Part 4 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Great families.]

The great families who held these provinces as their possessions ruled over them in a very lordly manner. They regarded not only the territory itself which they held, but the right to govern the inhabitants of it as a species of property, which was subject, like any other estate, to descend from parent to child by hereditary right, to be conveyed to another owner by treaty or surrender, to be a.s.signed to a bride as her marriage portion, or to be disposed of in any other way that the lordly proprietors might prefer. These great families took their names from the provinces over which they ruled.

[Sidenote: Anjou.]

[Sidenote: King Rene.]

One of these provinces was Anjou.[1] The father of Margaret, the subject of this history, was a celebrated personage named Regnier or Rene, commonly called King Rene. He was a younger son of the family which reigned over Anjou. It is from this circ.u.mstance that our heroine derives the name by which she is generally designated--Margaret of Anjou. The reason why her father was called _King_ Rene will appear in the sequel.

[Footnote 1: See map at the commencement of the volume.]

[Sidenote: Lorraine.]

Another of the provinces of France above referred to was Lorraine.

Lorraine was a large, and beautiful, and very valuable country, situated toward the eastern part of France. Anjou was considerably to the westward of it.

[Sidenote: 1429.]

[Sidenote: Marriage of Rene to Isabella.]

The name of the Duke of Lorraine at this time was Charles. He had a daughter named Isabella. She was the heiress to all her father's possessions. She was a young lady of great beauty, of high spirit, of a very accomplished education, according to the ideas of those times.

When Rene was about fourteen years old a match was arranged between him and Isabella, who was then only about ten. The marriage was celebrated with great parade, and the youthful pair went to reside at a palace called Pont a Mousson, in a grand castle which was given to Isabella by her father as a bridal gift at the time of her marriage.

Here it was expected that they would live until the death of her father, when they were to come into possession of the whole province of Lorraine.

[Sidenote: Birth of Margaret.]

In process of time, while living at this castle, Rene and Isabella had several children. Margaret was the fifth. She was born in 1429. Her birthday was March 23.

[Sidenote: Theophanie.]

The little infant was put under the charge of a family nurse named Theophanie. Theophanie was a long-tried and very faithful domestic.

She was successively the nurse to all of Isabella's children, and the family became so much attached to her that when she died Rene caused a beautiful monument to be raised to her memory. This monument contained a sculptured image of Theophanie, with two of the children in her arms.

[Sidenote: 1431.]

Very soon after her birth Margaret was baptized with great pomp in the Cathedral in the town of Toul. A large number of relatives of high rank witnessed and took part in the ceremony.

[Sidenote: Isabella's uncle Antoine.]

[Sidenote: Conflict for the possession of Lorraine.]

When at length Charles, Duke of Lorraine, Isabella's father, died, and the province should have descended to Isabella and Rene, there suddenly appeared another claimant, who thought, not that he had a better right to the province than Isabella, but that he had more power to seize and hold it than she, even with all the aid that her husband Rene could afford her. This claimant was Isabella's uncle, the younger brother of Duke Charles who had just died. His name was Antoine de Vaudemonte, or, as it would be expressed in English, Anthony of Vaudemont. This uncle, on the death of Isabella's father, determined to seize the duchy for himself, instead of allowing it to descend to Isabella, the proper heir, who, being but a woman, was looked upon with very little respect. ”Lorraine,” he said, ”was too n.o.ble and valuable a fief to descend in the family on the spindle side.”

So he collected his adherents and retainers, organized an army, and took the field. Isabella, on the other hand, did all in her power to induce the people of the country to espouse her cause. Rene took the command of the forces which were raised in her behalf, and went forth to meet Antoine. Isabella herself, taking the children with her, went to the city of Nancy[2]--which was then, as now, the chief city of Lorraine, and was consequently the safest place for her--intending to await there the result of the conflict. Little Margaret was at this time about two years old.

[Footnote 2: The position of Nancy, as well as the situation of the two provinces of Anjou and Lorraine, which are now departments of France, may be seen by referring to any good map of that country, or to that at the commencement of this volume.]

[Sidenote: The battle.]