#5.
Queen Catherine of Valois
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Although, being the: Daughter of King Charles le Fol or le Fou (the mad) of France, the Queen Consort of King Henry V of England and the Mother of King King Henry VI should have earned her a place in Medieval English history in and of itself, it is her activities as Dowager Queen of England that cause me to add the title "uppity" to her, already impressive, resume. Fortunately, for the English, it was the madness of her father in randomly killing a bunch of his own nobles and her marriage to King Henry V which allowed the latter (the son of a treacherous, usurping, tyrant with no legitimate claim to either the thrones of England or France) to somehow become the most celebrated English Monarch among bellicose English patriots. These facts alone win her a place in Medieval English History.
Unfortunately for the English, her father's madness appears to have been genetic ...
This was, naturally, a major factor in France regaining all of the territories won by King Henry V and King Edward III in the Hundred Years' War within six years of King Henry VI coming into his majority leaving the English with nothing but a devastated landscape and a bankrupted treasury to show for a century of war. King Henry V is often remembered alongside King Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor as one of the most celebrated monarchs in English history. His son, however, usually ranks somewhere in between King John Lackland and King Ethelred the Unready as perhaps the worst King ever to wear the crown. This is reminiscent of another father and son team of world leaders I can think of some 500 years later.
Madness of Charles VI: crossing the forest of Le Mans on an expedition against Pierre de Craon, the king, brandishing a sword, mistakes the members of his retinue for enemies and attacks them.
All that aside, following the death of King Henry V, only two months before he would have assumed the throne of France, Queen Catherine did something quite amazing which would change English history in such a way that the ramifications of it are still felt today. Defying the rigid class system of the Middle Ages and over the strong objections of her family, the widowed queen "secretly married (read 'shacked up with')" an obscure Welsh courtier named Owen Tudor with whom she co founded the Tudor Dynasty who are widely regarded as having brought England into the Modern Age and even enabled the first English Queen Regent to rule in her own right.
It seems like a fairly small step, however, in an age where noble-women were little more than trading cards to be brokered about in arranged marriages for the purposes of gaining political advantage, Catherine chose for herself who to marry and, judging by their progeny, it was a darn good choice too. By not allowing royal authority and social conventions dictate her personal affairs Catherine made England a more pleasant place to live ... And it was about time too!
#4.
Lady Margaret Beaufort
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While Queen Catherine of Valois certainly deserves to be remembered as the Matriarch of the Tudor Dynasty that title is already occupied by this other amazing women from the Late Feudal Period. She is mostly remembered for her shoddy treatment of the Dowager Queen Elizabeth Woodville in her role as Queen mother during the reign of King Henry VII of England but it is often forgotten that Henry Tudor would never have been King were it not for Margaret having taken the initiative to conspire with the Woodvilles to overthrow the usurping Richard III.
Henry Tudor was of illegitimate extraction on both sides of his family and had no claim to the throne apart from his marriage to Elizabeth of York which his mother, Margaret Beaufort, arranged, at great risk to herself while in "honorable custody." She also pulled a lot of strings behind the scenes in the concluding years of the Wars of the Roses. This was no small task and the implications for world history were profound.
With Henry VII on the throne this represented not only an end to the destructive Wars of the Roses but the end of the entire Feudal Period itself in England which had been a disastrous for all its' people. The rise of the Tudors meant that there was now a monarchy who actually concerned itself with running the country efficiently, as opposed engaging in disastrous rivalries and wars of conquest as their Plantagenet Predecessors had done, and it was only possible because Lady Margaret Beaufort chose to insert herself into the politics of the day at a time when it was unthinkable for a woman do so.
#3.
Empress Matilda
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Matilda or, Maud, is sometimes listed as an UK Monarch which is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself considering that 1135 falls almost exactly smack dab in the middle of the age of chauvinism known as The High Middle Ages. Unfortunately, she never managed to reign as Queen Regent in her own right but she did found a dynasty which held the throne for over 330 years. By far, this was the longest period of time that a single family wore the crown in England and it was largely through her efforts that this dysfunctional family managed to take control of England making the history of the English monarchy one of the most interesting stories of dynastic succession of all time. I will grant you that is not saying much.Matilda, it could be said, was not born into greatness but rather had it cast upon her. In 1100 AD the English King King Henry I had ... um ... shall we say "borrowed" the English Crown without asking for it upon the death of his brother King William Rufus in a "hunting accident." In 1066 England had been conquered by the Norman French under Duke William the Bastard. Although, King Henry I was the son of King William I there were better claims, both Norman and Anglo-Saxon, to the English crown.
But Henry I was, and this was almost unique for a world leader at that time in history, very intelligent. Knowing that the Normans would never support his claim to the throne he instead turned to the "hitherto despised Anglo-Saxon populace (in the words of Historian David Starkey)" and decided he would try and settle the claims of The House of Wessex by marrying Edith of Scotland the great-granddaughter of the Anglo-Saxon King Edmund Ironsides. Under Feudal Law all property and claims to property held by a woman automatically passed to her husband. And so it was that Henry I was able to sire an heir to the throne who embodied the new spirit of Anglo-Norman cooperation ushering in an era of peace and prosperity which would last four centuries or more making England the happiest place on the planet, lucky them.
I'm just kidding, the next four centuries were a time of great misery for the English characterized by: plague,
rebellion, political assassination and religious persecution. And it all started with the period known as The Anarchy ... A time, said The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, when "men said openly that Christ and his angels slept."
On a side note, Henry I did lead Anglo-Saxon troops in a stunning conquest of Normandy on September 28, 1106 (the 40th Anniversary of his father's Conquest of England) in the acclaimed Battle of Tinchebray but he didn't bother to have a tapestry embroidered so most are ignorant of this great table-turning event in history.
At the time of King Henry I's death his only legitimate heir (although he had upwards of 23 illegitimate ones) was our heroine, his daughter Maud, now calling herself Empress Matilda by virtue of being the widow of a Holy Roman Emperor. To his credit Henry insisted that she be allowed to inherit the realm but in 1135 it would have been unthinkable for a woman to act as regent in her own right. There were also questions about Henry's marriage to Queen Edith as she had been removed from a nunnery at the time of her betrothal and Cannon Law prohibited marriage to a professed nun.
So it was that the barons and other nobles crowned William the Conqueror's other surviving grandchild Stephen of Blois as the fourth and final Norman King of England. Steven was, frankly, a rather weak character whom the barons knew that they could manipulate. This fact alone was responsible for the nearly two decades of misery and disaster which were about to be bestowed upon the English populace ... The afore mentioned Great Anarchy whilst Jesus & co. were taking a nap.
Undeterred, Matilda raised an army and may have actually reigned as Queen for a few short weeks. For the next nineteen years England was devastated by civil war and anarchy soon followed as the barons had no intention of obeying royal decrees from a putz like Steven and began carving out tiny baronial statelets for themselves where they were "answerable to no one but God (which is the same as saying that the barons were answerable to no one at all in my opinion)."
Sadly, Matilda was never able to wrench the crown from the head of King Steven, however, when Steven died heirless in 1154 her son was crowned King Henry II and went on to do wonderful things like: crushing the anarchy, establishing the Common Law and "accidentally" murdering the Archbishop of Canterbury (his greatest achievement in my opinion).
#2.
Eleanor of Aquitaine
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Having been the wife of two kings, King Henry II of England and King Louis VII of France as well as the mother of two kings, King Richard the Lionheart and King John Lackland, it would be sinful to leave Queen Eleanor off from any list of influential Medieval women. And, yet, in many ways her story is one of the most colorful and tragic of them all. My generation will always remember her as the: bitter, scheming and manipulative antiheroine portrayed by Katharine Hepburn (who was a noted skeptic by the way) in the wonderfully comic yet, oddly, historically accurate classic film The Lion in Winter which if you have not seen I HIGHLY recommend. Although, I am about to ruin the ending for you since it was based in real history.
Queen Eleanor is also one of the few women from that period to have made it into the romantic literature about the time-period being a character of some interest in Sir Walter Scott's Victorian Classic Ivanhoe which was neither comical nor historically accurate but enduring nonetheless.
Elanor's story is not always a happy one. She spent about 20% of her life as a prisoner of her second husband King Henry II of England. Although, in many ways, a fine monarch, perhaps the greatest of all medieval princes, Henry was, nonetheless: a serial adulterer, ill-tempered and downright abusive as a husband and father. So it was that following the "accidental" murder of Thomas Becket, when the King was at his weakest, Queen Eleanor decided that she would have her revenge upon the "adulterous murderer king" by plotting his overthrow.
To add insult to injury she employed Henry's own sons in the plot convincing them that their father was plotting to cheat them out of their inheritances. This may very well have been true in light of what we know of the character of Henry II. The first two attempts at provoking civil war with Henry and his sons Henry the Young King and Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany went very badly resulting in both the death of her sons and her own imprisonment. But an alliance (and probable sexual relationship) which she had encouraged between her third son Richard the Lionheart and King Philippe Augustus of France proved too much for the old king.
Not only was Henry II defeated in battle but he then learned that Elenore had turned Henry's beloved baby son John Lackland (whom Henry had treated with unusual indulgence) against him, knowledge of which was said to have broken the old kings heart and was widely blamed for his premature death only two days after his defeat at the hands of Richard. The only family member to visit Henry II on his deathbed was his illegitimate son William de Longespee. His legitimate children were, said the old King, "the real bastards."
THE LION IN WINTER 'Eleanor's Arrival' -- 3 min 3 sec
Elenore most certainly had the last laugh in that she outlived her husband, who was a dozen years her junior, by fifteen years. The new King, Richard I, of course, released his mother from prison upon his ascension to the throne and then did something unprecedented. He left England barely to return for the entirety of his decade long reign as regent. "England," he lamented, "is cold and it rains all the time."
While, he did leave the Kingdom in the capable hands of Hubert Walter and everyone is aware of the usurpation of Bad King John (viz a viz the Robin Hood legend), power in England essentially remained in the hands of Elenore for most of the reign of King Richard and when Richard was imprisoned in Austria it was Elenore who raised his, substantial, ransom even pawning the crown jewels to make the initial payments since, the English having become accustomed to an absentee king, no one else was interested in securing his freedom.
Disney's Robin Hood -- 1 hr 27 min 50 seconds
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B7768E1B1F545784
Queen Elenore was an extraordinary women who exerted a great deal of political power at a time when the laws of the land were stacked against women accomplishing much of anything aside from getting married or becoming a nun (a difficult choice but I'm confident that I would choose the latter). There are those who would argue that her tactics do not speak well of powerful women but she was, in fact, no where near as unscrupulous as any of the great men of her time. She was both the quintessential woman of the High Middle Ages and a woman far ahead of her time ... Truly an "uppity" women of both grace and majesty worthy of a place alongside the great players in English Medieval history.
#1.
Queen Isabella of France
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Queen Isabella has earned the nickname "She-wolf of France" and, although she was admittedly cruel and vindictive, I cannot bring myself to accept this characterization of her owing to her instrumental role in negotiating the treaty of Northampton securing (temporary) national independence for my ancestors, the Scots.At present she is probably remembered most for her fictional portrayal in Mel Gibson's 1995 masterpiece Braveheart where she was played by the, beautiful and extremely talented actress Sophie Marceau.
Like most works of historical fiction, Braveheart contained a good deal of ahistoricity and, aside from the fact that she existed and was at some point married to the English King Edward II, all of the material in the film concerning Queen Isabella generally falls into that category.
The film depicts a sexual relationship between Isabella and Scotland's national hero William Wallace which simply could not have taken place. Had it occurred, in spite of being a proud patriot of Scottish decent, I would have to say that I would support Wallace's having been hanged, drawn and quartered at the hands of the "cruel pagan" King Edward I of England since Isabella would have been somewhere between three and ten years old at the time. But since it didn't actually take place:
DOWN WITH ENGLISH TYRANNY!!!
Kings and Queens were considered to have been anointed by God at that time so you couldn't just go and take a throne because you were strong enough to do so ... You needed to have a legitimate family claim to it. The church did not recognize usurpers as legitimate rulers under any circumstances and an unsanctioned Kingdom and six pence would buy you a stein of mead. Marriages among the noble houses of Europe were arranged in such a way that one house hoped to inherit a claim to the lands of another house and to stop that from happening. The French, however, refused to acknowledge Matrilineal succession under their interpretation of Feudal Law. Which was actually a little bit unfair since The Normans and Angevins inherited their claims matrilineally and God didn't strike them dead for invading England. God always liked France best ... Pooh!
Most of the French Wars would take place after Isabella's lifetime, however, it was her marriage to King Edward II which set the stage for the war since it was from her that King Henry V inherited a, flimsy, claim to the French Throne.
Isabella was the daughter of one French King and the sister of three others in addition to being Queen Consort of England. When the House of Capet died out due to excessive death during the reign of King Edward III of England this gave the English an excuse to declare war on France in order to snatch the throne for themselves. As mentioned above, the English King Henry VI was crowned king of France in 1422 after over a century of warfare, however, the English had no idea what to do with the crown once they had it so Henry just sort of gave it back following the appearance of Joan of Arc.
This is actually quite ironic because Isabella, and in fact the entire English nation, had nothing but contempt for her husband. Even today Edward's rumored homosexual affair with Piers Gaveston is something of a national joke. Also, Edward was a terribly ineffective military commander as evidenced by his being forced to retreat in the face of a scantly equipped, untrained Scottish army at Bannockburn.
Outnumbered and ill-equipped Scottish forces under Robert the Bruce forcing the retreat of a formidable English army under Edward II at the epic Battle of Bannockburn in 1314
For some reason Edward II's Wikipedia Page seems to indicate that his homosexuality is "hotly debated." I've yet to have met a medieval or military historian (and I've known a few) who debates it. I have heard some pretty wild ad hoc explanations in the cases openly gay military leaders, such as: King William II of England, Richard the Lionheart and William of Orange, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary when confronted on the issue of allowing openly gay soldiers to serve in the armed forces today. In the case of Richard I he actually made public confession, as pious Christians were want to do in those days, of the "sin" of sodomy and yet several reputable historians continue to claim it is not true. I recall one such ad hoc explanation where a military historian pointed to, probably false, accusations made by the nobility of Pottier of Richard's forcibly sodomizing nuns while Duke of Aquitaine. I can just imagine the sigh of relief breathed by his homophobic student body upon becoming convinced that their hero was just a "nun-buggerer" when they thought he might be something horrible like a fellow human being that happened to be gay.
That's all beside the point. The fact of the matter is that Edward II was homosexual and his neglectful treatment of Queen Isabella drove her into the arms of his fiercest enemy, the formidable Lord Mortimer, whom she openly took as her lover and then: fled to France with him, raised an army, invaded and conquered England, deposed King Edward II (although technically he abdicated), murdered Edward (legend has it by having him sodomized to death with a white hot plumber's iron) and began to rule in England for herself.
By the way, much of the bad press that Edward II has received is somewhat unfair. He was a very cultivated King for his time, he was a great patron of the arts and he founded the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. In a lot of ways he was a man centuries ahead of his time. Sadly, in his own time, none of that mattered very much and his inability to subordinate his personal interests to those of his family and his kingdom cost him: his crown, his life and his reputation.
In my mind, the event which most clearly demonstrates Isabella's "uppitiness" would have to be the unusually cruel manner in which she disposed of Edward II's rumored lover Hugh Despenser the Younger. Hugh's Wikipedia page describes it thus:
"He was judged a traitor and a thief, and sentenced to public execution by hanging, as a thief, and drawing and quartering, as a traitor. Additionally, he was sentenced to be disembowelled for having procured discord between the King and Queen, and to be beheaded, for returning to England after having been banished. Treason had also been the grounds for Gaveston's execution; the belief was that these men had misled the King rather than the King himself being guilty of folly. Immediately after the trial, he was dragged behind four horses to his place of execution, where a great fire was lit. He was stripped naked, and Biblical verses denouncing arrogance and evil were written on his skin. He was then hanged from a gallows 50 ft (15 m) high, but cut down before he could choke to death, and was tied to a ladder, in full view of the crowd. The executioner climbed up beside him, and sliced off his penis and testicles which were burnt before him, while he was still alive and conscious; (although castration was not formally part of the sentence imposed on Despenser, it was typically practised on convicted traitors). Subsequently, the executioner slit open his abdomen, and slowly pulled out, and cut out, his entrails and, finally, his heart, which were likewise thrown into the fire. The executioner would have sought to keep him alive as long as possible, while disembowelling him. The burning of his entrails would, in all likelihood, have been the last sight that he witnessed. Just before he died, it is recorded that he let out a "ghastly inhuman howl," much to the delight and merriment of the spectators. Finally, his corpse was beheaded, his body cut into four pieces, and his head was mounted on the gates of London. Mortimer and Isabella feasted with their chief supporters, as they watched the execution."
The Execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger: favorite (and probable lover) of the deposed English King Edward II upon the orders of Queen Isabella
WOW! Pardon my profanity but Queen Isabella kicked some serious ass and I think there is little doubt as to whom belongs the title of "Most Uppity Woman of Medieval English History."
Further Veiwing:
David Starkey: Monarchy Episode 02 - Medieval Monarchs
Inside the Medieval Mind
The Lion in Winter
Ivanhoe
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives Episode 3 - The Damsel
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives Episode 8 - The King
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1 comments:
I'm must wondering why there was a hit on my blog from this topic....is someone suggesting that I'm uppity? Because, if they are, I'll go medieval on their ass. (Punny, right?)
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