Years after, when Louis of Orleans was King of France, he refers in his letters to Margaret to their happy youth at Amboise when 'she was the second person he loved best in the world; that he desires above all things to embrace his cousin, his vassal, his first mistress, to remind her of their childish games, and after having made her blush by his compliments, to swear eternal love for her.' In 1488 Francis II., Duke of Brittany, died, leaving only two daughters, Anne and Isabel. The latter did not long survive her father, but dying in August 1491 at the age of twelve, left her sister Anne sole possessor of the important duchy of Brittany. As early as 1480 Duke Francis had tried to arrange a marriage between his daughter Anne, or failing her, her younger sister Isabel, and the eldest son of Edward IV., King of England, but these plans were frustrated by the young prince's murder in the Tower of London. Negotiations were then begun for an alliance with Maximilian, Duke of Austria, but were postponed owing to the princess's extreme youth. Amongst foreign alliances this seemed the most advantageous, although it offered no guarantee for the independence and maintenance of Brittany's nationality. The best way to ensure this independence would have been to marry Anne to one of the nobles of her own country chosen from amongst those who had pretensions to the ducal crown. These were three in number: John of Châlons, Prince of Orange, a son of one of Duke Francis II.'s sisters; John, Viscount de Rohan, who had married Mary, daughter of Duke Francis I., who claimed to be the direct descendant of Conan Mériadec, first King of Brittany; and Alain d'Albret, husband of a great-granddaughter of Joan the Lame. When Francis II. died, only the last of these three was a widower, and he was an unsuitable husband for a princess of thirteen, being more than forty-five years of age, and the father of eight children.