Margaret of Valois

Margot, Queen of France and Navarre.

Born Marguerite Valois in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1553 and nicknamed Margot by her brothers, she was the daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medici. Three of her brothers would become king of France: François II , Charles IX and Henri III.

Her sister Elizabeth (b.April 1545) became the third wife of King Philip II of Spain. Although Margot loved Henri, Duke of Guise, her ambitious mother would never allow the Guise family any chance at control of France. Instead, she offered to marry Margot to Philip II's son Don Carlos but that did not work out and Margot was made to marry another Henri, the son of the Protestant Queen of Navarre, a marriage that was designed to reunite the family ties and create harmony between the two clashing religions. However, Henri?s mother, Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, opposed the marriage but while in Paris, she went on a shopping trip to a perfumerie highly recommended by the devious Catherine de Medici. Suddenly falling desperately ill that same evening, Queen Jeanne d'Albret died a few days later at the age of 44. On August 18, 1572, her son married Margot.

Just six days after the wedding, the scheming Catherine de Medici orchestrated the slaughter by French Catholics of 30,000 Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day. A massacre of such brutality that even Russia's Ivan the Terrible condemned it. Both pawn and participant in this epic struggle for power, Margot was torn between family honor, her lover, and husband she mistakenly saw as weak and immoral that she could no longer respect.

After the marriage and turmoil, Henri escaped Paris back to Navarre, leaving behind his wife. Under the control of her brother, King Henri III, Margot was treated like a prisoner in her own home. Finally granted permission to reunite with her husband, for the next 3 ½ years Margot and her husband Henri lived a scandalous life in Pau. Both openly kept other lovers, yet it led to violent quarrels. After an illness in 1582 Marguerite returned to her brother's court in France but her life began to fall apart. The beautiful and strong-minded Margot took many lovers but in 1586, she was confined to the castle of Usson, in Auvergne, where she spent eighteen months in near total captivity. In 1592 negotiations began to dissolve her marriage to Henri IV. It would take seven years, but they were concluded in 1599 with an agreement that allowed her to maintain the title of queen. Her ex-husband would become one of France's most beloved monarchs.

During this time Queen Margot wrote her memoirs, which were published in 1658, years after her death. These writings consisted of a succession of stories relating to the reigns of brothers Charles IX, Henri III and her former husband, Henri IV that scandalized the population.

In the end, with her beauty fading, she lived in poverty hounded by creditors to the point of selling all of her jewels. Queen Margot died in Paris on May 27, 1615 and is buried in the Chapel of the Valois.

Her life was dramatized in a novel and on film as Queen Margot.