Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/513

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MAR.
491

had, in the lifetime of Ludovic, obtained from her a settlement investing him with the inheritance of the Tyrol in case of her husband and son dying without heirs. He, taking advantage of her weakness, induced her to abdicate her sovereignty in his favour; painting the troubles that invest a throne, and the life of pleasure and ease she would lead in a court that was then the first in Europe. She had an appointed revenue of six thousand gold marks, and four princely residences. When all was concluded, she proceeded with the widow of Mainard to the court of Vienna, where she was received with most distinguished attention. She passed six years of tranquility, if insignificant pleasures deserve that term, and died in 1369. She was buried in the convent of St. Croce, near Baden.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF PARMA,

Was the natural daughter of Charles the Fifth of Germany, and Margaret of Gest. She was born in 1522, and married, first, Alexander de Medici, and afterwards Octavio Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza. Her half-brother, Philip the Second of Spain, appointed her, in 1559, to the government of the Netherlands, where she endeavoured to restore tranquility; and she might have succeeded, if the Duke of Alva had not been sent with such great power that nothing was left to her but the title. Indignant at this, Margaret returned to her husband in Italy, and died at Ortona, 1686. She left one son, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma.

MARGARET LOUISA OF LORRAINE,

Daughter of Henry, Duke of Guise, married in 1605, at the instance of Henry the Fourth, who was in love with her, and wished to fix her at court, Francis de Bourbon, Prince of Conti. They however left the court immediately on marrying. The prince died in 1617, and Louisa devoted herself to the belles-lettres. She was one of Cardinal Richelieu's enemies, and he banished her to Eu, where she died in 1631. She was suspected of having married the Marshal of Bassompierre for her second husband. She wrote the amours of Henry the Fourth, under the of title "Les Amours du Gr. Alexandre."

MARGARET OF ANJOU,

Queen-consort of England, was daughter of Regnier, or René, titular King of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem, descended from the Counts of Anjou, and brother of Charles the Fifth of France. Brought up in the petty court of Anjou, her natural strength of mind was not enfeebled by indulgence, and she was considered the most accomplished princess of her time, when she was selected by Cardinal Beaufort for the wife of Henry the Sixth. She was married in 1445, when only sixteen, to share with a weak prince a throne disturbed by rancorous and contending factions. She naturally threw herself into that party which had favoured her marriage, of which the Earl of Suffolk was the chief; and when the destruction of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was effected by their machinations, she was generally suspected of being privy to his murder. The surrender of the province of Maine, in France, to the king of that country, who was Margaret's uncle, in consequence of a secret article in the marriage treaty, aggravated the