Margaret of Anjou - Depictions in Fiction

Depictions in Fiction

Margaret is a major character in William Shakespeare's 1st Tetrology of History plays. Henry VI, Part 1, Part 2,Part 3 and Richard III. Shakespeare portrays Margaret as an intelligent, ruthless woman who easily dominates her husband and fiercely vies for power with her enemies. In Henry VI, Part 2 Margaret has an affair with the Duke of Suffolk and mourns his death by carrying around his severed head. In Henry VI, Part 3 she personally stabs the Duke of York on the battlefield (after humiliatingly taunting him) and becomes suicidal when her son Edward is killed in front of her. Despite the fact that Margaret spent the rest of her life outside of England after the death of her husband and son, Shakespeare has her return to the court in Richard III. Margaret serves as a Cassandra-like prophetess; in her first appearance she dramatically curses the majority of the nobles for their roles in the downfall of the House of Lancaster. All of her curses come to pass as the noblemen are betrayed and executed by Richard of Gloucester, and each character reflects on her curse before his execution.

Margaret is the title character of Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1820 opera Margherita d'Anjou and has an important role in Bulwer-Lytton's The Last of the Barons 1843. She is also the subject of Betty King's 1974 biographical novel Margaret of Anjou, Alan Savage's 1994 novel Queen of Lions, Anne Powers' historical romance The Royal Consorts, and Susan Higginbotham's 2011 novel The Queen of Last Hopes. Sharon Kay Penman's novel The Sunne in Splendour features her as an important character in the early parts of the book, up until the Battle of Tewkesbury. Jean Plaidy's The Red Rose of Anjou also features her.

She also is the subject of a fictional biography, "The Royal Tigress" by a fictional character, David Powlett-Jones who is the main subject of To Serve Them All My Days, R.F. Delderfield's novel of a Welsh schoolmaster at a Devon public school from World War I to the "Battle of Britain" in the 40s. Delderfield, in the person of Powlett-Jones, appears to have a very good grasp of Margaret's life and the Wars of the Roses, and the content and development of the book give us an entertaining sub-plot to the book's main narrative.

Margaret is also a major character in The Lady of the Rivers: A Novel (The Cousins' War) by Phillipa Gregory. She is the main force in the life of Jacquetta (of Luxembourg), the wife of Richard Woodville.