During the 1450s, Margaret gradually emerged as a player in domestic politics. Up to this point, apart from her brief intervention in the surrender of Maine, she had remained a ‘traditional’ queen, tending to her own affairs and being a good lady on the scale that queenship demanded. Two separate but nearly simultaneous events brought about a change in her circumstances. Henry VI's complete mental breakdown in August 1453, from which he did not recover for nearly a year and a half, was the first of these. The second was the birth of Prince Edward two months later. The birth of a son gave Margaret a greater stake in the future of the realm, and she assumed an active role in influencing that future.

For the magnates, Henry's illness brought a heightening of domestic tensions. And while the birth of an heir offered continuity, it also triggered memories of Henry's own lengthy minority. A struggle for dominance – often perceived as a struggle for survival – ensued among the lords, a number of whom were already at odds with one another. By the end of the decade Margaret and the duke of York had become enemies.

The dearth of purely political letters by or to Margaret during this decade requires the inclusion of other documents in which she figures prominently. Some of these have triggered controversy; others have been too readily accepted at face value. To maintain focus on the queen we have excerpted them, retaining only material relevant to a fresh analysis of Margaret's actions.

The first two documents, though very different, provide the earliest ‘evidence’ we have of Margaret's participation in domestic politics, during Jack Cade's rebellion in 1450. One is a letter written some fifteen years after the events it purports to describe; the other is the preamble to the pardon granted to the rebels. Next is a letter from the duchess of York requesting Margaret's intercession with King Henry on behalf of her husband, who was in political hot water. Several newsletters follow, which trace Margaret's actions from Henry's illness through its aftermath, to the end of York's second protectorate in 1456. A further letter complains of Margaret's enmity, which may – or may not – have been caused by the writer's association with the duke of York.