Isabella of France

Isabella’s birth date was a matter of disagreement even among her contemporaries. According to English historian and chronicler Peter Langtoft and the Annals of Wigmore, she was born sometime in 1292. And yet, French chroniclers such as Guillaume de Nangis and Thomas Walsingham state that she was 12 at the time of her marriage in 1308, implying 1295 as the year of her birth. Modern historians generally hold the latter to be true, theorizing that she was born between May and November of 1295 in Paris.

Her father was Philip IV, King of France, and her mother was Joan of Navarre. She had three brothers, Louis, Philip, and Charles, who were successively the kings of France. She lost her mother in the early years of her life, in 1305. Some sources implicate Philip in her mother’s death, albeit without any real evidence.

She grew up in and around the Château du Louvre and the Palais de la Cité in Paris, under the care of her nurse, Théophania de Saint-Pierre. She was allowed a modest education in her youth, learning to read and write, developing a craving for knowledge.

France was the most powerful country in the Western Europe back then. King Philip had methodically centralised power and authority through treaties and by engaging in a series of conflicts to amass control over the region. As it was common for the period, Philip arranged for all his children to be married early for political benefit.

The Plantagenet dynasty was at the height of its power with Edward Longshanks as the King of England. They had put forth claims on Anjou, Normandy, and Aquitaine and controlled Gascony, lands that had traditionally been French. To Philip, the prospect of a union between Isabella and Longshanks’ son Edward promised an end to the hostility with England. Pope Boniface VIII gave his assent and implored for the marriage to take place as early as in 1298.

The marriage ceremony between Isabella and Edward took place in Boulogne-sur-Mer on January 25, 1308. As a wedding gift, Edward presented Isabella with a psalter. Philip lavished her with gifts worth over 21,000 livres and gave her a piece of the True Cross. Married at just 12, she was praised by Geoffrey of Paris who called her "the beauty of beauties... in the kingdom if not in all Europe.” This was probably not an exaggeration, as it was often said that she had inherited her father’s good looks. Edward would later give her the nickname “Isabella the Fair”.

It would not be wrong to presume that at the beginning of their marriage, Isabella genuinely liked her husband. He was tall, athletic, and handsome and had the support of people and nobility alike. She soon realised, however, that Edward was an unusual man by medieval standards. He preferred music, arts, and rural crafts over jousting, hunting, and warfare, the conventional pastimes of the kings. Furthermore, his relationship with his favourite, Piers Gaveston, garnered much speculation.

During their wedding celebration, Edward decided to sit with Gaveston and not with Isabella, for which her uncles Count Louis of Evreux and Count Charles of Valois took offence. She was given neither her own lands nor her own household until Philip intervened on her behalf.

Whether Edward and Gaveston’s relationship was sexual in nature, is a matter of scholastic debate. There are contemporary accounts that had condemned the king for loving his succession of male favourites “beyond measure” and “uniquely”, while a few others went as far as calling it as an “illicit and sinful union”.

Isabella herself had a complicated relationship with Gaveston. Her father gave financial support to the anti-Gaveston faction at the English court through Isabella and her household, which eventually led to Edward being forced to banish him to Ireland for a brief period. Upon his return, around 1309-11, the three found enough commonality to form an alliance together.

Isabella’s brother, the new French King Charles IV, had confiscated all of Edward’s possessions in the country for failing to pay homage to him. In retaliation, all of Isabella’s lands were seized by Edward and the Despensers, and her children taken away. Soon after reaching France, she signed a treaty with her brother promising her son Edward would pay homage on his father’s behalf. Prince Edward was sent to his mother, and in September, he pay homage to the French King.

In the following months, instead of returning to England, Isabella firmly stayed in France. Edward’s political rivals including Edmund of Kent; John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond; and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore gathered one after another at the French court conveying their support for the Queen. She started to dress as a widow, putting the blame of the dissolution of her marriage on the Despensers. In December, she took Mortimer as a lover.

In the summer of 1326, Isabella and Mortimer went to William I, Count of Hainaut and arranged a betrothal between Prince Edward and the Count’s daughter, Philippa. With the dowry received from the engagement and the money she had previously got from her brother as a loan, she assembled a mercenary army.

On September 29, Isabella, Mortimer, and their army landed on the English shore. The following campaign was short, brutal, and effective. Edward was overthrown and most of the male members of the Despenser family, including the Elder and Younger Hugh Despenser, were executed.

Edward’s fate after his removal from the throne remains a mystery till date. Henry of Lancaster had him in his custody and sent his Royal Seal to the Queen. In January 1327, the English parliament declared Prince Edward as Edward III and Isabella as his regent. But she still feared that her enemies might rally behind the deposed king. Edward was moved to Berkeley Castle, and on September 23, the royal family was informed of his death.