John met her when she was 14 and he 34 and became "madly enamoured." Though she was already betrothed to another man, John had the contract broken. While Isabella wept and protested, she and her parents were vassals of John and could do nothing.
John was as insanely jealous as he was insanely enamoured -- when a man was rumored to be Isabella's lover, John had him hanged and then his corpse suspended over her bed.
After John's death she had her 9-year-old son Henry crowned. Since John's baggage train carrying the crown jewels had been swept away by the Wash, Henry was crowned with one of Isabella's golden collars. She was not invited to participate in the regency, and returned home to Angouleme, where she found her old fiancee still unmarried. The two married at once. [Tyerman says she married the son of her old flame.144]
The subsequent uproar in England (Isabella's husband was a supporter of the French king) was resolved only when the Pope intervened and demanded the English pay Isabella her rightful dues. But France was at war and Isabella eventually accused of plotting to poison the king. She fled to the Abbey of Fontevrault and took refuge in "a secret place." No effort was made to force her out, and she died there two years later. She was buried, at her own request, in the open cemetery at Fontevrault. Her son Henry later had her body moved to lay beside Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Richard I in the abbey church.199
Tyerman says Isabella and John married when she was 12.144 |