Margaret of Valois

Born 14 May 1553, daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici, Margaret was sister to three kings. Her 1572 marriage to Henry of Navarre was meant to reconcile Catholics and Huguenots; six days later came the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. She backed her younger brother Francis against Henry III, earning the king's lasting hatred, then shuttled between courts trying to hold her marriage together as infertility and civil war pulled it apart. In 1585, mistreated and rejected, she joined the Catholic League and was exiled to Auvergne for two decades. She accepted annulment in 1599 for compensation, returned to court in 1605, and became a patron and woman of letters who preached platonic love and wrote her Memoirs during imprisonment. She died 27 March 1615; Bourbon historians and Dumas's novel later buried her under centuries of invented scandal.