She Wolves (15 page)
As well as being linked with the disasters on the continent, Isabella was also caught up personally in the war. In January 1203 she was besieged by rebels whilst staying at Chinon Castle. This must have been terrifying and she sent frantic messages to John begging for rescue. John set out to rescue her but, after reaching Le Mans, he became fearful of being captured and instead sent mercenaries to Chinon.
19
This must have been a frightening time for Isabella and she must have felt a great deal of relief at the arrival of John’s mercenary force. However it is just possible that John’s failure to come to her aid in person hints at trouble in the royal marriage. Only the year before, John had gone personally to Mirabeau to free his mother when she was similarly besieged but, in 1203, he apparently rated his personal safety higher than any dramatic gesture. John certainly did have reason to fear for his personal safety and it is possible that this induced John and Isabella to leave Normandy in December 1203. John claimed that he went to England to gather more resources for his continental wars, but he never returned, leaving the bulk of the Angevin Empire to the French king.
20
John and Isabella must have spent a sombre Christmas at Canterbury that year. In March 1204 they received news that Normandy had fallen.
21
Isabella spent much of the next few years travelling around England with her household and was not given any role in government. In 1202 Count Aymer had died and Isabella inherited Angouleme. She took little part in its government, however, with first her mother and then John’s officials controlling the county. She did visit Angouleme during John’s expeditions to Poitou in 1206 and 1214 but it is likely that this was merely to establish an Angevin presence in the county.
22
Certainly Isabella had no active position in Angouleme during her marriage to John and it is unlikely that this would have been permitted. She also played no role in John’s dispute with the papacy and her thoughts on his excommunication in 1209 are unknown.
23
This event together with the Interdict imposed on England between 1208 and 1214 provide examples of the political turmoil of John’s reign.
John and Isabella’s personal relationship also does not seem to have been a success. John is known to have had several illegitimate children with at least two born to noblewomen.
24
In 1214 John abducted the noblewoman Matilda FitzWalter, forcing her to become his mistress.
25
It is likely that this action both aroused Isabella’s jealously and stirred up baronial opposition to John in England. Sources also refer to John’s ‘lady friends’, one of whom he sent roses to in June 1212.
26
It seems probable that John took mistresses throughout his marriage to Isabella, something that a woman as strong-willed as Isabella cannot have accepted easily. For her contemporaries of the opposite sex however male infidelity was acceptable and Isabella would have been expected to simply ignore John’s conduct. The only reason he was chastised for his affairs was his preference for abducting noblewomen, the implication being that he could have relations with women of lower status with impunity. However as is the norm for the medieval period, there was one standard for men and quite another for women. Although John has largely escaped censure for his affairs, a great deal of Isabella’s poor reputation stems from her supposed infidelity. A contemporary, Matthew Paris, described her as guilty of adultery, sorcery and incest.
27
One suggested lover is Isabella’s own half-brother, Peter de Joigny, and this would account for the accusation of incest. Peter visited England in 1215 and possibly 1207 so Isabella and her brother may have formed a close relationship with each other.
28
However Isabella was mostly pregnant during his visits and it is a mark of her unpopularity that this suggestion has been made. A further story grotesquely narrates how John had one of Isabella’s lovers strangled and his corpse suspended over her bed.
29
There was probably little affection between John and Isabella. She was not mentioned in his will and, after his death, Isabella issued three perfunctory charters for his soul then never mentioned him again.
30
She may also have taken lovers during their marriage; if so, she was no more at fault than her husband but because of her sex, such accusations were enough to damn her.
Isabella had little contact with her children by John. It is unclear whether this was her choice or not but she never seems to have built a relationship with them. The eldest, Henry, was placed in the household of the Bishop of Winchester in 1212 and was joined by his youngest sister, Eleanor, in 1216.
31
Neither were her second son, Richard, and daughter, Isabella, raised by their mother. During John’s Poitou campaign in 1214 Isabella also lost custody of her final daughter, Joanna. As part of a peace agreement with Hugh de Lusignan, Joanna was betrothed to Hugh’s son, Hugh the Younger, and sent to be raised in Le Marche as Isabella had been.
32
Isabella was never given the opportunity to be a mother to her children in their formative years. These early separations and, perhaps, dislike of their father, may have been major factors in Isabella’s subsequent conduct towards her children.
The last few years of John’s reign were racked by civil war in England. It has been suggested that Isabella was imprisoned by John during these years but it is more likely that this refers to her being guarded for her own protection.
33
Isabella was one of the most unpopular figures in John’s regime and under considerable threat from the people of England. Isabella spent the last years of John’s reign in the relative safety of the West Country.
34
In early 1216 John’s relations with his barons took a turn for the worst when they held a council in which they decided to elect the Dauphin, Louis of France, as king.
35
Louis landed at Thanet on 20 May 1216 and quickly took Rochester Castle. He was received with joy in London and by autumn 1216, controlled most of southern England.
36
News of Louis’ progress must have filled Isabella with dread as she waited in Bristol. In the midst of this chaos, John died on 18 October 1216 and was buried at Worcester.
37
When news reached Bristol of John’s death, Isabella immediately showed the strength of character that would underpin her widowhood. Isabella travelled at once to Gloucester where her nine-year-old son, Henry III, had been brought. He was hastily crowned on 28 October, with one of Isabella’s gold collars.
38
Despite this decisive action, Isabella was not given a position in the regency and William Marshall was appointed regent at a council the following day.
39
This must have been galling for her but it is, once again, a measure of her unpopularity in England and a demonstration of her inability to build a political party of her own during her time as Queen of England. Certainly, Isabella’s position in England following John’s death does not appear to have been good. Denied any political role, Isabella also seems to have had trouble securing her property.
40
This explains Isabella’s decision to return to Angouleme in June 1217, leaving her children in England.
Isabella’s behaviour on her return to Angouleme in 1217 illustrates her forceful and independent character. She quickly established her lordship in Angouleme, gaining control over Cognac even, a region which had been lost to Angouleme in the 1180s.
41
The English minority council seem to have expected Isabella to govern Angouleme for the benefit of Henry III, but, in 1220, Isabella once again demonstrated her self-direction, marrying Hugh de Lusignan, son of her former fiancé and the man betrothed to her own daughter, Joanna. Isabella appears to have had no qualms about robbing her daughter of her fiancé and she may have reasoned that the same had happened to her when she was a young girl and that, after years of a loveless marriage to John, she deserved a little happiness. It is likely that Isabella’s second marriage was based more on personal liking than her first. The elder Hugh had been a widower with children when he was betrothed to Isabella and the young Isabella may well have got to know the younger Hugh when she joined his father’s household. Perhaps they remembered each other fondly and, in any event, Isabella would have known the value of an alliance between herself and Hugh territorially. Isabella would also have known that her marriage would not be looked upon favourably in England and her letter to Henry III, explaining her actions, provides a strong indication of her character:
We hereby signify to you that when the Counts of March and Eu departed this life, the lord Hugh de Lusignan remained alone and without heirs in Poitou, and his friends would not permit that our daughter should be united to him in marriage, because her age is so tender, but counselled him to take a wife from whom he might speedily hope for an heir; and it was proposed that he should take a wife in France, which if he had done, all your land in Poitou and Gascony would be lost. We, therefore, seeing the great peril that might accrue if that marriage should take place, when our counsellors could give us no advice, ourselves married the said Hugh, count of March; and God knows we did this rather for your benefit than our own.
42
The reasons Isabella gives to explain her marriage seem implausible. It is clear that it was Isabella’s own desire to marry Hugh and her excuses were merely an attempt to avert Henry’s anger and try to persuade him that she was actually acting in his best interests. By marrying Hugh, however, Isabella created the very political crisis that John sought to avert by marrying Isabella in 1200. It is possible that, in her second marriage, Isabella also allowed herself to enjoy a little revenge at John’s expense and, certainly, she had never been well treated in England. It is therefore easy to see why she might not have proved loyal to a country where she had been so unhappy.
Isabella’s excuses convinced no one and her marriage caused anger in Henry’s minority council, who responded by confiscating Isabella’s dower. In retaliation, Isabella refused to release her daughter Joanna, Hugh’s jilted fiancée, until her rights were reinstated, essentially keeping the girl as a hostage.
43
The dispute dragged on until October 1220 when Henry III finally agreed to reinstate Isabella’s dower. Hugh then escorted Joanna to La Rochelle where she was taken back into English custody.
44
The negotiations following Isabella’s marriage show her to be a shrewd negotiator. The incident was also the first indication of the troubled and manipulative relationships Isabella would have with her English children and it is clear, from her behaviour, that she saw Joanna as a bargaining chip in her attempts to get what she wanted. Again, however, she had also never been allowed much contact with her English children and she may well have reasoned that they could fend for themselves without their mother, as they had always done. In any event Isabella’s relationship with Henry’s minority council was tense; in 1224 she and Hugh defected to the French and Isabella was granted a pension in return for her dower lands forfeited in England. In 1230 Isabella entered into another agreement with France at Henry’s expense, increasing the size of her pension.
45
There is evidence that, from 1228, Henry III’s government were petitioning the Pope to annul Isabella’s marriage to Hugh. This, however, came to nothing.
46
It is likely that Isabella’s second marriage was more satisfying than her first. She and Hugh enjoyed a more equal relationship, issuing charters together.
47
Isabella also had a great deal of influence over Hugh. For example in June 1241 Hugh swore fealty to the French candidate for Count of Poitou, a title to which Henry III also laid claim.
48
This enraged Isabella, who had also been slighted by the Queen of France when she attended court at Poitiers; she was not inclined to make any further agreements with the French crown.
49
Furious at her husband’s conduct, Isabella stripped Lusignan Castle of its furnishings and returned to her own castle at Angouleme with Hugh’s possessions. Hearing of his wife’s activities, Hugh followed, but Isabella would not admit him to the castle for three days, forcing him to sleep in a building in front of the castle.
When Hugh was finally admitted, Isabella abused him for supporting an alternative Count of Poitou to her son Henry.
50
This obviously had an effect – at Christmas 1241, Hugh declared himself against the French and persuaded Henry to join a military expedition to Poitou.
The English army, led by Henry III and his brother Richard, sailed on 9 May 1242. No evidence survives of Isabella’s reunion with her two English sons. It seems likely that it was a tense meeting given the twenty-five years since she had last seen them and her political activities during that period. Certainly Henry and Richard are likely to have turned against their mother during the campaign, when Hugh deserted them for the French. The English campaign was a disaster and Henry barely escaped with his life, returning to England defeated. Henry’s disastrous campaign opened Isabella’s eyes to the reality of the political situation in Europe and she resigned herself to the fact that her sons could not defeat the French for her. Isabella therefore decided to take matters into her own hands and, in 1244, assassins were captured in the royal kitchens trying to poison Louis IX’s food. When questioned, the men confessed that they had been sent by Isabella and there is no evidence that Isabella ever attempted to deny this charge.
51
Isabella would have known that a military campaign against Louis was no longer a possibility without English backing and she may have considered that the death of Louis would enable her to hold her lands more securely. Poisoning, however, was a grievous sin and Isabella would have realised that with the crime discovered she would be hunted down. When Isabella was informed of the arrests she threatened to kill herself with a dagger before being restrained.
52
She then fled to Fontevrault Abbey, seeking sanctuary from her pursuers. Isabella spent her last years safely immured in the Abbey and died there on 4 June 1246.
53