You cannot blame a hundred years war on a
12 year old girl.
But you could perhaps blame William the
Conqueror. When he took over the English throne in 1066 he retained possession
of the Duchy of Normandy in France. Under feudal law, this meant that he and
all future English kings owed homage to the king of France for their lands on
the other side of the Channel.
The situation was always going to be a
stone in the shoe of both monarchs.
Two hundred and fifty years later, Isabella’s
marriage to Edward II of England was an effort to resolve the problem. Instead,
it made it much worse.
Born in 1295, Isabella was the only
surviving daughter of the wonderfully named Philippe the Handsome of France. At
3 years old, she was already being proposed as the bride for the King of
England’s eldest son, Edward, to smooth negotiations for the Anglo-French truce
of 1299.
Phillipe was not just a pretty face - he
was thinking ahead; his own dynasty was secure - after all, he had three
healthy sons. And if his daughter married England’s son, then his grandson
would be King of England one day.
It must have seemed like a good idea at
the time.
Edward was ten years older than his bride
when they married. He was the youngest of fifteen children and his mother had
died when he was 6. He had endured a miserable childhood and his father, the
formidable Longshanks, had taken little interest in him.
But with exquisite irony, Edward was the
only son to survive.
He lived in his father’s shadow then and
always would. For despite his strapping good looks he just wasn’t king
material. In fact he has been described by some historians as one of the most
unsuccessful kings ever to rule England.
He was certainly outfoxed by Isabella. In
1325, she left England to conduct delicate negotiations with France over
Gascony. She returned with a mercenary army and threw him off the throne.
By then her father was dead and two of
her brothers soon after him. Some blamed the curse laid at her father’s door by
Templar Grand Master Jaques Molay when Phillip burned him alive outside Notre
Dame cathedral. When her other brother
Charles died as well in 1328 there was no clear successor to the throne of France.
All three had died without a male heir.
Isabella transferred her claim to the
throne to her eldest son, Edward, and actively encouraged him to pursue it as
the closest living male relative of the late King Charles and the only
surviving male descendant of the senior line of her father’s Capetian dynasty.
By the English interpretation of feudal law, it made Edward III the legitimate
heir to the throne of France.
But the French didn’t see things this
way. Under France’s Salic law, males descended through the female line were
disqualified from the succession. Besides, the French didn’t want an English
king. So they crowned the dead king’s cousin, Charles of Valois, as their new
monarch.
Though Isabella’s reign as regent of
England was short - her son removed her and executed her lover when he was just
eighteen - she continued to have great influence at court and kept up a healthy
correspondence with all of Europe’s leading figures. She persuaded Edward to
pursue his claims with full vigour. In 1337 Edward refused to pay homage to the
French king for his lands in Aquitaine - so the French confiscated them. In
modern parlance hostilities escalated from there.
The dispute led to the Hundred Years War
- although the name is actually a later invention of historians, as it was
actually three separate wars divided by periods of truce. From it grew the
legends of Joan of Arc, Agincourt and the Black Prince.
The war had consequences Isabella could not
have foreseen for her beloved France. The country was devastated by the war -
it lost half its population - and
spurred the growth of nationalism on both sides. It also brought about the fall
of the French language in England, which had served as the language of the
nobility and trade from the time of the Norman Conquest.
Yet it had all started with a marriage
that was supposed to bring a lasting peace.
It was inevitable really, from that day
in 1066 when Harold caught the arrow in his eye. Or was it Jacques de Molay’s
curse?
It was only ironic that a woman who so
prided herself on being a daughter of France so much should bear the son who
started the war that brought her country to its knees.
ISABELLA, Braveheart of France, available
now from Amazon US and Amazon
UK
And also available as POD from Cool Gus publishing.
