Isabella of France (sometimes described as the She-Wolf of France ; – 22 August 1358) was Queen of England as the wife of King Edward II, and de facto regent of England from 1327 until 1330. She was the youngest surviving child and only surviving daughter of King Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre.
Isabella arrived in England at age 12 during a period of growing conflict between the king and the powerful baronial factions. Her new husband was notorious for the patronage he lavished on his favourite, Piers Gaveston, but the queen supported Edward during these early years, forming a working relationship with Piers and using her relationship with the French monarchy to bolster her own authority and power. After the death of Gaveston at the hands of the barons in 1312, however, Edward turned to a new favourite, Hugh Despenser the Younger, and attempted to take revenge on the barons, resulting in the Despenser War and a period of internal repression across England. Isabella could not tolerate Hugh Despenser, and by 1325, her marriage to Edward was at a breaking point.
Travelling to France on a diplomatic mission, Isabella may have begun an affair with Roger Mortimer, and the two may possibly have agreed at this point to depose Edward and oust the Despenser family. The queen returned to England with a small mercenary army in 1326, moving rapidly across England. The king's forces deserted him. Isabella deposed Edward, becoming regent on behalf of her young son, Edward III. Some believe that Isabella then arranged the murder of Edward II. Isabella and Mortimer's regime began to crumble, partly because of her lavish spending, but also because the queen successfully, but unpopularly, resolved long-running problems such as the War of Scottish Independence.
In 1330, aged 18, Isabella's son, Edward III, forcibly asserted his authority. Mortimer was executed, Isabella's regency was ended, and she was imprisoned, but soon released. She lived out her remaining years as a wealthy courtier and grew close again to her family, especially her daughter Joan, Queen of Scots, and her grandson Edward, Prince of Wales.
Early life and marriage: 1295–1308
Isabella was born in Paris on an uncertain date – on the basis of the chroniclers and the eventual date of her marriage, she was probably born between April 1295 and January 1296. She is described as born in 1292 in the Annals of Wigmore, and Piers Langtoft agrees, claiming that she was 7 years old in 1299. The French chronicler Guillaume de Nangis and English chronicler Thomas Walsingham describe her as 12 years old at the time of her marriage in January 1308, placing her birth between January 1295 and January 1296. A papal dispensation by Clement V in November 1305 permitted her immediate marriage by proxy, despite the fact that she was probably only 10 years old. Since her brother Charles was born on 18 June 1294, and she had to reach the canonical age of 12 before her marriage in January 1308, the evidence suggests that she was born between April 1295 and January 1296.See Weir 2006, pp. 8–9. Her parents were King Philip IV of France and Queen Joan I of Navarre; her brothers Louis, Philip and Charles became kings of France.Warner 2016, p.8
Isabella was born into a royal family that ruled the most powerful state in Western Europe. Her father, King Philip, known as "le Bel" (the Fair) because of his good looks, was a strangely unemotional man; one contemporary described him as "neither a man nor a beast, but a statue";Weir 2006, p. 11. modern historians have noted that he "cultivated a reputation for Christian kingship and showed few weaknesses of the flesh".Jones and McKitterick, p. 394. Philip built up centralised royal power in France, engaging in a sequence of conflicts to expand or consolidate French authority across the region, but remained chronically short of money throughout his reign. Indeed, he appeared almost obsessed about building up wealth and lands, something that his daughter was also accused of in later life.Weir 2006, p. 12. Isabella's mother died when Isabella was still quite young; some contemporaries suspected Philip IV of her murder, albeit probably incorrectly.Weir 2006, p. 14.
Isabella was brought up in and around the Louvre Palace and the Palais de la Cité in Paris.Weir 2006, p. 13. Isabella was cared for by Théophania de Saint-Pierre, her nurse, given a good education and taught to read, developing a love of books. As was customary for the period, all of Philip's children were married young for political benefit. Isabella was promised in marriage by her father to Edward II, the son of King Edward I of England, with the intention to resolve the conflicts between France and England over the latter's continental possession of Gascony and claims to Anjou, Normandy and Aquitaine.Weir 2006, pp. 13–4. Pope Boniface VIII had urged the marriage as early as 1298 but it was delayed by wrangling over the terms of the marriage contract. The renewal of the Anglo-French truce in 1299 led to the marriage of Edward I to Philip's sister Margaret, further anticipating the marriage of Isabella to Edward II. In 1303, Edward I may have considered a Castilian bride for Edward II instead of Isabella and even increased her dowry before the wedding. Edward I attempted to break the engagement several times for political advantage, and only after he died in 1307 did the wedding proceed.
Isabella and Edward II were finally married at Boulogne-sur-Mer on 25 January 1308. Isabella's wardrobe gives some indications of her wealth and style – she had dresses of baudekyn, velvet, taffeta and cloth, along with numerous furs; she had over 72 headdresses and coifs; she brought with her two gold crowns, gold and silver dinnerware and 419 yards of linen.Weir 2006, p. 25. At the time of her marriage, Isabella was probably about twelve and was described by Geoffrey of Paris as "the beauty of beauties... in the kingdom if not in all Europe." This description was probably not simply flattery by a chronicler, since both Isabella's father and brothers were considered very handsome men by contemporaries, and her husband was to nickname her "Isabella the Fair". Isabella was said to resemble her father, and not her mother, queen regnant of Navarre, a plump, plain woman.Costain, p. 82; Weir 2006, p. 12. This indicates that Isabella was slender and pale-skinned, although the fashion at the time was for blonde, slightly full-faced women, and Isabella may well have followed this stereotype instead.Weir 2006, p. 26. Throughout her career, Isabella was noted as charming and diplomatic, with a particular skill at convincing people to follow her courses of action.Weir 2006, p. 243. Unusual for the medieval period, contemporaries also commented on her high intelligence.Mortimer, 2004, p. 36.
Queenship As queen, the young Isabella faced numerous challenges. Edward was handsome, but also possibly formed close romantic attachments first to Piers Gaveston and then to Hugh Despenser the Younger. Edward found himself at odds with the barons, too, in particular his first cousin Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, whilst continuing the war against the Scots that he had inherited from Edward I. Using her own supporters at court and the patronage of her French family, Isabella attempted to find a political path through these challenges. She successfully formed an alliance with Gaveston, but after his death at the hands of the barons, her position grew increasingly precarious. Edward began to take revenge on his enemies, using an ever more brutal alliance with the Despenser family, in particular his new favourite, Hugh Despenser the Younger. By 1326, Isabella found herself increasingly at odds with both Edward and Hugh, ultimately resulting in Isabella's own bid for power and an invasion of England.For a summary of this period, see Weir 2006, chapters 2–6; Mortimer, 2006, chapter 1; Doherty, chapters 1–3.
Fall of Gaveston: 1308–1312
Edward was an unusual character by medieval standards. Edward looked the part of a Plantagenet king: he was tall, athletic, and wildly popular at the beginning of his reign.Weir 2006, p. 39. However, he rejected most of the traditional pursuits of a king for the period – jousting, hunting and warfare – and instead enjoyed music, poetry and rural crafts.Weir 2006, p. 37. Furthermore, there is the question of Edward's sexuality in a period when homosexuality was considered a serious crime, but there is no direct evidence of his sexual orientation. Contemporary chroniclers made much of his close affinity with a succession of male favourites. Some condemned Edward for loving them "beyond measure" and "uniquely", others explicitly referring to an "illicit and sinful union".Doherty, p. 37. Nonetheless, Isabella bore four children by Edward, leading some historians to believe that Edward's affairs with his male favourites were platonic, despite Isabella's complaints of whose bed he visited.
When Isabella first arrived in England following her marriage, her husband was already involved with Piers Gaveston, an "arrogant, ostentatious" soldier, with a "reckless and headstrong" personality that appealed to Edward.Doherty, p. 38. Isabella, then aged twelve, was effectively sidelined by the pair. Edward chose to sit with Gaveston rather than Isabella at their coronation,Doherty, p. 46. causing grave offense to her uncles Louis, Count of Évreux, and Charles, Count of Valois, and then refused to grant her either her own lands or her own household.Doherty, p. 47. Edward also gave Gaveston Isabella's own jewelry, which he wore publicly. Isabella complained to her father that Gaveston took her place next to Edward II, she received insufficient funds and Edward visited Gaveston's bed more than hers. It took the intervention of Isabella's father, Philip IV, before Edward began to provide for her more appropriately.
Isabella's relationship with Gaveston was complex. For a time, her dislike of him was widely known, and she was said to be in contact with her father, the pope and cardinals in order to have him exiled. Baronial opposition to Gaveston, championed by Thomas of Lancaster, increased; and Philip IV began to covertly fund this grouping, using Isabella and her household as intermediaries.Doherty, pp. 47–8. Edward was forced to exile Gaveston to Ireland for a period and began to show Isabella much greater respect, assigning her lands and patronage. In turn, Philip ceased his support for the barons. Gaveston eventually returned from Ireland, and by 1309–11, the three seemed to be co-existing together relatively comfortably.Doherty, p. 49. Indeed, Gaveston's key enemy, Edward and Isabella's uncle Thomas of Lancaster, considered her to be an ally of Gaveston."Even her own uncle Lancaster came to regard her as an enemy." Isabella's mother, Joan of Navarre, was Thomas of Lancaster's older half-sister. Isabella had begun to build up her own supporters at court, principally the Beaumont family, itself opposed to the Lancastrians. Similarly originating from France, the senior member of the Beaumont family, Isabella de Beaumont, had been a close confidant of Edward's mother Eleanor of Castile, supported by her brother Henry de Beaumont.