The Italian libretto was by Felice Romani after a text based on legends around the English Wars of the Roses by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt.

The title role is the Queen Margaret of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays, who also appears in Richard III.

The French version, premiered at the Théâtre Odéon in Paris on 3 November 1826 is a major revision with added music from other works by the composer.

Scene: The highlands of Scotland, c. 1462 The widowed Queen Margherita, whose husband King Henry VI was driven off the throne and then killed in the English Civil War known as the Wars of the Roses, fled to France and has now returned to Britain with an army in an attempt to reclaim the throne on behalf of her son.

However his wife Isaura will not accept this, and, disguised as a man, has followed her husband to Scotland as an assistant to Gamautte, the French physician in waiting on the Queen.