Dei Gratia Regina: Queen of Portugal and the Algarves

[ordinarylittleme]

I promise this is the last TL

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The childhood of Margaret of Valois was spent in the French royal nursery of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye with her sisters Elisabeth and Claude, under the care of Charlotte de Vienne, "a wise and virtuous lady greatly attached to the Catholic religion". After her sisters' weddings, Margaret grew up in the Château d'Amboise with her brothers Henry and Francis. During her childhood, her brother Charles, Duke of Orléans [1] gave her the nickname "Margot". At the French court, she studied grammar, classics, history, and Holy Scripture. Margaret learned to speak Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek in addition to her native French. She was competent also in prose, poetry, horsemanship, and dance. She traveled with her family and the court on the grand tour of France (1564–1566). During this period Margaret had direct experience of the dangerous and complex political situation in France and learned from her mother the art of political mediation. In 1565, Catherine met with the dowager queen of Portugal, Catherine of Austria in hopes of arranging a marriage between Margaret and Sebastian, King of Portugal. This was well-received and a betrothal was soon officialized between the two children.

[1] He is not becoming king ITTL. Nor will his brother, IOTL Henry III of France.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

In 1568, when Sebastian was fourteen and Margaret (though she preferred being called Margarida) was fifteen, she traveled to Portugal. There she discovered that the husband whom she had nourished many loving fantasies about was very different in reality. She had prayed that her marriage wouldn't be like her mother's and that Sebastian would be a more loving husband than her father. Well, he was certainly nothing like her father - having been raised by his domineering grandmother, he tended towards excessive obedience and he had a great physical strength that appealed to her. (Though she disagreed with many things her mother said, it was true that she had an appreciation for attractive men; Sebastian - a tall, slim blond man - fit into this category for her.) His piety amused but pleased her - she would rather marry a monk than a nymphomaniac...though she did hope he could at least bear to consummate the marriage. They both shared their prose and poetry with each other, and he seemed to admire her dancing. And of course, the dowry she brought...well, if her birth family's financial difficulties had disturbed Sebastian, he was careful not to show it. All in all, their first meeting seemed to go quite well.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

Queen Margarida of Portugal soon discovered that she did NOT get along with her husband's regents, the dowager queen Catarina and cardinal Henry. Maybe it was the generational gap or the Habsburg-Valois rivalry (in the case of Catarina) or the fact that Margarida absolutely did not approve of Henry's staunch support of the Jesuits. She thought Catarina a wasteful hoarder who collected too zealously. The wars of religion that raged on in France occupied most of her attention and the fact that Henry and Catarina laughed about it and called it God's will to punish heretics simply boiled her blood...she reassured herself with the fact that she was young, she could outlive them and when she was queen she would undo everything they ever did.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

The birth of twins to the king and queen of France and Scotland, Francis and Mary, was a shockwave throughout Europe. A boy and a girl, and on the queen's first pregnancy! France celebrated with dances and jousts and festivals, while Elizabeth I of England immediately offered to designate the French princess as her heiress if the girl was raised in the Protestant religion and shipped over to England at the age of five. Although this was anathema to Mary Stuart (who had ambitions to the throne for herself, and certainly did not like the idea of parting from her daughter so soon), Catherine de' Medici saw the wisdom in this offer and agreed to it on the queen's behalf, causing a rift in their relationship. Margarida, for what it was worth, wholly supported this idea. Valois France, England, Ireland, Scotland and maybe Portugal and Spain? Why not? (And if her little sister Victoire actually ended up in Navarre, all the better!) It was probably this attitude that caused her to be created godmother for the new heir apparent to France. Yes, she was very happy with her new nephew and niece.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

Margarida had always struggled with menstrual issues and could have gone months without her courses. Right now, she had experienced exactly that. She had already miscarried three times, and even though she was still young enough to be a mother, she had already began to despair. Would she lose this last little piece of Sebastian, who had died in such a foolish way? Sure, her late husband had assiduously paid his marital debt but it seemed that none of their prayers worked. But this one...it was the first time she had made it to the full nine months....

In the cool December air, the Queen of Portugal finally gave birth to a living child: Catarina, Queen of Portugal from the moment she drew breath and wailed. Margarida wept, for the girl-child looked so much like her father that it hurt to even look at her. The child was cleaned and swaddled soon enough, as she lay exhausted in her bed. She really wished her husband was still alive and that she at least had his body to bury...

 

[ordinarylittleme]

The death of her brother, Francis II of France, pained her more than she thought it would; she hadn't seen him in years,. Her new life as a widowed mother of the new queen was tiring, but she wouldn't have it any other way. She fought to retain the regency and continued to oversee the colonial expansion, refusing to allow her daughter to be guided by Jesuits as Sebastian had been. She also staunchly instructed her daughter in the importance of not joining in crusades, but maintaining conscientious about the duties of ruling and to show compassion for those with less privilege. What she wouldn't admit to anyone is that she was hoping to soften the hard stance of Portugal in general on religion - surely it wasn't such a sin to have non-Catholics in power...