But though Duke René was heir to so many kingdoms at the time of his daughter’s marriage, he was owner of none; and instead of providing her with a rich dower, suitable to her rank, the marriage stipulations were very peculiar.
Henry VI. of England was twenty-six years of age. His country was impoverished by a thirty years’ war. Margaret was at this time living at Naples, of which realm her father called himself king. Amongst the princesses selected for the approval of the bachelor king of England, none pleased King Henry so well as the beautiful face of Margaret of Anjou, whose portrait had been sent to him for his examination. So overtures were at once made to the father of this lovely princess.
René consented most readily to the marriage, on the condition that the bride’s wedding portion should be only her own lovely charms and superior accomplishments, which he declared were worth more than all the riches of the world.
But this was not all in this strange marriage agreement. René also demanded that Henry should restore to him his patrimonial estates of Anjou and Maine, which had been wrested from him.
Though Margaret’s father possessed so many high-sounding titles, he was in truth a royal pauper. He had been driven out of Naples, England held Anjou and Maine, and in order to pay his ransom to the Duke of Burgundy, who had kept him a prisoner for six years, René had been obliged to mortgage his other dominions, so that now he possessed neither castle nor an acre of ground he could call his own.
The Earl of Suffolk, who had been sent by King Henry to make the marriage settlements, was alarmed to bring back to his sovereign such an unheard-of demand from the father of a portionless bride; but as René would not relent, Suffolk was forced to return to his king with this strange proposal.
Although King Henry was almost as much poverty-stricken as the lovely princess, her fair face so bewitched him that he readily consented to take her, not only without dower, but to relinquish for her the domains of Anjou and Maine.
The Earl of Suffolk was sent back to wed the fair princess as proxy for Henry, and in St. Martin’s church, at Nanci, in November, 1444, Margaret was married by proxy, the bride being in her fifteenth year.
The ceremony was performed in the presence of her aunt, Marie of Anjou, queen of France, and Charles VII. The bride’s father and mother were also present, and all the leading nobles of the courts of France and Lorraine; the mother of the bride being Isabella, claimant of the duchy of Lorraine.
At the nuptial tournaments and festivities, which lasted for eight days, all the knights wore daisies on their helmets; and the bridemaids and other maidens of Lorraine were decked with wreaths and garlands of the same flower, in honor of the bride’s name, “Marguerite,” signifying “the daisy.”