Isabella of France
Did the French queen really usurp Edward II to claim England as her own?
Did this queen of England really desire power above all things?
One of the most notorious figures in English history, Isabella of France has been described as a ‘shadow queen’, a ‘rebel queen’ and the ‘She-wolf of France’. The only queen to have rebelled against her husband, Isabella lived in a time when female power was viewed as a threat – and she was willing to do whatever it took to fight for what was rightfully hers.
Isabella was born in Paris around 1295, the daughter of King Philip IV of France and Queen Joan I of Navarre. Like all royal princesses, she was a political pawn raised with the expectation that her marriage would secure a foreign alliance. In 1299, when Isabella was three or four, it was decided she would marry Edward of Caernarfon, King Edward I of England’s heir. The betrothal was part of the Treaty of Montreuil, a peace agreement between the two countries.
The marriage took place in Boulogne on 25 January 1308, with Edward travelling across the English Channel for the ceremony. At just 12 years old, Isabella was still a child while her new husband – who had succeeded his late father as king the previous year – was around 11 years her senior. As a wedding gift, Edward gave his young bride a richly illuminated psalter, which included a depiction of a queen (most likely Isabella herself) kneeling between the coats of arms of England and France.
Exactly one month after their wedding, the newlywed couple were crowned together in a joint coronation ceremony held at Westminster Abbey. Isabella had been raised to be the queen of England and the coronation should have been a joyous occasion. Yet there was one person whose presence likely soured this moment for the new queen. His name? Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall.
Gaveston, who had joined Edward’s household while the latter was still a prince, was the king’s favourite and their close relationship had sparked rumours that they were lovers.
At the coronation, it was Gaveston who carried the king’s crown into the Abbey, reflecting his importance to Edward and his influence on the king. To make matters worse, at the coronation feast the king apparently showed more interest in spending time with his favourite than with his new queen.
Although Isabella was young, she was highly intelligent and she would have known exactly what was expected of her: to be a dutiful wife, a loyal queen and, one day, mother to a future king. But she would have also known how she should have been treated as a queen. Her treatment at the coronation, just one month into their reign, was an inauspicious start.
With Gaveston’s presence and, indeed, Edward’s penchant for male favourites, it is commonly assumed that Isabella endured an unhappy marriage with the king from the very beginning. However, the fact that they ultimately had four
“EDWARD’S TREATMENT OF ISABELLA AT THE CORONATION, JUST ONE MONTH INTO THEIR REIGN, WAS AN INAUSPICIOUS START”
children together – Edward, John, Eleanor and Joan – suggests that this assumption is untrue.
Edward also famously saved his wife while they were paying a visit to France in 1313. During their stay, a fire broke out in their tent and Edward carried Isabella, both of them completely naked, to safety. Edward’s heroic actions that night were deemed by contemporaries as an act of love.
Playing the supportive wife and queen, Isabella tolerated Gaveston and they managed to co-exist with one another. Nevertheless, Edward’s relationship with Gaveston still caused issues with the English barons. These barons, led by Edward’s cousin Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, opposed Gaveston’s influence and power, especially because it greatly diminished their own.
The situation had already been strained when Isabella first arrived in England, but the simmering tensions finally boiled over in 1311 after Edward led a failed military campaign against Scotland.
That October, 21 barons drafted the Ordinances, a series of regulations that not only restricted Edward’s power but demanded that Gaveston be banished. The king accepted these demands and sent Gaveston into exile, only to have him return shortly afterwards. Infuriated, Lancaster and the barons decided to deal with Gaveston themselves once and for all.
Edward, wanting to protect his favourite, fled north with Gaveston and Isabella as the barons gave chase – at this point, the queen was pregnant. The three of them ended up being separated, with Edward and Isabella heading to York while Gaveston was in Scarborough, where he was captured by the barons. Found guilty of being a traitor, Gaveston was executed on 19 June under the orders of Lancaster. Five months later, Isabella gave birth to her first child and son, Edward, at Windsor Castle.
The death of Gaveston gave Isabella the chance to enter the political arena, as she encouraged peace between her husband
and the barons to avoid a civil war. However, Gaveston’s death did little to bridge the growing divide between the barons and their king. Devastated over the loss of his favourite, Edward vowed to get revenge on those responsible. Isabella and Edward’s aforementioned visit to France in 1313 had been made in the hope of securing the support of the queen’s French relatives against the English barons.
Despite this, Edward found himself stuck after he suffered a humiliating defeat against Robert the Bruce and the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, a key victory on the road to Scottish independence. The king needed Lancaster’s support to help keep England’s northern borders safe, and soon enough the earl had increased his power to the point where he was effectively running the country. (Although ironically, he also turned out to be rather useless at governing.) The following year saw the emergence of the Great Famine that swept through Europe and decimated the English population, fuelling more discontent with the king.
Amid all this chaos was Isabella. With Gaveston dead, she should have assumed her rightful place by her husband’s side, but unfortunately for her the king had found himself another male favourite. Hugh Despenser the Younger, as well as his father, had worked their way into becoming Edward’s close advisers since Gaveston’s death.
Gaveston had been a tolerable thorn in Isabella’s side, but the Despensers were a much bigger problem. The younger Despenser was made royal chamberlain in 1318, a position that had previously been held by Gaveston and allowed plenty of access to the king. Again, it’s believed Edward and Despenser may have been lovers.
Edward had failed to learn from his experience with Gaveston and his flagrant favouritism for the Despensers antagonised
Lancaster and the barons. In 1321, they threatened the king and demanded that the Despensers be exiled. The king, too reliant on his favourites, did not want to banish them. Once again taking on a conciliatory role to prevent an outbreak of war, Isabella went down on her knees and asked her husband to banish the Despensers. The king outwardly agreed but he had every intention of bringing the Despensers back as soon as possible.
With a truce between the two factions agreed, Isabella embarked on a pilgrimage to Canterbury in October 1321. During her return to London she arrived at Leeds Castle in Kent expecting to stay there. However, the castle belonged to Baron Badlesmere, who’d joined Lancaster and his fellow rebels in opposing the king. Badlesmere’s wife, Margaret de Clare, refused to let Isabella enter.
Enraged, Isabella ordered her men to force their way into the castle and, in response Margaret ordered her archers in the garrison to fire on the queen’s men. For Edward, this was the perfect justification for waging war on his enemies. He argued that refusing entry to the queen and the attack on her men was an act of treason and he laid siege to the castle. Margaret was forced to surrender and she was thrown into the Tower of London alongside her children, while some of her men were executed.
Considering that Isabella took a detour from the usual pilgrimage route to stop at Leeds Castle, it has been speculated that she may have stopped there to give her husband a reason to attack his enemies. It could have been a deliberate decision or Edward may have advised her to stay there without telling her the reason why. Regardless, the king was now in a strong enough position to recall the Despensers from exile.
Six months later, Edward secured victory at the Battle of Boroughbridge and captured his foremost enemy, Lancaster. Charged with treason, Lancaster was executed and with his death the king was finally able to rid himself of the Ordinances that had restricted his power for a decade. Edward – and the Despensers – were back in control. Unsurprisingly, the king used his newfound position of strength to pursue his enemies and exact revenge for their continued rebellion. Nobody, not even the women or
“GAVESTON HAD BEEN A TOLERABLE THORN IN ISABELLA’S SIDE, BUT THE DESPENSERS WERE A MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM”
“EDWARD’S REFUSAL TO BANISH DESPENSER WAS THE DEATH KNELL TO ANY CHANCE THAT THE KING AND QUEEN HAD OF RECONCILING”
children, was spared from Edward and the Despensers’ wrath, much to Isabella’s dismay.
The incident at Leeds Castle with Isabella had given Edward the justification he needed to go after his enemies. Yet instead of being rewarded, Isabella was further alienated from her husband. The younger Despenser did whatever he could to intervene in their relationship and limit Isabella’s access to her husband, thereby weakening the possibility of her exercising any influence of her own. The queen despised and distrusted Despenser and by the end of 1322 she had chosen to live separately from her husband, leaving him with his favourite.
Relations between England and France reached another low in 1324 over Gascony, which belonged to Edward. As the Duke of Aquitaine, Edward was supposed to pay homage to King Charles IV, Isabella’s brother, but he resisted. Frustrated, Charles declared that Edward had forfeited his lands and he seized Gascony.
Edward found himself in a difficult situation, as the tensions between the Despensers and the barons had once again worsened and he felt unable to leave the country amidst the instability. He responded to Charles’ seizing his territory by arresting all of the French people who were living in England, treating them as unwelcome aliens in the country. Isabella, of course, was French and this gave Despenser the ammunition he needed to take her lands and arrest her household.
It is debated whether Edward and Despenser also removed Isabella’s youngest children from her custody. While it was not unusual for royal children to be relocated with other noble families, the fact that it occurred amid tensions with France and that they were placed with the Despensers, whom Isabella hated, certainly means it was possible. Either way, Despenser had made his move against the queen and for Isabella there was no going back.
With tensions between England and France reaching boiling point, Isabella was sent as an ambassador to the French court to negotiate with her brother. She was the ideal candidate, not only because she was the French king’s sister but because she had served as an ambassador to France on several previous occasions. As she was the queen and a woman, Edward and Despenser were assured that she would obey them and remain loyal to their interests.
Arriving in Paris in March 1325, Isabella quickly secured a truce with Charles and she convinced Edward to send their son, Prince Edward, to France to pay homage to her brother. But the moment Prince Edward arrived on French soil, everything changed. Now that her son was within her control, Isabella finally had the power to negotiate with her husband and demand her rightful place by his side.
In a bold move, she publicly refused Edward’s request for her to return to England with their son. Instead, she declared: “I feel that marriage is a union of a man and a woman, holding fast to the practice of a life together, and that someone has come between my husband and myself and is trying to break this bond. I declare that I will not return until this intruder is removed, but, discarding my marriage garment, shall put on the robes of widowhood and mourning until I am avenged of this Pharisee.”
Isabella’s speech, recorded in the chronicle Vita Edwardi Secundi, was clear – she wanted Despenser gone or she would not return. Unfortunately, Edward was by now so dependent on his favourite that he denied her request. His refusal to banish Despenser was the death knell to any chance that the king and queen had of reconciling.
Not only was Isabella openly estranged from her husband, but rumours swirled that she was engaging in an affair with a man named Roger Mortimer. A soldier and a politician who had openly rebelled against Edward, Mortimer had been imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1322 for his revolt, before he managed to escape and flee to France in exile with other rebels.
Did Isabella and Mortimer have an affair? Nobody knows for sure, with little evidence to prove or disprove their relationship. One clear thing, however, is that a partnership between them was mutually beneficial. Mortimer still opposed Edward’s rule and he was capable of leading an invasion of English shores.
As for Isabella, since Edward would not rid himself of Despenser then she would, even if that meant deposing her husband in favour of their son. By positioning herself as a widow whose marriage had come to an end because of Despenser, Isabella had set the stage to justify both her decision to remain in France, under her brother’s protection, and to remove an anointed king from his throne. Furthermore, the welfare and peace of the kingdom were at stake.
In a politically shrewd move, Isabella arranged for her son’s betrothal to his second cousin, Philippa of Hainault. For his daughter’s dowry, William, Count of Hainault, provided the troops and ships that were crucial for Isabella and Mortimer’s plot to overthrow Edward. With their forces, Isabella and Mortimer set sail on 22 September 1326, landing in England two days later.
As Isabella, dressed in widow’s clothes, and Mortimer progressed inland their supporters grew, buoyed by the promise that the queen would remove her tyrannous husband and install their son as the new king. Along the way, they were joined by the Earl of Norfolk and the Henry, Earl of Lancaster, the brother of the previous earl. The elder Despenser was captured during Isabella and Mortimer’s siege of Bristol and later executed.
Realising that their support had dissipated, Edward and Despenser went on the run but they were finally captured in Wales on 16 November. With Despenser at her mercy, Isabella took her revenge on the man who had actively sidelined her and sentenced him to death. Despenser’s end certainly reflected Isabella’s hatred for him as he was dragged through the streets naked before he was hanged, drawn and quartered. As for Edward, he was placed in Lancaster’s custody while his fate was decided.
In January 1327, Parliament declared that Edward had to abdicate his throne in favour of his 14-year-old son Prince Edward. Forced to relinquish his crown, Edward supposedly wept as he signed his abdication to confirm the legality of his deposition, becoming the first anointed king to lose his throne in over 300 years.
On the 25th, Edward III became king of England and his coronation was held one week later.
Since the new king was still a minor, he needed a regency council to run the country on his behalf until he could assume his personal rule. Although Isabella and Mortimer were not members of the regency council, they were controlling it behind the scenes as the ones wielding the real power.
Meanwhile, Edward II – who had remained in custody ever since his forced abdication – died at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire on 21 September 1327. While he was alive, he remained a very real threat to the new regime and there had been several failed attempts to rescue him from his imprisonment. Even so, whether Isabella or Mortimer ordered his death cannot be said for certain and this is still debated today. Another theory suggests that Edward may have escaped in disguise and fled to Europe.
Isabella and Mortimer had succeeded in their goal to remove a disastrous and inept king. But, in an ironic twist, they began indulging in the same behaviour that Edward and Despenser had been loathed for. With their new power, they began awarding themselves lands and accumulating wealth from the royal treasury to fund their extravagant lifestyle.
Aside from the lavish spending, Isabella and Mortimer became unpopular for reaching a peace agreement with Scotland. The wars with Scotland during Edward II’S reign had been both costly
“IN AN IRONIC TWIST, ISABELLA AND MORTIMER BEGAN INDULGING IN THE SAME BEHAVIOUR THAT EDWARD AND DESPENSER HAD BEEN LOATHED FOR”
and unsuccessful and Isabella wanted to bring the conflict to an end. The Treaty of Northampton, signed in 1328, recognised Robert the Bruce as king of Scotland as well as Scotland’s independence.
While concluding a war peacefully would usually be seen as a diplomatic triumph, Isabella and Mortimer’s agreement with Scotland caused outrage in England, with the nobles considering it shameful and humiliating. Isabella, who had been hailed by some as a heroine who had saved the nation from her husband, found herself subject to the very same hatred that had once been directed at him.
Edward III himself had become increasingly frustrated with his mother and Mortimer’s continued hold on power. He had married Philippa in 1328 and in June 1330 she had given birth to their first child and son, Edward of Woodstock. Now 17 and with his own heir, Edward III was ready to take control of his kingdom.
Realising that her son was turning against her, Isabella moved to Nottingham Castle with Mortimer and their men for protection. However, on 19 October Edward’s troops successfully entered the castle through a secret tunnel and Mortimer was arrested. After just four years, Isabella’s regency had come to an ignominious end.
Mortimer was hanged at Tyburn for the murder of Edward II, as well as usurping the king’s power. Isabella was spared the same fate and instead she was placed under house arrest and forced to give up all the lands and money that she had granted herself during the regency. However, she was not kept in custody for long.
Although she had lost her grip on power and never entered the political arena again, Isabella was able to retire in comfort and she lived luxuriously, spending much of her time at Castle Rising in Norfolk. Remaining an influential figure at the English court, her son even provided her with an annual income of £3000, which was later increased to £4500. Isabella died at Hertford Castle on 22 August 1358 and was buried in Newgate.
There is no denying that Isabella was and remains a controversial figure. Her rebellion against Edward II, the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death as well as her short time as regent have all tainted her reputation, turning her into a traitor. While Isabella was far from perfect and she made mistakes, it is worth remembering that she was also a formidable woman whose bravery changed the course of English history forever.