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Isabella arrived in London in 1308, the spirited twelve-year-old

daughter of King Philip IV of France. Her marriage to the heir to

England’s throne was designed to heal old political wounds between

the two countries, and in the years that followed, she would become

an important figure, a determined and clever woman whose influence

would come to last centuries. But Queen Isabella’s political

machinations led generations of historians to malign her, earning

her a reputation as a ruthless schemer and an odious nickname, “the

She-Wolf of France.”

Now the acclaimed author of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alison Weir,

reexamines the life of Isabella of England, history’s other

notorious and charismatic medieval queen. Praised for her fair

looks, the newly wed Isabella was denied the attentions of Edward

II, a weak, sexually ambiguous monarch with scant taste for his

royal duties. As their marriage progressed, Isabella was neglected

by her dissolute husband and slighted by his favored male

courtiers. Humiliated and deprived of her income, her children, and

her liberty, Isabella escaped to France, where she entered into a

passionate affair with Edward II’s mortal enemy, Roger Mortimer.

Together, Isabella and Mortimer led the only successful invasion of

English soil since the Norman Conquest of 1066, deposing Edward and

ruling in his stead as co-regents for Isabella’s young son, Edward

III. Fate, however, was soon to catch up with Isabella and her

lover.

Many mysteries and legends have been woven around Isabella’s story.

She was long condemned as an accessory to Edward II’s brutal murder

in 1327, but recent research has cast doubt on whether that murder

even took place.

Isabella’s reputation, then, rests largely on the prejudices of

monkish chroniclers and prudish Victorian scholars. Here Alison

Weir gives a startling, groundbreaking new perspective on Isabella,

in this first full biography in more than 150 years. In a work of

extraordinary original research, Weir effectively strips away

centuries of propaganda, legend, and romantic myth, and reveals a

truly remarkable woman who had a profound influence upon the age in

which she lived and the history of western Europe.

Engaging, vibrant, alive with breathtaking detail and unforgettable

characters, Queen Isabella is biographical history at its

finest.

From the Hardcover edition.

Acknowledgments

Author's Note

ldaps

INTRODHCTION  The She-Wolf of France

PART ONE

Isabella and Edward

PART TWO

Isabella and Mortimer

Genealoqtical Tables

Abbreviations Used in the Notes and References

Notes and References

Notes on the Chief Sources

Select Biblioqtraphy

Illustration Credits

Index

A Reader's Guide

Alison Weir is the New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor

of Aquitaine; Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley;

and several other historical biographies. She lives in Surrey with

her husband and two children.

From the Hardcover edition.

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Chapter One

On 20 May 1303, a solemn betrothal took place in Paris. The bride

was seven years old, the groom, who was not present, nineteen. She

was Isabella, the daughter of Philip IV, King of France; he, Edward

of Caernarvon, Prince of Wales, the son and heir of Edward I, King

of England.

The Prince had sent the Earl of Lincoln and the Count of Savoy as

his proxies, and during the ceremony, they formally asked the King

and Queen of France for the hand of their daughter, the Lady

Isabella, in marriage for the Prince of Wales. Consent was duly

given, then Gilles, Archbishop of Narbonne, the presiding priest,

required Isabella to plight her troth. Placing her hand in that of

the Archbishop, she duly did so, giving her assent to the betrothal

on condition that all the articles of the marriage treaty were

fulfilled.

This union had been arranged after tortuous negotiations to cement

a lasting peace between those old warring enemies, England and

France. Isabella’s father, Philip IV, known as Philip the Fair, was

the most powerful ruler in Christendom at that time and also the

most controversial. Not only had he been engaged in territorial

wars with both England and Flanders for the past seven years, he

had also, despite boasting the title of “Most Christian King,”

become involved in a bitter conflict with the Papacy after imposing

limitations on the Pope’s authority in France. This was to lead to

his excommunication only months after his daughter’s

betrothal.

Philip’s war with Edward I was the result of a long-standing feud

over England’s possessions in France. In the twelfth century,

through the marriage of Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the

empire of the Plantagenets, the dynasty that Henry founded, had

extended from Normandy to the Pyrenees, while the royal demesne of

France had been limited to the regions around Paris. By 1204,

Henry’s son, King John, had lost most of the English territories,

including Normandy, to the ambitious Philip II “Augustus” of

France, and there were further French encroachments under John’s

son Henry III, as successive French monarchs sought to broaden

their domain. By the time of Edward I, all that remained of

England’s lands in France was the prosperous wine-producing duchy

of Gascony, the southern part of the former duchy of Aquitaine,

along with the counties of Ponthieu and Montreuil, which had come

to the English Crown through the marriage of Edward I to Eleanor of

Castile in 1254.

Philip IV, who was vigorously carrying on his predecessors’

expansionist policy, not surprisingly had his eye on Gascony, and

in 1296, he invaded and took possession of it. There were two ways

to settle a conflict: by military force or by diplomacy. Edward I

wanted Gascony back, and Philip wanted to drive a wedge between

Edward and the Flemings, who were uniting against him. By 1298, the

two Kings were engaged in secret negotiations for a peace. Then

Pope Boniface VIII intervened. In the spring of 1298, he suggested

a double marriage alliance between France and England: his plan was

that Edward I, a widower since the death of Eleanor of Castile in

1290, marry Philip’s sister Marguerite, while Edward’s son and

heir, the Prince of Wales, be betrothed to Philip’s daughter

Isabella, then two years old. Once this peace had been sealed,

Gascony could be returned to Edward I.

Boniface’s suggestion appealed to both parties; it conjured up for

Philip the tantalizing prospect of French influence being extended

into England and his grandson eventually occupying the throne of

that realm; and for Edward I, it promised the return of Gascony and

a brilliant match for his son. As the daughter of the King of

France and the Queen of Navarre, Isabella was a great prize in the

marriage market: no Queen of England before her had boasted such a

pedigree.

The deal was agreed in principle, and two weeks later, on 15 May,

King Edward appointed Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, to negotiate

both marriages. In March 1299, Parliament accepted the terms

negotiated by Lincoln, and on 12 May following, plans were set in

hand for the proxy betrothals. Three days later, the Earl of

Lincoln, Amadeus, Count of Savoy, and the Earl of Warwick were

appointed to act for Edward I and his son, and soon afterward, they

departed for France. Edward I privately instructed the Count to

find out as much as he could about the personal attributes of

Marguerite of France, including the size of her foot and the width

of her waist. The Count reported back that she was “a fair and

marvellously virtuous lady,” pious and charitable.

The Treaty of Montreuil, which provided for Isabella’s future

betrothal to Edward of Caernarvon, was drawn up on 19 June,

ratified by Edward I and the Prince of Wales on 4 July, and

amplified by the Treaty of Chartres on 3 August. Under its terms,

Philip was to give Isabella a dowry of ?18,000, and once she became

Queen of England, she was to have in dower all the lands formerly

held by Eleanor of Castile, which were in the interim to be settled

by Edward I on Marguerite; these amounted to ?4,500 per annum.

Should Edward I default on the treaties, he would forfeit Gascony;

if Philip defaulted, he would pay Edward a fine of ?100,000. On 29

August, at the instance of Edward I, the King and Queen of France

gave solemn guarantees that the marriages would take place, and in

September, Marguerite of France, then aged twenty at most, arrived

in England and was married to the sixty-year-old Edward I in

Canterbury Cathedral. Against the odds, this proved to be a

successful and happy union, and produced three children. In October

1299, Philip IV finally ratified the Treaty of Montreuil. “When

love buds between great princes, it drives away bitter sobs from

their subjects,” commented a contemporary.

In 1300, the French occupied Flanders, but two years later, they

were humiliatingly defeated and massacred by the Flemings at

Courtrai. Throughout this time, Edward I had continued to press for

the immediate restoration of Gascony, but Philip would not agree to

this until after the Prince of Wales had fulfilled his promise to

marry Isabella, who was still too young to wed.

By April 1303, Edward I was losing interest in the alliance and was

beginning to look elsewhere for a bride for his son. At this

crucial point, fearing a war on two fronts, Philip IV played his

trump card and agreed to restore the duchy of Gascony to Edward

without further delay; his intention was, as he reminded Edward II

in 1308, that it should in time become the inheritance of his

grandchildren, the heirs of Edward and Isabella. Edward I was now

satisfied, and the Treaty of Paris, which officially restored the

duchy, was signed on the same day that young Isabella and Edward of

Caernarvon were betrothed. There would be further conflict between

Edward I and Philip IV, but nothing serious enough to break this

new alliance. Isabella was now destined to be Queen of

England.

Isabella was probably born in 1295. There is conflicting evidence

as to the year. Piers of Langtoft says she was “only seven years of

age” in 1299, which places her birth in 1292, the date given in the

Annals of Wigmore. Yet she is described by both the French

chronicler Guillaume de Nangis and Thomas Walsingham as being

twelve years old at the time of her marriage in January 1308, which

suggests she was born between January 1295 and January 1296. Given

that twelve was the canonical age for marriage, and that in 1298,

the Pope had stipulated that she should marry Prince Edward as soon

as she reached that age, these dates are viable. In the same

document of June 1298, the Pope describes Isabella as being “under

seven years,” which places her birth at any time from 1291 onward.

Furthermore, the Treaty of Montreuil (June 1299) provided for

Isabella’s betrothal and marriage to take place when she reached

the respective canonical ages of seven and twelve. So she must have

reached seven before May 1303, and twelve before January

1308.

It has been suggested that Isabella had already reached the

canonical age for marriage in 1305, when she and the Prince of

Wales nominated representatives for a marriage by proxy. This did

not take place because of continued squabbles over Guienne, but the

fact that these nominations were made has been held as evidence

that Isabella had then reached, or was soon to reach, the age of

twelve, which would place her date of birth around 1293. Yet this

theory is contradicted by a papal dispensation issued by Clement V

in November 1305, giving the young couple permission to marry at

once even though Isabella had not yet reached her twelfth year and

was at present in her tenth year. This suggests a birth date

between November 1294 and November 1295. The waters are muddied

still further by a decree issued by Philip IV in 1310, in which

Isabella is referred to as his “primogenita,” or “firstborn,” which

suggests that she was born in 1288 at the latest, as her eldest

brother Louis was born in October 1289. This date conflicts with

all the other evidence and is probably the result of an error on

the part of the official drawing up the document.

In conclusion, the evidence in the papal dispensations and

documents and the Treaty of Montreuil is likely to be more

reliable, and taken together, it supports a birth date between May

and November 1295, which in turn is supported by the statements of

Guillaume de Nangis and Thomas Walsingham. This would make Isabella

seven years old at the time of her betrothal and twelve years old

at the time of her marriage.

Isabella grew up in a period when society regarded women as

inferior bei...

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Praise for Alison Weir

Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

“The finest historian of English monarchical succession writing now

is Alison Weir. . . . Her assiduousness and informed judgment are

precisely what make her a writer to trust.”

–The Boston Globe

“Conspiracy, treason, perjury, and forgery, along with . . .

political assassination, and several deadly sins . . . While Ms.

Weir does not stint on the sensational details, she is above all a

historian and dogged researcher. She sifts through sources, which

were often compromised, and thinks like a forensics expert.”

–The Wall Street Journal

Eleanor of Aquitaine

“Evocative . . . a rich tapestry of a bygone age and a judicious

assessment of her subject’s place within it.”

–Newsday

“Extraordinary . . . as delicately textured as a twelfth-century

tapestry . . . exhilarating in its color, ambition, and human

warmth. The author exhibits a breathtaking grasp of the physical

and cultural context of Queen Eleanor’s life.”

–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Hardcover edition.