Marie of Cleves, Duchess of Orléans explained

Marie of Cleves
Duchess of Orléans
Birth Date:19 September 1426
Death Place:Chaunay
Burial Place:Couvent des Célestins, Paris
Issue:Marie, Viscountess of Narbonne
Louis XII of France
Anne, Abbess of Fontevraud
House:La Marck
Father:Adolph I, Duke of Cleves
Mother:Mary of Burgundy

Marie of Cleves (19 September 1426  - 23 August 1487) was the third wife of Charles, Duke of Orléans. She was born a German princess, the last child of Adolph I, Duke of Cleves and his second wife, Mary of Burgundy.

Marie was a patron of letters and commissioned many works; she was also an active poet herself, producing ballads and other verses.[1] After the Duke's death she was secretly remarried in 1480 to one of her gentlemen of the chamber, the Artesian "Sieur de Rabodanges", who was some years her junior.[2] She died in Chaunay.

Marriage and issue

At the age of fourteen, Marie was married to 46-year-old Charles of Valois, Duke of Orléans, a man 32 years her senior, on 27 November 1440, in Saint-Omer.[3] She became his third and last wife. Their eldest child was born fully 17 years after the wedding. They had three children together, being:

In literature

Marie is a character in Hella Haasse's historical novel about Charles, Duke of Orléans In a Dark Wood Wandering (original Dutch title Het Woud der Verwachting).

References

Notes and References

  1. Wilson p. 258
  2. Holt, p. 231
  3. Arn p. 41