Margaret of Orléans, Countess of Etampe

Margaret of Orleans
Princess of France, Countess of Etampes
Detail of a folio from the Book of Hours of Margaret, c. 1430
Spouse	Richard of Druex
House	House of Valois House of Montfort-Dreux (by marriage)
Father	Louis de Valois
Mother	Valentina Visconti

Marguerite d'Orléans was born circa 1406. She was the daughter of Louis de Valois, the Duke of Orléans, and Valentina Visconti, and the granddaughter and niece of Charles V, King of France and Charles VI, King of France, respectively. Her mother was the daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, and Isabelle of France, who was a daughter of John II, King of France. Her brother was the famous and unfortunate Charles, duc d'Orléans, (father of the future Louis XII of France), captured at Agincourt and imprisoned for twenty-five years in England and who during his long captivity, became the greatest poet of the 15th century in the French language.

Life and Marriage

In 1423 she married Richard de Montfort, the Count of Étampes, son of Jean IV de Montfort, Duke of Brittany and Jeanne d'Evreux, Princess of Navarre. Marguerite was given the county of Vertus as her dowry. She and Richard had seven children, of whom two, Francis and Catherine, would have progeny. In 1458 Francis succeeded his uncle Arthur III as duke of Brittany. Margaret, widowed by the death of her husband in 1438, lived for a long time at Longchamp and in other monasteries with her daughters Margaret and Madeleine. She was an incredibly pious woman.

The Book of Hours of Marguerite d'Orleans (see below), a defining example of the Illustrated Prayer Book of the Fifteenth Century, was made for her so that she might practice her devotion on a daily basis. She obtained a declaration from the Cardinal of Estouteville that sheltered her liberty and that of her daughters as they moved among the convents and religious monasteries of northern France. She finally retired to the Abbey at Guiche, order of Sainte Claire near Blois, where she died April 24, 1466 at the age of sixty.

Issue

• Marie de Bretagne, b. 1424
• François II, Duke of Brittany (1458-1488), b. 23 Jun 1435
• unnamed
• Isabelle of Brittany
• Catherine of Brittany
• Marguerite of Brittany
• Madeleine of Brittany

Hundred Year's War and the struggle for control

Funeral of Louis. Miniature from Vigiles du roi Charles VII. On his death, Margaret inherited the county of Etampes

During the Hundred Years' War of France with England, with the the increasing insanity of her uncle King Charles VI(who suffered from either schizophrenia, porphyria or bipolar disorder), her father, Louis disputed the regencyand guardianship of the royal children with John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. The enmity between the two was public and a source of political unrest in the already troubled France. Louis had the initial advantage, being the brother rather than the first cousin of the king, but his character and rumour of an affair with the queen consort Isabeau of Bavaria made him extremely unpopular. For the following years, the struggle for the custody of the royal children continued, until the Duke of Burgundy managed to be appointed, by royal decree, guardian of the Dauphin and regent of France.

Refusing to give up, Louis took every effort to disrupt John's rule, including squandering the money raised for the relief of Calais, then occupied by the English. This resulted in John and Louis breaking into open threats, stopped only by the intervention of their uncle, John of Valois, Duke of Berry. Despite a solemn reconciliation vowed in front of the court of France on November 20, 1407, Louis was brutally assassinated in the streets of Paris, by armed men under the orders of John the Fearless. Louis' murder would spark a bloody feud and civil war between Burgundy and the French Royal family which would divide France for the next seventy years and only end with the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy in 1477.

Succession dispute to the County of Étampes

A folio from the Book of Hours of Marguerite d'Orléans, western France, commissioned around 1430. The combined arms of Brittany and Orléans appearing behind the lady praying to the Virgin indicate that this book was produced for Margaret of Orléans. The artist's decorative genius is affirmed most strongly in the imaginative borders

With her father's death, Margaret inherited the rights to the County of Étampes, and was named countess with her husband, Richard as count, in 1421, which was recovered from the crown lands after the death in 1416, of its last incumbent lord, John, Duke of Berry. However the claim was disputed by the then Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, who succeeded his father John the Fearless in 1419 after the latter's assassination by the agents of Dauphin Charles. Philip took possession and ruled the county personally, (possibly wresting it from Richard in vengeance of his father's death) till 1434, after which he gave it to Jean, Comte de Nevers, his first cousin, who kept it in peaceful possession, until it was reverted to Richard in September 1435 (who died in 1438) by the former Dauphin, who was now King Charles VII of France. The new king confirmed his gift to the deceased duke by letters patent presented to his widow in 1442. However, this decision was contested by the Attorney General of the Parlement, who argued that the County should have been reunited with the Crown, after the death of Richard. It was taken back from Margaret's son Francis in 1478 and in the month of April of the following year, Charles's son and successor, King Louis XI gave it to John of Foix, Viscount of Narbonne, whose wife Marie of Orleans was a niece of Margaret and sister of the future Louis XII of France.

Legacy

Marguerite is best remembered for the Book of Hours produced for her. One of the most exquisite examples of fifteenth-century French illumination, this Book of Hours was executed in a complex series of stages, starting with the text as early as 1421, its decoration inspired by diverse sources and artists. The miniature showing Marguerite praying to the Virgin served as the source for the historical lithographs of Marguerite published by Delpech in 1820.