ABSTRACT
Better known as ‘la Reine Margot’, Marguerite de Valois was the daughter of King Henri II of France and his Italian-born wife Queen Catherine de Medici. Living at a time when the kingdom of France was torn apart by political and religious strife, Marguerite’s life was tumultuous. A pawn in the dynastic politics of the French court, Marguerite was married in 1572 to her second cousin the Protestant Henri of Navarre, who later converted to Catholicism to become King Henri IV of France. Their marriage was an unhappy one and, pressed by the urgent need to father an heir, Henri had the marriage annulled in 1599. Marguerite was a prolific letter writer. These letters not only offer interesting descriptions of the momentous events that Marguerite lived through – most notably the massacre of French Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572 – but also a record of her emotions: fear for her personal safety in 1572 and grief and jealousy when her husband openly took a mistress who became pregnant with his child as well as a poignant account of a lovelorn young woman’s death.
