Isabella of Valois
| Isabella of Valois | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Queen consort of England | |
| Tenure | 1 November 1396 – 30 September 1399 |
| Coronation | 8 January 1397 |
| Spouse | Richard II of England m. 1396; dec. 1399 Charles, Duke of Orléans m. 1406; wid. 1409 |
| Issue | Joan of Valois, Duchess of Alençon |
| House | House of Valois |
| Father | Charles VI of France |
| Mother | Isabella of Bavaria |
Isabella of France (9 November 1389 – 13 September 1409) was a Princess of France, daughter of King Charles VI and Isabella of Bavaria-Ingolstadt.[1] She was Queen consort of Richard II, King of England from 1396 to 1400.[2]
Life
Isabella's younger siblings included: John, Dauphin; Catherine of Valois (who later married Henry V, King of England), Michelle of Valois and Charles VII of France. She lived during a period of political tension between France and England known as the Hundred Years War, the situation was exacerbated by the mental instability of her father who was known as the Mad (French:le Fol or le Fou).
On 31 October 1396, when Isabella was six, she married the widower King Richard II of England, in a move for peace with France. Although the union was political, Richard II and the child Isabella developed a mutual respectful relationship. Isabella was moved to Wallingford Castle for protection while Richard went on a military campaign in Ireland. When, on his return to England, Richard II was imprisoned and murdered, Isabella was ordered by new king Henry IV to move out of Windsor and to settle in the Bishop of Salisbury's Thameside palace at Sonning.
Henry IV then decided Isabella should marry his son, the future Henry V of England, but she put her foot down and refused to have anything to do with the prince. Knowing her husband was dead, she went into mourning, ignored Henry IV's demand and eventually he let her go back to France.
On 29 June 1406, Isabella married her cousin Charles, Duke of Orléans.[3] She died in childbirth at the age of 19, leaving one daughter Joan who married John II of Alençon in 1424. Isabella was interred in Blois, in the abbey of St.Laumer, where her body was found entire in 1642, curiously wrapped in bands of linen, plated over with quicksilver. It was then transferred to the church of the Celestines in Paris.
Arms
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Ancestry
References
- ^ Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the queens of England: from the Norman conquest, Vol.2, (George Bell and Sons, 1885), 2.
- ^ A Historical Dictionary of British Women, (Routledge, 2003), 240.
- ^ A Historical Dictionary of British Women, 240.
- ^ Boutell, Charles (1863), A Manual of Heraldry, Historical and Popular, London: Winsor & Newton, p. 148
- Irish royal consorts
- 1389 births
- 1409 deaths
- French princesses
- English royal consorts
- People of the Hundred Years' War
- House of Valois
- Ladies of the Garter
- Women of medieval England
- People from Windsor, Berkshire
- People from Sonning
- Deaths in childbirth
- Women in Medieval warfare
- Duchesses of Orléans
- 14th-century French people
- 15th-century French people
- 14th-century English people
- 15th-century English people
- 14th-century women
- 15th-century women