MARGARET OF AUSTRIA (1522-1586), duchess of Parma and regent of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567, was a natural daughter of Charles V. Her mother, Margaret van Ghent, was a Fleming. She was brought up by her aunts Margaret of Austria and Maria of Hungary, who were successively regents of the Netherlands from 1507 to 1530 and from 1530 to 1555. In 1533 she was married to Alexander de’ Medici, duke of Florence, who was assassinated in 1537, after which she became the wife of Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma, in 1542. The union proved an unhappy one. Like her aunts, who had trained her, she was a woman of masculine abilities, and Philip II., when he left the Netherlands in 1559 for Spain, acted wisely in appointing her regent. In ordinary times she would probably have proved as successful a ruler as her two predecessors in that post, but her task was very different from theirs. She had to face the rising storm of discontent against the Inquisition and Spanish despotism, and Philip left her but nominal authority. He was determined to pursue his own arbitrary course, and the issue was the revolt of the Netherlands. In 1567 Margaret resigned her post into the hands of the duke of Alva and retired to Italy. She had the satisfaction of seeing her son Alexander Farnese appointed to the office she had laid down, and to watch his successful career as governor-general of the Netherlands. She died at Ortona in 1586.
See L. P. Gachard, Correspondance de Marguérite d’Autriche avec Phillippe II. 1554-1568 (Brussels, 1867-1887); R. Fruin, Het voorspel van den tachtig jarigen vorlog (Amsterdam, 1856); E. Rachfahl, Margaretha von Parma, Statthalterin der Niederlande, 1559-1567 (Munich, 1895); also bibliography in Cambridge Modern History, iii. 795-809 (1904).
MARGARET OF PROVENCE (1221-1295), queen of France, was the daughter of Raymond Berenger V., count of Provence. She was married to Saint Louis at Sens on the 27th of May 1234, and was crowned the next day. Blanche of Castile, the queen-mother, arranged the marriage to win over to the cause of France the powerful count of Provence, but treated her daughter-in-law most unkindly, and her jealousy of the energetic young queen was naturally shared by Louis, whose coldness towards and suspicion of his wife are well known. Margaret did not lack courage, she followed the king on his crusade, and bore herself heroically at Damietta. But her ambition and strong personal prejudices often led her to actions injurious to the realm. This is most noticeable in her hostility to her brother-in-law Charles of Anjou, who had married her sister Beatrice, and her devotion to Henry III. of England, who had married her other sister Eleanor. Aspiring during the reign of her son to the same rôle which she had seen Blanche of Castile play, she induced, in 1263, the young Philip, heir to the throne, to promise to obey her in everything up to the age of thirty; and Saint Louis was obliged to ask for a bull from Urban IV. which would release the prince from his oath. After Saint Louis’ death, Margaret continued obstinately to claim her rights on the county of Provence against Charles of Anjou. She sought to employ force of arms, calling upon her son, her nephew Edward II. of England, and the German king Rudolph of Habsburg. She did not give up her claim until after the death of Charles of Anjou (1285), when Philip the Bold succeeded in getting her to accept an income from the county of Anjou in exchange for her rights in Provence. She died on the 31st of December 1295.
See E. Boutaric, Marguérite de Provence, in Revue des questions historiques (1867), pp. 417-458.
MARGARET MAULTASCH (1318-1369), countess of Tirol, who received the name of Maultasch (pocket-mouth) on account of the shape of her mouth, was the daughter and heiress of Henry, duke of Carinthia and count of Tirol. When Henry died in 1335 Carinthia passed to Albert II., duke of Austria; but Tirol was inherited by Margaret and her young husband, John Henry, son of John, king of Bohemia, whom she had married in 1330. This union was not a happy one, and the Tirolese disliked the government of Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles IV., who ruled the county for his brother. The result was that John Henry was driven from Tirol, and Margaret’s cause was espoused by the emperor Louis IV., who was anxious to add the county to his possessions. Declaring her marriage dissolved on the ground that it had not been consummated, Louis married Margaret in 1342 to his own son Louis, margrave of Brandenburg. But as this action on the emperor’s part entrenched on the privileges of the Church, Pope Clement VI. placed father and son under the ban, from which they were not released until 1359. In 1361 Margaret’s husband died, followed two years later by her only son, Meinhard, when she handed over Tirol to Rudolph IV., duke of Austria, and retired to Vienna, where she died on the 3rd of October 1369. She lived long in the memory of the people of Carinthia, who regarded her as an amazon, and called her the Wicked Gretl.
See A. Huber, Geschichte der Vereinigung Tirols mit Oesterreich (Innsbruck, 1864).