Birth of Margaret Plantagenet ~ Duchess of Brabant
Margaret was born on 15th March 1275, at Windsor Castle, Berkshire ~ England.
She was the tenth child of King Edward I of England, Longshanks, and his first queen consort, Eleanor of Castile.
When Margaret’s mother died in 1290, her father remarried to Margaret of France.
In 1278, when she was three years old, Margaret was betrothed to John II Duke of Brabant.
The couple were married on 8th July 1290, when Margaret was 15.
Margaret’s wedding festivities were splendidly extravagant.
It included a procession of knights in full body armour.
Richly-dressed ladies were singing, as they paraded through the streets of London to the music provided by harpers, minstrels and violinists, while fools performed and danced.
For the first two years of their marriage they lived in England, then moved to the Duchy of Brabant in 1292.
Margaret, described having been a good-natured, merry child in her youth, was unhappy at the Brabant court.
She was forced to accept her husband’s continual succession of mistresses ~ and the illegitimate children they bore him.
These illegitimate children were raised at court.
Margaret’s own son John, born 10 years after their marriage, joined his half siblings in the court nursery.
On 25th January 1308, Margaret and John attended the wedding of her brother Edward to Isabella of France in Boulogne.
The following month, they accompanied the royal pair to England for their joint coronation at Westminster Abbey.
John, who suffered from kidney stones, wanted his duchy to be peacefully handed over to his son upon his death.
On 27th September 1312, he signed the famous Charter of Kortenberg.
The first simple rules of the charter were created for what would develop into a legal order, that is now called democratic rule of law.
John died a month after signing the charter, on 27th October 1312, aged 37.
Fifty eight year old Margaret survived her husband by twenty two years, dying in Brabant around 1333 ~ during the reign of her nephew Edward III of England.
She was buried at the St. Michael and St. Gudula’s Cathedral in Brussels.
Sadly, her tomb and that of her husband, have since been destroyed.
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