DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0135
MARGARET OF ANGOULEME
99
tical and austere. The hair, hidden beneath a close-fitting
black hood, is of a lightish brown; the head is well set
on a long neck; and the fine right hand caresses a little
spaniel. The whole leaves an impression of mingled gentleness
and power—of mysticism and common-sense—of suffering
sensitiveness and wise serenity—the impression of a woman
born for many experiences.
They began early. We know that at eight years old she
was wooed by Henry VII. Rather later Louis offered her,
with a splendid dowry, to Arthur Prince of Wales; but for
the moment England was cold to France and preferred
Catherine of Aragon. That Princess was fated to stand in
the way of Margaret’s marriage. Prince Henry was next
proposed for her, then Ferdinand of Calabria. Both were
Catherine’s suitors ; both rejected Margaret. Catherine, worse
luck for her, was forced to marry her brother-in-law. Margaret
was well delivered from him. Not long after this, when she
was twelve, Henry VII resumed his courtship, unabashed by
the fact that his son had preceded him. This is the first occa-
sion on which Margaret begins to reveal herself. She flatly
refused to accept him. What, she cried, they wanted to carry
her off to a distant country where a foreign tongue was
talked, and to marry her to a King ? and what a King! old,
decrepit! Francis was to be a king one day; could she not find
a husband young, rich and noble, without crossing the seas ?
Her heart, half child’s, half woman’s, had already had
its bird-like Sufferings—had for the last three years been
innocently occupied by two of her playmates—the little
Due d’Alencon and Gaston de Foix, son of the superb
Gaston Phebus, Duke of Bearn. Destined to fall at Ravenna
99
tical and austere. The hair, hidden beneath a close-fitting
black hood, is of a lightish brown; the head is well set
on a long neck; and the fine right hand caresses a little
spaniel. The whole leaves an impression of mingled gentleness
and power—of mysticism and common-sense—of suffering
sensitiveness and wise serenity—the impression of a woman
born for many experiences.
They began early. We know that at eight years old she
was wooed by Henry VII. Rather later Louis offered her,
with a splendid dowry, to Arthur Prince of Wales; but for
the moment England was cold to France and preferred
Catherine of Aragon. That Princess was fated to stand in
the way of Margaret’s marriage. Prince Henry was next
proposed for her, then Ferdinand of Calabria. Both were
Catherine’s suitors ; both rejected Margaret. Catherine, worse
luck for her, was forced to marry her brother-in-law. Margaret
was well delivered from him. Not long after this, when she
was twelve, Henry VII resumed his courtship, unabashed by
the fact that his son had preceded him. This is the first occa-
sion on which Margaret begins to reveal herself. She flatly
refused to accept him. What, she cried, they wanted to carry
her off to a distant country where a foreign tongue was
talked, and to marry her to a King ? and what a King! old,
decrepit! Francis was to be a king one day; could she not find
a husband young, rich and noble, without crossing the seas ?
Her heart, half child’s, half woman’s, had already had
its bird-like Sufferings—had for the last three years been
innocently occupied by two of her playmates—the little
Due d’Alencon and Gaston de Foix, son of the superb
Gaston Phebus, Duke of Bearn. Destined to fall at Ravenna