Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than that?
Her father is no better than an earl,
Although in glorious titles he excel.
-Queen Margaret
King Henry The Sixth
Part I Act V, Scene V, Line 37
It seems like just about every day we’re ending up with a
line about Margaret, or by Margaret. Yikes, so who exactly is this Margaret
again?
Margaret of Anjou was born in France, the daughter of French
nobility (note the reference to that by Gloucester above: her father is an
earl, not a king or prince). She married Henry the sixth, and she was the driving force for
a lot of the Lancasterian action in the War of the Roses (Lancasterians vs
Yorkists).
With today’s line we are near the beginning of the Henry The
Sixth, and at this point Gloucester/Richard is just getting warmed up on Margaret.
She’s not actually in this scene. It’s the scene where they’re all talking about
Henry marrying Margaret. Henry’s all in on the idea, but Richard, not so much.
So he’s pointing out that Margaret’s not exactly royalty. He’s sort of saying
that she’s from the wrong side of the tracks, to use an old expression. By the
end of the Henry plays Richard is way more than warmed up, and she becomes the
‘false Frenchwoman’ (see post of two days ago). And then in Richard III Margaret
is going right back at Richard with the ‘Hie thee to hell’ line (yesterday’s
post). No, these two were not friends at all, as our last three Totally Random
lines show. And whichever side of the tracks these two came from, they definitely ended up on way different
sides, if you know what I mean.
This is me at Paddington Train Station in London. Those are the tracks behind me, and behind that you can see a train. So, am I on the right side of the tracks, or not? Well, I've got my super big coffee in hand, so I probably don't care. Would you?
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