Who was the French queen of Henry VI who led Lancastrian forces?

Margaret of Anjou was the French queen of Henry VI who led the Lancastrian cause during the Wars of the Roses. Born in 1430 in Lorraine, she married Henry VI of England in 1445 and became queen consort while still a teenager.

Henry suffered recurring episodes of mental illness and was often unable to govern effectively. As his condition worsened, Margaret became an increasingly forceful political leader. She defended the rights of their son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, and opposed the claims of Henry’s Yorkist cousin, Richard, Duke of York.

Margaret did not command every Lancastrian operation, but she helped organize resistance, sought support in Scotland and France, and at times personally directed military campaigns. She was present at the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461 and later led the Lancastrian army at Tewkesbury in 1471. The Lancastrian defeat there killed her son and ended her effective political power.

She is sometimes reduced to a villain in later histories and Shakespearean drama, but modern historians emphasize her intelligence, political skill and the pressures facing a queen defending her husband’s throne and her child’s inheritance.