Margaret of Angoulême

Margaret of Angoulême: see Margaret of Navarre.

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Margaret of Angoulême

 or Margaret of Navarra French Marguerite d'Angoulême

(born April 11, 1492, Angoulême, France—died Dec. 21, 1549, Odos-Bigorre) Queen consort of Henry II of Navarra and an outstanding figure of the French Renaissance. She was the daughter of the count d'Angoulême. When her brother Francis I acceded to the crown in 1515, she became highly influential in his court. After her first husband died, she married Henry in 1525. She was noted as a patron of humanists and reformers and of such writers as François Rabelais. She was a writer and poet herself; her most important work was the Heptaméron, 72 tales modeled on Boccaccio's Decameron and published posthumously in 1558–59.