Marguerite of France (1282 – 14 February 1317) was the second queen consort of King Edward I of England.
Three years after the death of his beloved first wife, Eleanor of Castile, at the age of 48 in 1290, Edward I was still grieving. But news got to him of the beauty of Blanche, sister to King Philip IV of France. Edward decided that he would marry Blanche at any cost and sent out emissaries to negotiate the marriage with Philip. Philip agreed to give Blanche to Edward on the following conditions:
- a truce was concluded between the two countries
- Edward gave up the province of Gascony
Edward, surprisingly, agreed and sent his brother Edmund, Duke of Lancaster , to fetch the new bride. Edward had been deceived, for Blanche was to be married to Rudolph, King of the Romans and eldest son of the Holy Roman Emperor. Instead Philip offered his younger sister Marguerite, a young girl of 11, to marry Edward (then 55). Upon hearing this, Edward declared war on France, refusing to marry Marguerite. After five years, a truce was agreed, under the terms of which Edward would marry Marguerite and would regain the key city of Guienne, and receive the £15,000 owed to Marguerite from her father, King Philip III of France (Philip the Bold).
Edward was now 60 years old. The wedding took place at Canterbury on September 8, 1299. Edward soon returned to the Scottish border to continue his campaigns and left Marguerite in London. After several months, bored and lonely, the young queen decided to join her husband. Nothing could have pleased the king more, for Marguerite's actions reminded him of his first wife Eleanor, who had had two of her sixteen children abroad. Marguerite soon became firm friends with her stepdaughter Mary, a nun, who was two years older than the young queen. In less than a year Marguerite gave birth to a son, and then another a year later. It is said that many who fell under the king's wrath were saved from too stern a punishment by the queen's influence over her husband, and the statement, Pardoned solely on the intercession of our dearest consort, queen Marguerite of England, appears.
In all, Marguerite gave birth to three children: Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk; Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent; and a daughter, named Eleanor in honor of Edward's first queen, who perished in infancy.
The mismatched couple were blissfully happy. When Blanche died in 1306 (her husband never became Emperor), Edward ordered all the court to go into mourning to please his queen. He had realised the wife he had gained was "a pearl of great price". The same year Marguerite gave birth to a girl, Eleanor, a choice of name which surprised many, and showed Marguerite's un-jealous nature. After Edward died, as a widow at twenty six, she never remarried saying "when Edward died, all men died for me", but she used her immense dowry to relieve people's suffering.
