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Isabeau of Bavaria

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For other people named Elisabeth of Bavaria, see Elisabeth of Bavaria (disambiguation).
Isabeau of Bavaria
Queen consort of France
Tenure1385–1422
Bornc. 1370
Died24 September 1435 (aged 64–65)
Paris
Burial
Abbey of Saint-Denis
SpouseCharles VI of France
IssueIsabella, Queen of England
Joan, Duchess of Brittany
Marie, Prioress of Poissy
Michelle, Duchess of Burgundy
Louis, Dauphin of France
John, Dauphin of France
Catherine, Queen of England
Charles VII of France
HouseHouse of Wittelsbach
FatherStephen III, Duke of Bavaria
MotherTaddea Visconti

Isabeau of Bavaria (also Elisabeth of Bavaria-Ingolstadt; c. 1370 – 24 September 1435) was Queen consort of France (1385–1422) as spouse of King Charles VI of France, a member of the Valois Dynasty. She assumed a prominent (and controversial) role in public affairs during the disastrous later years of her husband's reign.

Origins

Isabeau of Bavaria was the daughter of Stephen III of Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Taddea Visconti. The precise date and venue of her birth within the territories of Bavaria cannot be established.

Her paternal grandparents were Stephen II, Duke of Bavaria (a son of Emperor Louis IV) and Elisabeth of Sicily (whose name Isabella received), daughter of king Frederick III of Sicily and his wife Eleanor of Anjou.

Her maternal grandparents were Barnabò Visconti, Lord of Milan and Regina-Beatrice della Scala. Regina was daughter of Mastino II della Scala, Lord of Verona from 1329 to 1351 and his wife Taddea di Carrara.

Isabeau was brought to France in 1385 as something of an exotic Eastern princess to marry King Charles VI. The first years the couple spent together were peaceful until signs of mental illness on the part of her husband started to become obvious beginning in 1392.

Career

Christine de Pisan presents her book to Queen Isabeau. She and her ladies wear jewelled heart-shaped stuffed or hollow "bourrelets" on top of hair dressed in horns; the walls are decorated with a combination of the French Fleurs-de-lys and Isabeau's Wittelsbach arms.

The role of Isabeau of Bavaria in French history has caused her to be the subject of barbed attacks from the pens of a variety of historians through the centuries. These attacks stem from skewed interpretations of her important role in the negotiations with England that resulted in the Treaty of Troyes (1420) and from simple acceptance of the rumors of her marital infidelity that were started in Paris in the period 1422-1429 during the English occupation.[1] These rumors were started in an attempt to throw doubt on the paternity of Isabeau's son Charles VII, who was then fighting to expel the English and be accepted throughout the kingdom as the rightful king of France. The rumors found expression in a poem called the Pastoralet that was circulated at the time.

Isabeau was originally put in the position of having to assume a powerful role in government to fill the gap left by her husband's frequent bouts of mental illness. Several months after the onset of the king's illness in 1392, his doctors recommended a program of amusements for him, and this inspired a member of the court to suggest that the king surprise the queen and the other ladies as a member of a group of courtiers disguised as wild men who were to make a sudden appearance at the ball given to celebrate the marriage of one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. It was at this festivity in 1393, the Bal des Ardents, or "Ball of the Burning Men", that Isabeau witnessed the horrible accident with a torch that could have cost the king his life.

Isabeau with her ladies-in-waiting

Isabeau was thrust to the forefront of the political arena not only due to her husband's mental illness, which is now believed to have been schizophrenia, but also because of the rivalries that developed between various members of the royal family. Since the king often did not recognize her during his psychotic episodes and was upset by her presence, it was eventually deemed advisable to provide him with a mistress during those times, Odette de Champdivers. Odette probably assumed her role by 1405,[2] but during his remissions the king still had relations with Isabeau, whose last pregnancy was in 1407. On 11 October 1418 a letter of the king ordered that Isabeau be given 2,000 livres tournois to help her buy back a bejeweled clasp (fermail) that Charles had given her on their wedding day.[3] It had been taken and sold without her permission, apparently during the time she was in exile in Tours in 1417. It is not clear, however, that the royal letter in question was actually issued by the king himself.[4]

Among those who sought to control the government while the king was incapacitated or to influence the king when he was "well" were the King's brother Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans, and their cousin John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. Orléans' bitter feud with Burgundy reached a crisis point when the former was assassinated in 1407. Bitter resentment and periodic civil war ensued. The late Duke's supporters became known as the Armagnacs.

Henry V of England took advantage of French internal strife and invaded the northwest coast. He delivered a crushing defeat to the French at Agincourt. Nearly an entire generation of military leaders died or fell prisoner in a single day. John the Fearless, still feuding with the royal family and the Armagnacs, remained neutral as Henry V conquered towns in northern France.

Most of Isabeau's twelve children did not survive to adulthood. Shortly after her fifth and final son assumed the title of dauphin as Heir to the Throne, the sixteen-year-old future Charles VII of France negotiated a truce with John the Fearless in 1419. Officers of the Dauphin's household partisans murdered John while the two met on a bridge under Charles's guarantee of protection.

Queen Isabeau entering Paris, miniature from the Chronicles of Froissart, 15th century

The new Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good entered an active alliance with the English. With most of northern France under foreign domination, Isabeau agreed to the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. This arranged the marriage of her daughter Catherine of Valois to Henry V and assigned the French Royal Succession to Henry V and their children. Charles VI approved the treaty and disinherited the Dauphin for committing treason. The Dauphin had disobeyed his father's order to return to the fold of royal family; he had usurped royal authority by taking the title of regent; and he had excused and lied about the murder of the duke of Burgundy.

Charles VI died in October 1422, and since Henry V had died earlier that year, it was Henry's infant son, Henry VI, who was declared successor to Charles VI and king of France, as per the terms of the Treaty of Troyes. The disinherited Dauphin, Charles VII, nineteen when his father died, claimed that the Treaty of Troyes was illegal and assumed leadership of the Armagnac party, ruling the regions of France that were not under English or Burgundian control.

Charles VII's predicament was caused by his disobedience to his parents, and he was to face a similar relationship with his own son Louis XI. Charles' principal female mentor was his mother-in-law Yolande of Aragon, who refused to let him to go to Court when his mother summoned him.

Isabeau remained in English-controlled territory and exerted no further influence over public affairs. She died in Paris in 1435 and is interred in the Saint Denis Basilica.

Legacy

Posterity has not been kind to Isabeau of Bavaria. A popular saying late in her life was that France had been lost by a woman and would be recovered by a girl. Many took this to be a prediction of Joan of Arc.

In fairness to Isabeau it must be noted that her leadership confronted double prejudice as a woman and a foreigner. There are a few bright spots in her reign, such as her artistic patronage. Isabeau aided the era's most significant French author Christine de Pizan and sponsored artisans who developed innovative techniques in decorative arts.

In fiction, her life was the inspiration for the Marquis de Sade's unpublished 1813 novel Histoire secrete d'Isabelle de Baviere, reine de France. She briefly appears in the last scene of Shakespeare's Henry V during a truce between France and England.

Children

Ancestry

Family of Isabeau of Bavaria
16. Louis II, Duke of Bavaria
8. Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor
17. Matilda of Habsburg
4. Stephen II, Duke of Bavaria
18. Bolko I the Strict
9. Beatrix of Silesia-Glogau
19. Beatrice of Brandenburg
2. Stephen III, Duke of Bavaria
20. Peter III of Aragon
10. Frederick III of Sicily
21. Constance of Sicily
5. Elizabeth of Sicily
22. Charles II of Naples
11. Eleanor of Anjou
23. Maria of Hungary
1. Isabella of Bavaria-Ingolstadt
24. Matteo I Visconti
12. Stefano Visconti
25. Bonacossa Borri
6. Bernabò Visconti
26. Barnabo Doria of Sasello and Logoduro
13. Valentina Doria
27. Eliana Fieschi
3. Taddea Visconti
28. Alboino I della Scala
14. Mastino II della Scala
29. Beatrice da Correggio
7. Beatrice Regina della Scala
30. Jacopo I
15. Taddea da Carrara
31. Anna, daughter of Pietro Gradenigo

References

  1. ^ R.C. Famiglietti, Tales of the Marriage Bed from Medieval France (1300-1500), p. 194.
  2. ^ R.C. Famiglietti, Tales, p. 89.
  3. ^ B. Pocquet du Haut-Jussé, La France gouvernée par Jean sans Peur, Paris, 1959, p. 70, no. 54
  4. ^ See the discussion of the irregularities in form of the royal letters ordering payment from 1418 to 1420 in B. Pocquet du Haut-Jussé, "Le compte de Pierre de Gorremont," Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des chartes, XCVIII (1937), pp. 55-56.

Bibliography

  • Adams, Tracy, The Life and Afterlife of Isabeau of Bavaria (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) (Rethinking Theory).
French royalty
Preceded by Queen consort of France
1385–1422 		Succeeded by

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