She Wolves (23 page)

Throughout Joan’s time in England, attacks were also made on her for her partiality to foreigners. Joan certainly did seek to promote Bretons who visited England and in February 1404 her son Arthur was granted the earldom of Richmond.
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It was also at Joan’s request in 1405 that Henry IV ordered the release of all Breton prisoners in England without ransom.
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Joan actively promoted peace between England and Brittany; in 1417 Henry V made a treaty with Brittany at Joan’s intercession.
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Joan’s efforts may not always have been treated as pacific in England however and, in 1415, the Bretons were accused of learning state secrets in Joan’s household.
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Once again this was not based in truth but due to her origins people appear to have been ready to believe the worst about her.

Despite being a kind and attentive husband, Henry cannot always have been easy to live with. By around 1408, Henry was suffering from leprosy and pressure appears to have been brought to bear on him to relinquish his crown.
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Henry seems to have retreated more into his household as his illness progressed and Joan may often have found herself shut away alone with him. It must have been sad for Joan, who had known Henry in the prime of his life, to see him struck down with his disfiguring disease. Henry also appears to have been beset by guilt for his usurpation of the crown. According to John Hayward, his mind was ‘perpetuallie perplexed with an endlesse and restlesse chardge, ether of cares, or greifes, or of suspicions and feares’.
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For Joan, it may, perhaps, have been a relief when Henry died in 1413.
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Joan made no attempt to return to either Brittany or Navarre, and, in spite of suspicions raised against her, she was content to stay in England. She was often referred to as Queen Mother in her stepson Henry V’s reign and continued to play the public role of queen, taking a prominent place in a procession from St Paul’s to Westminster in celebration of Henry V’s victory at Agincourt against the French.
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This must have gone against Joan’s own personal feelings about the victory. Her son-in-law, the Duke of Alencon, and her brother Charles of Navarre died fighting for the French and her own son Arthur was captured and brought a prisoner to England.
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Despite her personal grief, Joan took her duties as Queen of England seriously and took a prominent part in the rejoicing in England. This devotion to duty probably went unnoticed and unappreciated in England.

Henry V’s French wars took a harsh toll on his finances and he seems to have begun to look greedily at Joan’s immense dower. On 27 September 1419, the English council suddenly made an order depriving Joan of all her possessions and revenues and, four days later, she was arrested on charges of witchcraft at her palace at Havering-atte-Bower.
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Her arrest would have been an enormous shock to the innocent Joan and she must have been at a loss to explain her situation. The charges stemmed from a confession by her confessor, John Randolf, claiming he had tempted her into using witchcraft to try to kill Henry V.
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Whilst it is possible that the charges were at first believed, no attempt was made to investigate the matter or bring Joan to trial and it appears that Joan’s arrest was a pretext to enable Henry V to take her dower.
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Certainly, Joan was treated very leniently for someone accused of witchcraft. However, at least at first, she must have been terrified, and a charge of witchcraft was no laughing matter, as the treatment of Joan’s stepdaughter-in-law, Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, twenty years later, would indicate.

Like Joan, Eleanor Cobham was also arrested for conspiring to kill the king through sorcery and, according to reports, she and her accomplices produced a wax doll with which to kill the king.
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Eleanor appears to have dabbled in sorcery for some years before her arrest and a woman known as the Witch of Eye was also arrested at the same time:

Eleanor’s other accomplice, Roger Bolingbroke, was hanged drawn and quartered for his part in the affair and the duchess herself was also severely punished.
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After being examined by the king’s council, Eleanor was forced to perform a public penance three times by walking bare footed and bare headed through London and carrying a heavy taper.
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For a woman as proud as Eleanor Cobham, this must have been an ordeal and, following her penance, she was taken away to life imprisonment on the Isle of Man, from which she was never released.
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Shakespeare, who was clearly fascinated with the story of Eleanor Cobham puts these words into the duchess’s mouth as she carried out her penance:

Clearly, a charge of witchcraft was a dangerous and shameful thing and Joan must have been terrified by her arrest.

After her initial terror, however, Joan appears to have settled in easily to her imprisonment and, despite its indignity, managed to maintain a luxurious lifestyle. In the first months of her imprisonment, Joan’s accounts show that she had a stable and she was presumably allowed to ride.
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She was also allowed to keep nineteen grooms and seven pages. Joan’s purchases in the first months of her imprisonment also show that she was able to purchase luxuries, such as furs, lace, gold chains and a gold girdle.
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This was not the usual treatment meted out to an imprisoned witch and demonstrates that the charges were not widely believed.

Joan was also able to stock a large wine cellar and she often entertained. On 1 April 1420, the Archbishop of Canterbury came to dinner. Joan’s stepson the Duke of Gloucester also visited on two occasions and the Bishop of Winchester spent the weekend there.
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Lord Camoys appears to have spent nine months enjoying Joan’s hospitality.
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Joan’s treatment shows the absurdity of the charges against her and it is likely that apart from the knowledge that she was a prisoner, Joan was able to lead a comfortable existence in much of her old style. Certainly the visits suggest that she remained a recognised member of the royal family rather than an outcast who had plotted to kill the king through sorcery. She must still have been aware, however, during the period, of the charge that hung over her and, for all the comforts provided for her, she must have longed to be freed.

Joan’s innocence can also be seen in Henry V’s deathbed remorse at his treatment of her. As he lay dying of dysentery in France, he remembered his stepmother’s predicament and ordered that she be immediately released and compensated for the loss of her dower.
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Joan must have been glad to hear of Henry’s remorse although it seems unlikely that she was entirely able to forgive him for his treatment of her. Joan was released soon after Henry’s death and much of her dower was returned. In 1422, Joan found herself once again a wealthy and independent widow. Following her release she seems to have led a life of retirement, dying in July 1437.

Joan of Navarre was the only queen of England to be punished for witchcraft and the stigma of this charge still hangs over her reputation. Although there was no substance in the charge, it does illustrate something of the dangers in which royal women could find themselves. Joan of Navarre was never able to win popularity in England due to her foreign birth. She was therefore an easy target when her stepson, Henry V, chose to move against her and his actions helped ensure that she will always have a certain notoriety. Although she was a queen, the charges against her show that, in a hostile England, Joan was also essentially powerless. As a woman, she was already particularly vulnerable to such a charge and as a foreigner she was despised and alone. Joan of Navarre is described as both a witch and as a grasping queen in the sources and, although these charges had little substance, they have clung to her, destroying her reputation. Her notoriety pales in comparison, however, with that of her stepgranddaughter-in-law, Margaret of Anjou, the original She-Wolf of France.

Margaret of Anjou was the first queen of England to be nicknamed the ‘She-Wolf of France’ and, in spite of losing this name to Isabella of France, she is still remembered as a notorious queen. Portrayals of Margaret over the years show her as a vengeful and ambitious woman who brought war and misery to England and it is in Shakespeare’s portrayal of her as an adulteress and warmongerer that she is best remembered. As the leader of the House of Lancaster, Margaret participated in one of the bloodiest civil wars that England has known and her actions certainly helped prolong the war by almost a decade. However her actions, in support of first her husband and then her son, are entirely understandable and without the benefit of hindsight she can never have realised just how futile her actions were. Margaret of Anjou genuinely acted with the best possible motives. She was not a bad woman, in spite of her terrible reputation but, as the wife of an ineffectual and doomed king, she was forced to take on a role that, for a woman, was deemed to be savage. Margaret of Anjou was forced to take the course of action she did but, in the eyes of her contemporaries and many later historians, this did not redeem her.

Margaret of Anjou grew up to be a powerful and dominant woman and she may have learnt the lessons of female power during her childhood. She was born in March 1430 and was the fourth child of Rene of Anjou and Isabel, Duchess of Lorraine.
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Margaret’s childhood was dominated by women following the capture of her father in 1431 at the battle of Bulgneville. On 12 November 1435, Rene’s elder brother died and he inherited the county of Anjou as well as the crowns of Jerusalem and Naples. Early the following year, Rene also inherited the kingdom of Sicily.
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In spite of these grand titles, Rene was only able to exercise authority over Anjou and Lorraine although, as a prisoner, it was his wife Isabel who ruled. Isabel of Lorraine was an indomitable figure and it is likely that Margaret gained much of her idea of queenship from her.

In 1435 Isabel set out with an army to conquer Naples, leaving Margaret in the care of her paternal grandmother, Yolande of Aragon.
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Yolande was Margaret’s second model of a powerful woman. Yolande had ruled Anjou for several years and had also raised the French king, Charles VII, marrying him to her daughter Marie. She could also lay claim to being the most powerful woman in France, something of which Margaret is likely to have taken note.
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Margaret’s mother and Rene (who had been released in 1436) returned to Anjou in 1442, following defeat in Naples, and Margaret passed back into her mother’s custody soon after her grandmother’s death in that year.

Margaret’s childhood must have been overshadowed by the war between England and France. In 1444, a meeting was held at Tours between the French and the English in an attempt to come to peace.
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It was at this meeting that a marriage between the English king, Henry VI, and a French princess was first suggested and Margaret, as the niece of the Queen of France, was chosen as the most suitable candidate. According to
Hall’s Chronicle
, Rene agreed in return for a promise from the English that they would surrender lands in Anjou and Maine to him. Rene was renowned across Europe for his poverty ‘callyng himself kyng of Scicile, Naples, and Hierusalem, hauyng onely the name and stile of the same, without any pay profite, or fote of possession’.
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Henry VI was also eager for the match and asked for a portrait of Margaret to be sent to him.
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He also agreed to pay for Margaret’s journey to England. ‘For kyng Reyner her father, for all his long stile, had to short a purse, to sende his doughter honourably, to the kyng her spouse’.
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To save face, however, Margaret was dowered with the islands of Minorca and Majorca.
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The only problem with this generous gift was that, as with so many of Rene’s ‘lands’, Henry would have to conquer them if he wanted to assert Margaret’s rights there.

Margaret was living with her mother in Angers when the marriage treaty was signed and the two of them set out to meet the English at Tours.
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On 23 May 1444, Margaret underwent a proxy marriage in St Martin’s Cathedral at Tours with the Earl of Suffolk playing the part of Henry VI.
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Early the following year, Margaret again travelled with her mother and at Nancy she may have undergone another betrothal ceremony. Certainly, her time in Nancy was filled with banquets and entertainments. Margaret then set out for England, accompanied part of the way by both her father and her uncle, Charles VII. She also had an escort of 1,500 people.
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Margaret landed in England on 9 April 1445.
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Henry had been waiting impatiently for Margaret’s arrival and, according to one report, determined to visit her in disguise.
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Henry dressed himself as a squire and took a letter to Margaret. If he intended this to be a romantic meeting, he was to be disappointed. Margaret took the letter from the ‘squire’ but was so engrossed in reading it that she did not notice Henry and kept him on his knees. It was only later, after Henry had left, that Margaret was told who the squire had been.
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The couple met officially soon afterwards and were married at Tichfield Abbey on 22 April, before travelling on to London together.
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Margaret and Henry appear to have got on well with each other from the beginning and Margaret would have been relieved to find her husband congenial. She was crowned in London on 30 April and is recorded as having worn her hair loose under a coronet of pearls and jewels.
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Margaret probably once again enjoyed being the centre of attention.