Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky listener Discretion advised. One night
Speaker 1: in twelve forty two, Louis the ninth King of France
Speaker 1: was settling in for an ordinary dinner when the Royal
Speaker 1: food taster began doing the thing you never want to
Speaker 1: see the royal food taster do. After taking a bite
Speaker 1: of food, he began hacking and coughing. It seemed that
Speaker 1: food taster earned his paycheck with that meal. Somebody had
Speaker 1: poisoned the King's meat and wine. The guards sprang into
Speaker 1: action and began searching the royal grounds. By chance, they
Speaker 1: stumbled upon two suspicious peasants who happened to be lurking
Speaker 1: near the kitchens. Two peasants were tortured until they delivered
Speaker 1: a confession, and it was a startling one. Not only
Speaker 1: had they would be assassins poisoned the King's meal, they
Speaker 1: also confessed that they had been hired to do so
Speaker 1: by a former Queen of England, who had promised them
Speaker 1: riches and status in return for their services. The entire
Speaker 1: botched poisoning was a massive success for the French on
Speaker 1: all counts. The French king had avoided death, they had
Speaker 1: caught the villains, and as a bonus, an English queen
Speaker 1: was implicated. That, at least was the story that passed
Speaker 1: around the French court in the summer of twelve forty two.
Speaker 1: The truth of the events probably looked more like this.
Speaker 1: One night in twelve forty two, two peasants were found
Speaker 1: rummaging through King Louis supplies while the king was out
Speaker 1: campaigning against some rebellious barons. These two peasants were most
Speaker 1: likely caught trying to take some food and drink, and
Speaker 1: they were hanged according to martial law. News of local
Speaker 1: thieves somehow transformed, through rumor and storytelling, into news about
Speaker 1: local assassins. Rummaging in the royal stores of mead and
Speaker 1: meat turned into an attempted poisoning, and an otherwise ordinary
Speaker 1: crime turned into a geopolitical plot of the highest order.
Speaker 1: So who was this Queen of England who was so
Speaker 1: reviled that what may very well have just been the
Speaker 1: honest crime of two poor souls evolved into her elaborate
Speaker 1: conspiracy against the French king. If it wasn't already clear,
Speaker 1: Isabelle of ANGLEM Dowager Queen of England was not exactly
Speaker 1: beloved by King Louis the Ninth or court. She was rather,
Speaker 1: as powerful women often are, the perfect candidate for the
Speaker 1: rumor mail. After the supposed assassination attempt, some believed that
Speaker 1: Isabel attempted suicide as the culmination for her life sins.
Speaker 1: Others believed that she fled to a nearby abbey for
Speaker 1: sanctuary from Louis's reprisals. All agreed that she would do
Speaker 1: whatever it took to avoid losing a trial, to hold
Speaker 1: on to whatever crumbs of power she had left after
Speaker 1: decades of losing ground to an aggressive French kingdom. The
Speaker 1: history of the rumor of the attempted poisoning is frankly
Speaker 1: a minuscule part of Isabel's life story, but it illustrates
Speaker 1: the problem with uncovering the historical Isabel quite well. Whatever
Speaker 1: the medieval chronicles say about her is distorted by dynastic
Speaker 1: drama and political biases. They paint her as a scandal
Speaker 1: inducing affair having Jezebel who drove two kingdoms into turmoil,
Speaker 1: first England and then Western France. But if we cut
Speaker 1: through the gossip, what would we actually find a heartless mother,
Speaker 1: or exactly the type of ruthless parents that medieval politics rewarded,
Speaker 1: a cunning and deceitful sorceress, or a dowager queen so
Speaker 1: relentless in her pursuit of freedom from both the English
Speaker 1: and the French that she earned a bad reputation in
Speaker 1: both kingdoms. Isabel tried, but ultimately failed to establish a
Speaker 1: dynasty of her own. But if she hadn't rocked the
Speaker 1: foundations of England and France, why would she ever have
Speaker 1: been worth the elaborate smear campaign in the first place.
Speaker 1: This is the story of a queen turned nun who,
Speaker 1: in trying to play both sides, ended up playing herself,
Speaker 1: a rogue royal who, even when stripped of her titles,
Speaker 1: lands and reputation, refused to stop signing her name as
Speaker 1: Dowager Queen of England. I'm Danish schwartz and this is
Speaker 1: noble blood. In the month of October twelve sixteen, Isabelle
Speaker 1: of Angoulem learned that her husband, the King of England
Speaker 1: and patriarch of the House of Plantagenet, had died. King
Speaker 1: John had spent the past year embroiled in a war
Speaker 1: against his barons, who raised demands in a little treaty
Speaker 1: called the Magna Carta, which John had absolutely no intention
Speaker 1: of accepting. The vain king marched from county to county,
Speaker 1: pillaging as he went along, all the while his wife
Speaker 1: remained confined to a castle in the city of Bristol.
Speaker 1: When she heard the news that dysentery took John, she
Speaker 1: probably felt a weight lift from her shoulders. For context,
Speaker 1: this is the King John, who was the younger brother
Speaker 1: of Richard the Lionheart, the guy who's the villainous Prince
Speaker 1: John in several adaptations of robin Hood. Upon the death
Speaker 1: of his brother Richard, John inherited not only the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of England, but also a vast swathe of territory in
Speaker 1: western France, encompassing Normandy, Brittany, and Aquitaine together called the
Speaker 1: Anchovin Empire. John's queen, Isabel, was originally from the French
Speaker 1: city of Angoulem, part of the land that she was
Speaker 1: technically supposed to inherit from her father account, but Isabel
Speaker 1: never spent much time with her inheritance, owing to the
Speaker 1: fact that she married John when she was only twelve.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, their marriage was considered scandalous from the start.
Speaker 1: In twelve hundred, Isabel was already betrothed to a French count.
Speaker 1: The union of their lands in central and western France
Speaker 1: would have cut off the northern part of John's empire
Speaker 1: in Normandy from the southern part in Aquitaine. As any
Speaker 1: conniving king would do, John made a back room deal
Speaker 1: to cut off Isabel's betrothal to that count, and he
Speaker 1: promptly married the girl himself. From twelve hundred to twelve sixteen,
Speaker 1: Isabel reigned as the Queen of England, but in fact
Speaker 1: she resided in what amounted to a golden cage, let
Speaker 1: out at the whims of her husband. According to the
Speaker 1: terms of their marriage, Isabel was entitled to rents from
Speaker 1: royal estates, but her husband frequently intercepted these funds to
Speaker 1: spend on his own lavish wardrobe. Instead of lodging Isabel
Speaker 1: in her own household as was customary, John thought it
Speaker 1: fit to put her up in the apartments of his
Speaker 1: former wife, the Countess of Gloucester, and then in the
Speaker 1: household of his mistress, the Lady de Neville. Most disturbingly,
Speaker 1: after Isabel bore her first child, Henry, in twelve oh seven,
Speaker 1: the Canterbury chronicles refer to her as being quote in custody.
Speaker 1: A few historians have speculated that Isabel was under some
Speaker 1: kind of house arrest, and this seems corroborated by the
Speaker 1: relative absence of her name among contemporary letters and court records.
Speaker 1: Either way, what's certain is that Isabel's husband humiliated her,
Speaker 1: stole her in, and confined her to a handful of castles.
Speaker 1: At some point in the sixteen years of her English captivity,
Speaker 1: Isabel decided she would no longer take being upawn in
Speaker 1: other people's politics. When her husband died, she may have
Speaker 1: mourned he was, after all, the father of her four children.
Speaker 1: We know that she made three offerings for the salvation
Speaker 1: of her husband's soul in the months that followed, but
Speaker 1: she never again mentioned her husband in any of her
Speaker 1: correspondents for the remaining thirty years of her life. This
Speaker 1: feeling of indifference was probably reciprocal. Considering that John invested
Speaker 1: the care of his heir henry in the hands of
Speaker 1: an esteemed earl and not the boy's own mother, Isabel
Speaker 1: had little to no chance of assuming any power in England.
Speaker 1: She was pushed out of the Regency council and the
Speaker 1: very men that made up that council seemed to have
Speaker 1: purchased a well chartered ship for Isabel to be on
Speaker 1: her merry way off of English shores and back to France.
Speaker 1: Isabel left behind her young sons, Henry and Richard, and
Speaker 1: took only her daughter Joan with her as she set
Speaker 1: sail for the continent. Was it ruthless for a mother
Speaker 1: to have abandoned her children upon the death of their father.
Speaker 1: The medieval chronicles certainly say so, and while they certainly
Speaker 1: overexaggerate Isabel's egomania and irresponsibility, her actions suggest that she was,
Speaker 1: if anything, opportunistic, and her husband's death just so happened
Speaker 1: to present an opportunity to reclaim her inheritance and establish
Speaker 1: her own little kingdom in western France. In the year
Speaker 1: twelve seventeen, Isabel entered the French city of Angoulem to
Speaker 1: great fanfare by the local populace, So much fanfare that
Speaker 1: the mayor of Angoulem even bestowed upon Isabel the keys
Speaker 1: to the city. Only a few years before Isabelle's arrival,
Speaker 1: King John had assigned a group of administrators and barons
Speaker 1: to oversee the county of Angoulem oversee its principal estates
Speaker 1: revenues and defense. Isabel planned to rest political control back
Speaker 1: from her late husband's group, but there would be serious
Speaker 1: obstacles in her path. From twelve seventeen to twelve nineteen,
Speaker 1: those barons launched rebellious campaigns against Isabel's rule. She used
Speaker 1: every ruthless strategy in her playbook to subdue her vassals.
Speaker 1: In one case, she took the two sons of one
Speaker 1: baron hostage until capitulated, a tactic considered so extreme that
Speaker 1: a bishop in a nearby city threatened Isabel with excommunication. Isabel,
Speaker 1: leveraging her prestige as a dowager Queen of England, sent
Speaker 1: a letter to the Pope about her discontent with the
Speaker 1: local bishop, sort of the equivalent of going directly to
Speaker 1: the manager. By twelve eighteen, the Pope wrote back and
Speaker 1: proclaimed that Isabel could not be excommunicated except by a
Speaker 1: direct order from Rome. Isabel used every tool in her
Speaker 1: arsenal to exert control over her inheritance, brute force against
Speaker 1: the barons, ride diplomacy among the bishops, even deceit occasionally
Speaker 1: to win the favor of her powerful children, Isabel needed
Speaker 1: deeper pockets to continue her war against the barons, so
Speaker 1: she sent please for finance shall help to her son
Speaker 1: in England, King Henry the Third. Technically Isabel owned a
Speaker 1: variety of dower estates in England, but Henry's Regency Council
Speaker 1: withheld the income from those estates out of fear that
Speaker 1: Isabel would use them to create her own base of power,
Speaker 1: which was in fact exactly what she was doing. In
Speaker 1: her letters to her son Henry, Isabel persuasively explained that
Speaker 1: her takeover of western France wasn't about personal interest, but
Speaker 1: instead was about maintaining the Anjevin Empire. She blamed the
Speaker 1: barons for collaborating with the King of France, and so
Speaker 1: she needed additional resources to squash their resistance before it
Speaker 1: turned into a crisis. Wouldn't Henry help his poor mother
Speaker 1: as she defended his empire. The letters worked, but even
Speaker 1: with the additional coin, Isabelle had to face the fact
Speaker 1: that she was in a pretty weak position. She was
Speaker 1: sandwiched in between the two massive kingdoms of England and France,
Speaker 1: operating on a paltry budget, and she had even failed
Speaker 1: to fully establish her claim over Angoulem. Her cousin Matilda,
Speaker 1: was also claiming those ancestral lands. Isabelle needed an ally,
Speaker 1: or alternatively a new husband. Back in twelve fourteen, isabel
Speaker 1: had betrothed her baby daughter Joan to a count named
Speaker 1: Hughes of Lusignan, a twenty four year old who ruled
Speaker 1: over the lands just north of Angoulem. The countess had
Speaker 1: originally intended for the powerful Lucignon family to act as
Speaker 1: allies of the English crown, but in twelve twenty, with John,
Speaker 1: King of England dead and Isabelle desperately needing support for
Speaker 1: her own government, she began to see Hughes, her would
Speaker 1: be future son in law in a new light. This
Speaker 1: now thirty year old count was dashing, a bachelor, and
Speaker 1: most important of all, in control of large and wealthy
Speaker 1: estates in some of the most hotly contested French territories.
Speaker 1: Isabelle broke off her daughter's engagement to Hughes and took
Speaker 1: the count for herself. It's also highly likely that the
Speaker 1: two had an affair leading up to the actual exchanging
Speaker 1: of vows, to make matters even more complicated. Before Isabelle
Speaker 1: had married King John of England twenty years earlier, she
Speaker 1: had originally been betrothed to Hugh's father, so in effect,
Speaker 1: the Countess ended up marrying the son of her former
Speaker 1: fiance and the former fiance of her daughter. Messi is
Speaker 1: an understatement, you can imagine what the thanksgivings would have
Speaker 1: been like. Even before this messy second marriage, the chroniclers
Speaker 1: of the day already despised Isabel. They believed her wicked, adulterous,
Speaker 1: and manipulative, the very source of England instability during her
Speaker 1: husband John's reign. In fact, this character portrait has no
Speaker 1: real basis. In reality, we have no evidence to suggest
Speaker 1: that Isabel had any say in matters of her husband's government,
Speaker 1: nor evidence that she had an affair while her husband
Speaker 1: was alive. The chroniclers did not take too kindly to
Speaker 1: her second marriage, seeing it as further proof of her depravity.
Speaker 1: One contemporary historian wrote that news of the marriage quote
Speaker 1: really stimulated conversation. Indeed, rumor got around that Isabel not
Speaker 1: only stole away her own daughter Joan's future prospects, but
Speaker 1: also that she was keeping her daughter captive in order
Speaker 1: to extract a ransom from her son, King Henry the
Speaker 1: Third in England. These accusations eventually made their way to Rome,
Speaker 1: where the Pope furiously wrote to Isabel in twelve twenty
Speaker 1: one that her son had ultimate authority over his sister Joan.
Speaker 1: This in no way deterred Isabel from refusing to send
Speaker 1: her daughter to England. The Regency Council in England retaliated
Speaker 1: by confiscating Isabel's English estates, but when Isabel threatened to
Speaker 1: ally with the French king, the council relented. Of course.
Speaker 1: In letters to King Henry, her son, Isabel pretended all
Speaker 1: of this was in his best interest. Her marriage to
Speaker 1: Hughes was in service of the English crown, As she
Speaker 1: wrote in one letter, God knows we did this more
Speaker 1: for your sake than four hours. It was clear to
Speaker 1: all passers by that Isabel seemed willing to do almost
Speaker 1: anything in her pursuit of dynastic power, or at least
Speaker 1: control over her own lands. Many accounts describe her as vain, glorious,
Speaker 1: or megalomaniacal. She demanded a court befitting a queen, but
Speaker 1: operated on the income of three counties. She always expected
Speaker 1: to be taken seriously as a political actor, even when
Speaker 1: her power waned. At the same time, she learned to
Speaker 1: try her best, and she often succeeded in switching sides
Speaker 1: between the English plantagenets and the French copetions when it
Speaker 1: was convenient for the growth of her own territory. For example,
Speaker 1: when the French King Louis the eighth died prematurely in
Speaker 1: twelve twenty six, Isabel sought an opportunity to win broader
Speaker 1: privileges from the fragile French kingdom, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: she technically owed full fealty to her son Henry in England.
Speaker 1: The King of England was sent into a spiral at
Speaker 1: this betrayal. He refused to send any more of the
Speaker 1: income from his mother's dower land, and no more imploring
Speaker 1: letters from Isabel would ever change his mind. This, of course,
Speaker 1: would pose quite the challenge for Angoulem, as it depended
Speaker 1: so much on English coin. This then, would have been
Speaker 1: the perfect time for Isabel to deepen her relationship with
Speaker 1: the new French king, now that she had all but
Speaker 1: ruined her relationship with her son Henry in England. The
Speaker 1: new king in France, Louis the ninth, was just a
Speaker 1: twelve year old boy when he took the throne, meaning
Speaker 1: most of the kingdom's affairs were vested in the hands
Speaker 1: of his mother and regent, Blanche of Castile, granddaughter of
Speaker 1: Eleanor of Aquitaine and sister to Isabel's late husband, King John.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for Isabel and her grand designs at her own
Speaker 1: independent kingdom, Blanche, her previous sister in law, would prove
Speaker 1: to be more of a thorn in her backside than
Speaker 1: a stepping stone to power. To begin with, Blanche was
Speaker 1: everything that Isabel was not. Where Isabel's husband, King John
Speaker 1: had refused to invest the future of his heir in
Speaker 1: the hands of his wife Isabel, the old French king
Speaker 1: had entrusted Blante with the full stewardship of young Louis.
Speaker 1: Where Isabel had needed to remarry under scandalous circumstance in
Speaker 1: order to expand and hold her reach, Blanche had been
Speaker 1: able to preserve her widowhood and her reputation, all while
Speaker 1: commanding France's ruling Copetian dynasty. Contemporary accounts usually frame Isabelle
Speaker 1: as selfish and promiscuous and Blanche as sage and chaste,
Speaker 1: though we should be wary about those subjective and highly
Speaker 1: political and totalizing characterizations. Either way, Isabel undoubtedly agonized over
Speaker 1: the Queen consort and what Isabel considered Blanche's wicked brood
Speaker 1: of French princes. Isabelle was by no means impervious to jealousy,
Speaker 1: and it's exactly when she attempted to hurl down Blanche
Speaker 1: that the Countess of Angoulim sealed her own fate. Well
Speaker 1: into the twelve thirties, Isabelle continued signing her letters as
Speaker 1: the Queen of England, despite the fact that she hadn't
Speaker 1: stepped onto English soil for over a decade, and also
Speaker 1: despite the fact that she was taking every measure to
Speaker 1: actively ingratiate herself with France, the full enemies of the
Speaker 1: English crown. In twelve thirty, when Blanche foremented unrest among
Speaker 1: King Henry of England's vassals in Brittany, isabel agreed to
Speaker 1: support Blanche's insurrection on the condition that one of her
Speaker 1: newborn children that she had with her second husband would
Speaker 1: be betrothed to one of Blanche's children. In other words,
Speaker 1: she was siding against her own oldest son, Henry, but
Speaker 1: there would be no better way of securing Isabel's dynasty
Speaker 1: than by using her newest children to mix in with
Speaker 1: the Kapecians. Sick Isabelle fashion, though her tactics changed as
Speaker 1: the winds of opportunity blew from one direction to the other.
Speaker 1: The agreement fell through, and by twelve thirty six, Isabelle
Speaker 1: was convincing the King of Navarre to wage war against
Speaker 1: the French King Louis on a promise of military aid.
Speaker 1: It took no time at all for the French to
Speaker 1: repel that attack, win the pope to their side, and
Speaker 1: disgrace Isabelle and Hughes for their treachery. The following years
Speaker 1: saw Isabelle and Hughes begin to lose their grip on
Speaker 1: the lands of Angoulem and Lucignon in the face of
Speaker 1: a prosperous and well governed French kingdom edging them out.
Speaker 1: Isabelle and her second husband simply didn't have the revenue,
Speaker 1: the military might, or the allies to compete with King
Speaker 1: Louis and his mother Blanche one on one. Isabel's worst
Speaker 1: fears culminated in a nighting ceremony that would go on
Speaker 1: to haunt isabel for the rest of her life. Before
Speaker 1: he died, the late King Louis the Eighth had dictated
Speaker 1: a comprehensive will. Among his stipulations was a decree that
Speaker 1: his and Blanche's son, Alphonse would receive the title to
Speaker 1: the County of Poitier when he came of age. Poitier
Speaker 1: overlapped with much of the territory that was formally controlled
Speaker 1: by Isabel and Hughes at the time of the late
Speaker 1: king's decree, that wasn't much of a problem. The French
Speaker 1: king was distracted with too many other things to really
Speaker 1: focus on consolidating his power in the west. Not to
Speaker 1: mention those western lands were also at the time occupied
Speaker 1: by baron's loyal to the English crown. But by twelve
Speaker 1: forty one, the political landscape was looking a lot worse
Speaker 1: for Isabelle. Prince Alphonse was angling to marry a princess
Speaker 1: from the County of Toulouse, which would threaten to create
Speaker 1: a block of southern territories that could easily all but
Speaker 1: absorb the land that Isabel had worked so tirelessly to
Speaker 1: make independent. A knighting ceremony where she would be expected
Speaker 1: to show fealty to Alphonse would only solidify that horrible
Speaker 1: state of affairs. Needless to say, Isabel went into that
Speaker 1: ceremony looking for trouble. The account we have of Alphonse's
Speaker 1: oath swearing ceremony was told by a baron to Queen Blanch,
Speaker 1: who already hated jealous Isabel. So with that disclaimer, take
Speaker 1: the following events as I described them, with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt. There was a great feast in Poitier to
Speaker 1: celebrate the ceremony, and nobles from all over France streamed
Speaker 1: into the city for a cornucopia of savory meats, courtly games,
Speaker 1: and joyous camaraderie. King Louis, his younger brother Alphonse, and
Speaker 1: their entourage brought all of these festivities into the city,
Speaker 1: where Hughes was obligated to host and entertain his honored
Speaker 1: guests in preparation for the oath swearing. But during the
Speaker 1: actual ceremony there must have been some sort of mistake.
Speaker 1: Isabelle arrived to the oath swearing finding that Queen Blanche
Speaker 1: and several French countesses all had seats, while Isabelle, the
Speaker 1: Countess of Agoulem, and must she remind you, Dowager Queen
Speaker 1: of England, was somehow expected to stay. And the indecency
Speaker 1: outraged isabel so much that she apparently tore down the
Speaker 1: tapestries hanging over Hugh's throne, packed up the fine dinnerware,
Speaker 1: and even removed quote image of the Blessed Mary, along
Speaker 1: with the altar cloth and all the ornaments from the chapel.
Speaker 1: Isabel took everything fifty miles away to her own castle
Speaker 1: in Angoulem, in a fit of rage that could only
Speaker 1: have been meant to signal her anger at her husband, Hughes,
Speaker 1: who she blamed for failing to stand his ground in
Speaker 1: the face of their combined enemy. Hughes, understandably embarrassed, finished
Speaker 1: up the oath swearing, and then rushed off to confront Isabel,
Speaker 1: at which point she immediately scolded him, get away, get
Speaker 1: out of my sight. You are viler and baser than
Speaker 1: anybody else, and a reproach to everyone you've honored, the
Speaker 1: very people who disenhaet you. I'll never look at you again.
Speaker 1: Isabel refused to see her husband Hughes for three days, and,
Speaker 1: according to the writer of the letter that gives us
Speaker 1: that quote, what finally spurred Hughes to action was his
Speaker 1: wife's insistence that she wouldn't bed him until he rebelled
Speaker 1: against Queen Blanche. That most certainly is apocryphal, and it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that this detail both confirmed popular perceptions of
Speaker 1: Hughes as meek and Isabel as manipulative, exactly the sort
Speaker 1: of gossip that Blanche and the French court would have relished.
Speaker 1: What isn't apocryphal is that isabel played a major role
Speaker 1: in convincing Hughes to organize a rebellion against the French crown.
Speaker 1: It may have been symbolically sparked by Blanche's disrespect at court,
Speaker 1: but it was actually Isabelle's life, last ditch effort to
Speaker 1: exert control over her inheritance. Hughes and Isabel managed to
Speaker 1: recruit the Count of Toulouse as an ally, and they
Speaker 1: mustered every noble in the North that already resented Louis.
Speaker 1: In a familiar turn of events, Isabel reached out to
Speaker 1: the only person who wanted to see the ruin of
Speaker 1: the French more than she did. Her son. Henry, the
Speaker 1: King of England, looked past his rocky relationship with his
Speaker 1: mother in the face of this opportunity, and he gathered
Speaker 1: funding in late twelve forty one and early twelve forty
Speaker 1: two for an army. One chronicle relates the encounter between
Speaker 1: King Henry and his mother Isabel. When they finally met
Speaker 1: in France after decades of mutual vitriol apart, Isabel tenderly
Speaker 1: kissed her first born and in the sweetest tone, said
Speaker 1: to him, dear son, you have such a good character
Speaker 1: to help your mother and your brothers, whom the sons
Speaker 1: of Blanche of Spain want so wickedly to crush and
Speaker 1: keep under their feet. Tender maternal words. Notwithstanding, the invasion
Speaker 1: fell apart as soon as it began. The Count of
Speaker 1: Toulouse pulled his support. Henry wasn't able to raise a
Speaker 1: force large enough to compete with King Louis, and even
Speaker 1: Hughes only halfheartedly went about the whole rebellion thing, maybe
Speaker 1: hoping for an escape plan just in case. When the
Speaker 1: French and English armies met at Talburg in July twelve
Speaker 1: forty two, a French cavalry charge decimated the English forces.
Speaker 1: King Louis handed Henry a defeat so horrendous that the
Speaker 1: English king would have been captured had it not been
Speaker 1: for the diplomatic intervention of Henry's brother Richard. Hughes switched sides,
Speaker 1: to the chagrin of his wife. In less than a
Speaker 1: week of fighting. According to a popular myth, one that
Speaker 1: we can't verify or completely disprove, Isabel made a last
Speaker 1: stand by hiring out two serfs to poison the French king.
Speaker 1: Promised vast estates and noble titles. The two paupers managed
Speaker 1: to poison the meat and drink of Louis and Alphonse,
Speaker 1: but as we know, they were caught in the act
Speaker 1: and hanged for their treason. One rumor circulating claimed that
Speaker 1: isabel tried and failed to commit suicide when she heard
Speaker 1: the news of the serf's hangings. Another source says that
Speaker 1: she broke down beyond consolation. As punishment for their betrayal,
Speaker 1: King Louis forced Isabelle and Hughes to finance three French
Speaker 1: garrisons in their own territories. He also took Isabelle's titles
Speaker 1: and cut her off from any pensions the French crown
Speaker 1: may have allotted her in the past. Isabel and Hughes
Speaker 1: signed a joint charter to dissolve and disseminate their holdings
Speaker 1: across their nine children in medieval royal customs that effectively
Speaker 1: amounted to a divorce. Twenty years of scheming building maneuvering
Speaker 1: and fighting all gone to waste. Isabel, at fifty three
Speaker 1: years old, was almost exactly where she had started when
Speaker 1: she left England as a widow at twenty five, cut
Speaker 1: off from the royal family and without a state of
Speaker 1: her own. Contemporary chronicles regularly depict Isabel as a heartless
Speaker 1: mother and an unfaithful wife. Many of these chronicles were
Speaker 1: themselves written from the perspective of the French monarchy, so
Speaker 1: we'd be right to question their characterizations. Certainly, Isabel is
Speaker 1: the villain of the story. From that perspective, There's no
Speaker 1: doubt that Isabel had grand ambitions and took extreme measures,
Speaker 1: going so far as to side against her children to
Speaker 1: get what she wanted. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: she was a fairly intelligent political schemer and a competent administrator, who,
Speaker 1: like all members of the aristocracy, angled to conserve her
Speaker 1: estates and increase her own lavish income. She may have
Speaker 1: flown to close to the sun by the end, but
Speaker 1: twenty years of playing the English and French off one
Speaker 1: another was no simple task. One cannot tell a full
Speaker 1: story of the Countess of Angoulem without at least giving
Speaker 1: her that Hughes was the laughing stock of the French
Speaker 1: nobility for the rest of his life. In time, his
Speaker 1: reputation improved a little, especially as he died on a
Speaker 1: crusade to the Holy Lands in an act of political
Speaker 1: and spiritual penance. Isabel also found her own way to
Speaker 1: God in the final years of her life. Disgraced and despairing,
Speaker 1: she retreated to the abbey of Fontreval and took holy
Speaker 1: orders in twelve forty three. Right before her death in
Speaker 1: twelve forty six, Isabel wrote a final plea, this time
Speaker 1: to the French King, begging him to look after her
Speaker 1: children that she had with Hughes, to ensure that they
Speaker 1: would receive their fair share of her inheritance. This letter
Speaker 1: was completely unlike every other that she wrote in her lifetime.
Speaker 1: The parchment is of inferior quality. It phrays at the edges.
Speaker 1: In it, she begs not from a position of high court,
Speaker 1: but from the lowly chambers of a nun's scriptorium. Yet
Speaker 1: still at the bottom of the page her same old
Speaker 1: signature Isabelle, Queen of England. That's the complicated story of
Speaker 1: Isabelle of Angoulem. But keep listening. After a sponsor break
Speaker 1: to hear a little bit more about her family legacy.
Speaker 1: Isabel ordered that she'd be buried in the common plots
Speaker 1: outside the Abbey of Fonteiveau when she died. These plots
Speaker 1: were reserved for the brothers and sisters of the Order,
Speaker 1: never ever for a noble let alone a member of
Speaker 1: the Plantagenet royal family. The abbey itself had deep ancestral
Speaker 1: ties to the Duchy of Aquitaine and the English royal family.
Speaker 1: Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was Isabel's mother in law, had
Speaker 1: patronized the abbey for over sixty years, funding a massive
Speaker 1: octagonal kitchen with multiple fireplaces. The abbey would also serve
Speaker 1: as Eleanor's base of power for the latter half of
Speaker 1: her life, and it was an ideal accommodation for anyone
Speaker 1: loosely affiliated with the royal family. While Isabel carried out
Speaker 1: penance by taking the veil, she most definitely lived with
Speaker 1: some degree of luxury at the end of her life.
Speaker 1: Being buried in the common plots, however, was too extreme
Speaker 1: an act of penance. When Isabel's son Henry visited the
Speaker 1: abbey in twelve fifty four and learned about his mother's
Speaker 1: unceremonious burial, he ordered her reinterment in the abbey itself,
Speaker 1: next to the remains of Henry the Second and Eleanor
Speaker 1: of Aquitaine. In another act of grace towards the memory
Speaker 1: of his mother, Henry the third invited the five sons
Speaker 1: of Isabel's second marriage to England, understanding that their options
Speaker 1: in France were limited by the poor reputation of their parents.
Speaker 1: If you went to the abbey today, located near the
Speaker 1: French city of chinand you'd find a bust of Isabel
Speaker 1: situated atop what looked like a tomb, but her remains
Speaker 1: aren't there. During the French Revolution, after the nascent government
Speaker 1: of the Third Estate declared all monasteries property of the nation,
Speaker 1: radicals exhumed Isabel's bum bones in addition to the bones
Speaker 1: of Henry and Eleanor, and scattered them across the fields outside,
Speaker 1: never to be recovered. Noble Blood is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood
Speaker 1: is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional
Speaker 1: writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hanna Zwick, Mira Hayward,
Speaker 1: Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: produced by Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with supervising
Speaker 1: producer Josh Sayin and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.