Biography of Margaret of Burgundy Queen Consort France 1290-1315

On 28th January 1308 King Edward II of England and [her sister-in-law] Isabella of France Queen Consort England were married at Boulogne sur Mer. She the daughter of [her father-in-law] King Philip IV of France and Joan Blois I Queen Navarre. He the son of King Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England.

Murimuth and Avesbury. In the year of our Lord 1314, while the apostolic see was vacant, the year always being reckoned from the feast of Saint Michael [29th September], and in the eighth year of the reign of the same Edward of Caernarfon, around the feast of Saint Nicholas King Philip of France, called the Fair, died^{ENDNOTE 1}. He was succeeded by his son Louis, who had previously been king of Navarre. He was guided by the counsel of his uncle Charles. By that counsel, soon after Easter, Enguerrand de Marigny, who had been the principal counsellor of Philip, father of the said King Louis, was hanged. Also the queen of Navarre, the wife of the said Lord Louis and daughter of the count of Burgundy, was suffocated^{ENDNOTE 2} on account of adultery alleged against her with Lord Philip d'Aunay. That same Louis, later in that same year, took in marriage the daughter of the king of Hungary, named Clemence, both in name and, as was said, in reality.

Anno Domini millesimo CCCXIIII, apostolica sede vacante, semper in festo sancti Michaelis incipiendo, et ipsius regis Edwardi de Carnervans VIIJ, circa festum sancti Nicholai, fuit mortuus rex Franciæ, Philippus, dictus le Bel, et successit sibi Lodowycus filius suus, qui fuit prius rex Navvarræ; qui ducebatur consilio Karoli avunculi sui. Cujus consilio cito post Pascha suspensus fuit Ingeramus de Maremy, qui fuit principalis consiliarius Philippi, patris ipsius regis Lodowyci. ltem regina Navvarræ, uxor ipsius domini Lodowyci et, filia comitis Burgundiæ, propter adulterium sibi impositum cura domino Philippo Daune, fuit suffocata. Qui quidem Lodowycus, eodem anno, postmodum duxit in uxorem filiam regis Hungariæ, Clemenciam nomine et re, ut dicebatur.

Note 1. King Philip IV of France died on 29th November 1314.

Note 2. The Tour de Nesle Affair in the three daughters-in-law of King Philip IV, Margaret and sisters Blanche and Joan were accused of adultery. Chronicle of William Nangis: "Margaret, the young queen of Navarre, and Blanche, wife of Charles, the king of Navarre's younger brother, for the adultery most shamefully committed and frequently practiced by them with the knight brothers Philip and Walter of Aunay, the former [Margaret] with Philip, the latter [Blanche] with Walter, as their crimes demanded, were repudiated by their own husbands, deprived, not undeservedly, of all temporal honour, and committed to prisons, so that there under strict guard, deprived of all human comfort, they might pass their lives unhappily and end them miserably. The aforesaid two knights, who were not only wicked adulterers but also most vile violators of their lords' marriages, though those lords had placed especial trust in them as highly intimate members of their household, and they were reckoned among their garments and family in full confidence, and who were the worst of traitors; and who were much more culpable in the deed, since they had enticed those young women, still of tender age and of the weaker sex, by their seductions and flatteries. At Pontoise, on the Friday after Quasimodo Sunday, confessed that they had carried on this crime for nearly three years, in many places and sometimes even at sacred seasons. And for the commission of so great a crime, paying the penalty and manner of an ignominious death, in the common square of the Martroi, in the sight of all, they were flayed alive; their virile members together with their genitals were cut off; and, their heads struck off, they were dragged to the common gallows. Completely stripped of skin, they were hanged by the shoulder blades and joints of their arms. Afterwards, near them, a certain doorkeeper, as one who seemed rightly to have been an accomplice and privy to the aforesaid crime, and many others as well, both noble and ignoble, of either sex, who appeared to have consented to or known of the said offense, were subjected to torture; some were drowned in swift waters; many perished by secret deaths; yet several, found innocent, escaped entirely. Among these especially was a certain Dominican friar, called the Bishop of Saint George, who was said to have been a collaborator and accomplice in the aforesaid crime, whether by sorceries that incited people to illicit acts. Some said he was detained in prison at Paris among the Dominican friars; others that, since the apostolic see was then vacant, he had been sent to the cardinals and left to their judgment. Moreover, although Joan, sister of the said Blanche and wife of Philip, Count of Poitiers, was at first strongly regarded as suspect in the matter and was for some time separated from her husband and kept under guard in the castle of Dourdan, nevertheless, after an inquiry made on this account, she was cleared of the said suspicion and judged blameless and entirely innocent in the Parliament at Paris, in the presence of the Count of Valois, the Count of Évreux, and many other nobles. And thus, before a year had passed, she deserved to be reconciled to her husband, the count."