Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II (2 page)

Of course there were tensions. The Catholic Church was an international power but national aspirations did surface. The popes had to fight a continuing battle with the kings of England over the control of the national Church and the comprehensive social message it preached. Edward I, and his son Edward II, were both drawn into this conflict as they strove to keep united, under their own personal rule, the disparate, and often conflicting, sectional interests of their kingdom.

Edward I strove for uniformity and union and had the personality and strength of character to carry this through. He launched a devastating war on Wales to bring the principality under the direct rule of the English Crown and to establish his borders on the edge of the Irish Sea. The Welsh princes, including the principal chieftain, Llewellyn, were caught and executed, their tribes crushed and a string of powerful castles, controlled by Marcher (or border) barons such as the de Spencers and Mortimers, would keep the country in subjection.

Edward now turned to Scotland where conflicting rival claims to the crown allowed him to intervene, first as the ‘honest broker’ and then as the powerful prince and conquering king. In 1286, King Alexander III of Scotland had taken a mortal fall whilst riding through a storm to visit his new queen. His only heir was his granddaughter Margaret, whose father was the King of Norway. Edward
immediately suggested that his son, Edward II, and the Maid of Norway be betrothed and marry. He got his way but in October 1290, the young girl, en route to Scotland, died on board ship and her corpse was taken back to Bergen. The death of the Maid of Norway thus dragged the English Crown into a savage, bloody war with Scotland. Edward supported a number of claimants to the Scottish throne but his long-term goal was the annexation of that kingdom and its absorption under the English Crown, just as he had achieved in Wales.

In the end Scotland proved a hard nut to crack. A group of astute war leaders, William Wallace, Archbishop Wishart of Glasgow and finally Robert the Bruce, reduced the Plantaganet’s ambitions to nothing. The recent film
Braveheart
vividly describes the bloody savagery of Edward’s war in Scotland: in that sense the film is accurate. Scotland was turned into a battlefield, its cities burnt, and its nobles became partisan fighters hiding out in the woods and glens.

Edward’s vision remained quite simple: one king ruling over a united realm, whose writ could run in Cornwall, London, North Wales, Dublin or Edinburgh. Naturally such a drive for centralization provoked its own reaction. Wales was conquered but Scotland rejected Edward’s vision and fought for its own. Edward was a medieval king, aware of his own fiefdom which, in his view, not only included England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales but also the Duchy of Gascony, that great prosperous wine-growing area centred around the town of Bordeaux in south-west France. Gascony was vital to English interests, not only as a relic of the great Angevin empire of Henry II, but also because of the increasing profits from its rich fertile vineyards.

In France, however, the same beliefs held sway: the Capetian Philip IV, through his council of ministers and different ‘Parlements’, also tried to impose his autocratic vision of what his kingdom should be. Naturally, two such strong kings clashed over every aspect of influence: the Church, international status and, above all, the English duchy of Gascony. Philip IV dreamed of bringing that prosperous area of south-west France under the direct control of the Capets. At the same time, Philip and Edward had to pay public lip-service to the idea of an international lasting peace brokered by the papacy. Their rivalry, coupled with the desire to be seen as acting as one, led to the idea of an alliance by blood between the two most powerful ruling houses of Europe. The marriage of Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip IV, and Prince Edward I’s son, originated from these conflicting ideals. It is hardly surprising that this much-vaunted marriage, far from resolving conflict, only exacerbated it, both in their respective kingdoms and beyond.

‘. . . We ask you to send our beloved son in Christ, your son Edward, Prince of Wales with an appropriate retinue of Prelates and Magnates and prudent men . . . for contracting the marriage treaty between himself and the daughter of the aforesaid King of France . . .’

Clement V to Edward I, 25 August 1305

I
sabella was a fairy-tale princess. The chroniclers attest to her loveliness, to her beautiful blonde hair, which she inherited from her father, Philip Le Bel, and her slightly arabic features from her mother Johanna of Navarre. We have no accurate pictorial representation of Isabella; however, her face and striking features are faithfully represented by a carved statue which decorates John of Eltham’s tomb, her second son, in Westminster Abbey.
¹

Isabella was born in 1296, the only surviving daughter of Philip IV, nicknamed ‘The Beautiful’, of France. She was twelve when she married Edward II and left her father’s court. Little evidence remains about her early life, only a few fragments concerning grants to the princess and her dependants, but scarcely enough to build a coherent
picture of her life at the French court, be it the Louvre Palace or the other royal residences in and around the Île de France. She was the youngest of Philip and Johanna’s four children and, like her three brothers, Louis, Philip and Charles, Isabella was used as a powerful political pawn by her father in extending his own influence both in France and across Europe.
²

Philip IV was no nationalist but he had a clear and distinctive view of the power and influence due to his own dynasty, the House of Capet. Philip, flattered by his lawyers, William of Nogaret and Peter Dubois, saw himself as a second Charlemagne, a king who would dominate Europe: the western borders of France would be extended to the Rhine; Philip would bring under his control those small squabbling countries to the north – Flanders and Hainault; the powerful independent fiefs of Burgundy and Brittainy would be annexed. Above all, he would wrest from the English Crown the remains of its great Angevin empire. John of England had lost most of this in the thirteenth century but two strategic areas remained: the counties of Ponthieu and Montreuil in northern France and the wine-rich duchy of Gascony.
³

Philip IV’s great-grandfather was St Louis and, in Philip’s eyes, this saintly king made the entire Capetian line sacred, superior to all ruling dynasties, including the papacy. Philip’s foreign policy, a mixture of skilful administration and brutal force, met with varying degrees of success. His three sons were married off to powerful, wealthy French heiresses but, when he couldn’t achieve diplomatic success through marriage, Philip used both sword and trickery, as he did against the English-held duchy of Gascony. The status of that duchy, and the relationship of its Duke, the
English king, to the French Crown had been defined by the Treaty of Paris in 1259. Essentially, the Treaty caused more problems than solutions, the principal difficulty being that the King of France was, in theory if not practice, the overlord of his Duchy and could insist on treating its Duke, the King of England, as a vassal. In 1292–3 Philip adopted a war-like stance over certain Gascon problems and tricked Edward I of England into surrendering the duchy into French hands pending a resolution of their difficulties. Edward I, more than a match for Philip’s wiles, only agreed to this because his military commanders informed him that, if Philip launched an all-out war against the duchy, they would not be able to defend it. Edward, facing serious difficulties in Scotland at the time, agreed to its surrender. Philip, of course, refused to hand it back and both countries drifted into armed confrontation.

Philip’s long-term plan was not to hold the duchy for ever; this would inevitably lead to war and he had other matters to settle. In 1297, Philip persuaded Edward to submit their dispute to the arbitration of Pope Boniface VIII. Philip and the papacy had clashed before. The French king put pressure on the Pope and, in 1298, the hapless Boniface VIII issued his arbitration. The duchy of Gascony should be returned to the English Crown; a lasting peace would be signed between England and France, sealed by the marriage of the widowed Edward I to Philip IV’s sister Margaret, whilst the French king’s two-year-old daughter, Isabella, would be betrothed to the Prince of Wales.
⁴

Philip was delighted. He had not only achieved his own ambitions but blocked Edward I’s attempt to build up a coalition in northern Europe through his own system of marriage alliances. Edward’s daughter, Elizabeth, had
married Count Flores I of Holland whilst another daughter, Eleanor, had married the Duke of Bar, who controlled territory on France’s northern border. More importantly, Edward had hoped to thwart France’s ambitions over the Low Countries by secretly marrying his heir, the Prince of Wales, to Guy of Flanders’ daughter. Philip obtained assurances from Edward that he would not accept a Flemish princess for his son but Philip trusted no one; just to make sure, he seized the Flemish princess concerned and incarcerated her until her death. Some claim she died of natural causes, others hint that Philip was not above using more subtle means to eliminate an opponent and the Flemish princess may have died from poisoning. Indeed, Philip IV had won such a reputation for secret intrigue, that the same chronicler even accused him of removing his wife and Queen, Johanna of Navarre, for his own nefarious purposes.
⁵

By 1298 Philip believed he had checked not only Edward but other potential opponents. He had also created a power which ensured that Capetian influence was felt in all the courts of Europe, especially England. One day his grandson would sit on Edward the Confessor’s throne at Westminster. Another grandson would be created Duke of Gascony, thus detaching that rich province from the English Crown and making its long-term absorption into the Capetian patrimony all the more likely. France’s northern borders would be protected from Edward I’s meddling whilst the marriage alliances of his sons could eventually extend Philip’s power from the Rhine to the Atlantic.

Philip adopted a ‘belt and braces’ attitude to his daughter’s marriage. Edward had only one male living heir. If the young Prince of Wales, or the infant Isabella, died before
the marriage took place, Philip had an insurance policy. The marriage of his sister Margaret to the widowed Edward I would ensure some success and guarantee that if a grandson didn’t inherit the English throne, a nephew would do just as well: this marriage, too, would be an integral part of any peace process.

Isabella’s later conduct as Queen proves how the best-laid plans often go awry. However, in 1298 Edward I probably hoped for the same. He had been forced to accept the papal arbitration. He was facing baronial opposition to his war taxes at home, whilst his attempts to conquer Scotland had dragged England into a bitter guerrilla warfare which was draining the English Crown of men and resources. Edward I’s motto was ‘Keep Faith’ but he never explained to
whom
he should keep faith. Marriages might be made in heaven, the papacy might describe the Anglo-French Treaty as a great, diplomatic, God-ordained triumph, but Edward I resolved that, if the opportunity presented itself, he would keep Gascony and marry his heir to someone else. In the meantime he publicly accepted the papal decree and sent letters full of fraternal greetings to ‘his sweet cousin’ Philip of France; secretly, Edward spent considerable energy plotting his escape from Philip’s trap.

At first Edward met with little success. The papal arbitration was quite explicit: the marriages must go ahead or Philip would keep Gascony. Edward played along. On 12 May 1299 he despatched envoys to complete the arrangements for his marriage to Margaret and that of his heir to Princess Isabella. On the 19 June 1299, under papal auspices, Edward reluctantly put his seal to a marriage treaty. Isabella would marry his son. Edward would assign her dowry lands in England and France and Philip would
pay a marriage portion of
£
18,000. The treaty made it very clear: ‘no marriage, no Gascony’. Philip knew what his ‘sweet cousin’ Edward was plotting so he demanded that prominent members of the Gascon nobility take an oath to renounce allegiance to England if either Edward, or his heir, repudiated Isabella’s marriage. Edward, shocked at such open distrust of his promises, committed Philip to paying a fine of
£
100,000, a veritable fortune, if he in turn reneged on Isabella’s marriage. In addition, the English demanded that Isabella’s mother Queen Johanna, and others of Philip’s family, also took the most solemn oath, promising they would do everything to ensure the marriage took place. However, in 1298 Isabella was only two years old. Time was on Edward’s side. Philip, too, realized there was ‘many a slip twixt cup and lip’; Gascony was restored piecemeal but Philip kept the powerful castle of Mauleon as an ‘open door’ should Edward repudiate the treaty.

The two kings now circled one another like experienced swordsmen, each looking for an opening. Philip’s dream was to have his young daughter married and Gascony detached from the English Crown. Edward hoped to stifle opposition at home, crush the Scottish rebels under Wallace and extricate himself from his own diplomatic predicament. Ostensibly both kings followed the protocols: charming and affectionate letters were exchanged. They addressed each other as ‘sweet kinsmen’, ‘brothers’. Gifts were despatched, envoys met but little real progress was made on the marriage.
⁶

Isabella was only six years old when her mother died in rather mysterious circumstances in 1302. Like many royal children, particularly princesses, she was relegated to the
nursery, looked after by servants and kept well away from the main stream of court life. Moreover, although Edward I married Margaret, neither the English king nor his heir showed any interest in young Isabella. There are no records of any letters sent or gifts despatched. Communication between the French and English courts was quite regular but very little reference was made to Isabella, apart from the fact that she had been chosen to marry the Prince of Wales.