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The Witch and the Queen
How rumours of witchcraft plagued Jacquetta of Luxembourg and her daughter, Queen Elizabeth Woodville
Jacquetta of Luxembourg was the daughter of Peter I of Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol, and his wife, Margaret del Balzo. Jacquetta, born around 1415, was their second child. Not much of her early life is known, but Peter had many notable family connections, being a distant cousin of the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund of Luxembourg. The Luxembourg family also claimed they were descended from Melusine, a folkloric figure who was said to be the female spirit of a river who married the Luxembourgish ruler, Siegfried.
When Siegfried married Melusine, he promised he would not see her on Saturdays under severe penalty. Enchanted by her beauty, he agreed to this restriction. However, Siegfried grew curious about his wife’s strange behavior and spied on her in the bath one fateful Saturday. He saw she was half woman and half serpent. Realizing her husband broke his promise, she left him and cursed him, stating:
“But one thing will I say unto thee before I part, that thou, and those who for more than a hundred years shall succeed thee, shall know that whenever I am seen to hover over the fair castle, then will it be certain that in that very year the castle will get a new lord.”
