The New Murrey and Blue blog

Was Keats an admirer of Margaret of Anjou….?

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John Keats, by William Hilton
from the National Portrait Gallery

When I was at school (before the Flood in 1960!) and studying O level English Literature I had to endure Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man (Siegfried Sassoon)😟, Henry IV Part I (the Bard, of course)😦 and Keats 🙃. Well, Keats was OK, I suppose, but what I remember about him most was all the sniggering over Isabella and her pot of basil. The whole class thought the idea was hilarious, which the English Literature master definitely did not! Amazingly, I passed the O level.

Meg Merrilies
from the album Meg Merrilies, see
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meg-Merrilies/dp/B08MX1GDVP

Anyway, it has just occurred to me that in one of Keats’ better-known poems—Meg Merrilees, about an old Gypsy woman who lived on the moors—there could be a reference to Margaret of Anjou. I quote:

Is there another “Margaret Queen”? One who could be described as brave? I don’t think so, which I guess means John Keats was her admirer! Maybe he was of the Lancastrian persuasion?

King Henry VI and Queen Margaret of Anjou from the Talbot Shrewsbury Book

Should you wish to read the complete poem, you’ll find it here .

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