WEBVTT - The She-Wolf, Her Husband, and Their Lovers 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.960 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:08.040 and Grim and Mild from Aaron Maankie. Listener discretion advised. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:18.800 In thirteen twenty six, the billowing sails of eight warships 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:22.800 rose over the sea on the English horizon. They were 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:27.240 flanked by one hundred and thirty two smaller vessels, all 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.760 ready for an invasion. The ships had come from France. 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.080 They had sailed from Flanders and were heading toward the 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:40.640 Thames Estuary that September, as summer turned to fall. They 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:46.040 were coming to depose the King of England. No invasion 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:50.400 of England by sea had succeeded since the Norman conquest 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.560 two hundred and sixty years earlier in ten sixty six. 0:00:55.400 --> 0:01:00.240 But this was no ordinary invasion by some hostile foreign hour. 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.039 The man leading the charge had been condemned to death, 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.640 and he had been spared by the very king he 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.680 was now coming to depose. But far more shocking was 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.640 the woman standing next to him. She was the man's 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:22.319 lover in adulterous scandal. She was said to be among 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.160 the most beautiful women in the world. She had blonde 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.360 hair blowing against her forehead now in the sea wind, 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:34.520 she was dressed in widows weeds, the black clothes of mourning, 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:41.000 but her husband was alive for now. Her name was Isabella. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.360 She had been born in France, but she wasn't some 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:48.760 foreign usurper. She was the wife of King Edward the 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:53.400 Second of England. She was the most treasonous queen in 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.920 all of English history. Born the daughter of the King 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:02.000 of France, adored and then despised by her subjects, mother 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:06.960 of the future sovereign, scorned and humiliated by an unpopular 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.760 husband more interested in having affairs with men than in 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.240 her She's known to history as a sinner, a Jezebel, 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:20.480 maybe even a murderer, known in the end as the 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.799 she Wolf of France. She was Isabella, Queen of England, 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.520 and she was sailing from the continent, with troops and 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.360 her lover by her side, and a steely glint in 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:39.520 her eye, ready to depose her king. I'm Dani Schwartz, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:52.600 and this is noble blood. The little girl who would 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:57.080 someday overthrow the King of England was born Isabel, Princess 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.560 of France around the year twelve five. She was the 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.799 daughter of Philip the Fair, the handsome and fearsome King 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.840 of France. She was one of seven children, the only 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.400 daughter to survive to adulthood. Her father had keen political 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.519 designs for each of his children's marriages, which this podcast 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:23.200 actually covered in our episode on the Tordonell Affair. Suffice 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.239 to say that in thirteen o three, at only seven 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:31.760 years old, as a prized princess, Isabella was betrothed to 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:37.120 then Prince Edward of England, who was nineteen. At the 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:41.320 betrothal ceremony, Isabella made herself as tall as she could 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.120 in front of an archbishop who was Edward's proxy. She 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.720 put her little hand in the archbishop's big one and 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.120 hoped with her child's heart that her husband would be 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.880 good to her when they finally met, that he would 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.280 love her, that he would fulfill her father's hope for 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.840 a future king of England. And descended from both the 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:07.160 French and English lines. But she must have noticed that 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:11.240 her future husband never sent her any gifts across the 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:16.200 English Channel, nor any letters. Even as a child. She 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.599 may have wondered why not. Five years later she would 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:26.240 find out. On January twenty five, oh eight, twelve year 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.480 old Isabella formally married Edward, who was by then King 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.919 of England. Despite the mismatch in age, Edward was a 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.799 handsome groom. Isabella biographer Alice and Weir describes the six 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:44.120 foot tall Edward like a dang Disney prince for Isabella. Quote. 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.200 He was well proportioned and had curly, fair shoulder length 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:52.080 hair with a mustache and beard. He was also well spoken. 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:56.080 His mother tongue was Norman French and articulate, and he 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:03.160 dressed elegantly, even lavishly end quote. One limitation of histories 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.520 that old is we have very little insight into Isabella's 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.840 thoughts around this time. Even the biographies and articles about 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:15.839 her are frequently about her husband, which leaves a blank 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.919 space in our understanding. The fact is that Isabella was 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.000 twelve years old at her wedding to a man twice 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.440 her age. Both Isabella's mother and her new husband's mother 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.679 had been married by age eleven. Twelve was the youngest 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.720 age at which the Church permitted sex between husband and wife. 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:41.200 Historians generally believe that Isabella and Edward didn't consummate the 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.479 marriage on their wedding night. I can imagine a young 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.839 Isabella who was grateful for this reprieve. Maybe she felt 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.560 like a child thrown into a stranger's bed, albeit a 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.320 bed that she had been preparing for since youth. Maybe 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.440 she viewed her new husband's restraint as chivalrous or loving, 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:05.240 but that wasn't all it was. This podcast has covered 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.640 the story of Edward the Second and his affair with 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:13.400 the love of his life, his boyhood courtier Piers Gaveston. 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.480 The fact that he's the tragic hero of one episode 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.400 of this podcast and a side character in this one. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.680 It's just more proof that history can be told from 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.600 many angles. Love for one person is heartache for another. 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.680 The difference between comedy and tragedy is often just a 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:36.080 matter of who your main character is. When Isabella arrived 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.159 in England after the wedding, her husband greeted Gaveston with 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:45.560 a degree of enthusiasm that shocked Isabella's relatives. Isabella had 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.320 to watch as Gaveston wore jewels that were part of 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.800 her dowry, and he wore purple to the coronation, the 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.760 color of royalty, as though he were the true spouse 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.240 of Edward being elevated to the throne. For Isabella, it 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.600 was embarrassing. She told her father that she was quote 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:11.560 the most wretched of wives. She received no money from 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:16.040 her husband. She was miserable. She wasn't the only one. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.720 The English barons all wanted the king's favorite, Gaveston gone, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.040 and they got their way. In th eight, six months 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:29.880 after Isabella arrived in England, Gaveston was banished from the country. 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:34.560 With Gaveston gone, Isabella's husband warmed to her. He started 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.520 giving her lands and money. Wherever he traveled, she went 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.440 with him. She may have felt like any girl who 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.880 has a crush on a guy who has a crush 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:48.520 on someone else. It hurts, yes, but maybe his affections 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:57.680 can be turned. But then Edward brought Gaveston back. Everybody 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.960 likes a catfight sensation. Aalized history would have us believed 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:07.000 that Isabella hated Gaveston to the end. Isabella was probably 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.840 pained to see the return of her competition, but she 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.120 was quite a bit older now with some relationship of 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.640 her own with the king, and she reached some equilibrium 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.960 with Gaveston. It's worth noting that everyone in this saga, 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.680 from Gaveston to the lovers of both king and Queen 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.880 that I'll mention later in this episode was married to 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.280 a member of the opposite sex and had children of 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:36.600 their own. Once Gaveston came back, Isabella was kind to 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.840 his pregnant wife. She spent time with Gaveston. She may 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.559 have even found him kind of amusing. But if Isabella 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.760 mellowed somewhat towards Galveston, the English courts as a whole 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:54.360 did not. They wanted him gone for good, violently if 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:59.280 need be, as violence mounted around them. In thirteen eleven 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:04.079 and twelve of Isabella told her husband that she was pregnant, 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:09.319 probably hoping that with that news, Edward would prioritize her protection. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.840 He didn't. He left her at Newcastle while he protected 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:19.640 Gaveston instead. Some piece of her must have learned, no 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.760 matter how good her relationship with Edward seemed, she would 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:29.560 never really come first. Gaveston would be brutally executed on 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:36.160 June twelve. The details of that brutality belonged to edwards story, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.920 covered in another episode. This is Isabella's story, and here 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:45.600 it's more interesting to imagine her reunion with her grieving 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.280 husband in the aftermath. I wonder if she felt a 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.880 victor's gladness at being the only remaining competitor for her 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.560 husband's heart, or a wife's sorrow for her husband's grief, 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:03.400 or maybe she felt the empathy of the fellow unlucky 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:08.280 in love. Either way, five months later, at age seventeen, 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:13.000 Isabella gave birth to the heir to the throne, another Edward. 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.640 She went on to have three more children with the king, 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.480 and whether there was any love in the act of 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:24.480 conception or purely dynastic duty was a secret that died 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.640 with their history. What certain is that once Gaveston was 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.160 out of the picture for good, there was at least 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:37.040 mutual respect between Isabella and her husband. Isabella was smart 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.560 and savvy, versed in both English and French territorial and 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:48.839 political interests. She was also impressively involved in negotiations and diplomacy. Edward, 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.400 never one of the greats when it came to statecraft, 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:56.240 seemed to like having his queen involved. They simply liked 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.120 each other. They wrote letters to each other any time 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:04.040 they were apart. They played gambling games together as a team. 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.319 It would have been hard to imagine that this beautiful 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.960 woman laughingly playing games of chance beside her husband would 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.600 some day gather the flotilla that would overthrow him. But 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:21.160 maybe there were hints. At one point, giggling playing a game, 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:26.360 Isabella's ladies fake captured the king and wouldn't let him 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:31.400 go until the fake ransom had been paid. Some games 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:39.400 seemed more ominous in retrospect. Isabella spent years developing mutual 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.800 respect with her husband, maybe even genuine affection, so she 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.839 must have been devastated when she learned that his dalliances 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.400 did not die with Gaveston. Not yet a decade after 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:58.520 Gaveston's death, Edward took a new lover, Hewla Dispenser, Royal Chamberlain. 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.720 This dispense her was nothing like Isabella's earlier arrival, Galveston, 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.359 who honestly seemed kind of meek, almost cute by comparison, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:14.640 Dispenser was a cruel and violent man, especially depraved toward women. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.720 He had one widow tortured until all four limbs were 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.640 broken and she was said to have lost her mind. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:28.679 Isabella hated him. Dispenser began to turn her husband against her. 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.920 It's possible that Dispenser actually sexually harmed Isabella in some way, 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:39.680 although the details aren't quite clear. As relations between France 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.840 and England worsened, Dispenser whispered in the King's ear and 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:49.280 Isabella lost everything King Edward asked the Pope to annul 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:54.120 their marriage, though the Pope declined. Isabella's lands were taken 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.200 from her. French servants, who had come to England with 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.839 her when she was twelve years old, were taken from 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:04.560 her household. Finally, her three younger children were taken from her, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:09.120 on suspicion that she would incite them to treason because 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.720 she's a French woman. Well, you tell someone what they 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:17.360 are enough, they might believe you. She didn't deserve this treatment. 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.200 Isabella was the Queen of England, the daughter of King 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.440 Philip of France. She had spent years giving Edward children, 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.920 doing his diplomacy, playing games with him, delighting side by 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.240 side at the animals in their menagerie. No, she deserved 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:38.120 a husband like her father had been, who never remarried 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:42.320 after the death of his wife. Isabella's mother loyal to 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:46.560 the end. Isabella's father was harsh as a king, but 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.240 as a father, he was in touch with his daughter constantly. 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.520 He mentioned Isabella's name in every written record of French 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.680 concessions to England. Knowing that she loved books, he made 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.640 sure she got the gift of an ornately illustrated apocalypse 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.800 when she burned her hand, he sent doctors to attend 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:11.320 to her. In England, Isabella's husband didn't show loyalty anywhere 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.960 nearly that much. But Isabella's husband had never been loyal 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:20.080 to her, so why she thought should she be loyal 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:26.120 to him? Isabella started smiling. It hurt far more to 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.520 have lost her husband's respect as a thirty year old 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.360 adult than it had been as a child to have 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:37.120 never had it. But she played nice, so nice that 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:42.480 Edward himself allowed his beautiful, smiling wife to go alone 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:47.920 to France, ostensibly as a peacemaker between the nations. A 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:53.720 nightmare dressed like a day dream. When Isabella arrived in France, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.440 she kissed her brother, King Charles the Fourth, who looked 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.200 so much like their departed father. She breathed in the 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.440 sweet scent of home, and soon enough she encountered a 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.760 man named Roger Mortimer. He had once been a friend 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:15.200 and ally of King Edward, until, under Dispenser's cruel regime, 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:20.000 he turned against the English king. They had this in common. 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:24.720 Mortimer and Isabella. Mortimer had once been sentenced to death 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.080 for treason against the king, but Edward had commuted the 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.680 sentence he could not have known at the time that 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.600 he was sparing the life of the man who would 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:41.360 become his wife's lover. Yes, Isabella started an affair with Mortimer, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:46.120 fueled by the aphrodisiac of shared hatred for her husband. 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:52.520 There's something almost tragic that Isabella and Edward had so 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.320 much in common. Both were trapped in a marriage when 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:01.200 their real devotions were elsewhere. Both turned to an adulterous affair. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.840 We can imagine in a different life, in a different 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:09.040 time in history, with a different understanding of sexuality, the 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:13.760 wife and husband might have divorced, might have even remained married, 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.400 but understood their desires for people that their spouses could 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.480 never be. They had respected each other once upon a time, 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:29.160 but that time was now long past. By thirty five, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.160 Isabella and Mortimer were playing it very smart, while at 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:38.240 the exact same moment Edward played it very dumb. Edwards 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.880 sent his firstborn son to visit Isabella in France, which 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.720 put all the power in her hand. She now had 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:52.120 the heir. The king pretty soon realized his mistake. He 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:56.080 started sending letter after letter to Isabella, to Charles, to 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.240 anyone he could think of. He asked Isabella to come 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.400 home to England with their son. She sent back de 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:07.160 mural letters with feeble excuses. Oh, I couldn't possibly leave France, 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.200 my brother wants us to say. Edward started to get 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:17.000 very nervous. He was right to. Isabella was hanging out 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:21.280 in France with English exiles who hated Edward. She was 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:26.640 wearing the black garb of a widow, major alarm bells. 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.760 It was probably seen as a symbol of her displeasure 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.880 with her husband's infidelity, but it was also a threat. 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.359 If she wasn't a widow yet, she would be one soon. 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.600 She would make sure of it. Edward kept asking Isabella 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:49.600 to return with their son, and Isabella kept defying him. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:54.040 It became like a game of keepaway. Finally she made 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:58.160 it plain she would not return to England except upon 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:03.359 quote the destruct action of Hugh. At this point Edward 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:09.720 really and rightly freaked out. On December one, five, his 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.840 bishops wrote to Isabella, quote, the whole country is disturbed 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.760 by the answers which you have lately sent to our 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.879 Lord King, and because you delay your return out of 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.399 hatred for Hugh la dispenser, we warn you as a 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:29.400 daughter to return to our Lord King. Your husband. It's 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.480 striking that Edwards Bishops wrote from the perspective of a 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:38.359 father figure to this woman whose father had actually helped 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:43.560 her in her life. Isabella knew whose daughter she really was, 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:50.399 so she and Mortimer drew up plans they would invade 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.000 England by sea. At the time, it had been two 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:58.159 hundred years since the last successful sea invasion, far but 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.919 not so far outside in history that it couldn't be 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.880 done again. They gathered their eight warships and one hundred 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:13.400 and thirty two support vessels together they set sail. They 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:19.119 landed in England two days later, September twenty four, twenty six. 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.280 As far as invasions go, it was a shockingly easy 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:28.240 and bloodless one, As had happened with Gaveston. Isabella's hatred 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:34.159 of Dispenser matched the public sentiment. Under Dispenser's influence, Edward 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:38.160 had become a tyrant. The people were on her side. 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.960 Isabella and Mortimer captured Cambridge, than Oxford militias that were 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.199 called in defense of the king instead defected to the 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:51.040 side of the invaders. When Isabella found out what her 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:55.960 husband did next, perhaps she felt only a superior, justified 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.480 kind of vengeance. Perhaps she felt a twinge of sorrow 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.359 at how predictable her husband was, how well she knew 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.920 his heart, how much she had changed while he had not. 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:15.040 As his reign collapsed around him, Edward left with Dispenser, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.199 just as he had with Gaveston years before, when she 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:23.520 had been left alone and pregnant with their son. Isabella's 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.600 husband had never been a great tactician. His actions gave 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.480 her the chance to claim that he had abandoned his people, 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.960 given up his throne. No one was willing to fight 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.600 for him. The will of the nation was with Isabella. 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:43.760 Dispenser was captured and brutally executed. He was hanged, castrated, 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.520 and burned Edward the Second it was kept under guard 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:54.520 in Berkeley Castle. On January seven, Edward the Third was 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.760 proclaimed King of England. As he was only fourteen, not 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.880 yet of age, some one else would have to rule 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.479 as regent in his stead. Well, one woman was up 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:11.640 to the task. Queen Isabella had invaded with popular support. 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:17.000 She had deposed her husband. She essentially took the crown. 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.720 Queen Mother Isabella came to rule on behalf of her 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.080 son on a wave of public popularity. But the public 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:35.480 is fickle. On September twenty first, thirteen twenty seven, former 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:39.760 King Edward the Second was murdered in his captivity. It 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.720 was said that he was suffocated by a pillow to 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.359 the mouth and a heavy table to the stomach, and 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:51.920 then killed, my apologies, by a hot iron up the rectum. 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.240 Rumors swirled that Isabella and Mortimer had secretly ordered the 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.960 king's death. After all, a living former king who had 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.080 been deposed by his French wife and her lover would 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.200 always be a threat to their rule. The public is fickle, 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.480 after all, this was the Middle Ages. What if opinion 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.000 had turned. What if over time Edward came to be 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:20.200 seen as the wronged party and he gathered support. God 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.640 knew if he were reinstated, it would be Isabella's had 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.639 that rolled. But whoever was responsible for the loss of 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:33.200 Isabella's husband, he was gone. Isabella was making royal decisions, 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:38.600 and six months later, in thirty eight, she supported the 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:44.639 Treaty of Edinburgh Northampton, which recognized Scotland's independence and promised 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:48.080 her daughter to the son of the Scottish king. The 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:53.080 English public felt betrayed, their support for Isabella fell apart. 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:58.600 In an ironic twist, Isabella did what her husband had done. 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:03.280 In the face of public disapproval, she unjustly elevated the 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:06.880 status of her lover to the consternation of the public 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:12.199 and the pain of her family. Amidst calls for Mortimer's banishment, 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:17.960 Isabella defiantly gave him an earldom that she invented for him, 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:22.120 pretty much exactly in the mold of edwards defiant elevation 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:27.560 of Gaveston and then Dispenser. Isabella and her husband really 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:32.639 did have a lot in common, and just as Isabella 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:36.360 had done to her husband, her son did to her 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:42.280 in thirteen thirty he took Isabella's favorite away. Mortimer was 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:46.679 convicted of treason and hanged naked in London, where his 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:52.640 body was left dangling for two days. And as for Isabella, 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:57.240 for a woman regarded by history as evil, she got 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:01.360 off pretty lightly. In life, Queens of England have been 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:05.600 beheaded and imprisoned for far less than deposing a king 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:10.080 alongside an adulterous lover, But Edward the third made sure 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:13.840 that his mother was barely even mentioned in Mortimer's trial. 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.240 Isabella was briefly placed under house arrest, but she lived 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:22.560 out the majority of her next twenty eight years in freedom. 0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:27.720 Isabella died on August twenty second, fifty eight, at sixty 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.399 three years old. Her body was embalmed and, per her 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:36.000 own instructions, wrapped in her wedding cloak. It was an 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:39.119 odd move for a woman who had been so betrayed 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:43.040 by her husband. In the end, she wanted to dress 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:48.119 as his bride. History was not kind to Isabella, The 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.560 beautiful daughter of the fair King, was called ugly a 0:24:51.640 --> 0:24:55.600 sinner at Jezebel until two thousand and six. She had 0:24:55.640 --> 0:25:02.199 no published biography, but her influence lasted juries. When her brother, 0:25:02.440 --> 0:25:06.640 Charles the Fourth died, she insisted that her son had 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:10.800 the rightful claim to the French crown, which eventually set 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:15.159 off the Hundred Years War between England and France. She 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:20.359 instigated the first parliamentary deposition of a king, which set 0:25:20.480 --> 0:25:23.840 a precedence that would depose five more kings over the 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:27.920 next three hundred years. Today we might call her a 0:25:28.080 --> 0:25:33.040 femme fatale. They're sort of a hashtag feminist kind of 0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:36.840 basic reading of Isabella, which her story lends itself to. 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:41.760 She was a slighted woman, overthrowing her tyrannical husband and 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:46.000 removing his lover, who was a brutal torturer of vulnerable 0:25:46.000 --> 0:25:49.960 women and widows. But the Middle Ages don't really lend 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:54.760 themselves to girl bosses. Mortimer had at one point threatened 0:25:54.800 --> 0:25:57.240 to kill her if she didn't follow through with their 0:25:57.320 --> 0:26:01.359 designs against the King. However areous or not he was, 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:05.879 Isabella had needed Mortimer to do what she did. The 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:09.840 role of women was constricted in the fourteenth century, and 0:26:09.880 --> 0:26:15.600 while Isabella acted fiercely, audaciously, bravely, she still had to 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:18.760 rely on a man in order to do it. In 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:22.960 fifteen ninety one, Shakespeare would coin the term she wolf 0:26:23.080 --> 0:26:27.920 of France to describe Henry the Fourth's wife, Margaret of Anjou. 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:33.600 Centuries later, in seventeen fifty seven, the English poet Thomas 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:38.760 Gray applied the term to Isabella, quote she Wolf of 0:26:38.840 --> 0:26:43.640 France with unrelenting fangs that tearced the bowels of thy 0:26:43.760 --> 0:26:49.200 mangled mate. The name stuck. Isabella became known to history 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:53.560 as the she wolf of France. The imagery is striking 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:58.560 a feigned creature waiting in the woods, the suggestion of 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:05.400 sexual predation and indiscretion. There's also the suggestion in the phrase, 0:27:06.040 --> 0:27:10.720 though Gray didn't mean it, of a pack of other 0:27:11.000 --> 0:27:21.639 she wolves to come after. That's the story of Queen 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:25.840 Isabella deposing her husband the King, but stick around after 0:27:25.960 --> 0:27:29.400 a brief sponsor break to find out whether she really 0:27:29.600 --> 0:27:41.520 was responsible for Edward the seconds murder. While many sources, 0:27:41.560 --> 0:27:46.080 including this very podcast, have speculated that Isabella and her 0:27:46.119 --> 0:27:50.040 lover Mortimer were behind the murder of the deposed King 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:55.240 Edward the Second, not all historians agree. Another story goes 0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:57.879 that Isabella had nothing to do with the death of 0:27:57.920 --> 0:28:02.359 her husband. According to that story, Edward escaped his captors 0:28:02.440 --> 0:28:08.080 in thirty six and a doppelganger was buried in his place. Eventually, 0:28:08.520 --> 0:28:11.480 he even reunited with his son, Edward the Third in 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:18.080 disguise as a humble, unsuspecting Welshman William the Welshman. It 0:28:18.200 --> 0:28:21.640 sounds like a merry children's book character, but it has 0:28:21.720 --> 0:28:25.640 an outside chance of being true. In this version of events, 0:28:25.720 --> 0:28:29.520 Isabella knew or had reason to suspect that her husband 0:28:29.640 --> 0:28:32.639 was alive, gave her peace to know she was not 0:28:32.800 --> 0:28:37.760 his murderer enough piece that she felt comfortable wrapping herself 0:28:37.840 --> 0:28:41.960 in their wedding cloak after her death. Her conscience Free 0:28:56.280 --> 0:28:59.160 Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:02.880 Grim and Mile from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted 0:29:02.880 --> 0:29:07.680 by me Danishwartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, 0:29:08.000 --> 0:29:12.520 hannah's Wick, Miura Hayward, Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The 0:29:12.560 --> 0:29:16.760 show is produced by rema Il Kayali, with supervising producer 0:29:16.960 --> 0:29:21.520 Josh Thaine and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and 0:29:21.560 --> 0:29:25.520 Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit 0:29:25.560 --> 0:29:28.920 the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:29:29.000 --> 0:29:30.240 listen to your favorite shows.