Difficult Women: Marguerite de Valois aka Queen Margot

Crowd goes wild at her fingertips, half moonshine, a full eclipse

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Portrait of Margaret of Valois (1553-1615) Artist unknown

Marguerite de Valois, known as Margot, was born in 1553, the youngest of ten children born to France’s King Henry II and Catherine de Medici. Her nine older brothers and sisters were, by most accounts, frail and ill, whereas Margot was admired for her great beauty and sense of style. Foreign delegations wrote lengthy letters back to their home countries about how gorgeous this woman was, basically describing her as one of the seven wonders of the world. Her recorded actions show a woman who was at times selfless and kind and at other times vain and cruel. Still, when pushed into impossible situations, she comported herself with unusual amounts of bravery and common sense. That such a multi-faceted, genuine person came of age in the French court of Catherine de Medici is remarkable. Her future mother-in-law, Jeanne d’Albret, wrote of Margot, “She is beautiful, discreet, and graceful. But she has grown up in the most vicious and corrupt atmosphere imaginable. I cannot see that anyone escapes its poison.”

The French court at this time was a place of publicly performed religious devotion and privately held licentious abandon. de’Medici’s female servants, the so-called Flying Squadron of courtesan/spies, helped cultivate an atmosphere of corruption, licentiousness, and ruthless ambition where everybody was spying for someone else and nobody could be trusted. Beauty was prized above all else, giving Margot a higher stock than many other girls and women. At age 8, Margot’s role in this court was defined by her engagement to Henry of Navarre, the Prince of a nearby principality sent to be raised with her at court. Because there are a lot of men named Henry in this story, henceforth, this one will be referred to as Navarre. Like most royal Princesses, Margot was a pawn to be used by her family to cement political relations with other royal families, to provide heirs, and to help maintain and hopefully expand her family’s stronghold over France. But Margot wanted something else — passion, romance, and adventure; being brought up to value appearance, she desired someone jaw-droppingly handsome, the sort of man who would turn eyes every time he entered a room but who would also be strong, manly, and brave. Navarre was… nothing like that and, having grown up with her, was more of a pesky younger brother figure than someone she could ever imagine as a lover.

Perhaps even more than Navarre’s sub-par looks and immature personality, he and his family were Huguenots — Protestants, at a time of great religious tension. Navarre’s mother, Jeanne d’Albret, did not like Margot’s Catholic family — particularly her notorious mother, Catherine de Medici. d’Albret saw her son being kept at French court as something akin to kidnapping and schemed to escape with him back to their home palace. And, when Navarre and Margot were both about fourteen, d’Albret successfully absconded with him. Not only that, her plan counted on Catherine unknowingly funding their flight. Catherine was apoplectic; Margot, secretly relieved — after all, there was no chance she’d be permitted to marry a man whose family had just betrayed the royal family so cruelly. As fate would have it, the absence of one Henry was filled with the arrival of another, in the form of Henry, the Duke of Guise (who we will just call de Guise).

And the thing is, de Guise was everything the romantic Margot had ever wanted. Three years older than her, eighteen to her fifteen, de Guise was tall and blond, athletic, charming, and fearless on the battlefield. He was also well-known for his skill at seduction, and in a court obsessed with physical beauty, he rose to become Margot’s equal, a sort of Prom King and Queen. By now, Margot had grown from the prettiest girl to the loveliest woman at court. Her looks, sense of style, gracefulness at dancing, and charming personality stood out from everyone else. On a personal level, they seemed a perfect match. And politically, their pairing seemed appropriate, too: after all, Margot’s older sister Claude had already married into the de Guise family, and his family had taken roles as senior advisors to her brother, the King. What could go wrong?? </foreshadowing>

What happened was the de Guise family got caught up in a conspiracy to kidnap King Charles, destroying friendly relations between the two families. To this point, Margot had somehow managed to avoid the cutthroat Game of Thrones continually playing out among her siblings and mother, but her relationship with de Guise was something her power-hungry family could not use against her. So, enter this story’s third Henry, Margot’s brother Prince Henry, Duke of Anjou (we will call him Anjou). Anjou was Catherine’s favourite child, and he cultivated a raging hatred for his brother, the King. Charles, in return, hated Anjou for the way Catherine favoured him and how he openly craved the throne. Anjou also loathed de Guise, who was taller and more handsome and performed better on the battlefield. When Anjou became aware of Margot’s feelings for de Guise, he saw a way to ensnare his rival in a power grab. He manipulated Margot to side with him against Charles by flattering her, then coerced her to advocate for his interests with their mother, getting closer to Catherine so that Margot would be “the first with her and the last to leave her.” Catherine didn’t know why Margot was suddenly so close to her, but with Anjou off at battle, she began to shower Margot with attention, opening up to her with her most private thoughts.

For four months, from June to October 1569, Margot did just what her brother had asked of her. And then things got pretty weird, frankly. I don’t understand the precise betrayal that occurred, but here’s my best explanation: Anjou blabbed to Catherine that Margot wanted to marry de Guise, who Catherine, of course, hated at this point. Margot’s newfound closeness with Catherine made this all riskier — like, she knew some of Catherine’s secrets, and if she married de Guise, then she’d let him know all the secrets or something like that. But the main thing was that Anjou alleged that not only did Margot want to marry de Guise, but she was actively trying to make it happen. Nobody was allowed to decide who they’d marry, especially not royals, especially not female royals, and especially not one of Catherine’s children. Catherine would never forgive Margot for going behind her back, and Margot would never forgive Anjou for setting her up and selling her out.

I should note at this point that there are unsubstantiated rumours that Anjou, and potentially other of her brothers, sexually abused Margot. At the very least, Anjou seemed to delight in manipulating her, but then again, he seemed to enjoy manipulating everyone. For instance, when de Guise was recovering from an injury, Anjou arranged for him to return to French court — where Margot happened to be, also convalescing from an illness. de Guise visited her frequently, doing his best to assure her that his family was back in the royal family’s good graces, although that was patently untrue. Was he trying merely to seduce her, or did he want to marry her — and if the latter, was it because of love or because of the power that marriage to her would provide? The entire affair came to a head when Margot’s ladies-in-waiting, secretly spying on her for Anjou, brought one of Margot’s letters to de Guise to the King. Don’t put your secret affairs in writing, Margot! Or, if you do, use a cipher!

Anyway, Charles was so upset by this evidence of apparent betrayal (he had been on #TeamMargot, defending her against Anjou’s claims of her treachery) that he sent for Catherine, and the pair of them dragged Margot from bed and beat her viciously. This had the desired effect: Margot, terrified of her family, agreed to stay away from de Guise. Feeling that she would not be safe from rumours of their involvement until he was married, she went to her sister Claude, hoping that she could compel him to marry someone else. And Claude pulled through: de Guise was married in short order to another woman; Margot and her family were present at the ceremony because this is all like a murder-y high school where no one can ever avoid seeing each other at all the big parties. However, the lesson she learned through this cruel sequence of events would come to serve her shortly; to survive within this court and her family, she would need to remain vigilant, careful, and suspicious of the motives of everyone around her.

By this point, Catherine had alienated a lot of other important families such that they wouldn’t consider marrying their sons to her daughter. So it was that, despite her best attempts, Catherine could not find anyone better to marry Margot off to than Henry of Navarre. Yes, he was still a Protestant, and yes, his mother was one of Catherine’s most hated enemies. Still, a marriage between these two would perhaps provide a balm over the continued religious battles that continued to rip France apart. Also, It was incomprehensible for a Catholic and a Protestant to marry, so the assumption was that Margot would ultimately convert to her husband’s religion. Margot, a devout Catholic, saw this marriage as being condemned to Hell. Much of the popular depictions of Margot suggest that her primary resistance to this marriage was Henry’s sub-par physical appearance and unappealing personality. Still, Margot’s writings emphasize that religion was a more significant motivating factor. She may have been brought up in basically Game of Thrones, but her religious devotion was genuine.

… Not that it mattered in this instance, as marriage preparations began immediately. It was during the planning that Navarre’s mother, Catherine’s enemy Jeanne d’Albret, collapsed dead while out glove shopping. Physicians at the time claimed she died of natural causes, but rumours persisted that Catherine had killed her with a set of poisoned gloves. (I mean, poisoned gloves, who wouldn’t want to believe that fantastic rumour??). The preparations and wedding occurred during a heatwave, which just sets the scene for how it was all about to explode. Everyone was sweaty and tired, wearing all of the layers of clothing in the 16th century. And I’m sure all they ever drank was wine, so they were both sun-exhausted and perpetually drunk. As was the custom for a royal marriage, the ceremony was followed by four days of celebration. As was not the custom, at the end of the days of festivity, Catherine arranged for many of the visiting Protestants to be assassinated.

Wait, what?

So, after d’Albret died, Henry of Navarre became the King of Navarre and, as such, the de facto leader of the Huguenots. Due to his high profile, most of the most prominent French Protestants came to Paris to celebrate his marriage — especially as they assumed Margot was going to convert. There were a lot of backroom deals going on; everybody was backstabbing everybody but blaming others for it, and it wound up with Catherine arranging an assassination attempt on a leading Protestant general, framing the Huguenots for the crime. The night this happened, Margot was sitting with Huguenots, all surprised and confused by this turn of events; clearly, Margot saw none of them had been involved. And yet the next day, word began to spread that the Huguenots had been behind the attempt themselves, in their effort to make it look like the Catholics had done it… it was a mess, and Catholics started killing Protestants; it became known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and so many people were killed all over France. Happy wedding, Margot and Navarre!!

The night that the slaughter began, Margot was woken from her sleep (she was not sleeping with Navarre because, of course, she wasn’t) by a Huguenot stranger stumbling through her door, grievously injured in the melee. He was pursued by armed guards, including four archers (!!!). Margot, acting entirely on instinct and in the first significant moment that genuinely defined her true character threw herself between this stranger and the palace guards, determined to kill him. The guards were ordered away, and Margot could tend to the wounded man, saving his life. She then set out to see what she could do, as the Queen of Navarre, to help protect other Huguenots who were under threat, including her new husband.

Navarre, the person, had been forced to convert to Catholicism, saving his life for the time being. Having humiliated him through this conversion and parading him into Catholic mass, Catherine next set out to have their marriage annulled. Given that they had only just been wed and that they almost definitely had not consummated their union, this could have likely been done relatively quickly. And once Margot was freed of her husband, Catherine could more easily have Navarre killed. But the thing is, Margot knew that was the plan. As much as she must have wanted to be freed of this unwanted marriage, she already felt guilty for her complicity in the massacre and didn’t want his blood on her hands, too. And so, in a decision that would cement the nobility first hinted at when she saved the stranger, she refused the annulment. In so doing, she put her husband under her protection, ensuring her family could never kill him. (In a brutal twist, Navarre never learned she had done this for him. He assumed incorrectly that Margot had been involved in her family’s betrayal, and that night she spent chatting with the Huguenots, she knew what was to come. Her motivations were never revealed until her memoirs were published, long after both died.)

The way life always does, even after a life-altering, horrifying thing happens, things returned pretty much to normal. Navarre, now a tentative ally to Margot’s family, was invited along with Anjou and others to help quell an uprising in the countryside. In his absence, Margot was left alone as a married woman of nineteen — a much freer and more enjoyable status that she’d enjoyed as a single girl. She joined up with the most fabulous squad at court, led by Henriette de Cleves and Catherine de Clermont-Dampierre, attending all of their soirees and parties and socializing with artists and writers and great thinkers of the age. Due to their beauty and proximity to creative minds, this group of noblewomen became known as the Muses of Paris.

At one of the many soirees she attended, Margot met Joseph de Boniface, known as La Mole. La Mole was an infamous ladies' man twenty years her senior, a sort of the cooler, more grown-up version of Henry de Guise. I picture him as having a kind of Glen Powell-esque quality, fully dapper and charming. La Mole was so skilled at wooing women that he was sent as France’s representative when Catherine tried to convince England’s Queen Elizabeth I to marry one of her sons. (Elizabeth, to her great credit, did not, but I don’t think that was La Mole’s fault). He was also a friend to Margot’s other brother, Francois.

Meanwhile, her family continued to war over a series of self-inflicted rivalries. Francois conspired with La Mole and others to assassinate King Charles, who was already sickly. They were caught, of course, because Catherine always finds out. After Francois begged for forgiveness, La Mole became the fall guy for the plot. He was found guilty, mainly due to the existence of a wax figurine pricked with needles (?) found in his room (??), which was thought to be a threat to the King (???). He was put to death, and in one of those rumours that is so great, I hope it’s true, Margot was said to have had his head preserved for her to keep with her¹. King Charles, who had always been fragile, died during this whole deal, making his younger brother Anjou the new King, Henry III.

Anjou was suspicious of and threatened by Margot, especially given that she and Navarre seemed to be getting along better lately. A happy King and Queen of Navarre were a threat to the King of France, so he pulled yet more classic schemes, connecting Navarre with a mistress who just happened also to be one of Catherine’s courtesan-spies, and arranging to have Margot caught in a compromising position further to alienate her from the rest of the family. Anjou, in this story, even given the other gross people involved, is officially The Worst. This whole situation puts me in the mind of Cersei on Game of Thrones, where the two people most capable of being in charge (Catherine and Margot) weren’t allowed to. So they’re forced to grin and beat it as a series of pretty useless men rule the country: Primogeniture, you sick bastard.

There’s so much fantastic stuff to get into; this could be like a twelve-part series about Margot being AMAZING. But since this is more of an overview than anything else, suffice it to say that over the next several years, Margot saved Navarre’s life again; he didn’t know and continued to hate her. Margot fell in love, again, with a man named Louis de Clermont d’Amoise, known as Bussy, because every one of her lovers had fantastic names; Anjou kept scheming to destroy Margot and Navarre’s marriage, using a variety of gross sex-related schemes; Navarre fled Paris because can you blame him at this point honestly, abandoning Margot; Margot eventually joined him in Navarre, where they spent three years in an unhappy open marriage, hating each other; Margot fled back to Paris, where she lived it up to the point that even Anjou was like “girl, enough,” and kicked her out; Navarre didn’t want her back; eventually she wound up back there; it was a whole thing; I suggest reading a good nonfiction book to get all the AMAZING highlights of this woman’s life.

I will note here, though, how, at one point, Margot, fed up with being a pawn in everyone else’s game, masterminded a coup to seize power over the French province of Agen, which did not go well. The good news is she managed to seize control; the bad news is that the citizens revolted against her, and she had to flee. By 1586, Anjou imprisoned her (I think for the taking control of Agen scenario), but it was like a Mary Stuart/Jane Grey situation where she was trapped in a castle, not an actual jail. She was imprisoned in a castle, which is still not ideal, but not quite an Elizabeth Bathory “trapped in a tiny bricked-in closet you couldn’t move in” situation. Margot remained imprisoned for eighteen years, first by her brother and then by her husband. Every man named Henry in this story is terrible. But! Not one to let a moment go to waste, she spent this time writing her memoirs, which you know must have been juicy, and I have great news: they were published, and you can probably find a version to read it all yourself. Her writings weren’t published until well after the death of everyone mentioned in them, but when they were printed in 1628, it caused quite a scandal.

Anjou died in 1589 without an heir, as had his two older brothers, leaving the only possible new King to be… none other than Margot’s ex-husband, Henry de Navarre, who had re-converted back to Protestantism by this point. He wasn’t made King because of his relation to the crown but due to his marriage to Margot — although they hadn’t physically been together in ages, it was still on the books. He re-re-converted back to Catholicism, but for real this time, and as Henry IV, founded the new dynasty of French royals known as the Bourbons (you may know them from his descendants, all of whom were Kings named Louis, one of whom was married to Marie Antoinette). Navarre and Margot had their marriage annulled in 1600, after which he married Marie de Medici. However, the annulment agreement permitted Margot to retain her title of Queen.

Finally freed of her castle-prison, Margot returned to Paris, where she lived in an estate on the Left Bank known as the Hostel de la Reyne Margueritte. She spent her later years continuing the patronage of the arts she’d begun as a young woman, as well as acting as a benefactor to the poor, and basically being amazing. Because this story isn’t weird enough yet, she also helped as a party planner to Navarre and Marie, and was like a special Auntie to their kids. There was a rumour she had at least one illegitimate child of her own, but that was probably just Anjou being a dick, but officially Margot never had any children.

She passed away in 1615, aged 62. At some point, likely during the French Revolution, her casket disappeared², and nobody knows where it is anymore.

VULGAR HISTORY A LA CARTE is a feminist women’s history comedy newsletter. It is the companion publication to the Vulgar History podcast. Click here to hear the latest episode of the podcast.

Ann Foster is a a writer and podcaster. She’s currently writing a nonfiction biography of Caroline of Brunswick. Don’t know who that is? You will soon! She’s represented by Amy Bishop-Wycisk at Trellis Literary Management.

Sources

The Rival Queens: Catherine de’ Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal that Ignited a Kingdom by Nancy Goldstone

1. the 1994 French movie La Reine Margot portrays this, memorably, onscreen.

2. during the French Revolution, a lot of royal tombs were ransacked