Waldrada: Wife, Not Wife? Queen, Not Queen?

 Waldrada (death of Lothair II, 9 August 869)

In 855, the king of Lotharingia, Lothair II, and a woman named Theutberga, daughter of Boso the Elder, were married. Lothair was a young man, probably about eighteen years old, and had newly come to the throne. His wife's father, Boso, was a Frankish nobleman who played an important role in the divided Carolingian empire: he was count of Arles, count of Valois, count of Italy, and count of Burgundy. 

In 843, Charlemagne's empire was divided among 
his three grandsons, Charles the Bold,
Louis (Ludwig) the German, and Lothair I--
who further divided his kingdom, Middle Francia,
among his three sons, with Lothair II receiving
the northern portion, Lotharingia 

As historian Charles West notes, Lothair's decision to marry Theutberga was a political one: after the death of his father, the king of Middle Francia, Lothair was in a precarious position, his kingdom squeezed by his two powerful uncles, Charles the Bald, king of West Francia, and Louis the German, king of East Francia. Since Lothair's father had subdivided Middle Francia into three kingdoms for each of his three sons, the new king of Lotharingia needed "to secure his fragile position," so he "hastily entered into" the marriage; Theutberga's "kin group," in particular her father and her brother, Hubert, count of Valois, offered Lothair valuable support.

But before Lothair entered into this advantageous marriage with Boso the Eldedr's daughter, he had a long-standing relationship with a woman named Waldrada.

While Theutberga's family was an influential one and Lothair's marriage to Theutberga brought him an imprtant alliance, little is known about Waldrada or about the status of her union with Lothair. In her book Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages, historian Ruth Mazo Karras explores the many forms of "sexual unions" that were practiced in the early Middle Ages. (Many of them challenging modern notions about "traditional" marriage.) Karras notes the work of earlier scholars who identified what they called an épouse de jeunesse--a young man, like Lothair, might be provided with a suitable sexual partner until the time was right for a political alliance. These arrangements were only temporary. Another scholarly view is that such a relationship was a kind of "trial marriage," arranged by a woman's family "in the hopes that the relationship would last and turn into a real, recognized marriage." Another possibility, more simply, is that Waldrada was simply Lothair's "boyhood mistress," that the two had found their way to one another and enjoyed a sexual (or romantic) relationship. Any one of these might be the case--there is just no way to determine which one.

Whatever the nature of their relationship, it would endure even after Lothair married Theutberga. Waldrada gave birth to at least four of Lothair's children--the first of them, a son named Hugh, was born in 855, just before or shortly after Lothair's marriage. 

And as historian Pierre Riché notes, this situation was not a problem, at least at first, for Lothair--who had his "advantageous marriage" even as he "kept his cherished mistress." Riché offers no opinion about how state of affairs this might have affected Theutberga and Waldrada.

But by 857, Lothair decided that he no longer wanted to be married to Theutberga, and he wanted to be rid of her. It may be that he no longer needed the political alliance with Theutberga's family--West speculates that Lothair might have felt frustrated and overwhelmed by his wife's relatives and hoped to "free himself from their influence." 

But Theutberga's family wasn't the only source of political pressure he felt--Lothair needed an heir to stave off the threats posed by his two powerful uncles. And so, despite the brevity of his marriage, Lothair decided Theutberga was incapable of bearing him the heir he needed. He wanted his marriage annulled.*

Whatever the reasons for his decision, Lothair wasn't only focused on getting out of his marriage to Theutberga. He also wanted his relationship with Waldrada to be recognized and to have their children legitimized.

His efforts to set aside Theutberga were to occupy Lothair from 857 until his death in 869. It proved to be no easy task. And no matter how hard the Frankish king tried to bend ecclesiastical authorities to his will, his machinations were unsuccessful. 

This Carolingian family tree
is from a twelfth-century
"universal chronicle"--
on the tree is Lothair II,
who unforunately (for him)
is not depicted with any wife 
at all (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek MS
Lat. fol. 295; the image is on
80v, but you can view the
entire ms. at this link)

I've already relayed at some length Theutberga's situation in this ninth-century marital debacle. Her marriage to Lothair may have been beneficial for her father and brother as well as for Lothair, at least at first, but it brought nothing but unhappiness to Theutberta herself. In his fight to have his marriage annulled (or to be divorced from Theutberga), Lothair accused her of incest and other sexual abominations, subjected her to physical examination, and forced her to defend her name and honor through a trial by ordeal. When Lothair was compelled to take her back as his wife, he imprisoned her, had her tortured to produce a "confession" of her supposed perversions, and confined her in a convent. Theutberga ultimately fled, her confession recognized as invalid because it was coerced. Although ecclesiastical authorities, including the pope, ordered Lothair to recognize Theutberga as his wife and return to her, he refused to do so. Even when Theutberga herself wanted to end her marriage, that was not to be.

While Theutberga's trials as Lothair's rejected wife are lamentable, Waldrada's as his preferred "wife" are no better, though given her anomalous position, her experiences during the long conflict are less well documented. The extended ecclesiastical wrangling over the marriage focused on Lothair and Theutberga. 

One of the complicating factors in the ongoing struggle is not only the nature of Waldrada's relationship with Lothair but but also her uncertain origin--while Theutberga's familial status and support are clear, Waldrada's lack of connections seem to contribute to her predicament. Theutberga's powerful male relatives intervened to insist on the legality of her marriage, even if their motivations were to protect their own power and not her feelings. But no one supported Waldrada. Well, except for Lothair . . . 

Early sources do not have much to say about Waldrada herself, much less her family connections. In the Frankish Annales Bertiniani (The Annals of Saint Bertin), a contemporary (ninth century) history recorded at the Abbey of St. Bertin (Omer, France), the chronicler notes in 853 that Lothair's father, Emperor Lothair, had taken two mistresses, identified as "serving-women," and adds, with a sniff, that the emperor's sons, like their father, "gave themselves up to adulterous affairs." In this source, Waldrada is simply identified as Lothair's "concubine" (Hlotharius Waldradam concubinam), and it is suggested that she used witchcraft to achieve her hold over Lothair.

In his support of Lothair II's desire for recognition of his union with Waldrada, Adventius, bishop of Metz, rejected any suggestion that Waldrada was a concubine. In letters written after a council held at Aachen in 862, Lothair's advocate asserted that the king had been formally married to Waldrada--that the marriage had taken place before Lothair I, nobles, and bishops (though Adventius says he himself was not there to witness the event!), and that Waldrada had received a bridal gift, provided by Lothair I. Adventius also referred to Waldrada not only as a free woman, but as a woman of noble birth. Regardless of his claims about Waldrada's status, He offers no no specifics about her family, and most surviving records documenting Lothair's efforts to get rid of Theutberga continue to refer to Waldrada as his "concubine." 

Here's a detail from the 
Carolingian family tree
showing Lothair II--
unfortunately for him, 
the family tree doesn't
give him a wife (but he
is in a castle tower, so 
I guess it's not all bad 
for him)

Interestingly, a specific family connection for Waldrada emerges in later chronicles. In the tenth-century Vita Sancti Deicoli (Life of Saint Deicolus), Waldrada is said to be a member of the Alsatian Etichonid family, and the chronicle also claims she was also related to Eberhard II, count of Nordgau (Waldrada…Heberardo comitis consanguinitatis). (Lothair II's mother, Ermengarde of Tours, is a descendant of the Etichonid family.) Despite offering these family connections, the author reiterates the claim that Waldrada had used witchcraft to secure the affections of Lothair and refers to her as a "she-wolf." This connection, between Waldrada and the Etichonids, seems to have been based principally on the name of Lothair and Waldrada's son, Hugh--it is a common name in the Etichonid family.

In later sources, more is said about Waldrada's background. According to the Gesta Treverorum (The Deeds of the Trevians), a collection of materials begun by Benedictine monks in the twelfth century (the monks were from the Abbey of St. Mathias in Trier, or Trèves, thus "Trevians"), Waldrada is identified as the sister of Gunther, archbishop of Cologne (Waldradam sororem…Guntheri Coloniensis archiepiscopus).

In the thirteenth century, a Cistercian monk named Caeserius of Heisterbach compiled lists of church leaders in his Cæsarii Heisterbacensis Catalogus. He also writes that Waldrada is the sister of Gunther, archbishop of Cologne (Waldradam, sororem Guntheri archiepiscopi Coloniensis) and, further, claims that Gunther encouraged Lothair to ignore his marriage to Theutberga and return to Waldrada. 

This account of Waldrada, "her brother," and his efforts on her behalf also appears in the Annals of Novesia (Annales Novesienses), compiled by Augustinian canons in the Oberkloster, near Neuss, and founded by members from the cathedral in Cologne. Again, this chronicle notes Gunther's approval of 'his sister's" relationship with Lothair and indicates that Gunther approved Lothair's divorce from Theutberga, who was his "legitimate wife" (legitima uxore Tyberga).

This identification of Waldrada was embraced in the nineteenth century by the historian Alfred-August Ernouf, in his history of Waldrada, Lothar II, and "their descendants" (Histoire de Waldrade, de Lother II, et de leurs descendants). Indeed, the first section of his history is on "the family of Waldrada." According to Ernouf, the archbishop of Cologne was not Waldrada's brother but her uncle, "the most active auxiliary of his niece and Lothar." Further, he claimed that Theutgard, archbishop of Trier, was Waldrada's brother. 

Where did these family connections for Waldrada's come from? Lacking any documentation for Waldrada's background, later chroniclers may have supplied her these family connections as a way of explaining the support of these clergymen for Lothair (and, thus, Waldrada) as the king sought to separate himself from Theutberga. Both Archbishop Gunther of Cologne and Archbishop Theutgaud of Trier aided Lothair II in his efforts to get rid of Theutberga--in 860, they obligingly annulled Lothair's marriage to her, and in 862, they judged that Lothair had been married to Waldrada all along. In 863, they traveled to Rome to present their findings to the pope, who promptly put their findings before a synod, where they were rejected. When the two archbishops refused to submit, the pope excommunicated them and then deposed them. But if Gunther and Theutgaud were indeed closely related to Waldrada, it did not protect them from Lothair's wrath at their failure.

I've spent a fair amount of time here with what is known--and what is speculated--about Waldrada's social status and family connections because her lack of support seems relevant to the widespread opposition by the Church to Lothair's efforts to set aside his marriage to Theutberga. If Waldrada had family as significant as Theutberga, the outcome for her may have been different. Not that Theutberga's life was made easy by her family connections. 

For a brief period of time, between 862, when Gunther and Theutgad had decided matters in Lothair's favor, and 863, when Pope Nicholas I decided against him, Waldrada was "recognized" as queen of Lotharingia and, as Charles West notes, she "participated," at least for a short while, in Lothair's court, "in the full theatre of medieval queenship." In his book on Lothair's divorce, historian Karl Heideker writes that after the king presented Waldrada to his court with a retinue, she was acclaimed queen and crowned. But by 865, Lothair was once more compelled to take Theutberga back as his wife. The couple appeared together, both wearing their crowns, in August of that year. As for Waldrada, she was summoned to Rome. According to an account in the Annales Bertiniani (The Annals of Saint Bertin), Waldrada set off with the papal legate, but at some point she took off, and in 866, she was excommunicated. 

In a letter to Frankish bishops dated 13 June 866, the pope provides a few interesting details about Waldrada. After outlining his summons of Waldrada and her refusal to travel to Rome, Pope Nicholas claims that she returned to Lotharingia so that she "might rule over it." She "dominates the state" and she continues "plotting the destruction of Queen Theutberga." And although she does not seem to have returned to court, Nicholas writes that she has placed herself so that she has "easier access" to Lothair, and "he to her." And then, while noting that some critics say that if Waldrada is so condemned, Lothair should be blamed also, Nicholas seems to dismiss that--Waldrada is the one responsible for leading the king into sin and causing all the problems. (Crucially, West observes, the pope does not mention any supporters or family for Waldrada.)

During his reign, Lothair issued at least one royal charter, from 863, referring to Waldrada as "our beloved wife" and her son, Hugh, as "our son." After the 865 papal decision, Waldrada nevertheless functioned as his queen--even though she did not return publicly to Lothair, those wishing favors from him sought out Waldrada, and she is also said to have counseled the king about ecclesiastical appointments (hmmm). In 867, Lothair made Hugh the duke of Alsace.

In 867, Pope Nicholas died, and--ever hopeful he would achieve his goal--Lothair  put his case before the new pope, Adrian II, who at least removed the excommunication from Waldrada. (His letter to Waldrada on this occasion is available at Epistolae--click here.) Lothair himself took off for Rome, met with Pope Adrian, and presented him with gifts. Unfortunately, the king died on his return journey to Lotharingia. (His death date, 9 August, provides the occasion fot this post.)

As for Waldrada? Like her rival, Theutberga, she retired to a convent--sources indicate she entered the convent of Remiremont after Lothair's death and died there. The year of her death is unknown. 

Waldrada's son with Lothair, Hugh, was declared illegitimate and thus unable to inherit the kingdom of Lotharingia--it was to go to Lothair's brother, Louis, but ultimately it went to Charles the Bald. Hugh spent nearly two decades after his father's death trying to recover Lotharingia, but in 888 he was blinded and sent off to a series of monasteries. He died in 895. 

The Carolingian family tree (above, right)
does include Waldrada's daughter,
Bertha (who gets to keep not only her
second husband, Adalbert of Tuscany,
but also her son, Guy, for whom
she was regent after Adalbert's death)

Waldrada's daughter Bertha (b. 863-68) was married to Theobald of Arles about the year 879. You won't believe this, but Theobald was the son of Theutberga's brother . . . Bertha  gave birth to four children during her marriage, the eldest named Hugh, after her brother, and a daughter named, you guessed it, Theutberga. (She also had a son named Boso.) After the death of Theobald, Bertha married Adalbert II, margrave of Tuscany, with whom she had at least three children. After Adalbert's death, Bertha was regent for their eldest son, Guy.

Gisela (b. 860-865) was married to a Viking, Godfrid Haraldsson, son of the Danish king Harald Klak. Godfrid was baptized in 822, with Lothair I as his godparent, but after remaining part of Lothair's retinue for some time, he ultimately rebelled against him. In 882, after being baptized once again (did he forget?), he married Gisela and was named duke of Frisia. After Godfrid's death, Gisela became abbess of Nivelles. She died in the year 907.

Ermengarde (b. c 861) may have been married to Berlion, vicomte of Vienne, and it has been suggested that she traveled to Provence with her sister when Bertha married Theobald of Arles. This identification is not certain, however--Berlion did marry an Ermengarde, but it may not have been Waldrada's daughter, Ermengarde. Ermengarde of Lotharingia may not have married at all, but she did become a nun at the abbey of Santa Giustina in Lucca--the epitaph recorded at the time of her death identifies her as the daughter of Lothair. 

Lothair's divorce is much discussed, researched and analyzed in work by many great scholars, some of whom I have linked to here. Unfortunately, with the exception of Karras and West (links, above) not much information is provided about Waldrada. The exception is Ernouf's nineteenth-century Histoire de Waldrade, de Lother II et de leurs descendants which is easily accessed via the Internet Archive, but which is not accessible if your don't read French. 

You may be interested in a podcast from History Extra: "Lothar II vs Theutberga: A Marriage Scandal that Shook the Ninth Century" (click here). If you can't listen to it at that link, search wherever you usually find your podcasts--the History Extra series is available on Apple, for instance, and the episode is #1929.

*The details and chronology of events in what follows vary significantly in the sources I've used for what follows, and I have done my best to produce a reasonable summary here. These sources also vary in the word they use to describe the separation Lothair desires, employing both "annulment" and "divorce." In canon law, these are not the same, and I am not always sure which is technically correct at each step of Lothair's process. For an accessible version of Lothair's effort to divorce Theutberga, "The Marriage of Lothair and Theutberga," click here. This essay appears in Encyclopedia.com, usually a reliable resource, but I can't find an author. For a longer read, see Karl Heidecker, The Divorce of Lothair II: Christian Marriage and Political Power in the Carolingian World, trans. Tanis M. Guest.

Bertha of Burgundy, queen of the Franks? Sort of?

Bertha of Burgundy, queen of the Franks? (succession of Conrad I to the kingdom of Burgundy, 11 July 937)

I am back again to profile yet another of the wives of Robert "the Pious," king of the Franks. But, hey! It's not like the guy is Henry VIII or anything--he only had three wives, and he didn't kill any of them . . . (Once you've read about Robert's three marriages, you'll see why I can't call him "the Pious" without the quotation marks.)

It's not that poor Robert's wives kept dying on him either. Rather, poor Robert needed an heir, but he had a terrible time finding a wife whom he found suitable--his first wife was Rozala of Italy, but he repudiated her because she was too old. Then he married Bertha, who wasn't that much younger than Rozala, but he thought she was better. And then, when he was forced to separate from Bertha because his marriage was deemed "incestuous," he married Constance of Arles. She bore Robert the children neither of his previous wives had managed to produce for him, but he tried to get rid of her too . . . You just have to love "traditional marriage"!

A twelfth-century image
of Bertha of Burgundy
(detail from the Genealogy
of the Ottonians) 

So that's the background for today's post: poor "pious" Robert who just needed a wife. And although he had three, one of whom obligingly gave him an heir (and then some--Constance gave birth to seven surviving children), none of the women he married seemed to be just what he was looking for. 

All that said, here is what we know about the second of Robert's three wives, Bertha of Burgundy.

Bertha (or Berthe) of Burgundy was the daughter of Conrad I, king of Burgundy. Conrad was the second king of a united Upper and Lower Burgundy, inheriting the throne from his father, Rudolf II, who died on on 11 July 937 (and thus the date for today's post). Conrad's mother, by the way, was Bertha of Swabia, who has her own interesting marital connections.* 

As for Bertha of Burgundy's mother, she was Matilda of France, who was Conrad I's second wife. (Conrad's first wife, Adelaide of Bellay, had given birth to at least one child, a daughter named Gisela, born c. 955-60. Adela seems to have died about the year 963, since a charter dated 23 March refers to her, suggesting she was still alive.) Matilda, whose marriage to Conrad thus took place around 964, was the daughter of the Carolingian Louis IV, king of the Franks, and Gerberga of Saxony. (Louis was Gerberga's second husband--she had had four children with her first husband, Gilbert, duke of Lorraine) and then, during her marriage to Louis, she bore eight more, including Bertha.

Bertha of Burgundy was first married to Otto (or Odo or Eudes) I, count of Blois, probably between the years 978-80, and during the years of this marriage, she gave birth to at least three sons and a daughter. In 986, a charter refers to the presence of Bertha, the countess, during the signing of the document--also present were two sons, Theobald and Otto, who was "still in the cradle" (adhuc in cunabulo). Another charter, from 989, also refers to her sons, naming Robert, Theobald, and Otto. A donation in 1001 and a charter from 1024 refer to Agnès, Bertha's daughter. Two other sons may have been born, though their existence seems less certain--in 1007 a charter about property is confirmed by "Count Otto and his brother Landry," and in 1024, a record notes that a boy named Thierry was buried "at his brother Theobald's feet."

As you can see from these references, the birth order of Bertha's children isn't clear. The most reliable source I have found for this period is the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, which I've linked to several times, above. The FMG suggests the following about the births and deaths (and possible birth order?) of Bertha's children: Robert (b. date unknown - d. 989-95); Theobald (b. c. 979-81 - d. 11 July 1004); Otto (b. 982-3 - 15 November 1037); Agnès (fl. 1001 - 1024); Thierry (d. c. 1024); and Landry (d. after 27 September 1007).

  

At some point during the decade and a half of her marriage to Otto, Bertha of Burgundy, then countess of Blois, met the man who would become her second "husband," Robert, king of the Franks. In fact, Robert acted as godfather to one of her children. (An online source suggests this was Theobald, but I have not been able to verify that information.)

Bertha's husband, Otto, died on 12 March 996, leaving her a widow. A few months later, on 24 October 996, Robert's father, Hugh Capet, also died. It was after the death of his father that Robert, now king of the Franks, decided to marry Bertha of Burgundy.

Genealogy of the Ottonians,

including Rudolf II and Berthe

(Royal Chronicle of Cologne

[Chronica Regia Coloniensis],

Cod. Guelf. 74.3 Aug. 2°;

Heinemann-Nr. 2710, fol. 114v)

There was only one problem. In 996, Robert was already married--he had been married to Rozala of Italy since 988, although he had separated himself from her within a year or two of their marriage. But after the death of his father, who had arranged his marriage to Rozala, Robert decided to free himself entirely from his first wife, and he formally repudiated her. The two were divorced. (Rozala doesn't seem to have fought this action, and she returned to Flanders, where she was reunited with her son, Baldwin IV, count of Flanders. Rozala, once queen of the Franks, would never remarry. She died in Flanders in 1003. 

Interestingly, one of the principal reasons Robert gave for discarding Rozala was that she was too old to bear him children. She was not infertile or incapable, that much was clear--Rozala had been married before, and she had borne two children, an all-important male heir and a girl. As for her age--there is a great deal of uncertainty about the date of Rozala's birth (and of Robert's, for that matter) as well as a great deal of exaggeration about the difference in age between Rozala and Robert. But the best historical evidence, as opposed to misogynist story-telling, is that Rozala was probably ten (or perhaps fifteen) years older than Robert, that when she was repudiated for being "too old" for Robert, she was likely in her mid-thirties while he was in his mid-twenties.

But here's the thing--Bertha was not much younger than Rozala. In recent analysis, historian Jean Dhondt suggests that Rozala may have been born just before 962. Bertha meanwhile, was born in 964 or 965. 

But the age of his second wife was the least of Robert's problems. Unfortunately, Robert and the woman he now wanted to marry were too closely related--Robert's father, Hugh Capet, had considered Bertha when he was first looking for a marital alliance for his son, but he rejected her as a possible bride because the two were cousins. A marriage between them would be considered incestuous by the Church because they were too closely related by blood.** Moreover, their "spiritual affinity," the bond that had been created with Robert's role in the baptism of Bertha's child, compounded their incestuous (by contemporary standards) union.*** 

The two, Robert and Bertha, knew about the problematic nature of their relationship, but in December 996, despite the union being "in breach of canon law," they married anyway, the ceremony performed by the obliging archbishop of Tours with some additional French bishops witnessing the marriage.

In reaction, Pope Gregory V convened a synod in Pavia in January 977 (where he had gone after he had been forced to leave Rome). Robert and Bertha were condemned and prescribed seven years of penance. (Archambaud of Tours, who had married the pair, was summoned to appear before the synod and if he failed to appear, threatened with "suspension from communion.") If they did not separate, Robert was threatened with excommunication. And, for good measure, the French clerics who had supported Robert were 'rebuked." But this ruling had no effect on Robert, and so a general council in Rome was convened in 998 and "threatened the king with anathema" (menaça le roi d'anathème). 

Still Pope Gregory V didn't live long enough to bother Robert very much--the pope died in early 999, to be succeeded by Pope Sylvester II, a man that Robert hoped would be more amenable to the king of the Franks. After all, as a younger man, then Gerbert of Aurillac had supported Robert's father, Hugh Capet, in particular when the king of the Franks wanted to establish a co-kingship with his son, and Gerbert had also functioned as a kind of teacher for Robert. But perhaps Robert shouldn't have been so hopeful when Gerbert became pope--at some danger to himself, Gerbert had refused Robert and Bertha when he had been asked to perform their marriage.

Jean-Paul Laurens, 1875

The Excommunication of Robert the Pious

L'Excommunication de Robert le Pieux

(Paris, Le Musée d'Orsay)

As it happened, then, the new pope proved less supportive than Robert might have wished--or, maybe not. Because in 999, after three years of marriage, Robert's second "wife" had failed to provide him with an heir. A single pregnancy had resulted in a stillborn son, which perhaps was a sign of God's disapproval of this marriage. 

In any case, after yet another synod addressed the issue, Pope Sylvester II, formerly Gerbert of Aurillac, confirmed Robert's condemnation. Still, Robert and Bertha stayed together. They finally separated in September 1001 after Rome repeated the call for Robert to separate himself from Bertha and put his kingdom under a sentence of excommunication. Still without an heir, Robert decided at last that Bertha had to go. Robert "the pious" repudiated his second wife about the year 1003. 

Jean-Paul Laurens, 1883
The Parting of King Robert and Bertha
(Philadelphia Museum of Art)--
unfortunately, the painting is very dark,
but if you click the link and go to the original,
you can enlarge the image and see
the suffering on Bertha's face

Still in need of an heir, Robert "the Pious" married Constance of Arles in 1004. It was a somewhat peculiar arrangement, at least from a modern point of view. I'll let historian Kathleen Nolan describe it:

Bertha [of Burgundy]'s son, young count Odo II of Blois, married Ermengarde of Auvergne, granddaughter of Adelaide of Anjou and her first husband, Stephen of Brioude, while Robert himself wed Constance, daughter of the same Adelaide of Anjou and her last husband, Count William "the Liberator" of Provence. 

In other words, while Bertha's son married the granddaughter of Adelaide of Anjou, her former husband (right after he divorced her) married the daughter of the same woman. Got that?

As Nolan writes, a royal marriage was difficult in the best of circumstances, since a bride "entered a rather closed community" where there were already long-established connections and loyalties. But poor Constance encountered a rather different set of circumstances--she faced "personal animosity, political intrigue, and clerical hostility." 

None of the whole affair between Bertha and Robert seemed to do much damage Robert's reputation, however. Remember, his sobriquet: "the Pious." In his biography of the king, for example, Robert's chaplain, Helgaud de Fleury, did mention the unfortunate nature of the king's marriage to Bertha, but rather than condemning the sin of incest, Helgaud regarded the whole affair as yet another reason to praise Robert "the Pious"--Helgaud compared the "virtuous" and "humble" King Robert to the biblical King David and then explained that Robert's sin had been "washed away" because he had recognized his fault and prayed for forgiveness.

 A distraught Bertha of Burgundy,
detail from Jean-Paul Laurens,
The Excommunication
of Robert the Pious

Despite Helgaud's claims about the king recognizing his sin and praying for forgiveness, Robert wasn't quite done with Bertha of Burgundy. In the words of medieval historian Constance Bouchard, "Robert repeatedly attempted . . . to rejoin Bertha." There is some evidence that, as late as 1008, when Robert visited Rome, he was trying to get Pope John XIII to grant him a divorce his third wife, Constance of Arles, in order to reunite with Bertha. 

According to historian Penelope Ann Adair, Robert was back in Rome again, in 1010, still trying to get a divorce from Constance. And Bertha "followed Robert to Rome hoping for permission to remarry him." But Pope Sergius IV, who had assumed the papacy in July 1009, was no more interested in granting it than his predecessors had been.

Unfortunately--or fortunately?--for Bertha of Burgundy, Robert "the Pious" was never able to divorce his third wife, Constance of Arles who, despite her own set of difficulties with Robert, managed to produce seven children with him, four sons and three daughters.

I haven't been able to trace Bertha after she was separated from Robert, and the date of her death is based on a reference in the records of the cathedral of Chartres recording the death on "XVII Kal Feb" 1010 of "Bertha, mother of count Odo" (Berta mater Odonis comitis), but some sources suggest (without documentation) that Bertha may have died years later. Writing about Bertha, the nineteenth-century historian Chrétien Pfister notes a "legend" that the repudiated Bertha sought refuge in Montreuil, just outside Paris, and built a number of churches. 

Here and there I've also run across speculation that Bertha of Burgundy may be the Bertha who married Arduin of Ivrea, who became king of Italy in 1002, just a year or so before Bertha was finally repudiated by Robert of France. But, then, you find all sorts of crazy stuff online, and I've found no documentation that supports this identification--nothing that provides any sources. 

Still, I'd like to think Bertha of Burgundy was the Bertha who married Arduin of Ivrea, became his queen, had three sons with him, and lived happily ever after for some number of years. That's probably not the case, but, still, it would be a nice ending for her. (I'm not at all a Hemingway fan, but I'll steal a line from The Sun Also Rises: "Isn't it pretty to think so?")

There were no contemporary chroniclers like Helgaud de Fleury who cared to document Bertha of Burgundy's life, and even today there are no biographies of her--there is just too little known about her, other than that she was married at least once, twice if you count her union with Robert, that she had at least four children, maybe two more, and that she was ensnared in what the Church regarded as an illegal marriage. But I have to think that her story would make a great novel . . . 

*Fun fact: after the death of her first husband, Rudolf II, king of Burgundy, Bertha of Swabia, married Hugh of Provence, king of Italy. With this marriage, the widowed queen of Burgundy became the queen of Italy--Bertha was Hugh's fourth wife. Hugh's marital career was as complicated as that of Robert "the Pious." Hugh's first wife died, who knows what happened to his second, and his third wound up imprisoned and dead (and their marriage seems to have been illegal anyway). And oh, by the way--before her marriage to Hugh, Hugh's first wife, Guilla of Provence, had been married to Rudolf I of Upper Burgundy, the father of--you guessed it--Rudolf II, Bertha of Swabia's first husband! To put this another way, Hugh of Provence, king of Italy, married Rudolf II's mother and then his widow. Hugh also married off his son, Lothair, to Rudolf II and Bertha of Burgundy's daughter, Adelaide. All these marriages were attempts to resolve ongoing conflicts bertween Burgundy and Italy.

**Robert and Bertha were cousins. According to historian Penelope Ann Adair, "Robert and Bertha were both great-grandchildren of the German king, Henry I, and thus second cousins." In their excellent edition of Helgaud de Fleury's life of Robert the Pious, Robert-Henri Bautier and Gillette LaBoury note that the relationship of Robert and Bertha was calculated "at the third degree" (au troisième degré), a claim that is also made by Elizabeth Hallam. (Being related in the third degree is not the same as being second cousins--degrees count "steps" to reach a common ancestor, while "cousins" are about generations--but to be honest, I just can't figure out cousins/degrees myself.) Anyway, the excellent genalogical table provided by Bautier and LaBoury shows their relationship--Robert II's grandmother was Hedwig of Saxony, while Bertha's grandmother was Hedwig's sister, Gerberga of Saxony, both daughters of Henry the Fowler, king of Germany, and his wife, Matilda of Ringelhelm. On cousinship and degrees, click here.

Canon law concerned itself with the blood relationships among those who would marry. For a discussion of consanguinity as an impediment to a valid marriage, and for an explanation of the way these relationships were calculated, click here.

***Among the marriage canons of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) were several relating to godparents, including one that prohibited the marriage of a person to his/her child's godparent. To be a godparent established a spiritual consanguinity (blood relationship)--so the marriage of a godparent to a godchild, of two godparents to one another, or of a spiritual and natural parent, were all considered incestuous. (And the Fourth Lateran council extended consanguinity to the fourth degree, so that marriages of fourth cousins, or any nearer relatives, were prohibited.)

For the problems of finding royal marriage partners during this period, see For the best explanation Constance B. Bouchard's "Consanguinity and Noble Marriage in Tenth and Eleventh Centuries," Speculum 56, no. 2 (1981): 268-87.

Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval: Aristocrat, Castaway, Survivor

Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval (arrival in St. John's, Newfoundland, 7 June 1542)

The story of Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval seems as if it must be a work of fiction, and although "fictionalized" accounts of her extraordinary life were among the earliest to be written, what happened to this young woman in the mid-sixteenth century is not a romantic tale. Hers is a remarkable story of survival against all odds.

Marguerite de la Rocque's story

was told first by

Marguerite d'Angoulême, 

Queen of Navarre, 

in her Heptaméron, published

posthumously in 1558 as

Histoires des Amans Fortunés

(title page of first edition,

Bibliothèque nationale de France)

Little is known about Marguerite de la Rocque before the year 1536, when she is identified as co-holder of the seigneurial estate of Pontpoint (Picardy) and when a surviving documents suggests she pledged "an act of faith and homage" ([un] acte de foi et hommage) for her principal lands in Périgord and Languedoc. Although neither of her parents has been identified, she is somehow related to Jean-François de La Rocque, sieur de Roberval, the son of Bernard de La Rocque. 

While Bernard's family was primarily associated with Languedoc, his third wife, Isabeau de Popincourt, brought the title and holdings of Roberval into the marriage, and although there is some disagreement about whether Jean-François was the son of Bernard's second (unnamed) wife or Isabeau, his third, it was Jean-François who inherited the title and property after his father's death. 

Roberval's nineteenth-century biographer, Narcisse-Eutrope Dionne, avoided the problem identifying the mother of Jean-François by saying that when Bernard died in 1514, he left two children, a son (Jean-François) and a daughter, Charlotte. More recent genealogical research indicates Bernard also left a second son, another Jean de la Rocque, this Jean a monk who became prior of his order in Normandy.

Just how Marguerite de la Rocque is related to Jean-François is not clear, but their relationship is crucial to her fate. That she was not Roberval's daughter is certain. Although he did marry at least once, Jean-François had no children. Surviving records indicate that Roberval had "first cousins" (cousins germains), and "close family members" (cloches cousins), but they do not clarify his relationship to Marguerite. In his detailed genealogical work on Roberval, the Québécois historian Robert Robert La Roque de Roquebrune says only that Marguerite is Roberval's "very close relative" (parente très proche), but he adds nothing further.

Despite inheriting great wealth, Jean-François found himself in financial difficulties. In Dionne's words, "his splendor attracted friends, and his prodigality a whole swarm of flatterers." And then, having converted to Protestantism, he was outlawed, along with others of the Reformed faith, in 1534. Although his close relationship with the king, François I, allowed him to return to France (and the royal court), Roberval had by then squandered much of his fortune. 

It was his desperate financial situation that may have led him "to the idea of recouping his fortune in Canada." In 1540, the king appointed Roberval "lieutenant-general in the country of Canada" with the aim of establishing a permanent colony. Although Jacques Cartier, an experienced mariner, had already made two voyages of exploration to Canada, it was Roberval who was charged with founding a colony; he was to be "viceroy," with Cartier as the expedition's "chief navigator."

Title page of Claude Gruget's
1559 second edition of 
Marguerite de Navarre's 
L'Heptaméron
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)

While Cartier sailed in 1541, Roberval did not set off for Canada until 16 April 1542, finally leaving France with three ships, the Valentine, the Anne, and the Lèchefraye. Traveling with him were about two hundred would-be colonists. In addition to men with military experience, like Roberval himself, some of those on the expedition were gentlemen while others were craftsmen. And some joined the expedition after being released from prison; as Allaire Bernard notes in his entry on Roberval in The Canadian Encyclopedia, "the French king decided to increase the size of the original expedition and empty his overcrowded prisons." Also on the voyage were a few women, among them Marguerite. 

On 7 June 1542, Roberval arrived in Canada, entering into the harbor of what is now St. John's, Newfoundland, and I have used that date for this post. On that day, Roberval and his three vessels met with Cartier, who was on his way back to France, the process of settlement not having gone well. Roberval ordered Cartier to return to the colony he had established, Charlesbourg-Royal, but Cartier ignored Roberval and sailed away "under the cover of darkness." 

Roberval and his settlers, having arrived in Canada, were at the end of their long voyage, but it is at this point that the story of Marguerite begins. Many of the details  of just what happened to her differ from one account to another, but the broad outlines of her experiences are clear. Roberval abandons Marguerite, leaving her on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Marguerite survives until she is rescued in the spring of 1544 by French fishermen. She is taken back to France.

The earliest version of what happened to Marguerite de la Rocque is found in the collection of stories written by Marguerite d'Angoulême, the queen of Navarare, and sister of the French king.* In The Heptameron, the young woman's story is recounted by a character named Simontault, a knight who is one of ten young people, five men and five women, who have been stranded during a flood and decide to pass the time by telling each other stories. Simontault says that his narrative is intended "to serve as an example to women, and to give men cause for admiration, to see in the weaker sex what weakness recoils from." But Simontault is clear that the story he tells is fact, not fiction: I "will relate what I heard from Captain Robertval and several of his company." 

While Simontault thus names Roberval and even gives him a title, "Captain," he does not name Marguerite, nor does he reveal that she is related Roberval. Instead, her identity is obscured, and she is introduced as the nameless wife of a nameless "artisan" on board ship. This artisan proves himself to be a "traitor" to "his master," Roberval. Roberval decides that he must execute the traitor, but then he is overcome by "compassion" for the "tears and supplicatons" of the condemned man's poor wife and decides that he will grant the woman "what she asked" (emphasis mine): she asks Roberval to leave her and her husband on a little island, "inhabited only by wild beasts"! 

The wife's request is granted. She and her husband are abandoned--the unnamed woman has her New Testament with her (so of course she will be fine). The two, husband and wife, survive for a while on the island, building themselves a shelter and hunting for food, the woman with rocks, the man with an arquebus that Roberval left with the couple. The unnamed "traitor" falls ill and dies, the woman buries him, fights off animals that threaten to eat his corpse, and then, "living like the beasts as to her body, and like the angels as to her spirit, she passed the time in reading, contemplation, prayers, and orisons, having a cheerful and contented spirit in a body emaciated and half dead." But one of the vessels of Roberval's "fleet" sails by, the men onboard see her, rescue her, and take her back to France. (I can't help but add here the reacton of Ennasuite, one of the young, unmarried ladies after listening to Simontault's tale: "If beasts did not bite me, their company would be more agreeable to me than that of men, who are irascible and unbearable.")

While the queen of Navarre's work was not published until nearly a decade after her death in 1549, she most certainly would have had some personal knowledge of events--she knew Roberval well, not only through their court connections (Marguerite was the sister of François I), but also because of her support for the Reformed faith. The queen of Navarre is thus careful in the way she positions herself as she relates the story. It is distanced from the queen--it is framed as a story-within-a story and put into the mouth of the narrator Simontault. 

As for the two principal actors. Marguerite of Navarre is telling this story when both Roberval and Marguerite de la Rocque are still living, In this, the first known version of the story, "Captain Roberval" is seen to have acted justly--he condemns a traitor to death. He also acts mercifully--he grants the wife of the condemned man what she asks for, to spare her husband's life. He even acts generously, under the circumstances, not only setting them down on the island, as the wife had asked, but also by leaving them a few helpful supplies, like a weapon with which to hunt. In crafting her nararative, the queen of Navarre does not have her narrator utter a single word of cricism of Captain Roberval's behavior. 

At the same time, in composing her narrative, the queen of Navarre shields the identity of Marguerite de la Rocque. She does not name the woman on board the ship, nor does she reveal her social status. Instead, the unnamed woman is presented as the wife of a craftsman, not as an unmarried aristocrat. As important, the wife in the queen of Navarre's narrative is free from any fault or failing herself, her behavior under these dire circumstances serving as a model for all women.

François de Belleforest,
Le Cinquiesme Tome des
Histoires Tragiques, 1572 ed.
(Bibliotheque nationale de France)

When the poet François de Belleforest recounts the story of Marguerite de la Rocque in Le Cinquiesme Tome des Histoires Tragiques, first published in 1570, he too frames her story. In his "tragic histories," Belleforest collects a series of sensational tales, frequently focused on revenge and betrayal, especially within families (one of his tragic histories is widely cited as the source of Shakespeare's Hamlet). Belleforest then embellishes these scandalous narratives with a healthy dose of moralizing--I love the marginal notes that frequently offer his sober, pious comments on the events in the story being told. 

Marguerite de la Rocque's story is prefaced by a rather long history of heroic adventurers, conquerors, and explorers, extending from Alexander the Great and Hannibal to Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Jacques Cartier.** 

Having arrived at the "great voyagers of our excellent century," Belleforest then relates the story of a "young gentlewoman" who wants to see the wonders of nature and experience "strange and distant lands" for herself. Her brother agrees to take her with him on an extended sea voyage, though he is concerned about how she will fare. The trip is full of peril--he's worried about the rigors of the voyage, of course, but he sees potential danger to his sister posed by the men who will be on board the ship.

In this version of the story, Marguerite de la Rocque once again remains nameless, but so does her brother, who is only referred to in Belleforest's "tragic history" as "the captain." Despite his misgivings about his sister's reputation and the possibility of a physical "assault" upon her virtue when she is onboard a ship surrounded by so many men, the captain takes on board a young, handsome gentleman--one who isn't rich, but who is graceful, well-read, and likes poetry (and there is a very long poem by the young man embedded in the story once the three principal characters have been introduced). Belleforest also suggests--but does not make it certain--that the unnamed gentleman "perhaps" got himself onto the ship because he wanted to appeal to the "good graces" of the captain's sister. 

The demoiselle is enchanted with the young man's amorous verse, and the two are soon burned by the "flames of love." Indeed, the captain's sister becomes "the happiest gentlewoman alive," and the peculiar liberty offered them on board the ship allows them the freedom to enjoy the pleasures of one another's company.  (The narrator of the story at this point inserts his own very long reminder that women must cherish their honor and that gentleman should not make an idol of love.)

The pair consider marriage, but the demoiselle knows her brother--he is a proud man who would never allow his sister to marry the handsome gentleman, no matter how beautiful his poetry. She says that they should keep their love secret. And so their idyll continues as the ship sails on an incredible journey--Belleforest includes an itinerary that carries on for pages, more poetry, and a long discourse on love before returning to our pair of lovers, who at last decide to marry par paroles de present ("by words spoken in the present," or per verba de praesentia, a legal form of marriage, the consensual exchange of vows, though not necessarily the formal marriage that would please the young woman's brother!). Despite her clandestine marriage, the demoiselle is cautious about her honor and delays consummation--much to the ardent gentleman's despair. Belleforest's marginal comments here is worth quoting: "Too much privacy causes the ruin of chastity."

But after pages and pages of the young man pressuring the young woman, and the young woman denying her "husband" (he is now identified as son mari), the lovers are finally united in body as well as in spirit, as Belleforest discreetly phrases it. And the woman becomes pregnant. 

Now the captain had had his suspicions about the two during the long voyage--three months and counting--but he finally looks at his sister and sees the unmistakable signs of her pregnancy. He speaks angrily to her, accusing her of having besmirched not only her honnor but her family's name. The young woman defends herself, at last revealing that she has not ignored her reputation--she claims she has been "legitimately married," and she defends the gentleman she has married, saying he is "virtuous, honest, wise, and valiant." A long debate continues, followed by another long discussion of all the lands the captain's ship passes on their voyage.

At length (and I do mean "at length"), the ship reaches a "lost" and deserted island, and the captain decides to leave the couple there. "I am not as cruel as you are ingrateful," he tells them. He leaves them some arms and ammunition, but adds something just for the "gentleman": ink and paper so he can amuse himself by writing virelays and ballads. And that's that. The young woman's brother sails away "without saying another word."

And the rest goes more or less as Marguerite de Navarre told the story. The two pray, they build a shelter, and they support one another. In a marginal note, Belleforest identifies the island where they have been cast away "the isle of demons in the western sea." Belleforest's narrative diverges from the queen of Navarre's with the woman's pregnancy, however. Some weeks after the two have been left on the island, the gentlewoman gives birth to a son--the baby's parents serve also as his priest and baptize him. The infant does not live long, however; since the gentlewoman has only roots and grass to eat, she cannot produce milk, and he soon dies. 

Soon the gentleman also becomes ill. He composes one more lengthy poem when he feels his end approaching--more than five pages long in the printed edition--and then he dies. The gentlewoman, now alone on the island, buries her husband at the foot of a tree and awaits the hour of her own death. She cries "for several hours," before realizing that she isn't dying. She continues to live.

At last, after a year has passed, the ships that have abandoned her return, and the gentlewoman thinks her brother has come back, sorry for having abandoned her. The privations of island life have left her looking so "hideous" that the men on the ships mistake her for a monster or a phantom--maybe one of the demons on the isle of demons. They soon give up that idea when they realize "the monster" can speak French. Her brother, however, has not returned because he pitied her--God has punished him, and he is dead. The men take the gentlewoman on board ship with them, and she returns to France. Although Belleforest tells his readers that she never regains her beauty or her joy, she is "worthy of praise." She lives thereafter with dignity--and in isolation--devoted always to the memory of her dead husband.

Closing out his story, Belleforest apologizes for not knowing the names of the demoiselle, the young gentleman, or the lady's brother, even while telling his reader that "our memory" of these events are still "fresh," having taken place "hardly twenty years" before the present day. He has taken the occasion to write the story down for those whom he "wishes to please."

Whew! Belleforest's version of Marguerite de la Rocque's story is much longer than Marguerite of Navarre's--in the first edition of L’Heptaméron, it occupies just over three pages of printed text. Belleforest's version of the story runs to some thirty-five pages. Still, the broad outline of the tale is the same--the demoiselle is on a ship, she is abandoned by the captain and left on a wild island, and then she eventually returns to France. In both stories, the unnamed woman is also a wife, cast away with her husband. 

But many details have changed from one account to the next. The woman whom Roberval abandons in Belleforest's tragic history is, like Marguerite de la Rocque herself, a well-born woman. Her personal identity is still preserved, however, since she remains unnamed. There is the addition of a poor but attractive gentleman, his desires, the clandestine marriage, and the pregnancy. And though all of this may seem to shade the gentlewoman's honor and reputation, Belleforest ends his narrative with praise of her. 

While the captain, named in the queen of Navarre's account, he is also unnamed in Belleforest's version of the story. He is, however, described as the young gentlewoman's brother. His actions may seem understandable, if not excusable--anger, disgust, and disappointment at his sister's behavior--but it is the unnamed brother who is judged badly, not his sister. And his actions are condemned not just by Belleforest (and his readers), but by God. It may be that Belleforest feels himself able to cast this judgment on the "captain" because, by the time his tragic history is published, Jean-François de la Rocque, sieur de Roberval, has died.***

Title page of André Thevet's
La cosmographie vniuerselle,
1575

The third and last contemporary source for Marguerite de la Rocque's story is that of the Franciscan explorer and historian André Thevet. In La Cosmographie Universelle, published in 1575, Thevet claims to describe every part of the known world--and frequently says he has traveled to all these places himself and seen all that he describes firsthand.****

Although Thevet did travel extensively in the eastern Mediterranean and Brazil, he never sailed to North America as he claims to have done. As Marcel Trudel notes in his essay in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Thevet was a "bogus scholar and a naive compiler of facts." He "recorded indiscriminately everything he read or heard, while at the same time creating the impression that he himself had actually visited the countries (including North America) that he described."

Nevertheless, while Thevet may never have been to Canada, he did do his research, using published works by those, like Jacques Cartier, who had. But Thevet also included information that was not in these source works, leading scholars to conclude that he acttually "talked with explorers." Despite his "gross errors and contradictions," Thevet "accumulated data to be found in no other sources," leading at least one modern historian to refer to him "an amazing source."

And so, what does André Thevet have to say about Marguerite de la Rocque? Notably, Thevet claims to have direct knowledge not only the story but of both principals, Jean-François Roberval as well as Marguerite de la Rocque. Indeed, Thevet refers to Roberval as "my familiar" (that is, "a close friend or associate," a "person whom one knows well," Oxford English Dictionary). In his account of the expedition, Thevet writes that Roberval was following the instructions of the king to "populate" the "land of Canada" in order to benefit France--if it didn't bring François I "much revenue," then least it would gain "immortal honor" for the king, who will have "rescued" the "barbarous people" inhabiting the land from their "ignorance." 

Roberval's expedition will include the experienced Cartier, Thevet writes. And Roberval will also bring along a group of people to help "populate" the new land, including some "gentlemen," "artisans of all kind," and "several women," among them Marguerite, whom Thevet describes as "a rather close relative" of Roberval's. (In a later retelling of the story, Thevet says that Roberval is Marguerite's uncle.) Among those on board is an unnamed gentleman who has decided to take part in the journey "more for the love" of Marguerite than "for the service of the king" or "respect" for Roberval, the captain of the ship. 

Once on board ship, the unnamed "gentleman of good birth" wastes no time in pursuing Marguerite, his pursuit encouraged by an old servant of Marguerite's (une vielle servante), a woman named Damienne, whom Thevet describes as "a very clever bawd." Like Belleforest, Thevet is notably discreet in his account of the relationship between the young gentleman and Marguerite--he says only that the two quickly "passed beyond promises and mere words." But Thevet blames the love affair on Damienne, claiming that the "clever bawd" played the sentinel" while the two young lovers "went about their business." Thevet says that "all this"--the behavior of the two lovers--is due to the "prompt[ing]" of the servant Damienne.

Roberval is not ignorant about what is going on--he is informed about the relationship by several of those on the ship--as carefully as the two lovers thought they were being, there is not much privacy on a ship, even if a "clever bawd" is helping you! Thevet says that Roberval is "clever and wise." Instead of reacting immediately, he "disguised his wrath," more angry at Marguerite than the young gentleman. In order to "punish her," without "wronging" her young lover, Roberval separates the two, isolating them on separate ships. His intention is to punish his young relative but not to "wrong" the unnamed gentleman. But, seeing their continued love and loyalty, Roberval "decided to give them a surprise." 

As Thevet recounts this "surprise," he does not do so without judging Roberval's actions. "[B]ursting with spite," Roberval abandons Marguerite and Damienne on the "Île des Démons" (Isle of Demons), telling Marguerite that "this was the place he had ordained for the penitence of her crime and of the scandal she had done him." He leaves the young woman with not one but four arquebuses and some ammunition. 

The Island of Demons, from
André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle,
1575

Marguerite's lover observes what is happening from the ship he is on board. Fearing that he will suffer the same fate, but imagining that he will be abandoned on some other island, far from his beloved, the young man gathers together quite a haul of supplies and "precipitate[s] himself  onto the isle to accompany his mistress." In a note to their translation, Schlesinger and Stabler suggest this phrasing has led many later interpreters to say the young man was somehow able to swim ashore carrying all the provisions he'd gathered. 

In Thevet's original, the young man is said to "throw himself" (il se lanç[a]it)--it still isn't clear just how he got to the island from the ship, but whatever he did, he did it while "forgetting the peril of death into which he was hurling himself." For his part, Roberval sails away, still angry that he had been insulted by his young relative but glad that he had gotten rid of the pair "without soiling his hands with their blood."

The young lovers seem to live happily for a while. The island is full of terrible monsters that assume the shape of wild animals, but the two manage to build a shelter, make a bed, and feed themselves by hunting and gathering. At last the demons are conquered by "the Christians," whose "constancy" and "perseverance" make them feel ashamed--the monsters continue howling horribly at night, but otherwise they leave Marguerite and her companions alone. 

In Thevet's account of Marguerite's story, the young woman becomes pregnant only after she has been abandonned on the island--unfortunately, as her time of delivery nears, the young gentleman becomes ill and dies. Thevet attributes his death to his "grief and vexation" (tristesse et facherie) that, in the eight months they have been cast away on the island, no vessels passed that could help them. Following his death, so "grievous" to the young woman, she and her serving woman must defend themselves from the "ferocious beasts." The young woman becomes proficient with both gun and sword--in one day she manages to kill three bears, one of them obviously a polar bear--in Thevet's words, this bear is as "white as an egg" (aussi blanc qu'en oeuf). 

The young woman gives birth to her child, a son, and baptizes him, but then she suffers another blow: her old servant, Damienne, "followed the road" of the young gentleman, dying some "sixteen or seventeen months" after they were left on the island. And then, "a short while later," the young lovers' baby dies too, leaving the poor woman all alone. Well, not quite alone, because the terrible beasts are still on the island. 

Rescue finally comes some after two more months of isolation--at last, two years and five months after she was first abandoned on the Island of Demons, the young woman is rescued by some fishermen. As in Belleforest's version of Marguerite's story, they at first mistake her for one of the demons on the island--they believe the fires she sets to signal them are "illusions" created by the monsters. Once they figure out she is a woman and not a monster, they take her with them back to France. 

It is in France that Thevet claims to have met with Marguerite--he visits with her in Nontron, in the "country of Perigord": when he was there, she told him all about what had happened to her. Aside from telling his reader that she is living quietly, Thevet does not say what she doing in Nontron. For that, we need to return to the queen of Navarre's first version of Marguerite's story. 

Keeping Marguerite de la Rocque's identity secret, the queen of Navarre says that the sailors take the unnamed woman back with them to La Rochelle: "and there, when they had made known to the inhabitants the fidelity and perseverance of this woman, the ladies paid her great honor, and were glad to send their daughters to her to learn to read and write. She maintained herself for the rest of her days by that honorable profession, having no other desire than to exhort every one to love God and trust in Him, holding forth as an example the great mercy with which He had dealt towards her."

Château de La Mothe, 
Nontron, France

Marguerite de la Rocque may have first landed in the port city of La Rochelle, as the queen of Navarre says, but most of those who have written about her accept Thevet's claim that she lived in Nontron, specifically at the late fifteenth-century Château de La Mothe. Certainly the locals believe this--as of April 2026, the "small château" is for sale, its online notice making much of the story of Marguerite de la Rocque. 

The dates of Marguerite de la Rocque's birth and death are not known. Neither the Dictionary of Canadian Biography nor the Canadian Encyclopedia hazards a guess about where or when she was born and where or when she died. The French version of Wikipedia offers only "fl. 1536-1542" after her name (the abbreviation "fl.," for fluroit, or "flourished," indicating active dates). Many sources, like the English Wikipedia, cite a date of 1515 for Marguerite's birth, but that seems to rely on the surviving 1536 document--it assumes that she must be twenty-one to swear her oath of fealty, but women could make such an oath at the age of fourteen. And, in any case, it is not certain that this document refers to our Marguerite de la Rocque, though it is likely her.

 

There are only two "certain" dates in Marguerite de la Rocque's life: she set sail with Roberval on 16 April 1542 and arrived in Canada on 7 June 1542. She may have been as young as twenty years old or as old as twenty-seven when she made that voyage. Thevet claimed she was abandoned on the Isle of Demonns for two years and five months, but he doesn't say how soon she was cast away after Roberval arrived in Canada, nor how long her return journey was. She was back in France before Marguerite of Navarre died on 21 December 1549. 

Her life may have been a long one--Thevet doesn't mention her death when he published his Universal Cosmography in 1575. If Marguerite were still alive, she could have been between fifty-three and sixty. A long life. 

However long Marguerite de la Rocque's life, her afterlife is very long indeed. Her story has been told and retold for more than four and a half centuries . . . 

And if you buy Château de La Mothe, please invite me for a long stay!

*Marguerite d'Angoulême's collection of stories, L’Heptaméron, was first published in 1558 by Pierre Boaistuau with the title Histoire des Amans Fortunés (you can see the title page, above). The entire first edition is made available online by the Bibliotheque nationale de France, which you can access by clicking here (that should take you right to the beginning of the story--if not, it is found on fol. 157r). 

Because this edition is incomplete (it includes only 67 stories, among other issues), a second edition was published by Claude Gruget in 1559. He reordered the stories, restored some of the first edition's omissions, and added the title by which we now know the work, L’Heptaméron. At times I have had trouble accessing this 1559 edition at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica website, but it is readily available through Wikimedia (click here). Gruget's 1560 edition is also available at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica site (click here). And if you're really interested, many of the manuscript versions of Marguerite de Navarre's work have also been digitized--click here, for a list, with links, provided by the Marguerite de Navarre Society.

I've made it easy for myself here (and I hope for you) by quoting from a nineteenth-century edition of Marguerite de Navarre's story collection, in an English translation, posted at A Celebration of Women's Voices; you can access the full story of Marguerite de la Rocque, as told in L’Heptaméron, by clicking here (it's "Novel LXVII").

**François de Belleforest’s Le Cinquiesme Tome des Histoires Tragiques was published in 1570 and again in 1572. I haven't found an English translation online, but the complete text of the 1572 edition is at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica website (click here). The translations are my own. By the way, Belleforest was associated with the French court and knew Marguerite de Navarre.  

***When Marguerite d'Angoulême died in 1549, only a few years after the events she relates in her version of Marguerite de la Rocque's story, Jean-François de la Rocque, sieur de Roberval, was still alive. Roberval struggled after returning to France after his voyage, never having resolved his financial problems, and he died in Paris in 1560. By the time Belleforest published his Tragic Histories in 1570, then, Roberval had been dead for a decade. In case you were wondering, Roberval was beaten to death by Catholics when he was leaving a Calvinist church meeting . . . Yikes!

****La Cosmographie universelle d'André Thevet, cosmographe du roi was published just five years after Belleforest's tragic histories, the two men having first been collaborators and then becoming vicious rivals. I have used the second volume of the 1575 edition available at the Internet Archive (click here). The recounting of Marguerite de la Rocque's story, translated into English, is in Roger Schlesinger and Arthur P. Stabler, André Thevet's North America: A Sixteenth-Century View (click here). I've relied on Schlesinger and Stabler's translation at times, while checking it against the original. 

Andre Thevet tells Marguerite de la Roque's story a second time. The later version is in hs Le Grande Insulaire et pilotage d'André Thevet angoumoisin, which was unpublished. The part of the manuscript covering North America is available at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica website (click here). Schlesinger and Stabler include transcriptions of parts of the original, including Thevet's new version of Marguerite's story (click here).