Queen Isabella of France (of England)

This is series that I am doing on Queens of England that wanted to become the ruler of the country with no man at their side.  This would not be done without trouble until 1953, where Queen Elizabeth II (or, as I like to call her, Liz 2) is crowned ruler of England.  However, Isabella was the one of the first and this is her story.

In 1308, Princess Isabella of France was 12 years old and had just been crowned queen of England through marriage to the English King Edward II.  This was the embodiment of the Anglo-French alliance.  Isabella had grown up in the sophisticated French court.  It also gave her a sense of just how important she was in the grand scheme of international politics.  She was very aware of how she should be treated as Queen of England.  What she encountered, differed greatly from that expectation.

  For example, for her coronation, she should have been the center of attention, and placed at the center of the ceremony.  However, this place was already taken up by a man named Piers Gaveston.  He carried the King's crown into the ceremony and sat beside Edward at the banquet that followed.  Isabella was not the only person who took note of the unusually close relationship between Edward and Piers (a phrase you will hear a lot).  In fact, Edward gave Piers some of his and Isabella's wedding presents as gifts, which frustrated many of the French nobles in attendance.

  It was not long before Isabella noticed that hers was a marriage of three (to put it lightly), but the English nobles saw it as well.  A king could not rule successfully without the strength of his nobles behind him.  Edward's father, King Edward I, had successfully defended the kingdom in its hour of need and made a valiant effort to conquer Scotland, earning him the love and respect of his subjects.  However, Edward II was slowly, but surely losing those conquered lands again, and the nobles became convinced that he was distracted with Piers. 

Before long, a group of angry nobles overtook the castle, banished Gaveston and forced Edward to turn his power over to them.  This disappointed Isabella a great deal, but she was still very young and there was little that she could do to stop it.  Edward, to the outrage of his nobles, would not accept the banishment of Piers Gaveston.  Within two months, Piers had returned, and Isabella, now 16 years old, was pregnant with her first child. 

  Edward and Piers were, at this point, being chased around the north of England by a group of upset noblemen, with Isabella in tow.  The nobles were intent on capturing Gaveston and separating the lovers once and for all.  The royal party was soon separated.  Edward and Piers were forced to go in different directions: the former to York with Isabella and the latter to Scarborough. 

  Gaveston was eventually starved out of Scarborough and was captured by the lords, which caused great anxiety in Edward.  Shortly after, the lords, lead by the Earl of Lancaster held a show trial for Gaveston and sentenced him to death by beheading.  After much waiting, Isabella's rival was finally gone and on November 13, 1312, Isabella gave birth to a boy at the age of 17.

  This may not sound like that big a deal, but once a queen has a son and an heir to the throne, it cements her place in power.  That is one of the reasons why King Henry VII's wives were so transitory.  As a young queen, she had merely been a pawn of the real political players, but now that she was the mother of the future King of England, she had the opportunity to wield true power.  However, at this time in her career as queen was not seeking power for herself, but for her husband.  Still, her main concern was, and would always be, the future and security of her son.  She helped form a truce between Edward and his nobles and, for a time, there was peace.

  Unfortunately, due to Edward's bad judgements, this did not last.  His army was not strong enough and they lost any hold that they had in Scotland.  The Scots were now on the offensive, raiding English border towns.  There was no way to stop these attacks without the aid and support of the Earl of Lancaster, who controlled most of the troops.  But, Edward was not willing to share power with the man who was responsible for Piers Gaveston's death.  Thus, the kingdom fell into relative chaos. 

  For Queen Isabella, the worst was yet to come.  Hugh Despenser the Younger was the brother-in-law of Edward and was from a shrewd, politically calculating family.  Despenser and Edward grew up together because their fathers were close, but there is no evidence of romantic involvement like Edward and Piers.  Isabella gave birth to two more children while Despenser ingrained himself into the King's close council.  Gaveston had never cared about political power, only luxury and riches, but Hugh definitely wanted land, money and power and was willing to do whatever he could to get it.  This made him far more dangerous than Piers ever was.

  He convinced Edward to give him more and more lands, wealth and power until he practically bankrupted the state (because, if you can't tell, Edward was an idiot).  In 1321, the lords were once again fed up and marched against the king and Despenser.  Isabella once again attempted to garner support for her husband.  She appeared before her husband on her knees and asked him to banish Despenser (the kneeling was not because of some emotional outburst.  It was more symbolic than anything else).  This created another successful truce between Edward II and his lords, but, once again, did not last.  This time, though, it was Isabella who broke it.

  Isabella was on her way back from a pilgrimage to Canterbury and she sought rest at a fortress called Leeds Castle.  Normally, this would have been very common and the queen would have been welcomed as a guest, but the owner of the castle had been one of the unhappy lords that marched against the king and was not at home.  His wife, in a panic, would not open the doors to Isabella, leaving her out in the cold.  This infuriated Isabella, who had always had a very keen sense for how she ought to be treated as queen, order her men to force their way in.  This caused the archers in the stronghold to begin shooting, killing six of Isabella's soldiers.  This led to Edward sending troops to lay siege to the castle, because he claimed that the way that the queen had been treated was treason.

  The woman who had kept Isabella out opened the gate to appeal for mercy, but she and her children were arrested and sent to the Tower and hanged from the castle walls.  Not long after, the king captured the Earl of Lancaster and beheaded him.  With Despenser by his side, Edward's rule became marked by tyranny and violence.  Isabella would feel the effects of this quite quickly.

  You see, one of the only territories that England still held was Gascony in southern France.  Now, the French king, Isabella's brother was threatening to take it.  As a result, Edward ordered the arrest of all French people living in England, one of whom was his wife.  Despenser used this time to take Isabella's possessions and to separate her from her children.  Isabella then cleverly suggested to the king that she would be the perfect emissary to negotiate with her brother in France.  The king agreed, believing that she would argue in their best interests and then return.  Isabella arranged a truce between the two countries and convinced Edward to let their oldest son, the 12 year old Edward III, join her in France to pay tribute to the French King.  From there, Isabella made it quite clear that she would not be returning to England until Despenser was removed.

  Up until this point, Isabella had been careful to give off the impression of a good wife whose marriage had been torn apart by men like Hugh and Piers, through no fault of her own (though that may or may not have been the case).  However, the appearance of Roger Mortimer in her life made maintaining that image more and more difficult.  He was a 38 year old Englishman, and one of the nobles who had marched against King Edward, and was now living in France.  He and Isabella had a close relationship almost immediately.  It was probably more of a relationship of convenience, but there is also always the possibility that it was the love-at-first-sight, torrid love affair that everyone seems to want it to be.  If it was, it would be a serious offense in the eyes of the king.  For a queen, adultery was tantamount to treason and was punishable by death (as a few of Henry's wives would discover, some 300 years later).

  This was the point where Isabella made the decision that getting rid of Despenser would not be enough.  She needed to depose the king, which, up until this point, had never been done in English history.  She arranged a marriage between her son and the daughter of a French count, and was paid for the match in troops and ships.  In 1336, Isabella, Mortimer, and Edward III finally returned to England at the head of a great army, and she was welcomed by the people.  She, of course, was not acting on her own behalf, but in the stead of her 13 year old son, who was too young to overthrow his father himself.  Thus, with the support of both France and England, Isabella conquered the king's troops quickly.  Edward and Despenser were captured trying to escape to Wales.  Despencer was hanged, disemboweled and castrated alive, proving how much Isabella had changed.

  In 1337, Parliament agreed that Edward III should be the rightful King of England.  Edward II was forced to officially abdicate his throne and Isabella would rule until her son was considered old enough to take the throne.  Isabella knew that, as long as her husband was alive, there was always a possibility that his supporters would rise up and put him back on the throne.  Thus, a plan was hatched to get rid of them.  There is much speculation as to just how involved Isabella was with the death of her husband, but that is an argument for a much smarter woman than me.

  In the end, I would argue that it doesn't much matter whether Isabella killed him or not.  The point is that Edward died and his death remained shrouded in mystery.  The thing about mystery is that it leads to speculation, so before long, rumors were circulating.  One such rumor is that he was killed by having a fiery poker shoved into his anus to burn his intestines (lovely).  The result was that Isabella was no longer seen as the wronged wife.  She would forever be viewed as a harpy who violently murdered her husband in a greedy bid for power.  The poet Thomas Grey called her "the she-wolf of France".  However, for the moment, these opinions were not immediate and she was still seen as the savior of the nation from a tyrannical king.

  This is the point in Isabella's life where she started to fall apart.  She began using her power for her own enjoyment.  She and Mortimer garnered vast estates and incredible wealth, considering the state of the economy.  They were also dipping into the royal treasury.  Their spending was out of control and, to make matters worse, their rule, even though it was officially Edward III's, had become paranoid and tyrannical.  Edward was technically the king, but Isabella kept him pretty firmly under her thumb until he was 17.

  Around this time, Isabella began to suspect that her son was gaining more and more independence from her.  Thus, as a safety precaution, she began travelling with extra guards.  Unfortunately for her, this turned out not to be enough, for, on a trip to Nottingham, a group of Edward's friends took secret tunnels into the castle and disarmed both her and Mortimer in a matter of minutes.  Roger Mortimer was then hanged for treason and murder of the last king.  Isabella, being the King's mother, faced a less severe penalty.  She had to give up her estates and would no longer be allowed to intervene in politics.  However, she was given a decent amount of money each year to live on and could live out her retirement peacefully.

 There are any different lenses through which Isabella and Edward's story can be told.  This version is rather apologist towards Isabella, but I think she gets a bad rap.  Yes.  Some of her actions were violent, calculating, and cold.  However, so were the actions of the men around her.  Isabella was strong and clever and stories of her as the "she-wolf" comes from a time and place where female power was seen as unnatural, frightening, and wrong.   There is so, so much more that I want to write about her and Edward.  There is so much more to say, and I have learned more while writing this than I thought was there to learn.  If you want to know anything else, anything at all, let me know in comments.