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most interesting queens of France to you?

Clotilde, Fredegund, Balthild, Gerberga of Saxony, Constance of Arles, Bertrade de Montfort, Isabeau of Bavaria.

I’m also interested in Bilichild and Liutgard of Saxony, who seem very compelling but who we know very little about.

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Constance of Arles: A Study of Duty and Frustration

"In the spring of 1027, Bishop Fulbert of Chartres wrote a fellow bishop that he would not attend the imminent consecration of King Robert II’s son because he was “frightened away by the savagery of his mother, who is quite trustworthy when she promises evil, as is proved by her many memorable deeds.” The mother in question was Constance of Arles, wife of Robert the Pious, best remembered today for her rage against those—her confessor, bishops, the king—who opposed her wishes, and for driving her sons into rebellion more than once. But if Constance struggled during her marriage to conserve declining royal resources, to provide an appropriately dignified setting for royal authority, and to advise her husband and sons, she saw her efforts undercut by the complexities of her office. ['As a foreigner, she faced hostility; as an Angevin, she inherited the enmity of the house of Blois; as queen, she never enjoyed the king’s unconditional support.') Given the eleventh-century French monarchy’s declining wealth and power, Constance’s efforts to marshal royal resources and prevent fragmentation of the king’s authority reflected genuine concern for the royal family’s needs. But the critical male clerics who commented upon her actions unfavorably contrasted her concern for royal treasures with Robert’s charity; when she opposed him and their sons, her “wise counsel” became feminine willfulness. Thus clerics shaped Constance’s contested reputation as a “renowned queen” and a “haughty spouse.” Her life exemplifies the circumstances in which an eleventh-century queen could wield power, but it highlights too the limitations with which she might have to contend."

-Penelope Ann Adair, "Constance of Arles: A Study of Duty and Frustration", Capetian Women (Edited by Kathleen Nolan)

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Despite the frequency of remarriage among the fifteenth-century English aristocracy, triple tombs were unusual and the Canterbury monument is the only one to feature a female patron and two husbands. What is equally unusual is the tomb's location i.e. a purpose-built chapel within England's pre-eminent church, a privileged position explained by the status of its occupants. The tomb itself appears conservative compared with contemporary monuments, but this perception is influenced by the loss of its armorials, paintwork and epitaph. St Michael's Chapel lacks sculptural decoration compared with contemporary chantries and Beke's own later work in the Canterbury Lady Chapel, but this observation is equally a distortion, arising from the loss of its glass, sculpture, wall-painting and hangings, together with the intrusion of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century wall monuments. The effigies are the work of a master carver and there is no reason to believe that the lost furnishings were not of similar quality. Beke drew on Canterbury, West Country and his own designs to create a mausoleum commemorating three generations of a family that dominated English politics in the first half of the fifteenth century. Much of that imagery is lost, but the heart of the chapel is unchanged: the tomb of Margaret Holland and her two husbands. Intimate in life, they lie together still in death, gazing up at their apotheosis.

Mark Duffy, "St. Michael's Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral: A Lancastrian Mausoleum", Archæologia Cantiana, vol. 123 (2003)

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Who’s who → Capetian Consorts [4/52] ↳ Constance of Provence (c.986-1032), queen consort from 1001 to 1031

Daughter of Guillaume I, Count of Provence, and his second wife Adélaïde of Anjou, she was married to King Robert II in 1001, but the marriage was notably unhappy and the relationship between the spouses difficult. Despite giving birth to six children (Alix or Hedwige, Countess of Auxerres and Nevers by marriage, Hugh, crowned co-King alongside his father until his death in 1025, Henri later Henri I, Adela, Countess of Contenance, Duchess of Normandy and Countess of Flanders by marriages, Robert, Duke of Burgundy, and Odo/Eudes), she was reputed to be cruel and short-tempered, agressive and manipulative, although her bad reputation came in no small part from her southern kinfolk and customs. She met with the strong opposition of the family of the former queen, Bertha of Burgundy, and by 1010, Robert made no mystery about his will to repudiate her to marry Bertha again, but the annulment never took place and Constance remained queen consort. She outlived her husband for a year, and notably favoured her third son Odo, causing him to rebel against his brothers. She died a year after her husband, between 22 and 25 July 1032, at the Château de Melun, and was buried beside her husband at the Saint-Denis Basilica. She’s equally referred as Constance of Arles.

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"The turbulent life and political career of Isabeau of Bavaria provides much material through which to approach a theme of queenship, reputation, and gendered power. Isabeau held an unprecedented position for a queen of France because of the extraordinary circumstances following the first attack of insanity suffered by her husband, Charles VI, in August 1392, and his subsequent descent into a distressing and debilitating state of mental illness. Isabeau was faced with political intrigues, assassinations, and acts of vengeance among the royal families of France that spiraled into civil war [...]. After the deaths of two of her sons in their teenage years from infections, Isabeau herself suffered a humiliating period of captivity at the hands of the Armagnacs in 1417, isolation politically from her last remaining son and, finally, by what one might call the most important victory of Henry V—when he negotiated an alliance with the Burgundians that would lead to the negotiation of the Treaty of Troyes.

[…] The 1402 ordinance had been a first attempt by a temporarily recovered Charles VI to break the cycle of feuding, by raising his queen as an independent force between the dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, while that of April 1403 sought to neutralize further the dukes’ potential for unlicensed absolutism through the check of quasi-majority rule. The collegiate administration was intended to prevent any one prince being able to intimidate his way to supremacy by keeping power and responsibility divided up as much as possible—as did the mere act of including the queen.

The sovereign status of Isabeau of Bavaria trumped any claims for preeminence based on seniority or blood relationship that might be pursued by the dukes, while she herself was not a force that could imperil the king. Her rank and position as queen gave her power, but that (quite clearly) was inextricably dependent on her relationship with the king and one might argue that this made her above all others more neutral, with no agenda of her own. As the king’s wife and the legal guardian of his heir, she was the most entitled to act as a proxy yet, unlike the rest of the royal family, could never be a successor herself; so she was no threat. A queen has power (the capacity to persuade people to act or make things happen) but no royal authority of her own, no publicly recognized right to rule. If authority was granted or sanctioned by the king, and recognized by his peers, a queen held it and it was legitimate, as was the case for Isabeau for most of her reign. The provisions establishing the queen as head (présidente) of the Regency Council set her into a position of substantial authority and great vulnerability. While being appealed to, buffeted and threatened by both sides in an increasingly acrimonious civil war, Isabeau was careful always to claim intermediary status for her acts, as the representative and deputy of her husband’s authority—and she needed to do so. By sheer definition, the role of queen consort was as a subordinate to the king and Isabeau had to maintain the perception that she was acting only in support of her husband, not as an independent political being with her own agenda. However, Charles VI’s selection of Isabeau as head of the Regency Council, ruling in the king’s stead in his periods of illness with all the powers of a lieutenant-general appointed in short periods of absence for war, demonstrates that the office of queen was not regarded as peripheral to monarchy, but an integral part of it that could be utilized when necessary in the service of the Crown as a corporate entity and invested by the king with the authority of kingship.

The queen’s authority would be tested to the full over the twenty years following the outbreak of the king’s madness in 1392, and first shared with, then gradually yielded to, her eldest son, the dauphin Louis, as he grew toward maturity, both in years and in diplomatic capability. As soon as it was legally possible, in the days before his thirteenth birthday, Isabeau organized Louis’s emancipation (his legal majority). Although Isabeau tended to retain chairmanship of the regency council, there were occasions after 1410 when she might easily have attended but chose not to, thereby pushing forward her son into the limelight as next in line after her as the king’s deputy. The dauphin Louis represented the king during the preliminary negotiations at Arras in September 1414, and at the later meetings at Saint-Denis and Paris in February 1415 that led to the eventual truce between the warring Burgundian and Orleanist/Armagnac factions. In fact, the phrase recorded by Michel Pintoin, the Religieux de Saint-Denis, in his account of the peace of Arras describes Louis’s role perfectly as the one “who held the reins of the State during his father’s illness.

However, the end of 1415 witnessed two disasters for France, with the desolation of the battle of Agincourt in October and the sudden death of the dauphin Louis in December. Grieving and politically isolated, Isabeau of Bavaria would spend the remainder of her life, another long 20 years, as subsumed and powerless as the rest of the country in the disaster of division and conquest. She was imprisoned by the Armagnac faction in 1417, who issued an ordinance establishing her last remaining son, the future Charles VII, as the king’s deputy instead. It is an interesting coda to this discussion of the regency provisions to consider their later misuse as well. Although Isabeau was in no position to exert power herself in 1417, the ordinance of April 1403 naming her as the king’s deputy in periods of emergency Council-run government seems only to have been replicated (not revoked) when the dauphin was granted his title. By arguing that the grant of powers to Isabeau in 1403 was irrevocable, as Burgundy would claim when releasing her from captivity in 1418, it was worth his while to fund her and establish her as the figurehead of a rival regime, seeking to regain possession of the person of the king. Isabeau of Bavaria found herself in an unenviable situation, with no financial backup of her own, no power base, and absolutely no prospect of being able to take back government herself. In such a scenario, control of the queen and her authority, by neutralizing her in prison like Armagnac or, like Burgundy, by persuasion or coercion, or perhaps even deceptive use of her titles and seals with no attempt or interest in gaining her consent or not, remained the ultimate weapon in the civil war. Regency authority somehow endured, despite the essential powerlessness personally of the individual regent queen."

-Rachel C. Gibbons, "Isabeau of Bavaria, Queen of France: Queenship and Political Authority as “Lieutenante-Général” of the Realm", Queenship, Gender, and Reputation in the Medieval and Early Modern West, 1060–1600 (Edited by Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz)

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“A portrait of the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, inspired by Hilary Mantel's brilliant books, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies.” Keith Robinson

[wonder-worker]

Is it possible that the last letters written by Catherine and Anne Boleyn of Aragon to Henry VIII were forged?

✨ terfs/zionists fuck off ✨

it’s certainly possible.

i don’t know as much about catherine’s final letter. there’s definitely arguments for it being a forgery; giles tremlett calls it “almost certainly fictitious”. but i can’t speak in much detail regarding the debate surrounding it.

i think it’s probable that anne’s letter was a forgery; retha warnicke calls it “entirely imaginary” based on the tone and contents. others have pointed out anomalies such as the letter being signed ‘anne bullen’, instead of ’anne boleyn’ or ‘anne the queen’ — likewise, the letter being headed with ‘to the king from the lady in the tower’, instead of as the queen. amanda glover has recently pointed out the paper isn’t old enough (“the paper was most likely to have been produced no earlier than the first few years of the 17th century”) and concludes: “it cannot be an original of a letter dictated by anne, or a copy made for thomas cromwell”.

i think the letter singling jane seymour out for blame is revealing: the letter suggests that anne’s elevation was a result of henry’s interest in her… that same interest now waned as he looked to another woman to replace anne with — “for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy; the least alteration was fit and sufficient (i know) to draw that fancy to some other subject”. beyond this being a reckless and unhelpful thing to insinuate in a letter intended to garner sympathy (which, to be fair, seems characteristic of anne, who in some respects got herself into this mess by way of irrational and offensive outbursts) it is also simply not in-line with the facts. in the words of eric ives: “it would appear to be wholly improbable for anne to write that her marriage was built on nothing but the king’s fancy and that her incarceration was the consequence of henry’s affection for jane”. anne would surely never claim her rise was merely as a means of supplanting catherine of aragon, and nowhere else is henry’s desire to replace anne an acknowledged factor during her trial, as a fact as she would have been aware of. jane was not brought up in trial, nor was she/henry’s ‘fancy’ mentioned by anne in her execution speech. anne and henry were reported to be “merry” not long before her arrest, and her fall was swift, so it is not clear if anne even knew there was a replacement lined up to supplant her. did anne ever know jane waited along the thames for her to die? i hope not; i hope anne suspected/knew nothing of jane’s proximity — i would like to think she was spared awareness of that final indignity and betrayal.

[wonder-worker]

Art history meme (❦): [vi/ix] paintings

Anne Boleyn, unknown English artist, late 16th century, based on a work dated to c. 1533-1536. Oil on panel.

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EMMA CORRIN as JANE SEYMOUR

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ELIZABETH WOODVILLE in BRITAIN’S BLOODY CROWN

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Britain's Bloody Crown + Headpieces

Elizabeth Woodville's headpieces.

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Margaret Holland was a wealthy widow. She was dowager in the Clarence estates and co-heiress to the earldom of Kent following the death of her brother, Edmund, in 1408. From 1421 to her death in 1439 she administered the estates of her second son, John Beaufort, during his captivity in France. Margaret inherited Clarence's claim to the 100,000 ecus promised by the Armagnacs for the cancellation of the English expedition of 1412, and held the Henry crown given to Clarence as surety for war loans made between 1415 and 1417. Such was Margaret's status as a dowager that she had the unusual distinction of having a ship named after her: La Margarete de Clarence.

Mark Duffy, "St. Michael's Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral: A Lancastrian Mausoleum", Archæologia Cantiana, vol. 123 (2003)

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"There are indications that [King William the Lion of Scotland] relied on Queen Ermengarde and allowed her to play an increasingly influential part in public affairs. A resentful Glasgow canon was to allege that in 1207 Walter, a royal chaplain, obtained the position of bishop of Glasgow after bribing not only the King’s chamberlain but the Queen herself. There are signs that her relatives also profited from their relationship with her: Richard de Beaumont, possibly a brother or nephew, acquired a sizeable estate in the Crail area. Ermengarde appears to have acted as mediator when William was negotiating with King John of England in 1209, and she certainly did so with great aplomb when her husband met John at Durham in February 1212. According to Bower, she showed herself in their discussions to be ‘an extraordinary woman, gifted with a charming and witty eloquence’. As a result of her efforts, the peace between the two countries was renewed, and it was agreed that her son Prince Alexander should be given an English wife.

That same summer, William fell ill, and there are signs that Ermengarde exercised considerable influence during his sickness. The King was nearly seventy by now, and although he recovered, his health remained poor. He was well enough to travel as far north as Elgin in the summer of 1214, but the lengthy journey brought on some sort of collapse and he was taken south again to Stirling by very easy stages. Ermengarde was probably with him when he saw his lords for the last time and urged them to accept his sixteen-year-old son Alexander as king. He died in Stirling Castle at the beginning of December 1214.

Next morning, the prelates and nobles urged the Queen to supervise the arrangements for the funeral, but she was ‘in a state of extreme mourning and worn out with grief’. Try as they might, they could not rouse her from her sorrow and so they hastily took Prince Alexander to be crowned at Scone while Ermengarde remained with her husband’s body. William was then buried in his abbey of Arbroath. Ermengarde lived for another twenty years, devoting her considerable energies to raising money to found a Cistercian abbey at Balmerino in Fife. She purchased the necessary land for a thousand merks and oversaw the construction of the building, which was made of local red stone. Monks from Melrose settled at the abbey on St Lucy’s Day, 13 December 1229 and both Ermengarde and her son Alexander frequently stayed there. When Ermengarde died on 11 February 1233, she was buried before the high altar at Balmerino. It is a pity that the records do not tell us more about this effective and influential Queen Consort."

-Rosalind K. Marshall, Scottish Queens 1034-1714

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Notable Scottish royal mistresses (14th–16th century)

Keep reading

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The Ladies ♕ Queen Consorts [13/25] ↳ Margaret Drummond (c.1330 -1375), Queen Consort from 1364 to 1369

Margaret Drummond was born in Perthshire, Scotland sometime in the year 1330 to Sir Malcolm Drummond, 10th Thane of Lennox and his wife Annabella Graham. She first married Sir John Logie, and around 1350 bore him a son named John. By the year 1360 Margaret became David II’s mistress and when his first wife Joan of the Tower died in 1362, he was free to re-marry.  Around 1363, either Margaret’s first husband died or her first marriage was annulled and the couple made plans to cement their relationship. On 20 February 1364, after a rebellion was subdued, Margaret and David married at Inchmurdoch, a manor of the Bishop of St. Andrews close to Crail, Scotland. On becoming Queen of Scots she received lands in Perthshire and the revenue from Aberdeen and Inverkeithing. Margaret has been depicted as beautiful, but also arrogant and greedy. She had managed to obtained royal lands in Annandale for her son John of Logie. The Queen also pressured David into clearing his first cousin William, 5th Earl of Ross of his lands and title and temporarily had his heir presumptive Robert Stewart, High Stewart of Scotland arrested. When the year 1368 came, Margaret’s overall conduct and failure to produce and heir had persuaded the King to annul their marriage. David was looking to marry his mistress of the time, Agnes Dunbar. About a year later on 20 March 1369, the royal marriage was annulled on grounds of the Queen’s infertility. Being evidently troubled, Margaret traveled to Avignon, France to make an appeal to Pope Urban V trying to reverse the annulment, which ended in success. Since she had a child in her first marriage, it’s appears most likely that actually David was infertile, since his first marriage was childless. Two years later David II suddenly died and was buried at Holyrood Abbey, which is in ruins today. His half-sister Marjorie Bruce’s son succeeded him as Robert II, becoming the first Stewart Monarch. In 1373, Margaret died in Marseilles, France and Pope Gregory XI paid the costs of her funeral and burial. Sadly, her place of burial is unknown, presumably she is buried in France.

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[source]