A MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES
The marriage duly took place and never was there a more startlingly contrasted pair. Henry was a most lovable youth, but he would have been better in a monastery than on a throne. He was extremely pious and softhearted and all too trustful and yielding. Margaret, a vivid and spirited maiden of fifteen, was a creature of entrancing loveliness and charm - with the vicious spirit of a wildcat.

In 1455 Henry VI's "earnest desire to live under the holy sacrament of marriage" was gratified; the ambitions of Beaufort and the peace party were fulfilled; Margaret of Anjou a beautiful, spirited, and willful girl of fifteen, became Queen of England. Margaret was the daughter of the impoverished Rene of Anjou, King of Sicily, and Isabella of Lorraine, and a relation of the French King. According to a contemporary, " no woman surpassed her in beauty, and few men equalled her in courage ". But, from the day of her marriage at Titchfield Abbey, Margaret was unpopular in England. The marriage represented capitulation to the French and humiliation of the war faction in the Council. Furthermore, as soon as Margaret became Queen she began to meddle in the already troubled affairs of state. As Henry VI's wife she made up for her husband's political inadequacies and neglect of government. But Margaret's interventions in policy making were far from disinterested. She intensified the seething passions already underlying fifteenth century politics and provided for the first time in the leaderless years of Henry VI's reign a focus for a real court party.

Naturally she allied herself with those who had brought her to England - the members of the Beaufort Suffolk faction. She was quick to accumulate favours and property for herself and her friends, and when the Duke of Suffolk, her constant companion and adviser, was murdered in 1450, she transferred her allegiance to the Duke of Somerset .

In 1453, two events - the madness of her husband and the birth of her son - brought the simmering jealousies and dynastic rivalries of the reign to the surface, and Margaret found herself on the defensive. Though the Duke of York, who claimed to be Protector of the realm, recognised Margaret's son as heir, she always feared that be would claim the throne himself. This fear made him her implacable enemy long before York actually put forward his claim to the crown. Even more bitterly did Margaret set herself against the Earl of Warwick, who had cast doubts on the legitimacy of her son. The slur may have been unfounded slander, but Henry's remark, on being shown his son, that the Holy Ghost was the father of the child, certainly gave substance to rumours of his wife's infidelity.

In 1455 civil strife degenerated into civil war. York was recognised as Protector and Somerset killed. Five years later York put his claim to the throne before Parliament. The person most concerned to contest it was the present Queen, Margaret of Anjou. She was not going to see the rights of her husband and son passed over without a struggle. In 1461 it seemed as though she had won her revenge.

At Wakefield she taunted York to give battle. When his head, wreathed with a paper crown, was presented to her on the point of a lance, with the words, 'Madam, your war is done," she laughed. But the war was by no means over.

York was dead but his second son was proclaimed King. At Towton in 1461 the Lancastrians were defeated, and Henry, Margaret, and their son fled to Scotland. Cruel and callous Margaret undoubtedly was, but in 1461 she was also tenacious and determined. She pulled every string she knew - in France, Burgundy, and Scotland - to regain the throne. Between 1462 and 1463 she fought her vendetta with Warwick in the north, and made perilous journeys to France to enlist help. Defeat was a concept which Margaret of Anjou could not accept. The new King Edward IV was said to fear her "more when a fugitive than he did all the princes of the house of Lancaster combined". But Margaret could not win the war alone. By the end of 1465 Henry had been captured and Margaret was forced to retire, helpless and poverty-stricken, to France.

But all was not over. Margaret waited, and in 1470 made one final attempt to win the throne for her son. For this she had to swallow a bitter pill and come to terms with Warwick. He and Clarence, the King's brother, had turned traitor and fled to France. Margaret and Warwick were brought together and planned an invasion of England. Margaret landed on the day that Warwick was slain at Barnet. She rallied supporters in the west, but at Tewkesbury Edward defeated her. Margaret was captured, her son slain, and her husband, a prisoner in the Tower murdered .

After Tewkesbury Margaret lived in reasonable comfort as a prisoner, first at Windsor and then at Wallingford, until the French King Louis XI ransomed her. She renounced all her claims in England and lived in poverty in France until her death in 1482 aged fifty-one. Margaret of Anjou had not caused the Wars of the Roses, but much of their fury and their bitterness came from the wrath of this frustrated and ambitious French princess.