Isabella of Angoulême, Queen of England

 

Isabella was born around 1187 at Angoulême in south-west France, the only daughter of the Count of Angoulême. She was about 12 or 13 years old when she was spotted by King John of England, who had only just come to the throne and was already married. He fell madly in love with her and divorced his first wife so that he could marry Isabella, which he did in the year 1200.

They were to have five children, but the marriage could hardly be described as a happy one, due mainly to John’s spiteful and jealous character. Once, when he thought that Isabella was having an affair, he arranged for the man to be hanged and for his corpse to be suspended over Isabella’s bed.

When King John died in 1216, the new king, who reigned as Henry III, was only nine years old. Isabella was keen to secure Henry’s title and lost no time in having Henry crowned, and this was done in Gloucester Cathedral. There was no actual crown to hand, so Isabella used one of her own gold collars as a substitute.

Isabella had no desire to stay in England so she returned to Angoulême and married her real childhood sweetheart. This was a much happier marriage than her first, and she bore her new husband six sons and five daughters.

Isabella was later accused of conspiring to poison the King of France, a charge that was almost certainly false. She sought sanctuary at Fauntevrault Abbey, where she lived in hiding for the last two years of her life, dying in 1246.

Years later, her son King Henry III visited the Abbey and was shocked to find that his mother had been buried in the open cemetery. He ordered that her remains be reburied inside the Abbey, where a suitably respectful effigy was later supplied.

© John Welford

The murder of Prince Arthur by King John

King John of England (reigned 1199 to 1216) is widely regarded as one of the country’s “bad kings”. This was largely due to his tyrannical behaviour and the actions he undertook during his elder brother Richard’s reign to raise money to pay for Richard’s ransom when the latter was imprisoned in an Austrian castle. The methods he used to drag money out of people were largely responsible for the Robin Hood legends that tell of resistance to tyranny.

As king, John’s autocratic rule led to him being forced to sign a document in 1215 that guaranteed certain freedoms to the people of England (most notably its aristocratic classes) that is known to history as Magna Carta.

Although King John’s reputation may be worse in some respects than he deserved – he was an able administrator if nothing else – one incident can only serve to tip the balance towards the negative side. This was the murder, by his own hand, of his nephew Arthur.

King Henry II (reigned 1154 to 1189) had four legitimate sons who survived to adulthood. The eldest, Henry, died before his father did, which meant that the second, Richard, became king in 1189. The third son, Geoffrey, also died during Henry II’s reign, but he left behind him a son, Arthur, who was born in 1187.

John, who was the fourth son of Henry II, therefore became king when Richard died in 1199, with there being only one other member of the royal family who might constitute a threat to his rule, namely Prince Arthur, aged twelve when Richard died. Richard had actually made it known that he wanted to be succeeded by Arthur, as opposed to John, so the threat was far from imaginary on John’s part, especially as Arthur soon made it known that he was not averse to becoming king as his Uncle Richard had suggested.

Arthur had been brought up and educated in Brittany, his father Geoffrey having been Duke of Brittany. It was while campaigning in France in 1203 that John happened to capture Arthur almost by chance. It had not been his intention to make such a capture at the time, but the opportunity to nullify the threat posed by Arthur could not be ignored.

Arthur was imprisoned firstly at La Falaise in Normandy and then at the fortress of Rouen, also in Normandy which was still an English possession at that time.

A contemporary source relates that, on the day before Good Friday, King John was at Rouen and had drunk too much wine at dinner. He flew into a rage that he directed at Prince Arthur, then aged 16. He seized the prince by the throat and throttled him. He then tied a heavy stone to his body which was dropped into the river Seine. 

Some time later Prince Arthur’s body was recovered by some fishermen and given a respectable but secret burial.

Not surprisingly, the story has not been universally accepted as true, and it is not possible to be absolutely certain about it, either in substance or detail. However, it would certainly not have been out of character for John, and Prince Arthur definitely disappeared from the scene at this time.

© John Welford