Toul in Lorraine and, in the care of her father's old nurse Theophanie la Magine, she spent her early years at the castle at Tarascon on the River Rhône in Provence and in the old royal palace at Capua, near Naples in the Kingdom of Sicily. Her mother took care of her education and may have arranged for her to have lessons with the scholar Antoine de la Sale, who taught her brothers. In childhood, Margaret was known as la petite créature and was interested in French romances and hunting. Her family included several prominent women who exercised power in politics, war, and administration as regents and queen-lieutenants. Her mother, Isabella of Lorraine, fought wars on behalf of her husband while he was imprisoned in 1431-32 and 1434-36 by the duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, and ruled the Duchy of Lorraine in her own right. Her paternal grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, ruled the Duchy of Anjou as regent for her son while Margaret was a child. Yolande repelled English military presence and supported the disinherited Dauphin. It has been suggested that this family example provided her with precedents for her later actions as regent for her son. Attitudes to women's exercise of power were different in Western Europe than in England, and England at the time was more opposed to women exercising authority. Marriage, concession of Maine, and subsequent rule Margaret met with English envoys at Tours on 4 May 1444 to discuss her marriage to Henry VI of England. On 24 May, she was formally betrothed to Henry by proxy. Her uncle, Charles VII of France, who may have suggested the marriage as part of peace efforts between France and England near the conclusion of the Hundred Years' War, was present. The marriage was negotiated principally by William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and the settlement included a remarkably small dowry of 20,000 francs and the unrealised claim, via Margaret's mother, to the territories of Mallorca and Menorca, which had been occupied for centuries by the Crown of Aragon. The marriage settlement also contained the promise of a twenty-three-month truce with France. Opinions were mixed as to the wisdom of the marriage, but the prevailing understanding was that it represented a genuine effort at peace. Loans were taken out by the government in order to pay for the considerable expense of transporting Margaret to England. Solicitation for