No one knows if Margaret was truly present at the Battle of Wakefield, but there is something very personal about York’s head being made to wear a paper crown. Shakespeare chose to place her at the battle in Henry VI, Part 3.
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MARGARET OF ANJOU had won her revenge. She had survived against the odds to see her two most powerful enemies beaten and beheaded. Yet I was struck by the tragedy of York. For all York’s ambition, King Henry was helpless and in his power for months, held at Fulham Palace, the residence of the Bishop of London. We will never know York’s most private reasons, but the fact remains that he did not make Henry disappear, when doing so would have won York the crown. He was a complex man and no clear villain. I could not escape the strong sense that neither York nor the house of Lancaster particularly wanted the struggle. Each house was forced into war, out of fear of the other.
With the deaths of York and Salisbury at Sandal Castle, Margaret seemed to have won. Yet in the end, what she had truly done was unleash their sons.
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THE PHENOMENON WITNESSED by Edward of March, then Duke of York and heir to the throne, in February 1461, is known as “parhelion.” It involves the reflection of the sun, so that three suns appear to rise. They are also known as “sundogs.” At the time, Edward convinced his men it was a sign of the Holy Trinity and a good omen for the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, where Owen Tudor was killed. Edward would later take the symbol as his own, surrounding the white rose of York with the flames of the sun.
CONN IGGULDEN
London, 2014
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Conn Iggulden, Margaret of Anjou
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