05 August, 2012

The VIPs Who Attended Edward And Isabella's Wedding

Here's a list of the European royalty and nobility who (probably but not certainly, in some cases) attended Edward II and Isabella of France's wedding in Boulogne on 25 January 1308.

- Philippe IV, king of France (1268 - 29 November 1314)

Isabella's father, known as le Bel or the Fair, the son of Philippe III (died 5 October 1285) and Isabel of Aragon (d. 28 January 1271).  His wife Jeanne, queen of Navarre in her own right, died almost three years before the wedding.  Philippe was also Edward II's second cousin: their paternal grandmothers Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence were sisters.

- Louis, king of Navarre (4 October 1289 - 5 June 1316)

Philippe IV's eldest son and Isabella's brother, the future Louis X of France, who had inherited the kingdom of Navarre from his mother Queen Jeanne in 1305.  I'm not sure if his wife Marguerite of Burgundy also attended the wedding.  His younger brothers the future Philippe V (1291/93 - 3 January 1322) and Charles IV (1293/94 - 1 February 1328) of France did, as did perhaps their wives Jeanne and Blanche of Burgundy, and Philippe IV's youngest son Robert, who died later that year at the age of eleven.

- Marie of Brabant, dowager queen of France (13 May 1254 - 12 January 1321)

Philippe IV's stepmother, the widow of Philippe III.  Marie was the daughter of Duke Henry III of Brabant and Adelaide of Burgundy, and the granddaughter of Marie of Hohenstaufen, daughter of Philip of Swabia, king of Germany and Eirene Angelina, dowager queen of Sicily (which makes Marie the first cousin of Blanche of Artois; Blanche was also the first cousin of Marie's husband Philippe III).  Marie was the aunt of Duke John II of Brabant, who married Edward II's sister Margaret (see below).  She married the widowed Philippe III in August 1274 and had three children, all of whom she outlived.  From October 1285 to December 1295, there were three queens in France: Jeanne of Navarre, wife of Philippe IV; Marie, his stepmother; Marguerite of Provence, his grandmother, widow of Louis IX.

- Marguerite of France, dowager queen of England (1278/79 - 14 February 1318)

Daughter of Philippe III and Marie of Brabant, half-sister of Philippe IV, second queen of Edward I, stepmother of Edward II, mother of Thomas of Brotherton, later earl of Norfolk and Edmund of Woodstock, later earl of Kent.  (Today is Edmund's birthday, born 5 August 1301.  Happy Birthday, Edmund!)

Charles 'the Lame', king of Naples and Albania and titular king of Jerusalem, prince of Achaea, Taranto and Salerno (1248/54 - 3 May 1309).

Son of Louis IX's brother Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, and Beatrice of Provence, and thus the first cousin once removed of both Edward II and Philippe IV.  Charles and his wife Marie of Hungary had numerous children who made excellent marriages throughout Europe. One of their grandchildren was Clemence of Hungary, second wife of Louis X, above.

- Albrecht von Hapsburg, king of Germany, duke of Austria and Styria (July 1255 - 1 May 1308)

Eldest son of Rudolf von Hapsburg (1 May 1218 - 15 July 1291), and the only son who outlived his father. His younger brother Hartmann (b. 1263) was betrothed to Edward II's sister Joan of Acre in the 1270s, but drowned in 1281; his sisters included the queens of Bohemia and Hungary and the duchesses of Bavaria and Saxony.  Albrecht was murdered a few weeks after Edward and Isabella's wedding - on what, incidentally, would have been his father's ninetieth birthday - by his nephew Johann of Swabia, known as Johann Parricida.

Below: Albrecht's father Rudolf, a photo I took in Speyer Cathedral a few weeks ago.

Rudolf von Hapsburg, king of Germany: effigy in Speyer Cathedral.

Elisabeth of Carinthia (or Elisabeth of Tyrol), queen of Germany  (c. 1262 - 28 October 1312)

One of the children of Meinhard, duke of Carinthia (in modern-day Austria and Slovenia) and Elisabeth of Bavaria.  Elisabeth's brother Henry was king of Bohemia, and one of her nieces, yet another Elisabeth, was queen of Sicily.  Albrecht and Elisabeth attended Edward and Isabella's wedding with their son Leopold, duke of Austria, and had another eleven children, including the king of Bohemia and titular king of Poland, the queen of Hungary and the duchesses of Calabria and Lorraine.

Charles, count of Valois (12 March 1270 - 16 December 1325) and Louis, count of Évreux (3 May 1276 - 19 May 1319)

Charles was the son of Philippe III of France and Isabel of Aragon, and Philippe IV's full brother; Louis was the son of Philippe III and Marie of Brabant and thus their half-brother, and the full brother of Marguerite, dowager queen of England.  Louis had an excellent relationship with Edward of Caernarfon before the latter succeeded to the throne, as their surviving letters of 1305 demonstrate (it was to Louis that Edward sent his humorous letter about a 'big trotting palfrey' and 'lazy dogs').  Louis's son and heir Philippe married his cousin Jeanne II of Navarre (daughter of Louis X and Marguerite of Burgundy) and was the father of King Charles 'the Bad'; his daughter Marie married Edward II's nephew Duke John III of Brabant.  Charles, count of Valois, Anjou, Maine, Chartres and Alençon and titular emperor of Constantinople by right of his second wife Catherine de Courtenay, was the father of Philippe VI and the ancestor of the Valois dynasty which ruled France from 1328 to 1589, and is one of the men who can well be described as a 'grandfather of Europe' - by his three wives he had fourteen children and at least seventy grandchildren, who included Edward III's queen Philippa of Hainault, King Jean II of France, Jeanne de Bourbon, queen of Charles V of France, and Jeanne, queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily in her own right.

- Hugues V, duke of Burgundy and titular king of Thessalonica (c. 1282 - 9 May 1315)

Grandson via his mother Agnes of Louis IX of France and Marguerite of Provence, and thus the first cousin of Philippe IV. Two of Hugues' sisters married kings of France: Marguerite, the adulterous first wife of Louis X, and Jeanne, queen of Philippe VI. Another sister, Marie, married Edward II's nephew Count Edouard I of Bar. Hugues was betrothed to one of the many daughters of Charles of Valois, above - Catherine, by Charles's second marriage, titular empress of Constantinople in her own right - but died childless. He attended the wedding with his brother Eudes, who succeeded him as duke, and probably their younger brothers Louis and Robert.

John II, duke of Brabant (27 September 1275 - 27 October 1312)

Edward II's brother-in-law, betrothed to Edward I and Eleanor of Castile's third surviving daughter Margaret when they were both three years old.

- Robert de Béthune, count of Flanders (1249 - 17 September 1322)

Eldest son and heir of Guy de Dampierre, count of Flanders (mid-1220s-1305), Robert was in his mid-fifties when he succeeded his long-lived father. Robert had at least fifteen siblings and half-siblings from his father's two marriages, who included: Philippa, who was betrothed to Edward of Caernarfon from 1294 to 1297; Isabella, who was a 'substitute' fiancée for Edward; Margaret, the grandmother of Duke John II of Brabant; Beatrix, the grandmother of Count John I of Holland who married Edward II's sister Elizabeth in 1297; the bishop of Metz and Liège; and another Margaret, who was briefly married to Alexander III of Scotland's son Alexander (Edward II's first cousin). Robert de Béthune's first wife Blanche was one of the daughters of Louis IX's brother Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, and Beatrice of Provence; his second was Yolande, countess of Nevers in her own right, who had previously been married to Louis IX and Marguerite of Provence's son Jean-Tristan.

- Louis, count of Nevers and Rethel (1272 - 22 July 1322)

The son and heir - though his father outlived him by a few weeks - of Robert de Béthune above, and who also attended Edward and Isabella's wedding.  Louis was count of Rethel by right of his wife Jeanne, and count of Nevers from his mother.  Louis's son, also Louis, succeeded his grandfather Robert as count of Flanders.

- Jean I, marquis of Namur (c. 1267 - 32 January 1330)

Half-brother of Robert de Béthune.  Jean's daughter Blanche was queen of Sweden and Norway, as the wife of Magnus IV (of Sweden, also known as Magnus VII of Norway).  Magnus's nickname was the excellent 'the Caresser'.

- Louis de Clermont, count of Clermont and La Marche and first duke of Bourbon (1279/80 - January/February 1342)

Grandson of Louis IX and Marguerite of Provence via his father, their youngest son Robert, and thus a first cousin of Philippe IV and Duke Hugues V of Burgundy.  Like a couple of other people in this post - Charles, king of Naples and Albania, and Jeanne of Burgundy, queen of Philippe VI of France - Louis was known as le Boiteux, the Lame, though he is also sometimes known as 'the Great'.  Louis's mother was Beatrice of Burgundy, granddaughter of Duke Hugues IV of Burgundy and heiress of her mother Agnes, herself the heiress to Bourbon.  Louis's direct male line descendant Henri de Bourbon (1553-1610) - his six greats grandson - became King Henri IV in 1589, the first Bourbon king of France.

- Robert of Artois (1287 - 16 October 1342)

Great-nephew of Blanche of Artois, queen of Navarre and countess of Lancaster, and nephew of Mahaut, countess of Artois in her own right and countess of Burgundy by marriage, against whom Robert waged a long and bitter struggle for the rights to the county of Artois, which is dramatised in Maurice Druon's novels.  (He lost.)  His grandfather Robert, Blanche's brother, was killed at the battle of Courtrai in July 1302.  Robert (the younger)'s wife Jeanne was one of the many daughters of Charles of Valois, above, by his second wife, and half-sister of Philippe VI of France.  A bitter enemy of his brother-in-law Philippe VI, Robert of Artois supported Edward III during the Hundred Years War, and moved to England.  His grave is in St Paul's Cathedral.

- William, count of Hainault, Holland, Zeeland and Avesnes (mid-1280s - 7 June 1337)

In 1328, William became the father-in-law of Edward III of England when his daughter Philippa married the young king.  His eldest surviving daughter Margaret was Holy Roman Empress and queen of Germany by marriage to Ludwig von Wittelsbach.  William was married to Jeanne, second-eldest daughter of Charles of Valois (the eldest sister Isabelle was the first wife of Duke John III of Brittany).  His elder brother John was killed at the battle of Courtrai in July 1302, which made him their father's heir.

- Guy IV, count of St Pol, Grand Butler of France (mid-1250s - 6 April 1317)

Younger half-brother, via their mother Matilda of Brabant, of Blanche of Artois.  Guy married Marie de Dreux, the daughter of Duke John II and Beatrice of England, who was thus the granddaughter of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, and Edward II's first cousin.  One of Guy and Marie's daughters was Marie, who married Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke and founded Pembroke College at Cambridge in 1347; another, Mahaut, married Charles of Valois as his third wife.  Guy fought at the battle of Courtrai in July 1302, where many French noblemen were killed, but managed to flee the field with his life.

- Jean II, count of Dreux and Montfort-l'Amaury (1265 - 1309)

Son of Robert IV, count of Dreux.  Jean's mother Beatrice was the granddaughter and heiress of Amaury de Montfort, elder brother of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester.  Jean's sister Yolande, who succeeded him as countess of Montfort, married Alexander III, king of Scotland (the king was riding to see her when he and his horse fell off a cliff in a storm) and secondly Duke Arthur II of Brittany.

- Amadeus V, count of Savoy (1249/53 - 16 October 1323)

A first cousin (although many years younger) of Eleanor of Provence, queen of Henry III, through his father Thomas.  Amadeus was on excellent terms with his kinsman Edward I, who after the death of his son-in-law Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester in 1295, decided to marry his widowed daughter Joan of Acre to Amadeus, who had been widowed from Sybille de Baugé the previous year.  Joan had other ideas, however, and married Ralph de Monthermer.  Amadeus married instead Marie of Brabant, sister of Joan and Edward of Caernarfon's brother-in-law Duke John II.  Amadeus's son and heir, born in 1284, by his first wife Sybille, was named Edouard after his cousin and friend Edward I.  Edouard married Blanche, sister of Duke Hugues V of Burgundy and granddaughter of Louis IX, three of whose sisters (Marguerite, Blanche and Marie) have also been mentioned in this post.  ;-)

4 comments:

Anerje said...

That's an amazing guest list. Shows what an important and prestigious match it was. Shame the 'best man' was minding the country for Edward ;>

Kathryn Warner said...

It's great, isn't it? And imagine what the 'guest of honour' (hehe) would have worn...;-)

karacherith said...

I really want to give some of these people middle names so that I can keep track of them. Now I know why people got known by nicknames (like Hotspur, the Bad, etc.). There was no way to remember everyone otherwise!

Kathryn Warner said...

It gets insanely confusing, doesn't it? :/