In 1445 a fifteen-year-old French girl left her homeland to marry the son of the great warrior Henry V. Sixteen years later, her husband had lost his throne and she had fled into exile. For a decade, she struggled to reclaim the throne of England before her final and shattering defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury. It marked the final destruction of the House of Lancaster by Yorkist King Edward IV and his brothers. Margaret lost more than her family: she was also vilified. Shakespeare cast her as a sadistic killer who murdered the noble Richard, Duke of York. History cast her as a manipulative seductress whose destructive ambition was a major cause of the Wars of the Roses. Margaret of Anjou remains one of the most notorious consorts in medieval history, the queen we love to hate. But is her reputation deserved, or was she simply caught between the machinations and rivalries of powerful men? By examining Margaret’s life and actions in detail, this biography reveals a new side to the last foreign-born queen of medieval England. Margaret came from a family of strong women. Faced with hardship in the first years of her marriage, Margaret’s choices arose from a conviction that it was natural for a woman to take control in the absence of male leadership. A wealth of records have been left behind, allowing historians to investigate Margaret’s career as a beloved wife and, later, as the leader of a political faction struggling to secure the crown for her family. If the course of history had run differently, would she instead be considered a heroic warrior queen today – perhaps even England’s Joan of Arc?

'Joanna Arman's style is highly readable and conveys a far more nuanced account of Margaret of Anjou's life than other biographies I've read.' -- The Writing Desk
'Margaret of Anjou is the centre of attention, the woman held out for appraisal, for assessment, for praise and criticism. That it is at once balanced, critical and empathetic is testament to Joanna Arman’s skill as the queen’s biographer.' -- History… The Interesting Bits, April 2024

Joanna Arman is currently a PhD Student at the University of Winchester, researching Women and Feudalism in the Late Middle-Ages. She retains an intense interest in and passion for the Anglo-Saxon period and chose Æthelflæd of Mercia, daughter of Alfred the Great, as the subject of her MA research. Her biography of Æthelflæd, Warrior Queen, is also published by Amberley.