Margaret Elter (c. 1525 - c. 1 February 1553), or Marguerite d'Elter, was a

noblewoman Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...

from

Guelders The Duchy of Guelders ( nl, Gelre, french: Gueldre, german: Geldern) is a historical duchy, previously county, of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the Low Countries. Geography The duchy was named after the town of Geldern (''Gelder'') in pr ...

, relative of Anna 't Serclaes (wife of John Hooper, bishop of Gloucester), and Protestant refugee in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

Life

Margaret Elter was educated in a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

Mons Mons (; German and nl, Bergen, ; Walloon and pcd, Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. T ...

, Hainaut, in the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

. In 1547 she fled for religious reasons to

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

, where she joined the

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...

of Jacques de Bourgogne, Lord of Falais. In March 1548 at

she married the Spanish Protestant Francisco de Enzinas, and shortly afterwards moved with him to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. A daughter was born in

the following year. When her husband returned to Strasbourg in November 1549, she refused to accompany him, citing the baby's delicate health and the perils of winter travel. She finally joined him in June 1550, accompanied by her niece Anna Elter. A second

daughter A daughter is a female offspring; a girl or a woman in relation to her parents. Daughterhood is the state of being someone's daughter. The male counterpart is a son. Analogously the name is used in several areas to show relations between groups ...

was born at Strasbourg in 1551. The

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pes ...

took hold of the city in the winter of 1552/3, and Margaret Elter died about 1 February 1553, little more than a month after the death of her husband. The orphans, Margarita and Beatriz, became wards of the city.

Philip Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lu ...

offered to take one of them into his home in

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon language, Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the Ri ...

, but the city refused. In July 1555, Anna Elter married the

cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry ...

officer Guillaume Rabot de Salène, in a match arranged by the

Elector Palatine The counts palatine of Lotharingia /counts palatine of the Rhine /electors of the Palatinate (german: Kurfürst von der Pfalz) ruled some part of Rhine area in the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire from 915 to 1803. The title was a kind ...

. The couple promoted the interests of the orphans and probably engineered the publication of Enzinas's ''Mémoires'' (which had already attracted the interest of the Protestant

martyrologist A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs and other saints and beati arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by na ...

John Foxe John Foxe (1516/1517 – 18 April 1587), an English historian and martyrologist, was the author of '' Actes and Monuments'' (otherwise ''Foxe's Book of Martyrs''), telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the su ...

and Ludwig Rabus) to secure funds for their maintenance. By these means they succeeded in their goal of keeping the children out of the hands of Catholic relatives in Spain.

References

* Enzinas, Francisco de, ''Epistolario'', Ignacio J. García Pinilla (ed.) (Geneva 1995). * García Pinilla, I. J., and Nelson, J. L., 'The textual tradition of the ''Historia de statu Belgico et religione Hispanica'' by Francisco de Enzinas (Dryander)', ''Humanistica Lovaniensia: Journal of Neo-Latin Studies'' (50), 267–286. * Nelson, Jonathan L., 'Francisco de Enzinas', ''New Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford 2004). 1520s births 1553 deaths 16th-century women German Protestants {{Germany-reli-bio-stub