen acting in a political and military role because her husband could not. Her determination remains inseparable from the brutality of the civil war she helped sustain.

In Jean Plaidy’s Red Rose of Anjou, But Margaret of Anjou, Henry's new French wife, is a formidable woman who is just as determined to keep Henry on the throne. In Conn Iggulden’s Stormbird, his marriage to Margaret of Anjou and concessions made for peace intensify resentment, while corruption and military defeat feed Jack Cade’s rebellion. Other novels featuring Margaret of Anjou include Amy Licence’s Son of York (House of York), Philippa Gregory’s The Lady of the Rivers, Conn Iggulden’s Bloodline, Alison Weir’s Lancaster and York, and Anne O’Brien’s The Queen and the Countess.

In non-fiction, Margaret of Anjou is discussed in Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown, A. W. Boardman’s Towton 1461, A. W. Boardman’s The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses, A. W. Boardman’s St Albans 1455, and A. W. Boardman’s The Rose, the Bastard and the Saint King. In Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown, Dan Jones follows Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, Edward IV, Warwick, Richard III and the families whose shifting alliances turned disputes over government into the Wars of the Roses.