She Wolves (22 page)

The change to a more insular style of kingship also had another effect on the power of the queen and reflects a partial return to the Anglo-Saxon style of queenship. Anglo-Saxon kings generally selected their wives from the nobility and this reflected the fact that their interests primarily lay in England. This changed dramatically in the postconquest period and, between the late eleventh century and the fourteenth century, royal wives were mostly selected from continental families in an attempt to safeguard foreign possessions. By the late fifteenth century, however, there were no English possessions on the continent and kings appear to have looked increasingly to gaining English wives. Edward IV, for example, selected the English Elizabeth Woodville for his bride. Whilst this marriage caused scandal, the fact that it happened at all does highlight a change in ideas of both kingship and queenship. Edward’s brother, Richard III, followed his brother’s example in marrying the English Anne Neville. Anne had previously been married to Edward of Lancaster, Prince of Wales, which highlights her perceived suitability to be a queen of England. Edward IV’s grandson, Henry VIII also followed this idea enthusiastically, marrying four Englishwomen and doing more than any other king to demonstrate the potential for an Englishwoman who attracted the king. This policy did have a down side, as many English queens discovered. An English queen did not, by definition, have a powerful foreign family to protect her in times of trouble and this can be seen clearly, once again, in a comparison of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Catherine of Aragon, as the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor, was merely divorced by Henry. Anne, as the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, was executed. As with their Anglo-Saxon predecessors, English-born queens in the later medieval period must have quickly come to realise that their position also made them uniquely vulnerable to the whims of their husbands and enemies.

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were therefore dangerous times for queens. The fate and reputation of many queens were tied up with the Wars of the Roses. When Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne in 1399, becoming Henry IV, he set in motion a conflict that would last for a century. Henry IV was the son of Edward III’s third son and took the throne from the only descendant of the first son. However, the second son, Lionel of Antwerp, had produced a daughter and by the reign of Henry VI, who was Henry IV’s grandson, that daughter’s claim was represented by her descendant, Richard, Duke of York. York was able to exploit Henry VI’s ineptitude to highlight his own superior claim to the throne and, after years of conflict, his son, Edward IV, was able to snatch the throne from his cousin. In 1483, on Edward’s own death, the throne passed to his young son, Edward V, but the throne was again usurped, this time by the boy’s uncle, Richard III. Finally, in 1485, the last remaining Lancastrian claimant, Henry VII, took the crown, marrying Elizabeth of York and uniting the two warring houses. The descendants of the couple never felt entirely safe on their thrones. Henry VIII and his children persecuted their relatives to ensure the stability of their own position.

The Wars of the Roses characterised the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, causing violence and confusion in the fifteenth century and then fuelling Tudor paranoia in the sixteenth. The conflict also had a major effect on the reputations of the queens of the period, with some such as Margaret of Anjou sometimes forced to take an active and unpopular course. However the conflict also had another, less foreseeable outcome: by the mid-sixteenth century there were very few people alive who possessed a credible claim to the throne. When Edward VI cast around for someone to succeed him in 1553, all the plausible candidates proved to be female, making it inevitable that England would finally have its first effective queen regnant.

Queenship during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was often insecure and the office itself was changeable. It was still based firmly on its Anglo-Saxon and post-conquest foundations but in the turbulent times of the fifteenth century, queens often had to adapt to fulfil a more varied role. By the mid-sixteenth century, England was moving away from the medieval period into the early modern period. However, queens such as Mary Tudor still consciously looked back at the medieval past for a model of queenship, proving that, even in adverse and unprecedented circumstances, English queenship remained a recognisable office with guidelines on how to be a good queen and avoid notoriety. Joan of Navarre, Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and Mary I are all remembered as notorious and they all, at least according to their contemporaries, failed to live up to the ideal of a good queen. As with the earlier queens, however, there was often a motive behind the attacks on the women, usually tied up in the politics of the day. Due to the difficulties of the period in which they lived, all of these women found themselves in dangerous situations and, as their own party diminished in power they were actively attacked, leading to the destruction of their reputations. Once again, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, women proved particularly vulnerable to attack and the mostly English queens of this period proved as vulnerable as any, to their considerable cost.

Joan of Navarre has the distinction of being the only English queen to ever be punished for witchcraft. Joan was disliked in England during her time as queen and was heavily criticised for her foreign birth. During the reign of her stepson, Henry V, her reputation took a dramatic turn for the worse when she was accused of plotting to murder the king through sorcery and spent several years in prison. Little evidence was ever presented to explain Joan’s arrest and, as the example of Joan’s stepdaughter-in-law Eleanor Cobham shows, an accusation of witchcraft was a convenient way of attacking a royal woman in the fifteenth century. Joan was certainly no witch but, as a foreigner in a troubled period, she was an easy target, just as her predecessors, such as Eleanor of Provence and Isabella of France had found. For a woman to be accused of witchcraft was for her also to lose her place in society. Joan of Navarre’s reputation has never been able to shake off the stigma of the charges against her and it is clear that they were used as an easy way of robbing her of her property. Henry V, the architect of Joan’s misfortunes, would have known the power that his accusations of witchcraft could have and Joan, as a woman and a foreigner, was his helpless victim. When he was overcome with remorse at the treatment of the queen, it was already too late. As earlier queens had found, a tarnished name is difficult to lose.

To modern eyes, the charges against Joan appear to have been unprovoked but she may already have had a sinister reputation by association. Her father Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, was known across Europe for his unsuitable behaviour. Charles was the son of the dispossessed heiress of France, Jeanne of Navarre; as such he had political ambitions towards that country. It is possible that his wife, Joan of France, was offered to him as a way of neutralising his claim but if so the policy failed.
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Joan of Navarre was born in 1368 in Normandy and had a turbulent childhood.
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In 1381, Charles was once again at war with France, and Joan and her two elder brothers were lodged in one of Charles’s castles in Normandy.
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The regents of France, exasperated by Charles’s behaviour, captured Joan with her brothers and took them to Paris as surety for their father’s good behaviour.

Joan must have been shocked to find herself a hostage but the terms of her captivity are unlikely to have been onerous. The regents of France were Joan’s maternal uncles and it is likely that they treated Joan and her brothers kindly. Despite this, Charles was anxious for the return of his children and attempted to poison the regents. This only increased French anger towards Charles and it was only through the intervention of the King of Castile that she and her brothers were released.
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Joan’s feelings on her captivity and release are unclear. Given the uncertainty of life as the daughter of Charles the Bad she may have missed her stable life in Paris.

Soon after Joan’s release, Charles opened negotiations to marry her to John IV, Duke of Brittany. John IV’s second wife, Joan Holland, had died in 1384 and he urgently needed an heir for his duchy. In June 1386 Breton envoys arrived in Navarre to fetch Joan and she sailed for Brittany immediately afterwards, marrying Duke John at Saille on 11 September.
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Joan must have been apprehensive about her marriage to the middle-aged Duke. However she seems to have consented to the match and it proved to be a happy union. Joan’s father promised a generous dowry of 120,000 gold livres, although his early death meant that much of this was never paid. True to his tainted reputation, Charles the Bad suffered a particularly horrifying death in 1387. Suffering from paralysis to his limbs through some ailment, Charles tried to effect a cure by being wrapped from head to toe in bandages. Immobilised in this way, Charles was unable to save himself when a careless servant allowed a candle to ignite the bandages, causing the king to burn to death.
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Many of Charles’s contemporaries probably saw this as divine judgement for Charles’s sinister life, although Joan’s feelings are not recorded. Joan’s time after her marriage was, in any event, taken up with childbearing and, in 1389, she provided an heir to the duchy, as well as bearing six other children during her marriage

John IV had always had strong links with England and he visited the country in April 1398.
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It is possible that Joan accompanied him on this visit and if so she would have come into contact with Richard II’s cousin, Henry Bolingbroke. Joan and Henry certainly met at some point during her first marriage. Henry also spent time in Brittany during his exile in 1399 and is again likely to have spent some time with Joan.
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No evidence survives of Joan and Henry’s meetings with each other but it is likely that there was a mutual attraction. It is unlikely that Joan was ever unfaithful to John but the fact that she and Henry proved so eager to marry suggests something more than just diplomatic relations.

John IV died on 1 November 1399. Joan had been an impeccable wife and he entrusted her with the government of Brittany until their son came of age. Joan ruled Brittany well and arranged an impressive inauguration for her son in 1401, an event which ended her regency.
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With the end of her regency, Joan may have felt that her role in Brittany was over. She was still only thirty-three and probably desired a second marriage. In 1399 Henry had become King of England and, at some point, he must have contacted Joan with an offer of marriage. Certainly, by March 1402 negotiations had been opened and on 3 April 1402 Joan’s emissary and Henry underwent a proxy wedding in England.
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Joan had been left wealthy by her first husband and it has often been suggested that Henry’s motive in marrying her was to obtain this wealth. However, Joan seems to have kept personal control over her wealth during her second marriage and Henry did not benefit financially from the match. There may have been a political element in the match on both sides. Henry, as a usurper, needed the foreign contacts that Joan could provide and it is likely that Joan wanted to be a queen.
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The marriage must be considered more than a merely political alliance, however.
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Henry was clearly partial to Joan and remained faithful to her throughout their marriage so attraction is likely to have played a large part in his proposal of marriage. Joan also gave up her children to marry Henry and it seems inconceivable that, as an independent widow, she would do this if she also was not attracted to Henry.

The marriage negotiations were conducted in secret due to the likely unpopularity of the match in Brittany. When news of the proposed marriage became common knowledge the Breton noblemen reacted in anger, fearing that Henry would obtain custody of their duke. Joan was forced to leave all her children, save her two youngest daughters, behind in Brittany.
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Joan and her daughters sailed for England on 13 January 1403, enduring a traumatic crossing that was seen by contemporaries as an evil omen:

Henry rushed to meet her as soon as he heard that she had landed and Joan must have been pleased at this sign of his affection. She cannot have seen him for over three years and may have worried that neither of them would be as the other expected.

Such worries were in vain. On 8 March 1403 Henry granted Joan a dower of 10,000 marks, the largest dower granted to an English queen up to that time.
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This was probably both a mark of respect for Joan and intended to demonstrate the wealth and stability of the new Lancastrian dynasty. Coupled with her Breton dower, this grant made Joan exceptionally wealthy. She administered this wealth herself and is known to have held councils and conducted her business at Westminster Palace.
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Joan was an adept financial manager who excelled in increasing her wealth – although a less pleasant side of her character emerges in stories of her stripping the estates of children in her wardship.
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Joan appears to have found happiness in the husband and family she acquired through her second marriage and was quickly on good terms with her stepchildren. In spite of this, she was not popular in England and often found herself censured for her links to Brittany and foreign birth. A parliament in 1404 ordered that all foreigners be removed from the royal households, with the exception of Joan’s two daughters.
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Joan, who appears to have tried to conform, complied with this order and was eventually allowed to keep several Bretons in her household. However, in 1406 parliament once again ordered that foreigners be removed from her household and Joan was compelled to send her daughters back to Brittany.
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Joan appears to have accepted all of parliament’s demands, but the loss of her daughters must have hit her hard. She must have quickly realised that she would always be criticised for her birth and her foreign first marriage but these were not things which could be changed. As Eleanor of Provence and Eleanor of Castile had found before her, the circumstances of a queen’s birth could be disadvantageous.