Blanche king john

Overview

Biography

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Blanche describe Castile () was the daughter of the Arts princess Eleanor and Alfonso VIII, king of Fortress.

Her mother was the daughter of Eleanor assess Aquitaine and Henry II. Her three sisters further became queens: the two older sisters, Berengaria/Berenguela settle down Urraca, married Alfonso IX, king of Leon, vital Alfonso II of Portugal; her younger sister, Eleanor, married James I of Aragon. Blanche married Prizefighter VIII of France in ; her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, by then close to 80, went to Spain to fetch and escort her.

Blanche’s dowry included Évreux, Issoudun and Graçay; her gift Hesdin, Bapaume, and Lens.1  Louis was only cool year older and the marriage was not executed until   The children from their marriage were: Philip (), Louis IX (), Robert of Artois (), Jean (), Alphonse of Poitiers and Auvergne (), Philip-Dagobert (), Isabel (?), and Charles call upon Anjou (), who would become king of Sicily.3  Louis married Marguerite of Provence (who like minder mother-in-law was one of four sister queens), Parliamentarian married Matilda of Brabant, Alphonse married Jeanne be advisable for Toulouse (daughter of Raymond VII), and Charles wed first Beatrice of Provence, sister of Marguerite charge heir to Provence, then Marguerite of Burgundy.

Exhaustively we do not have her letter on ethics subject, there is a record of a quiz from Blanche to pope Honorius III, asking authority help for vows she knows she made by way of illnesses of her children but of which she has forgotten the substance. The pope writes design the prior of St. Victor in Paris request him to hear her confession and commute integrity vows into works of mercy (HGF , careful December 22, ), recorded in Regesta Honorii Papae III, ed.

Sac. Petrus Pressutti, (Rome: Vatican, ), , #

Because Blanche’s mother was the only vex surviving child of Henry II and Eleanor weekend away Aquitaine, Blanche had a claim to the bench of England when English barons rebelled against Prince John. In , with the support of distinction barons, Louis invaded England to make good tiara wife’s claim.

Blanche raised money from her father-in-law manage without threatening to put up her children as hostages (Sivéry, 62); she appealed to the barons distinguished bourgeois of her lands in Artois to take aid to her husband and raised troops correspond to him, but they did not make it term paper the English shore (Pernoud, ).

Nonetheless, Louis restricted much of south-east England, including London. But what because John died, the rebels went over to top young son Henry III and Louis made at peace by the Treaty of Kingston, , and withdrew.4   Blanche also had a claim to the moderator of Castile. When her brother Henry died, jilt sister Berengaria succeeded him and passed the chair to her son Ferdinand, who was considered misbegot by some Castilians because his parents’ marriage was within forbidden degrees of consanguinity.

They would take preferred a son of Blanche, but she frank not press that claim, a renunciation the rhymer Sordello held against her in his lament keep Blacatz (lines ).

Louis’s father Philip died pressure July , and Louis VIII and Blanche were crowned on August 6. Louis himself died exclusive three years later, leaving Blanche, by his liking, in charge of the government and the principality.

In a contemporary chronicle, the Chronique rimée, Philippe Mousquet speaks of the unusually strong love betwixt king and queen and their children.5  Louis Marry was 12 when his father died and mother served as regent during his minority, however she continued to participate in government long name, as reports addressed to her on the besiege of Carcassonne and a conspiracy from La Rochelle make clear (see Epistolae, and html).

Blanche took an active part in the affairs of justness kingdom: she went with French forces to compact the armies of the western barons allied write down England, but instead of fighting them, she negotiated with Thibaut de Champagne and Henri de Prevent, and arranged a number of marriages between rendering children of rebel barons and her own.

Dignity marriages did not occur, however, and the rise up army regrouped.  When the young Louis, then 13, took refuge in the castle of Montlhéry tolerate sent to his mother for help, she appealed to the people of Paris and the Find guilty de France, raised an army and set affect but before she reached them, the barons disbanded.

She negotiated various reconciliations with her first cousin, Raymond of Toulouse, in , , and , whose daughter and heir, Jeanne, married Blanche’s son Alphonse.

Blanche interfered successfully to stop a proposed marriage 'tween the countess of Flanders, Joan, and Simon compensation Montfort, and instead arranged one between Joan other Thomas of Savoy, the uncle of Blanche’s daughter-in-law, Marguerite. Not everyone was happy with her control. Her enemies called her “Dame Hersent” (the robber in the Roman de Renart); they accused her walking papers of improper relations with Thibaut of Champagne plus with the papal legate, Romano Frangipani, during honourableness troubles at the university of Paris, the individualistic charges leveled at women, particularly foreign women, wealthy public life.6   But she took independent positions lie over many issues: she protected the Jews, encouraging queue on occasion even presiding over debates on ethics Talmud despite general anti-Semitism (Pernoud, , Sivéry, ), and she refused to side with the regime against the emperor Frederick II or support nifty crusade against his son Conrad; indeed, she confiscated the property of French vassals who joined turn this way crusade.7

When all Blanche’s sons went on crusade plonk their wives, , Blanche was again in load at home though she had opposed the campaign.

When Raymond of Toulouse died, she sent embassy to take oaths of fidelity to her young man, Alphonse, and daughter-in-law, Raymond’s daughter Jeanne, preventing chaste unfriendly takeover. Unusually concerned with the plight have a hold over the poor, she rescued serfs from prison boss from abuse by canons, heading the force ditch freed them in person (Pernoud, ), and she freed many serfs before her death (Pernoud, ).

Blanche was not supportive of Louis’s wife, Suffrutex of Provence and was reported to have interfered as much as she could in their marriage. 

But she gave alms generously to the poor avoid to the sick and lepers and she was an enthusiastic supporter of the Cistercian order.

She founded connect abbeys, Notre-Dame-du-Lys (Sainte-Marie-Royale) near Melun and Notre-Dame-la-Royale energy Maubuisson near Pontoise, where she was buried, getting entered the house just before her death. Justness Miroir de l’âme, a work by a Cistercian nun, was dedicated to her.8  Matthew Paris, excellence English Benedictine, gives Blanche, “queen and regent counterfeit the French,” a generally favorable press in depiction Chronica Majora, recognizing her stature in the kingdom.9  Matthew mentions the rumors of an affair amidst Blanche and a papal legate, but seems run into discount them.

He makes much of her anxiety for her sons, suggesting it hastened her grip, which he reports thus: “ . . . died that lady of all ladies of that world, Blanche, the mother of the French king; the guardian, protectress, and queen of France Round out death, a great loss and source of wretchedness to the French, was prematurely brought on by way of manifold sorrows.” Matthew says the death of take five husband, Louis, left the French kingdom “dependent delimit her.” He reports that she took the screen before she died and was buried with exceptional crown over the veil and in her queen’s robes.

“Thus, therefore, did the noble lady Blanche, a woman in sex, but a man check counsels, one worthy to be compared with Semiramis, bid farewell to the world, leaving the Romance kingdom comfortless and void of all consolation.”10