Margaret of Anjou has had a bad press. As queen of the last Lancastrian king, Henry VI, she was on the losing side in the first phase of the Wars of the Roses, the struggle between the Houses of Lancaster and York, and so became the scapegoat for a civil war. For later English (male) historians her guilt was a natural deduction: she was female, she was French, and she was forceful. The tradition was born that her interference in English affairs and her political favorites created faction and fractured the bonds of English society, which weakened the rule of law until, inevitably, civil war resulted.

Margaret's life falls into three parts. She was married to Henry VI at the age of fifteen to seal a truce between England and France that was supposed to lead to a perpetual peace, but which lasted a bare five years. From her arrival in England in 1445 until 1453 Margaret played little part in national affairs. She performed the duties traditionally expected of a queen consort but failed in her primary duty to produce a son.

The second phase of Margaret's life began in 1453 with two major events: her long-awaited pregnancy and Henry VI's collapse into a prolonged state of mental and physical incapacity. Their only child, Prince Edward of Lancaster, was born in October of that year. After Henry's recovery, and the duke of York's attempt to take over the government in 1455, Margaret devoted herself in the ensuing years until civil war broke out in 1459 to rebuilding the Lancastrian affinity, to maintaining King Henry's authority, and to safeguarding Prince Edward's inheritance. She feared that York might disinherit her son, as indeed he eventually did.

Margaret emerged as the leader of a ‘Lancastrian party’ only after the battle of Northampton in 1460, where most of Henry VI's loyal magnates were killed and Henry became the earl of Warwick's prisoner. Margaret's success in winning the second battle of St Albans and recovering the person of the king was short-lived. Her adherents were finally defeated at the bloody battle of Towton in 1461, and the duke of York's son assumed the throne as King Edward IV.