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where was the first valentine's day card sent fr... ~~

The earliest thing most historians point to as a “first Valentine’s Day card” is a love poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orléans, while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt.

Quick Scoop: Where was the first Valentine’s Day card sent from?

If you’re asking “where was the first Valentine’s Day card sent from?”, the common answer today is: from a French nobleman, writing in French, while held in England.

  • Sender: Charles, Duke of Orléans, a French prince.
  • Physical location: The Tower of London, where he was a prisoner of war.
  • Cultural “origin”: France, because the poem was written in Middle French, to a French wife, in the French courtly‑love tradition.
  • Recipient: His wife, Bonne of Armagnac, back in France.

So when modern articles say the “first Valentine’s Day card was sent from France,” they are usually talking about the sender’s identity and culture, even though the actual letter was written in London.

A tiny bit of story

Picture a captured French duke in 1415, locked in the Tower of London after a brutal defeat.

He sits down to write a poem to his wife across the Channel, on or around St Valentine’s Day, telling her that on “this day of all days” he belongs entirely to her.

That handwritten French poem survives in the British Library today and is widely treated as the oldest known “valentine” message.

Why people sometimes give different answers

You may also see other “firsts” mentioned:

  • St Valentine legends – Stories say a priest signed a note “from your Valentine,” but there’s no solid historical document to back this up.
  • Margery Brews, 1477 – An Englishwoman’s affectionate letter is sometimes called an early valentine, but it comes later than Charles’s poem.
  • First printed card (1797, London) – The oldest known printed Valentine’s card was printed in London and is preserved in a UK museum.
  • American commercial cards – In the 1800s, Esther Howland in Massachusetts helped launch the US Valentine card industry, but she was far from the first person to send a valentine.

Because of all these layers, you’ll see slightly different “firsts” depending on whether someone means the first handwritten valentine, the first printed card, or the first mass‑produced commercial card.

Simple answer for your post

For your “Quick Scoop” style piece, you can safely phrase it like this:

The first known Valentine’s Day “card” was a love poem sent in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orléans, a French nobleman writing from the Tower of London to his wife in France—often cited as the moment the Valentine card tradition begins.

TL;DR:

  • Earliest widely accepted valentine: 1415, Charles, Duke of Orléans.
  • Written in the Tower of London (England), by a French sender, to his wife in France.

Bottom note (as requested):
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.