Medieval ideas of love and marriage
“Love and marriage, love and marriage, they go together like a horse and carriage” ...well, not so much in medieval times! Margaret of York, Richard III and Edward IV’s sister, was promised to half a dozen men before her brother Edward finally gave her to a brute of a man, Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. And she never met any of the gentlemen and only met Charles a couple of days before their formal betrothal in Damme, near Bruges, in 1478 when she was the ripe old age of 22. For Edward it was a political win; for Margaret it meant leaving her family and her homeland for ever (well, except for a three-month visit back to England in 1480 to negotiate trade agreements for her new country) and being saddled with a man without scruples and very few morals. Sometimes--in the case of King Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou--one or other had someone stand proxy for them and you might be married before you even saw your husband! Imagine dreaming about your knight in shining armor or you