Chapter 13

See Andrew Lang,History of Scotland, vol. i. (London, 1900); Mary A. E. Green,Lives of the Princesses of England(6 vols., London, 1849-1855);The Hamilton Papers, ed. by J. Bain (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1890); John Leslie,History of Scotland, ed. by T. Thompson (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1830); Sir H. Ellis,Original Letters Illustrative of English History(London, 1825-1846).

(R. J. M.)

MARGARET(1283-1290), titular queen of Scotland, and generally known as the “maid of Norway,” was the daughter of Eric II. king of Norway, and Margaret, daughter of Alexander III. king of Scotland. Her mother died soon after Margaret’s birth, and in 1284 the estates of Scotland decided that if Alexander died childless the crown should pass to his granddaughter. In March 1286 Alexander was killed and Margaret became queen. The English king Edward I. was closely watching affairs in Scotland, and in 1289 a marriage was arranged between the infant queen and Edward’s son, afterwards Edward II. Margaret sailed from Norway and reached the Orkneys, where she died about the end of September 1290. The news of this occurrencewas first made known in a letter dated the 7th of October 1290. Some mystery, however, surrounded her death, and about 1300 a woman from Leipzig declared she was Queen Margaret. The impostor, if she were such, was burned as a witch at Bergen.

See A. Lang,History of Scotland, vol. i. (Edinburgh, 1904).

MARGARET(1353-1412), queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the daughter of Valdemar IV. of Denmark, was born in 1353 and married ten years later to King Haakon VI. of Norway. Her first act, after her father’s death (1375), was to procure the election of her infant son Olaf as king of Denmark. Olaf died in 1387, having in 1380 also succeeded his father; and in the following year Margaret, who had ruled both kingdoms in his name, was chosen regent of Norway and Denmark. She had already given proofs of her superior statesmanship by recovering possession of Schleswig from the Holstein counts, who had held it absolutely for a generation, and who now received it back indeed as a fief (by the compact of Nyborg 1386), but under such stringent conditions that the Danish crown got all the advantage of the arrangement. By this compact, moreover, the chronically rebellious Jutish nobility lost the support they had hitherto always found in Schleswig-Holstein, and Margaret, free from all fear of domestic sedition, could now give her undivided attention to Sweden, where the mutinous nobles were already in arms against their unpopular king, Albert of Mecklenburg. At a conference held at Dalaborg Castle, in March 1388, the Swedes were compelled to accept all Margaret’s conditions, elected her “Sovereign Lady and Ruler,” and engaged to accept from her any king she chose to appoint. On the 24th of February 1389, Albert, who had returned from Mecklenburg with an army of mercenaries, was routed and taken prisoner at Aasle near Falköping, and Margaret was now the omnipotent mistress of three kingdoms. Stockholm then almost entirely a German city, still held out; fear of Margaret induced both the Mecklenburg princes and the Wendish towns to hasten to its assistance; and the Baltic and the North Sea speedily swarmed with the privateers of theViktualien brödre or Vitalianer, so called because their professed object was to revictual Stockholm. Finally the Hansa intervened, and by the compact of Lindholm (1395) Albert was released by Margaret on promising to pay 60,000 marks within three years, the Hansa in the meantime to hold Stockholm in pawn. Albert failing to pay his ransom within the stipulated time, the Hansa surrendered Stockholm to Margaret in September 1398, in exchange for very considerable commercial privileges.

It had been understood that Margaret should, at the first convenient opportunity, provide the three kingdoms with a king who was to be her nearest kinsman, and in 1389 she proclaimed her infant cousin, Eric of Pomerania, king of Norway. In 1396 homage was rendered to him in Denmark and Sweden likewise, Margaret reserving to herself the office of regent during his minority. To weld the united kingdoms still more closely together, Margaret summoned a congress of the three councils of state to Kalmar in June 1397; and on Trinity Sunday, the 17th of June, Eric was solemnly crowned king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The proposed act of union divided the threeRigsraads, but the actual deed embodying the terms of the union never got beyond the stage of an unratified draft. Margaret revolted at the clauses which insisted that each country should retain exclusive possession of its own laws and customs, and be administered by its own dignitaries, as tending in her opinion to prevent the complete amalgamation of Scandinavia. But with her usual prudence she avoided every appearance of an open rupture.

A few years after the union of Kalmar, Eric, now in his eighteenth year, was declared of age and homage was rendered to him in all his three kingdoms, but during her lifetime Margaret was the real ruler of Scandinavia. So long as the union was insecure, Margaret had tolerated the presence near the throne of “good men” from all three realms (theRigsraad, or council of state, as these councillors now began to be called); but their influence was always insignificant. In every direction the royal authority remained supreme. The offices of high constable and earl marshal were left vacant; theDanehofferor national assemblies fell into desuetude, and the great queen, an ideal despot, ruled through her court officials acting as superior clerks. But law and order were well maintained; the licence of the nobility was sternly repressed; the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were treated as integral parts of the Danish state, and national aspirations were frowned upon or checked, though Norway, as being more loyal, was treated more indulgently than Sweden. Margaret also recovered for the Crown all the landed property which had been alienated during the troublous days of Valdemar IV. This so-called “reduktion,” or land-recovery, was carried out with the utmost rigour, and hundreds of estates fell into the Crown. Margaret also reformed the Danish currency, substituting good silver coins for the old and worthless copper tokens, to the great advantage both of herself and the state. She had always large sums of money to dispose of, and a considerable proportion of this treasure was dispensed in works of charity. Margaret’s foreign policy was sagaciously circumspect, in sharp contrast with the venturesomeness of her father’s. The most tempting offer of alliance, the most favourable conjunctures, could never move her from her system of neutrality. On the other hand she spared no pains to recover lost Danish territory. Gotland she purchased from its actual possessors, Albert of Mecklenburg and the Livonian Order, and the greater part of Schleswig was regained in the same way.

Margaret died suddenly on board her ship in Flensborg harbour on the 28th of October 1412. We know very little of her private character. Contemporary records are both scanty and hostile to a sovereign who squeezed the utmost out of the people. Craft and wiliness are the qualities most generally attributed to her, coupled with the cynical praise that “in temporal matters she was very lucky.”

SeeDanmarks riges historie, den senere Middelalder, pp. 358-412 (Copenhagen, 1897-1905); Erslev,Danmarks historie under dronning Margrethe(Copenhagen, 1882-1901); Hill,Margaret of Denmark(London, 1898).

(R. N. B.)

MARGARET OF ANJOU(1430-1482), queen of England, daughter of René of Anjou, titular king of Naples and Jerusalem, was born on the 23rd of March 1430. When just fourteen she was betrothed to Henry VI. king of England, and in the following year was brought to England and married at Titchfield Abbey, near Southampton, on the 23rd of April 1445. On the 28th of May she was welcomed at London with a great pageant, and two days later crowned at Westminster. Margaret’s marriage had been negotiated by William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and when she came to England, Suffolk and his wife were her only friends. Naturally she fell under Suffolk’s influence, and supported his policy. This, added to her French origin and sympathies, made her from the start unpopular. Though clever and good-looking, she was self-willed and imperious, and without the conciliatory manners which her difficult position required. In almost everything she was the opposite of her gentle husband, but entered into his educational schemes, and gave her patronage to the foundation of Queen’s College, Cambridge. Margaret’s really active share in politics began after Suffolk’s fall in 1450. She not only supported Edmond Beaufort, duke of Somerset, in his opposition to Richard of York, but concerned herself also in the details of government, seeking not over-wisely pecuniary benefits for herself and her friends. But as a childless queen her influence was limited; and when at last her only son, Edward, was born on the 13th of October 1453, her husband was stricken with insanity. From this time she was the ardent champion of her husband’s and son’s rights; to her energy the cause of Lancaster owed its endurance, but her implacable spirit contributed to its failure. When York’s protectorate was ended by Henry’s recovery in January 1455, Margaret, not content with the restoration of Somerset and her other friends to liberty and office, pushed her politics to extremes. The result was the defeat of the Lancastrians at St Albans, and for a year Margaret had toacquiesce in York’s power. Yet at this time one wrote of her: “The queen is a great and strong laboured woman, for she spareth no pain to sue her things to an intent and conclusion to her power” (Paston Letters, i. 378). All the while she was organizing her party; and ultimately, in October 1456 at Coventry, procured some change in the government. Though formally reconciled to York in March 1458, she continued to intrigue with her partisans in England, and even with friends in France, like Pierre de Brezé, the seneschal of Normandy. After the Yorkist failure at Ludlow in 1459, it was Margaret’s vindictiveness that embittered the struggle by a wholesale proscription of her opponents in the parliament at Coventry. She was not present with her husband at Northampton on the 10th of July 1460. After romantic adventures, in which she owed her safety to the loyalty of a boy of fourteen, her only companion, she escaped with her little son to Harlech. Thence after a while she made her way to Scotland. From Mary of Gelderland, the queen regent, she purchased the promise of help at the price of surrendering Berwick. Margaret was still in Scotland at the date of Wakefield, so was not, as alleged by hostile writers, responsible for the barbarous treatment of York’s body. But she at once joined her friends, and was with the northern army which defeated Warwick at St Albans on the 17th of February 1461; for the executions which followed she must bear the blame. After Towton Margaret with her husband and son once more took refuge in Scotland.

A year later she went to France, and with help from her father and Louis XI. equipped an expedition under Pierre de Brezé. She landed in Northumberland in October, and achieved some slight success; but when on the way to seek further help from Scotland the fleet was overwhelmed in a storm, and Margaret herself barely escaped in an open boat to Berwick. In the spring she was again trying to raid Northumberland, meeting with many hardships and adventures. Once she owed her escape from capture to the generosity of a Yorkist squire, who carried her off on his own horse; finally she and her son were brought to Bamburgh through the compassionate help of a robber, whom they had encountered in the forest. Thence in August 1463 she crossed to Sluys in Flanders. She was almost destitute, but was courteously treated by Charles the Bold, then count of Charolais, and so made her way to her father in France. For seven years she lived at Saint-Michel-en-Barrois, educating her son with the help of Sir John Fortescue, who wrote at this time: “We be all in great poverty, but yet the queen sustaineth us in meat and drink. Her highness may do no more than she doth” (Works, ii. 72, ed. Clermont). Margaret never lost her hopes of her son’s restoration. But when at last the quarrel between Warwick and Edward IV. brought her the opportunity, it was with difficulty that she could consent to be reconciled to so old and bitter an enemy. After Warwick’s success and Henry’s restoration Margaret still remained in France. When at last she was ready to sail she was delayed by contrary winds. So it was only on the very day of Warwick’s defeat at Barnet (14th of April) that Margaret and Edward landed at Weymouth. Three weeks later the Lancastrians were defeated at Tewkesbury, and Edward was killed. Margaret was not at the battle; she was captured a few days after, and brought to London on the 21st of May. For five years she remained a prisoner, but was treated honourably and for part at least of the time was in charge of her old friend the duchess of Suffolk. Finally Louis XI. ransomed her under the Treaty of Pecquigny, and she returned to France on the 29th of January 1476. Margaret lived for six years at different places in Bar and Anjou, in poverty and dependent for a pension on Louis, who made her surrender in return her claims to her father’s inheritance. She died on the 25th of April 1482 and was buried at Angers Cathedral. René, whom she probably never saw after 1470, had died in the previous year. During her last years Chastellain wrote for her consolation hisTemple de Bocacedealing with the misfortunes of contemporary princes.

As the courageous champion of the rights of her son and her husband, Margaret must command a certain sympathy. But she was politically unwise, and injured their cause by her readiness to purchase foreign help at the price of English interests. Comines wrote well of her that she would have done more prudently if she had endeavoured to adjust the disputes of the rival factions instead of saying “I am of this party, and will maintain it” (Mémoiresvi. ch. 13). Her fierce partisanship embittered her enemies, and the Yorkists did not hesitate to allege that her son was a bastard. This, like the scandal concerning Margaret and Suffolk, is baseless; the tradition, however, continued and found expression in theMirror for Magistratesand in Drayton’sHeroical Epistles, as well as in Shakespeare’sHenry VI.

Bibliography.—For contemporary English authorities see underHenry VI. French authorities and especially theChroniquesof George de Chastellain, and theMémoiresof Philippes de Comines contain much that is of value. TheLetters of Margaret of Anjou(Camden Soc., 1863) have small historical importance. There have been numerous biographies, the chief is Mrs Hookham’sLife of Margaret of Anjou(1872). But the best modern accounts are to be found in G. du Fresne de Beaucourt’sHistoire de Charles VII., Dr Gairdner’s Introductions to thePaston Letters, Sir James Ramsay’sLancaster and York(1892), andThe Political History of England, vol. iv. (1906), by Professor C. Oman. Dr Karl Schmidt’sMargareta von Anjou, vor und bei Shakespeare(Palaestra, liv., Berlin, 1906) is a useful digest of authorities.

(C. L. K.)

MARGARET OF AUSTRIA(1480-1530), duchess of Savoy and regent of the Netherlands from 1507 to 1530, daughter of the archduke Maximilian of Austria, afterwards the emperor Maximilian I., was born at Brussels on the 10th of January 1480. At two years of age she was betrothed to the dauphin Charles, son of Louis XI. of France, and was brought up at the French court. In 1489, however, Charles, now king as Charles VIII., to prevent Maximilian taking as his second wife the duchess Anne of Brittany, threw over Margaret and married the Breton heiress himself. Her ambitious father now sought for Margaret another throne, and in April 1497 she was married at Burgos to the Infant John, heir to the throne of Castile and Aragon. She was left a widow, however, a few months later. In 1501 Margaret became the wife of Philibert II., duke of Savoy, who only survived until 1504. The sudden death of her brother the archduke, Philip the Handsome (Sept 25, 1506), opened out to her a new career. In 1507 she was appointed by her father regent of the Netherlands and guardian of her nephew Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles V. Charles came of age in 1515, but he entrusted Margaret with the regency, as the vast extent of his dominions permitted him but seldom to visit the Netherlands, and she continued to hold the post until her death in 1530. She was a wise and prudent ruler, of masculine temper and intrepidity, and very capable in affairs.

See E. Münch,Margaretha von Österreich(Leipzig, 1883); Th. Juste,Charles-Quint et Marguérite d’Autriche(Brussels, 1858); A. Le Glay,Maximilien I. et Marguérite d’Autriche(with correspondence, Paris, 1839); De Quinsonas,Matériaux pour servir à l’histoire de Marguérite d’Autriche(Paris, 1855), and E. E. Tremayne,The First Governors of the Netherlands: Margaret of Austria(1908).

MARGARET OF AUSTRIA(1522-1586), duchess of Parma and regent of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567, was a natural daughter of Charles V. Her mother, Margaret van Ghent, was a Fleming. She was brought up by her aunts Margaret of Austria and Maria of Hungary, who were successively regents of the Netherlands from 1507 to 1530 and from 1530 to 1555. In 1533 she was married to Alexander de’ Medici, duke of Florence, who was assassinated in 1537, after which she became the wife of Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma, in 1542. The union proved an unhappy one. Like her aunts, who had trained her, she was a woman of masculine abilities, and Philip II., when he left the Netherlands in 1559 for Spain, acted wisely in appointing her regent. In ordinary times she would probably have proved as successful a ruler as her two predecessors in that post, but her task was very different from theirs. She had to face the rising storm of discontent against the Inquisition and Spanish despotism, and Philip left her but nominal authority. He was determined to pursue his own arbitrary course, and theissue was the revolt of the Netherlands. In 1567 Margaret resigned her post into the hands of the duke of Alva and retired to Italy. She had the satisfaction of seeing her son Alexander Farnese appointed to the office she had laid down, and to watch his successful career as governor-general of the Netherlands. She died at Ortona in 1586.

See L. P. Gachard,Correspondance de Marguérite d’Autriche avec Phillippe II. 1554-1568(Brussels, 1867-1887); R. Fruin,Het voorspel van den tachtig jarigen vorlog(Amsterdam, 1856); E. Rachfahl,Margaretha von Parma, Statthalterin der Niederlande, 1559-1567(Munich, 1895); also bibliography inCambridge Modern History, iii. 795-809 (1904).

MARGARET OF PROVENCE(1221-1295), queen of France, was the daughter of Raymond Berenger V., count of Provence. She was married to Saint Louis at Sens on the 27th of May 1234, and was crowned the next day. Blanche of Castile, the queen-mother, arranged the marriage to win over to the cause of France the powerful count of Provence, but treated her daughter-in-law most unkindly, and her jealousy of the energetic young queen was naturally shared by Louis, whose coldness towards and suspicion of his wife are well known. Margaret did not lack courage, she followed the king on his crusade, and bore herself heroically at Damietta. But her ambition and strong personal prejudices often led her to actions injurious to the realm. This is most noticeable in her hostility to her brother-in-law Charles of Anjou, who had married her sister Beatrice, and her devotion to Henry III. of England, who had married her other sister Eleanor. Aspiring during the reign of her son to the same rôle which she had seen Blanche of Castile play, she induced, in 1263, the young Philip, heir to the throne, to promise to obey her in everything up to the age of thirty; and Saint Louis was obliged to ask for a bull from Urban IV. which would release the prince from his oath. After Saint Louis’ death, Margaret continued obstinately to claim her rights on the county of Provence against Charles of Anjou. She sought to employ force of arms, calling upon her son, her nephew Edward II. of England, and the German king Rudolph of Habsburg. She did not give up her claim until after the death of Charles of Anjou (1285), when Philip the Bold succeeded in getting her to accept an income from the county of Anjou in exchange for her rights in Provence. She died on the 31st of December 1295.

See E. Boutaric,Marguérite de Provence, inRevue des questions historiques(1867), pp. 417-458.

MARGARET MAULTASCH(1318-1369), countess of Tirol, who received the name of Maultasch (pocket-mouth) on account of the shape of her mouth, was the daughter and heiress of Henry, duke of Carinthia and count of Tirol. When Henry died in 1335 Carinthia passed to Albert II., duke of Austria; but Tirol was inherited by Margaret and her young husband, John Henry, son of John, king of Bohemia, whom she had married in 1330. This union was not a happy one, and the Tirolese disliked the government of Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles IV., who ruled the county for his brother. The result was that John Henry was driven from Tirol, and Margaret’s cause was espoused by the emperor Louis IV., who was anxious to add the county to his possessions. Declaring her marriage dissolved on the ground that it had not been consummated, Louis married Margaret in 1342 to his own son Louis, margrave of Brandenburg. But as this action on the emperor’s part entrenched on the privileges of the Church, Pope Clement VI. placed father and son under the ban, from which they were not released until 1359. In 1361 Margaret’s husband died, followed two years later by her only son, Meinhard, when she handed over Tirol to Rudolph IV., duke of Austria, and retired to Vienna, where she died on the 3rd of October 1369. She lived long in the memory of the people of Carinthia, who regarded her as an amazon, and called her theWicked Gretl.

See A. Huber,Geschichte der Vereinigung Tirols mit Oesterreich(Innsbruck, 1864).

MARGARINE,the name, first given by Chevreul, to an artificial substitute for butter, made from beef and other animal fats, and sometimes mixed with real butter. The name of “butterine” has also been used. Artificial butter, or “margarine-mouries,” was for some years manufactured in Paris according to a method made public by the eminent chemist Mège-Mouries. Having surmised that the formation of butter contained in milk was due to the absorption of fat contained in the animal tissues, he was led to experiment on the splitting up of animal fat. The process he ultimately adopted consisted in heating finely minced beef suet with water, carbonate of potash, and fresh sheep’s stomach cut up into small fragments. The mixture he raised to a temperature of 45° C. (113° F.). The influence of the pepsine of the sheep’s stomach with the heat separated the fat from the cellular tissue; he removed the fatty matter, and submitted it when cool to powerful hydraulic pressure, separating it into stearin and oleomargarin, which last alone he used for butter-making. Of this fat about the proportions of 10 ℔ with 4 pints of milk, and 3 pints of water were placed in a churn, to which a small quantity of anatto was added for colouring, and the whole churned together. The compound so obtained when well washed was in general appearance, taste and consistency like ordinary butter, and when well freed from water it was found to keep a longer time. Margarine is a perfectly wholesome butter-substitute, and is now largely used, but the ease with which it may be passed off as real butter has led to much discussion and legislative action. (SeeAdulteration.)

MARGARITA,an island in the Caribbean Sea belonging to Venezuela, about 12 m. N. of the peninsula of Araya, and constituting, under the constitution of 1904,—with Tortuga, Cubagua and Coche—a political division called the Eastern Federal District. The island is about 40 m. long from east to west, has an area of 400 sq. m., and consists of two mountainous extremities, nearly separated by the Laguna Grande on the south, but connected by a low, narrow isthmus. The highest elevation on the island is the peak of Macanao, 4484 ft., in the western part, the highest point in the eastern part being the peak of Copei, 4170 ft. The higher valleys of the interior are highly fertile and are well adapted to grazing and stock-raising. The principal industries are fishing and the making of salt. The pearl fisheries, which were so productive in the 16th and 17th centuries, are no longer important. A domestic industry of the women is that of making coarse straw hats, which are sold on the mainland. The products of Margarita, however, are insufficient to support its population, and large numbers periodically emigrate to the mainland, preventing the increase in population which its healthful climate favours. The population was estimated in 1904 at 40,000, composed in great part of half-caste Guayqueri Indians. The capital is Asunción (pop. about 3000), on the east side of the island, and its principal port is Pompatar on the south coast. The two small ports of Puebla de la Mar (Porlamar) and Puebla del Norte are merely open roadsteads.

The island of Margarita (from Span.Margarita, pearl) was discovered by Columbus in 1498, and was bestowed in 1524 upon Marceto Villalobos by Charles V. In 1561 the freebooter Lope de Aguirre ravaged the island, and in 1662 the town of Pompatar was destroyed by the Dutch. For a long time Margarita was attached to Cumana, but in the eighteenth century it was made administratively independent. Its traders and sailors rendered invaluable assistance to the revolutionists in the war of independence, and the Spanish general, Morillo, was driven from its shores in 1817; in recognition of this it was made a separate state and was renamed Nueva Esparta (New Sparta). In 1904-1909 it was a part of the Federal District with Asunción as its capital. The first Spanish settlement in South America was Nueva Cadiz, founded in 1515 on the barren island of Cubagua; but the place was abandoned when pearl-fishing and slave-trading ceased to be profitable.

MARGATE,a municipal borough and seaside resort in the Isle of Thanet parliamentary division of Kent, England, 74 m. E. by S. of London by the South Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1891), 18,662; (1901), 23,118. It lies on the north coastof Thanet, and is practically contiguous with Westgate on the west and with Broadstairs on the south-east, owing to the modern extension of these popular watering-places. An electric tramway connects Margate with Broadstairs and Ramsgate, and during the season it is served by numerous pleasure steamers from London. An esplanade faces the sea along nearly the entire front of the town, and is lined with hotels, shops and dwelling-houses. A jetty exceeding a quarter of a mile in length permits the approach of vessels at all tides. It was built in 1854 and subsequently enlarged, but a pier was constructed by John Rennie in 1815, and is now chiefly used by fishermen and colliers. The church of St John the Baptist, founded in 1050, contains some portions of Norman architecture, the remainder being Decorated and Perpendicular. It is rich in ancient brasses and monuments, including a brass to Sir John Daundelyon (1443), whose family occupied a manor in the neighbourhood as early as the 13th century. The manor house of Daundelyon, or Dent de Lion, with its gateway of the early part of the 15th century, remains between Margate and Westgate. Charitable institutions include a deaf and dumb asylum (1875-1886), the Metropolitan infirmary for children (1841), and the royal sea-bathing infirmary, established in 1791 and enlarged through the munificence of Sir Erasmus Wilson in 1882. Dane Park (33 acres) was opened in 1898.

Margate (Meregate, Mergate), formerly a small fishing village, was an ancient and senior non-corporate member of Dover. In 1347 it contributed 15 ships of small tonnage at the time of the siege of Calais. Throughout the 14th century references are made to Margate in crown regulations regarding fisheries and shipping. A pier existed before 1500, but by the reign of Henry VIII. it was in a decayed condition. The amount of corn shipped was evidently small, the droits being insufficient to keep the pier in repair. Under Elizabeth Margate was still an obscure fishing village employing about 20 small vessels (“hoys”) in the coasting and river trades, chiefly in the conveyance of grain, on which in 1791 it chiefly subsisted. The droits increased, but were not properly collected until 1724. In 1777 the pier was rebuilt. It was about this time that Margate first began to be known as a bathing-place owing to its fine stretch of firm sand. In 1835 Margate was still a liberty of Dover and no right of citizenship could be acquired. In 1857 it was incorporated. In 1777 a weekly market was granted on Wednesday and Saturday. It is now held daily, but principally on those two days.

MARGGRAF, ANDREAS SIGISMUND(1709-1782), German chemist, was born at Berlin on the 3rd of March 1709. After studying chemistry at Berlin and Strassburg, medicine at Halle, and mineralogy and metallurgy at Freiberg, he returned to his native city in 1735 as assistant to his father, Henning Christian Marggraf, chief apothecary at the court. Three years later he was elected to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, which in 1754 put him in charge of its chemical laboratory and in 1760 appointed him director of its physics class. He died in Berlin on the 7th of August 1782. His name is especially associated with the discovery of sugar in beetroot. In 1747 he published an account of experiments undertaken with the definite view of obtaining true sugar from indigenous plants, and found that for this purpose the first place is taken by beetroot and carrot, that in those plants sugar like that of cane exists ready formed, and that it may be extracted by boiling the dried roots in alcohol, from which it is deposited on cooling. This investigation is also memorable because he detected the minute sugar-crystals in the roots by the help of the microscope, which was thus introduced as an adjunct to chemical inquiry. In another research dealing with the nature of alum he showed that one of the constituents of that substance, alumina, is contained in common clay, and further that the salt cannot be prepared by the action of sulphuric acid on alumina alone, the addition of an alkali being necessary. He explained and simplified the process of obtaining phosphorus from urine, and made some admirable observations on phosphoric acid; but though he noted the increase in weight that attends the conversion of phosphorus into phosphoric acid he was content to remain an adherent of the phlogistic doctrine. For his time he was a skilful chemical analyst; he knew how to distinguish potash and soda by the different colorations they produce in flame, and how to test for iron with prussiate of potash: he was aware that sulphate of potash, gypsum and heavy spar, in spite of their different appearances, all contain sulphuric acid; and he recognized that there are different varieties of urinary calculi. In metallurgy he devised improved methods for the manufacture of zinc and the purification of silver, tin and other metals.

His papers, mostly written in French, were presented to the Berlin Academy, and with the exception of a few of the latest were collected in two volumes ofChymische Schriftenin 1761-1767.

MARGHELAN,orMarghilan, a town of Asiatic Russia, situated in 40° 28′ N. and 71° 45′ E., the administrative centre of the province of Ferghana. Pop. (1900), 42,855, mostly Sarts, with Tajiks and Jews. It is a very old town, with high earthen walls and twelve gates, commanded by a fort. It lies in a beautiful, extraordinary fertile and well irrigated district. The heat in summer is excessive. The principal industry is the manufacture of silk; camels’ hair and woollen fabrics are also made. The new Russian town, founded in 1877, is 10 m. distant to the south-east, and has a population (1897) of 8977.

MARGRAVE(Ger.Markgraf), a German title meaning literally “count of the March” (Lat.marchio,comes marchae,marchisus). The margraves had their origin in the counts established by Charlemagne and his successors to guard the frontier districts of the empire, and for centuries the title was always associated with this function. The margraves had within their own jurisdiction the authority of dukes, but at the outset they were subordinate to the dukes in the feudal army of the empire. In the 12th century, however, the margraves of Brandenburg and Austria (the north and east marks) asserted their position as tenants-in-chief of the empire; with the break-up of the great duchies the others did the same; and the margraves henceforward took rank with the great German princes. The title of margrave very early lost its original significance, and was borne by princes whose territories were in no sense frontier districts,e.g.by Hermann, a son of Hermann, margrave of Verona, who assumed in 1112 the title of margrave of Baden. Thus, too, when the elector Albert Achilles of Brandenburg in 1473 gave Bayreuth and Ansbach as apanages to his sons and their descendants these styled themselves margraves. The title, however, retained in Germany its sovereign significance, and has not, like “marquis” in France and “marchese” in Italy, sunk into a mere title of nobility; it is not, therefore, in its present sense the equivalent of the English title “marquess.” The German margraviates have now all been absorbed into other sovereignties, and the title margrave is borne only as a subsidiary title in the full style of their sovereigns.

MARGUERITE,the popular name for the plant known botanically asPyrethrum(orChrysanthemum)frutescens(natural order Compositae), a shrubby perennial with smooth leaves cut pinnately into narrow segments and flower-heads two to three inches across produced singly in summer and autumn on slender erect stalks. The white ray-florets surround a yellow disk. It is a native of the Canary Isles, and a favourite for decoration and for greenhouse cultivation, window-boxes and open ground in the summer. The yellow marguerite (étoile d’or) has somewhat larger pale yellow flowers and glaucous leaves. The plant is propagated from cuttings taken in autumn from old plants and placed in sandy loamy soil in cold frames. By pruning the shoots in autumn the plants may be grown into very large specimens in the course of a few seasons.

MARGUERITE DE VALOIS.The name Marguerite was common in the Valois dynasty, and during the 16th century there were three princesses, all of whom figure in the political as well as in the literary history of the time, and who havebeen not unfrequently confounded. The first and last are the most important, but all deserve some account.

I.Marguerite d’Angoulême(1492-1549). This, the most celebrated of the Marguerites, bore no less than four surnames. By family she was entitled to the name of Marguerite de Valois; as the daughter of Charles d’Orléans, count d’Angoulême, she is more properly, and by careful writers almost invariably, called Marguerite d’Angoulême. From her first husband she took, during no small part of her life, the appellation Marguerite d’Alençon, and from her second, Henri d’Albret, king of Navarre, that of Marguerite de Navarre. She was born at Angoulême on the 11th of April 1492, and was two years older than her brother Francis I. She was betrothed early to Charles, duke d’Alençon, and married him in 1509. She was not very fortunate in this first marriage, but her brother’s accession to the throne made her, next to their mother Louise of Savoy, the most powerful woman of the kingdom. She became a widow in 1525, and was sought in marriage by many persons of distinction, including, it is said, Charles V. and Henry VIII. In 1527 she married Henri d’Albret, titular king of Navarre, who was considerably younger than herself, and whose character was not faultless, but who seems on the whole, despite slander, to have both loved and valued his wife. Navarre was not reconquered for the couple as Francis had promised, but ample apanages were assigned to Marguerite, and at Nérac and Pau miniature courts were kept up, which yielded to none in Europe in the intellectual brilliancy of their frequenters. Marguerite was at once one of the chief patronesses of letters that France possessed, and the chief refuge and defender of advocates of the Reformed doctrines. Round her gathered C. Marot, Bonaventure Des Périers, N. Denisot, J. Peletier, V. Brodeau, and many other men of letters, while she protected Rabelais, E. Dolet, &c. For a time her influence with her brother, to whom she was entirely devoted, and whom she visited when he was imprisoned in Spain, was effectual, but latterly political rather than religious considerations made him discourage Lutheranism, and a fierce persecution was begun against both Protestants and freethinkers, a persecution which drove Des Périers to suicide and brought Dolet to the stake. Marguerite herself, however, was protected by her brother, and her personal inclinations seem to have been rather towards a mystical pietism than towards dogmatic Protestant sentiments. Nevertheless bigotry and the desire to tarnish the reputation of women of letters have led to the bringing of odious accusations against her character, for which there is not the smallest foundation. Marguerite died at Odot-en-Bigorre on the 21st of September 1549. By her first husband she had no children, by her second a son who died in infancy, and a daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, who became the mother of Henry IV. Although the poets of the time are unwearied in celebrating her charms, she does not, from the portraits which exist, appear to have been regularly beautiful, but as to her sweetness of disposition and strength of mind there is universal consent.

Her literary work consists of theHeptameron, of poems entitledLes Marguerites de la marguerite des princesses, and ofLetters. TheHeptameron, constructed, as its name indicates, on the lines of theDecameronof Boccaccio, consists of seventy-two short stories told to each other by a company of ladies and gentlemen who are stopped in the journey homewards from Cauterets by the swelling of a river. It was not printed till 1558, ten years after the author’s death, and then under the title ofLes Amants fortunés. Internal evidence is strongly in favour of its having been a joint work, in which more than one of the men of letters who composed Marguerite’s household took part. It is a delightful book, and strongly characteristic of the French Renaissance. The sensuality which characterized the period appears in it, but in a less coarse form than in the great work of Rabelais; and there is a poetical spirit which, except in rare instances, is absent fromPantagruel. TheLettersare interesting and good. TheMargueritesconsist of a very miscellaneous collection of poems, mysteries, farces, devotional poems of considerable length, spiritual and miscellaneous songs, &c. TheDernières poésies, not printed till 1896 (by M. A. Lefranc), are interesting and characteristic, consisting of verse-epistles,comédies(pieces in dramatic form on the death of Francis I., &c.),Les Prisons, a long allegorical poem of amorous-religious-historical tenor; some miscellaneous verse chiefly in dizains, and a later and remarkable piece,Le Navire, expressing her despair at her brother’s death. Of the other works, never yet completely edited, the best editions are, for theHeptameron, Leroux de Lincy (1855); for theLettres, Genin (1841-1842); and for theMarguerites, &c., Frank (1873). English translations of theHeptameronare rather numerous: one appeared in 1887 by A. Machen, with an introduction by Miss A. M. F. Robinson (Mme Darmesteter) and another (anonymous) in 1894, with an essay by G. Saintsbury. The religious poem,Le Miroir de l’âme pécheressewas translated by Queen Elizabeth. Books on Marguerite and her court are also many. There may be noted Durand’sMarguerite de Valois et la cour de François Ier(1848); La Ferrière’sMarguerite d’Angoulême(1891); Lotheissen’sKönigin Margareta von Navarra(1885); Miss Edith Sichel’sWomen and Men of the French Renaissance(1901), and P. Courtault’sMarguerite de Navarre(1904).

II. The secondMarguerite(1523-1574), daughter of Francis I., was born on the 5th of June, 1523, at St Germain-en-Laye, and, at an age the lateness of which caused lampoons, married Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, in 1559. Like her aunt and her niece she was a good scholar and strongly interested in men of letters. She is noteworthy as having given the chief impulse at the court of her brother Henry II. to the first efforts of the Pléiade (seeRonsard), and as having continued her patronage of literature at Turin. The poet Marc Antonio Flaminio, for instance, congratulates himself in pretty Latin verses on her singing his poems.

HerLettershave been published by A. G. Spinelli.

III. The thirdMarguerite(1553-1615), called more particularly Marguerite de Valois, was great-niece of the first and niece of the second, being daughter of Henry II. by Catherine de’ Medici. She was born on the 14th of May 1553. When very young she became famous for her beauty, her learning, and the looseness of her conduct. She was married, after a liaison with the duke of Guise, to Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., on the eve of St Bartholomew’s Day. Both husband and wife were extreme examples of the licentious manners of the time, but they not unfrequently lived together for considerable periods, and nearly always on good terms. Later, however, Marguerite was established in the castle of Usson in Auvergne, and after the accession of Henry the marriage was dissolved by the pope. But Henry and Marguerite still continued friends; she still bore the title of queen; she visited Marie de’ Medici on equal terms; and the king frequently consulted her on important affairs, though his somewhat parsimonious spirit was grieved by her extravagance. Marguerite exhibited during the rest of her life, which was not a short one, the strange Valois mixture of licentiousness, pious exercises, and the cultivation of art and letters, and died in Paris on the 27th of March 1615. She left letters and memoirs the latter of which are admirably written, and rank among the best of the 16th century. She was the idol of Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme, and is the “Reine Margot” of anecdotic history and romance.

TheMémoiresare contained in the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat, and have been published separately by Guessard (the best, 1842), Lalanne, Caboche, &c. An English translation with introduction by Violet Fane appeared in 1892. Her character, and still more her circumstances, made the pen very unamiably busy with her in her lifetime, the chief of many lampoons being the famousDivorce satirique, variously attributed to Agrippa d’Aubigné, Palma Cayet, and others. The chief recent book on her is Saint Poucy’sHistoire de Marguerite de Valois(1887).

(G. Sa.)

MARGUERITTE, PAUL(1860- ) andVICTOR(1866- ), French novelists, both born in Algeria, were the sons of General Jean Auguste Marguerite (1823-1870), who after an honourable career in Algeria was mortally wounded in the great cavalry charge at Sedan, and died in Belgium, on the 6th of September 1870. An account of his life was published by Paul Marguerite asMon père(1884; enlarged ed., 1897). The names of the two brothers are generally associated, on account of their collaboration. Paul Marguerite, who has given a picture of his home in Algiers inLe Jardin du passé(1895), was sent to the military school of La Flèche for the sons of officers, and became in 1880 clerk to the minister of public instruction. He designed two pantomimes,Pierrot assassin de sa femme(Théâtre Libre, 1882), andColombine pardonnée(Cercle funambulesque, 1888),in which the traditional Pierrot, played by Margueritte himself, became a nervous, tragic creature. He resigned his clerkship in 1889 to devote himself entirely to literature, producing in rapid succession a series of novels, among which wereTous quatre(1885),La Confession posthume(1886),Maison ouverte(1887),Pascal Géfosse(1887),Jours d’épreuve(1889),Amants(1890),La Force des choses(1891),Sur le retour(1892),La Tourmente(1893),Ma grande(1892),Âme d’enfant(1894) andL’Eau qui dort(1896). Paul Margueritte had begun as a realistic novelist, but he was one of the five writers who signed a manifesto against Zola’sLa Terre, and he made his reputation by delicate, sober studies of the by-ways of sentiment. His brother Victor entered his father’s regiment, the 1st chasseurs d’Afrique, in 1888, and served in the army until 1896, when he resigned his commission. He was already known by some volumes of poetry, and by a translation from Calderon (La Double méprise, played at the Odéon, 1898) when he began to collaborate with his brother. From the time of this collaboration Paul Margueritte’s work gained in colour and force.

Among the books written in common by the brothers, the most famous is the series known under the collective title,Une Époque, dealing with the events of 1870-1871, and including the novelsLe Désastre(1898),Les Tronçons du glaive(1900),Les Braves gens(1901),La Commune(1904). They also collaborated in anHistoire de la guerre de 1870-1877(1903). These books were founded on a mass of documentary and verbal information, amassed with great care and arranged with admirable art; the authors are historians rather than novelists. The disasters and humiliations of the campaigns are faithfully described, but are traced to defects of organization and leadership; while the courage and patriotism of the army itself is made the basis of an assured confidence in the destinies of France.La Communeis a bold indictment of the methods adopted by the victorious party. The novelists also attacked the laws governing marriage and divorce and the abuses entailed by the dowry demanded from the bride, in pamphlets and in the novels,Femmes nouvelles(1899),Les Deux vies(1902), andLe Prisme(1905). Their literary partnership was dissolved in 1907. Paul Marguerite was one of the original members of the Académie de Goncourt.

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