Marie of Cleves, Duchess of Orléans
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.[1][2] She died in Chaunay. Marriage and issueAt the age of fourteen, Marie was married to 46-year-old Charles of Valois, Duke of Orléans, a man 32 years her senior,[1] 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 literatureMarie 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). Ancestry
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