Isabella of France ^{1 2}

  Research Notes:

Source: Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr, ed. by William R. Beall & Kaleen E. Beall, Baltimore, 2008, Line 101-31 has b. 1292, d. 27 Aug 1357, m. Boulogne, 28 Jan 1308. But see "Notes" from Wikipedia below.

From Wikipedia - Isabella of France :

Isabella of France (c.1295 - August 22 , 1358 ), Queen consort of England, known as the She-Wolf of France,[1] was the Queen consort of Edward II of England . She was a member of the House of Capet .


Biography

Isabella was born in Paris on an uncertain date - probably between May and November 1295 [2] - the daughter of King Philip IV of France and Queen Jeanne of Navarre , and the sister of three French kings. While still an infant, her father had promised her in marriage to Edward II to resolve the conflicts between France and England over the latter's continental possession of Gascony and claims to Anjou, Normandy and Aquitaine. Pope Boniface VIII had urged the marriage as early as 1298 but was delayed by wrangling over the terms of the marriage contract. The English king, Edward I had also attempted to break the engagement several times. Only after he died in 1307 did the wedding go forward.


Her groom, the new King Edward II , looked the part of a Plantagenet king to perfection. He was tall and athletic, and wildly popular at the beginning of his reign. She married Edward at Boulogne-sur-Mer on January 25 , 1308 . Since he had ascended the throne the previous year, Isabella never was titled Princess of Wales...

Edward and Isabella produced four children, and she suffered at least one miscarriage . The itineraries of Edward II and Queen Isabella also show that they were together 9 months prior to the births of all four surviving offspring. Their children were:
Edward of Windsor , born 1312
John of Eltham , born 1316
Eleanor of Woodstock , born 1318, married Reinoud II of Guelders
Joan of the Tower , born 1321, married David II of Scotland

... When her brother, King Charles IV of France , seized Edward's French possessions in 1325, she returned to France, initially as a delegate of the King charged with negotiating a peace treaty between the two countries. However, her presence in France became a focal point for the many nobles opposed to Edward's reign and she gathered an army to oppose Edward, in alliance with Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March , who had become her lover. Enraged by this, Edward demanded that Isabella return to England. Her brother, King Charles, replied, "The queen has come of her own will and may freely return if she wishes. But if she prefers to remain here, she is my sister and I refuse to expel her."
Despite this public show of support by the King of France, Isabella and Mortimer left the French court in summer 1326 and went to William I, Count of Hainaut in Holland (his wife was Isabella's cousin). William provided them with eight men of war (ships) in return for a marriage contract between his daughter Philippa and Isabella's son, Edward . On September 21 , 1326 Isabella and Mortimer landed in Suffolk with an army (most of whom were mercenaries ). King Edward offered a reward for their deaths, and is rumoured to have even carried a knife in his hose with which to kill his wife. Isabella responded by offering twice as much money for the head of Hugh the younger Despenser (this reward was issued from Wallingford Castle ).

The invasion by Isabella and Mortimer was successful: King Edward's few allies deserted him without a battle; the Despensers were killed, and Edward himself was captured and forced to abdicate in favour of his eldest son, Edward III of England . Since the young king was only fourteen when he was crowned on 1 February 1327 , Isabella and Mortimer ruled as regents in his place.

... When Edward III attained his majority (at the age of 18) he, and a few trusted companions, staged a coup on October 19, 1330 and had both Isabella and Mortimer taken prisoner. Despite Isabella's cries of "Fair son, have pity on gentle Mortimer", Mortimer was executed for treason one month later in November of 1330.
Isabella's life was spared by her son and she was allowed to retire to Castle Rising in Norfolk . She did not, as legend would have it, go insane; she enjoyed a comfortable retirement and made many visits to her son's court, doting on her grandchildren. Isabella took the habit of the Poor Clares before she died on August 22 , 1358 , and her body was returned to London for burial at the Franciscan church at Newgate . She was buried in her wedding dress, with Edward's heart interred with her.

[edit ] Notes
^ A sobriquet appropriated from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 , where it is used to refer to Henry 's Queen, Margaret of Anjou
^ She is referred to as born in 1292 in the Annals of Wigmore, and Piers Langtoft agrees, claiming that she was 7 years old in 1299. The French chronicler Guillaume de Nangis and Thomas Walsingham describe her as 12 years old at the time of her marriage in January 1308, placing her birth between the January of 1295 and of 1296. A Papal dispensation by Clement V in November 1305 permits her to marry by proxy immediately, despite not having reached age 12, and only being 10 years old - suggesting a birth-date between November 1294 and November 1295. Since she had to reach the canonical age of 7 before her betrothal in May 1303, and that of 12 before her marriage in January 1308, the above evidence suggests that she was born between May and November 1295. See Weir, Alison, Isabella

[edit ] Sources
Blackley, F.D. Isabella of France, Queen of England 1308-1358, and the Late Medieval Cult of the Dead. (Canadian Journal of History)
Doherty, P.C. Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II, 2003
McKisack, May. The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399, 1959.
Woods, Charles T. Queens, Queans and Kingship, appears in Joan of Arc and Richard III: Sex, Saints and Government in the Middle Ages, 1988.
Weir, Alison. Queen Isabella:Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England, Balantine Books, 2005.

Isabella married King Edward II of England, son of King Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile, Countess of Ponthieu, on 25 Jan 1308 in Boulogne-sur-Mer [Boulogne], (Pas-de-Calais), France. (King Edward II of England was born on 25 Apr 1284 in Caernarfon Castle, Caernarfonshire, Gwynedd, Wales, died on 21 Sep 1327 in <Berkeley Castle, > [near Gloucester], Gloucestershire, England and was buried in Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England.)