Isabella of Valois, Queen of England

 

Isabella of Valois, the second Queen of King Richard II of England, was born in 1389. She was not yet eight years old when she was sent to England to marry Richard. It was a marriage in name only, as one might expect with somebody this young, and was engineered purely as a peace-making deal between England and France.

In 1399 King Richard was deposed and disappeared, Isabella having no idea whether he was alive or dead. A new King appeared, calling himself Henry IV, and Isabella was moved out of Windsor Castle to a new home at Sunninghill.

Enemies of the new King Henry plotted to overthrow him and persuaded Isabella to accompany an army of rebels, but at Cirencester the plot fell apart, the ringleaders were beheaded and Isabella was packed off back to London under lock and key.

Henry then had the bright idea that his son and heir, Prince Hal, would be the perfect match for Isabella. They were, after all, the same age – just 11 years old. But Isabella had a mind of her own and refused to have anything to do with it. She now knew that Richard must be dead, and promptly went into mourning, having nothing whatever to do with the new regime.

Henry had no choice but to send her back to France. When she was 16 she married Charles, Duke of Orleans, but was only 20 years old when she died in childbirth.

Six years later, in 1415, the former Prince Hal, now King Henry V, triumphed at the Battle of Agincourt, one consequence of which was that Henry married the French Princess Catherine, who was Isabella’s sister, and Charles, Isabella’s widower, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for the next quarter of a century.

 © John Welford