Is King Charles III of the United Kingdom German? Part I

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George V of the United Kingdom, German, Giuseppe Garibaldi, House of Bourbon, House of Habsburg, House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, House of Windsor, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies, Unification of Italy

Is King Charles III of the United Kingdom German?

I was going to address this topic when the King visited Germany. I was also going to discuss this topic before the Coronation. Oh, well……better late than never.

I saw many comments on social media about the King and the Royal Family being German. It seems to be a popular belief, and also a very popular insult, to see King Charles III as being German.

I want to approach this issue not just as an historian, but as if I were a lawyer building my case. So here we go!

Question: Is King Charles III of the United Kingdom German?

My answer: No he is not!

Does he have German ancestry?

My answer: Absolutely!

I think this is an important distinction between nationality, ethnicity and ancestry which I’d like to explain and I’d like to explain why I think these distinctions is important.

First of all, why I think nationality is important I believe it is important because perception of nationality is important. Perception of a monarchs nationality has led to some problems. I would like to discuss two cases.

In the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily and the succeeding Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies being perceived as a foreign dynasty was part of the reason why the reigning Bourbon Dynasty was deposed in 1861 under Giuseppe Garibaldi.

Free to permit my indulgence here as I briefly relay the history of the kingdom of Sicily to demonstrate my point.

The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of the Italian Peninsula from its founding by Count Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula.

Capetian Dynasty

Charles I (early 1226/1227 – January 7, 1285), commonly called Charles of Anjou, was a member of the royal Capetian Dynasty and the founder of the second House of Anjou. Charles was the youngest son of King Louis VIII of the Franks and Infanta Blanche of Castile.

The Capetian House of Anjou, or House of Anjou-Sicily, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct French House of Capét. It is one of three separate royal houses referred to as Angevin, meaning “from Anjou” in France.

In 1263, after years of negotiations, Charles of Anjou accepted the offer of the Holy See to seize the Kingdom of Sicily from the German Hohenstaufens. Pope Urban IV declared a crusade against the incumbent Manfred of Sicily and assisted Charles in raising funds for the military campaign. Charles was crowned King of Sicily in Rome on January 5, 1266.

In 1282, a revolt against Angevin rule, known as the Sicilian Vespers, threw off Charles of Anjou’s rule of the island of Sicily. The Angevins managed to maintain control in the mainland part of the kingdom, which became a separate entity, a separate sovereign kingdom, also styled the Kingdom of Sicily, although it is commonly referred to as the Kingdom of Naples, after its capital.

Sicily eventually passed to the Kingdom of Aragon and then back to the main Royal line of France and eventually to the imperial House of Habsburg.

In 1734, in the aftermath of the War of the Polish Succession, Naples was reconquered by King Felipe V of Spain, a French Prince of the House of Bourbon, who installed his younger son, Charles, as Duke of Parma, and he also became as King Charles VII of Naples, starting a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. He also became King of Sicily with the name of Charles V of Sicily the next year.

Charles (Carlos) succeeded to the Spanish throne in 1759 upon the death of his childless half-brother King Fernando VI. He became King Carlos III of Spain. But treaty provisions made him ineligible to hold all three crowns simultaneously therefore on October 6, Carlos III abdicated his Neapolitan and Sicilian titles in favour of his third son, because his eldest son Philip had been excluded from succession due to mental instability and his second son Infante Carlos was heir-apparent to the Spanish throne.

The third son became King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and King Ferdinand III of the Kingdom of Sicily. Ferdinand III-IV was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

During the Congress of Vienna of 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, the kingdom of Naples and Sicily were restored and united as one singular Kingdom, with Ferdinand III-IV becoming King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies under the House of Bourbon.

On April 4, 1860 the latest revolt against the Bourbon regime broke out. Giuseppe Garibaldi, funded and directed by the Piedmontese prime minister Cavour, assisted the revolt.

On October 21, 1860, a Plebiscite regarding the unification of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with Italy was conducted. The outcome of the referendum was 432,053 (99%) in favour and only 667 in opposition to the unification. Despite claims and evidence of the Plebiscite being “obviously rigged”, many Sicilians viewed the unification as an acceptance of the House of Savoy which were Kings of Sardinia-Peidmont.

King Francis II was the last King of the Two Sicilies from 1859 to 1861. After successive invasions by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia ultimately brought an end to his rule, as part of Italian unification. After he was deposed, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Peidmont were merged into the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Peidmont became the first King of Italy.

It wasn’t just the House of Bourbon in the Two Sicilies that was deposed, the House of Bourbon as Dukes of Parma were also deposed as well as the House of Habsburg which ruled Tuscany as its Grand Dukes.

The United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom In 1917, the name of the British Royal House was changed from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the English Windsor because of anti-German sentiment in the United Kingdom during the First World War.

King Edward VII and, in turn, his son, King George V, were members of the German ducal House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha by virtue of their descent from Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort, husband of Queen Victoria, herself the last British monarch from the House of Hanover.

High anti-German sentiment amongst the people of the British Empire during the First World War reached a peak in March 1917, when the Gotha G.IV, a heavy aircraft capable of crossing the English Channel, began bombing London directly and became a household name. In the same year, the King and his family were finally persuaded to abandon all titles held under the German Crown and to change German titles and house names to anglicised versions. Hence, on July 17, 1917, a royal proclamation issued by George V declared:

Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that all the descendants in the male line of Our said Grandmother Queen Victoria who are subjects of these Realms, other than female descendants who may marry or may have married, shall bear the said Name of Windsor….

The name had a long association with monarchy in Britain, through the town of Windsor, Berkshire, and Windsor Castle; the link is alluded to in the Round Tower of Windsor Castle being the basis of the badge of the House of Windsor. It was suggested by Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham.

Of the deposing of the House of Bourbon and it’s Italian kingdoms and the name change of the British royal house during World War I raises a question for me.

How many generations does a family need to live within a region or country to be considered a native of that country?

The concludes Part I. Join me back tomorrow as I will answer some of these questions and conclude this topic of “Is King Charles III of the United Kingdom German?”

April 23 1744: Birth of Charlotte Amalie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön

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Augustenborg Castle, Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, Charlotte Amalie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön, Christian VII of Denmark-Norway, Countess Louise Frederikke af Danneskiold-Samsøe, Duke Friedrich Christian I of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, King Christian VI of Denmark-Norway, King Frederik V of Denmark, Kingdom of Denmark and Norway

Charlotte Amalie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön (April 23, 1744 – October 11, 1770), was a Princess of the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön (or Holstein-Plön), a cadet branch of the Danish royal family. She was born at Plön to Friedrich Charles, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön and his wife Countess Christiane Armgard von Reventlow, the fourth of their five children.

As her only brother died an infant in 1740 the small, partitioned-off Danish duchy of Plön was destined to revert to the royal domain of King Christian VI of Denmark-Norway on their father’s death. Thus her parents were freed from the custom of stinting their daughters’ dowries to maximize the patrimony of a male heir.

Consequently and unusually only one of the four sisters was enrolled in a nunnery: the eldest, Sophie (1732-1757), became canoness in 1753, and a year later deaconess of Quedlinburg Abbey, while the other three princesses were all allowed to marry.

Charlotte Amalie was the first of her sisters to wed, marrying at Reinfeld on May 26, 1762 her cousin, Friedrich Christian I, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. He was the eldest son of Christian August, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1696–1754) and his wife Countess Louise Frederikke af Danneskiold-Samsøe (1699–1744).

In 1754, his father died and Friedrich Christian inherited Augustenborg Castle and Gråsten. However, these estates were deeply in debt. He waived his claims on the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and in return King Frederik V of Denmark (who was also Duke of Schleswig and Holstein) granted him a favourable settlement.

Two years later, as a near, agnatic kinsman of his father-in-law, Friedrich Christian renounced any claim he might have had to the Plön duchy and in return received from the Danish crown the castle of Sonderburg, the domain of Gammelgaard with Gundestrup and the fiefs of Ronhave, Langenvorwerk, Kekinisgaard and Maibullgaard, all located on the isle of Ahlsen or nearby on that of Sundeved in the Sonderburg region.

They had seven children:

1. Louise Christine Caroline (February 16, 1763 – January 27, 1764).

2. Louise Christine Caroline (February 17, 1764 – August 2, 1815).

3. Friedrich Christian II (September 28, 1765 – June 14, 1814), married Princess Louise Auguste of Denmark. Louise Augusta of Denmark and Norway (July 7, 1771 – January 13, 1843) was the daughter of the Queen of Denmark-Norway, Caroline Matilda of Great Britain. Though officially regarded as the daughter of King Christian VII, it is widely accepted that her biological father was Johann Friedrich Struensee, the king’s royal physician and de facto regent of the country at the time of her birth. She was referred to sometimes as “la petite Struensee”; this did not, however, have any effect on her position.

4. Friedrich Charles Emil (March 8, 1767 – June 14, 1841), Danish general, married in Leipzig September 29, 1801 without the consent or recognition of either the Duke or the King, Sofie Eleonora Fredericka von Scheel (1776–1836), daughter of Jürgen Eric von Scheel and Anna Drothea von Ahlefeldt.

5. Christian August (July 9, 1768 – May 28, 1810), Danish general, and later selected Crown Prince of Sweden and changed his name to Carl August, however, he died before inheriting the throne.

6. Sophie Amelie (August 10, 1769 – October 6, 1769).

7. Charles Wilhelm (October 4, 1770 – February 22, 1771).

The couple spent some of her wealth to build the new Augustenburg Palace.

Charlotte Amalie died in Augustenburg on October 11, 1770 aged 26, seven days after the birth of her last child.

April 5, 1691: Birth of Landgrave Ludwig VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt

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Count Johann Reinhard III of Hanau, Countess Charlotte Christine of Hanau-Lichtenberg, Emperor Franz I Sefan, Empress Maria Theresa, King George II of Great Britain, Landgrave Ludwig VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt, Margrave Albrecht II of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Seven Years War

Ludwig VIII (April 5, 1691 – October 17, 1768) was the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt from 1739 to 1768. He was the son of Ernst Ludwig Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and Margravine Dorothea Charlotte of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a daughter of Margrave Albrecht II of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1620–1667), from his second marriage to Sophia Margaret of Oettingen-Oettingen (1634–1664), daughter of Joachim Ernest of Oettingen-Oettingen.

In 1717, he was married to his cousin Countess Charlotte Christine of Hanau-Lichtenberg the only surviving child of Count Johann Reinhard III of Hanau, and the Countess Dorothea Friederike of Brandenburg-Ansbach the daughter of Margrave John Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1654–1686) and his first wife, Margravine Johanna Elisabeth of Baden-Durlach (1651–1680). Countess Dorothea Friederike of Brandenburg-Ansbach was a half-sister of Queen Caroline of Great Britain, the wife of King George II of Great Britain.

Count Johann Reinhard III was the last Count of Hanau, thus, Countess Charlotte Christine was the sole heir of the County of Hanau.

As a result of the marriage Landgrave Ludwig VIII received Hanau-Lichtenberg as an addition to his dominions. Because of his passion for hunting, he is known as the “Hunting Landgrave” (German: Jagdlandgraf). During the Seven Years’ War he stood on the side of the Emperor Franz I Stefan and received the rank of General Field Marshal.

The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European great powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Some historians have labeled the Seven Years War as World War 0.

Like his father, Ludwig VIII was not a gifted economist and only his good relationship with Empress Maria Theresa and her intervention at the Imperial Court Council kept the Landgraviate from bankruptcy. However, his caring for his country is documented by the establishment of a textile house in 1742 and a state orphanage in the 1746.

Issue

Children:

1. Landgrave Ludwig IX, married in 1741 Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken, had issue
2. Prince Georg Wilhelm, married in 1748 Countess Maria Louise Albertine of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg, had issue
3. Princess Caroline Louise; married in 1751 Charles Friedrich, Margrave of Baden, later first Grand Duke of Baden, had issue

History of the Kingdom of East Francia: Conclusion

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Bavaria, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, Emperor Maximilian I, Franconia, Hohenstaufen Dynasty, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, House of Habsburg, House of Hohenstaufen, House of Wittelsbach, King of the Romans, Kingdom of East Francia, Kingdom of Germany, Lotharingia (Lorraine), Saxony, Stem Duchy, Swabia (Alemannia).

I would like to briefly summarize not only the History of the Kingdom of East Francia but also it’s relevant and associated titles.

In 800 Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned “Emperor of the Romans” by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day. This Empire, which was to be a restart of the old Roman Empire, is known as the Carolingian Empire. When Emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left this Empire fully intact to his son Louis the Pious.

However, upon Louis’s death in 840 he divided the empire amongst his three surviving sons. After a brief Civil War between the royal brothers, it lead to the signing of the Treaty of Verdun in 843 which effectively divided the Empire. The third son of Louis the Pious, known as Louis the German, inherited the eastern portion of the Empire, logically known as the Kingdom of East Francia.

After the Carolingian Dynasty died out in the Kingdom of East Francia, the elective monarchy became the possession of the Dukes of Saxony with Heinrich the Fowler as the first German elected King of East Francia.

When his son, King Otto I of East Francia, was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope John XII in 962 we see a transition from a Frankish Kingdom into a Germanic Kingdom, and from there the title of the monarch transitioned from King of East Francia to the King of Germany. Although as noted elsewhere in the series the title King of East Francia was still in usage for many many more years.

In other words, during the time of the Ottonian Dynasty there seems to be overlap with the titles “King of East Francia”, “King of Germany” and “King of the Romans” with these titles being used interchangeably, at least by modern historians.

Therefore, from the reign of King/Emperor Heinrich II the title King of the Romans was used by the German King following his election by the princes within the Empire, until he was crowned Emperor by the Pope.

In 1508, Emperor Maximilian I, adopted the title “Emperor Elect”, with papal approval, and dispensed with the Papal Coronation. Subsequent rulers adopted that title after their elections as kings. Using the title ” King of the Romans” became unnecessary due to the fact that the elected monarch did not need that title prior to a Papal Coronation that no longer existed.

Emperor Maximilian I

At the same time, the custom of having the heir-apparent elected as “King of the Romans” in the emperor’s lifetime resumed. For this reason, the title “King of the Romans” (Rex Romanorum) came to mean heir-apparent, the successor elected while the emperor was still alive.

Thus far I have been mostly talking about titles. However, the Kingdom of East Francia was not just a title. The kingdom had borders and land associated with the titles. But with the transformation from a Frankish Kingdom to a Germanic Kingdom and later the Holy Roman Empire, what became of the land known as the kingdom of East Francia?

The Kingdom of East Francia consisted of a series of tribal regions known as the Stem Duchies.

A stem duchy meaning “tribe”, in reference to the Franks, Saxons, Bavarians and Swabians was a constituent duchy of the Kingdom of East Francia at the time of the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty (death of Louis the Child in 911) and through the transitional period leading to the formation of the Ottonian Empire or, the Holy Roman Empire.

The Carolingians had dissolved the original tribal duchies of the Empire in the 8th century. As the Carolingian Empire declined, the old tribal areas assumed new identities. The five stem duchies (sometimes also called “younger stem duchies” in contrast to the pre-Carolingian tribal duchies) were: Bavaria, Franconia, Lotharingia (Lorraine), Saxony and Swabia (Alemannia).

Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa

The Salian Emperors (reigned 1027–1125) retained the stem duchies as the major regions of the lands that compromised the Kingdom Germany or corresponding to the Kingdom of East Francia. The rest of the regions of the Holy Roman Empire lay outside the German territories which mainly consisted of Italian lands such as the Kingdom of the Lombards, also known as the medieval Kingdom of Italy.

As the stem duchies became increasingly obsolete during the early high-medieval period, under the Hohenstaufen Dynasty, specifically Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, who finally abolished the Stem Duchies in 1180 in favour of more numerous territorial duchies.

An example of the fate of one Stem Duchy, Swabia, mirrors the fate of many of the Stem Duchies. In the 13th century the Duchy of Swabia was in complete disarray, with its territories falling to the Wittelsbach, Württemberg, and Habsburg families. The main core territory of Swabia continued its existence as the County of Württemberg, which was raised to the status of a Duchy in 1495, which in turn became the Kingdom of Württemberg within 19th-century Germany.

With new territories rising from the ashes of the abolished Stem Duchies, these new territories became increasingly autonomous; and with that occurrence the Kingdom of East Francia can be considered to have drifted into the shadows of history by this time.

Nevertheless, there are relatively few references to a German kingdom distinct from the Holy Roman Empire.

March 12, 1270: Birth of Charles, Count of Valois

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Catherine of Courtney, Charles of Valois, Empress of Constantinople, House of Capet, House of Valois, Infanta Isabella of Aragon, King Frederick III of Sicily, King Louis X of France, King Philippe III of France, King Philippe IV of France, Pope Boniface VIII, Pope Martin IV

Charles, Count of Valois (March 12, 1270 – December 16, 1325), the fourth son of King Philippe III of France and Infanta Isabella of Aragon, was a member of the House of Capét and founder of the House of Valois, whose rule over France would start in 1328.

Charles ruled several principalities. He held in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon (1285), and Perche. Through his marriage to his first wife, Margaret, Countess of Anjou and Maine, he became Count of Anjou and Maine. Through his marriage to his second wife, Catherine I of Courtenay, Empress of Constantinople, he was titular Latin Emperor of Constantinople from 1301 to 1307, although he ruled from exile and only had authority over the Crusader States in Greece.

As the grandson of King Louis IX of France, Charles of Valois was a son, brother, brother-in-law and son-in-law of kings or queens (of France, Navarre, England and Naples). His descendants, the House of Valois, would become the royal house of France three years after his death, beginning with his eldest son King Philippe VI of France.

Life

Besides holding in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon and Perche, Charles became in 1290 the Count of Anjou and of Maine by his first marriage with Margaret of Anjou, the eldest daughter of King Charles II of Naples, titular King of Sicily; by a second marriage that he contracted with the heiress of Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople, last Latin emperor of Constantinople, he also had pretensions to the throne of Constantinople.

From his early years, Charles of Valois dreamed of more and sought all his life for a crown he never obtained. Starting in 1284, Pope Martin IV recognized him as King of Aragon (under the vassalage of the Holy See), as the son of his mother, Infanta Isabella of Aragon, in opposition to King Pedro III of Aragon, who after the conquest of the island of Sicily was an enemy of the Papacy.

Charles hence married Margaret, the daughter of the Neapolitan king, in order to re-enforce his position in Sicily which was supported by the Pope. Thanks to this Aragonese Crusade undertaken by his father King Philippe III against the advice of his elder brother Philippe the Fair, he believed he would win a kingdom and however won nothing but the ridicule of having been crowned with a cardinal’s hat in 1285, which gave him the alias of the “King of the Cap.” He would never dare to use the royal seal which was made on this occasion and had to renounce the title.

His principal quality was to be a good military leader. Charles commanded effectively in Flanders in 1297. Thus his elder brother, King Philippe IV of France, quickly deduced that Charles could conduct an expedition in Italy against King Frederick III of Sicily. The affair was ended by the Treaty of Caltabellotta.

Dreaming at the same time for an imperial crown, Charles married secondly to Catherine I of Courtenay in 1301, who was the titular Empress of Constantinople. But it needed the connivance of Pope Boniface VIII, which he obtained by his expedition to Italy, where the Pope supported Charles’s father-in-law King Charles II against King Frederick III, his cousin.

Named papal vicar, Charles of Valois lost himself in the complexity of Italian politics, was compromised in a massacre at Florence, and in sordid financial extremities, reached Sicily where he consolidated his reputation as a looter and finally returned to France discredited in 1301–1302.

Charles was back in shape to seek a new crown when the German King, Albrecht I, King of the Romans, was murdered in 1308. Charles’s brother King Philippe IV, who did not wish to take the risk himself of a check and probably thought that a French puppet on the imperial throne would be a good thing for France, encouraged him.

The candidacy was defeated with the election of Heinrich VII of Luxembourg as German king, for the electors did not want France to become even more powerful. Charles thus continued to dream of the eastern crown of the Courtenays.

He did benefit from the affection which his brother King Philippe, who had suffered from the remarriage of their father, brought to his only full brother, and Charles thus found himself given responsibilities which largely exceeded his talent. Thus it was he who directed, in 1311, the royal embassy to the conferences of Tournai with the Flemish; he quarreled there with his brother’s chamberlain Enguerrand de Marigny, who openly defied him. Charles did not pardon the affront and would continue the vendetta against Marigny after his brother King Philippe’s death.

In 1314, Charles was doggedly opposed to the torture of Jacques de Molay, grand master of the Templars.

The premature death of Charles’s nephew, King Louis X of France, in 1316, gave Charles hopes for a political role. However, he could not prevent his nephew Philippe the Tall from taking the regency while awaiting the birth of his brother King Louis X’s posthumous son. When that son (Jean I of France) died after a few days, Philippe took the throne as King Philippe V of France. Charles was initially opposed to his nephew Philippe’s succession, for Philippe’s elder brother King Louis X had left behind a daughter, Joan of France, his only surviving child. However, Charles later switched sides and eventually backed his nephew Philippe, probably realizing that Philippe’s precedent would bring him and his line closer to the throne.

In 1324, Charles commanded with success the army of his nephew, King Charles IV of France (who succeeded his elder brother King Philippe V in 1322), to take Guyenne and Flanders from King Edward II of England. He contributed, by the capture of several cities, to accelerate the peace, which was concluded between the King of France and his sister Isabella, the queen-consort of England as the wife of King Edward II.

The Count of Valois died on December 16, 1325 at Nogent-le-Roi, leaving a son who would take the throne of France under the name of Philippe VI and commence the branch of the Valois. Had he survived for three more years and outlived his nephew King Charles IV, Charles might have become king of France. Charles was buried in the now-demolished church of the Couvent des Jacobins in Paris – his effigy is now in the Basilica of St Denis.

March 11, 1198: Death of Princess Marie of the Franks, Countess of Champagne

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Count Henri I of Champagne, Count Henri II of Champagne, Countess of Champagne, Crusades, Eleanor of Aquitaine, King Henry II of England, King John of England, King Louis VII of France, King Philippe II Auguste of France, Marie of the Franks, Regent

Marie of the Franks (1145 – March 11, 1198) was a Frankish princess who became Countess of Champagne by marriage to Henri I, Count of Champagne. She was regent of the county of Champagne three times: during the absence of her spouse between 1179 and 1181; during the minority of her son Henry II, Count of Champagne in 1181–1187; and finally during the absence of her son between 1190 and 1197.

Marie’s birth was hailed as a “miracle” by Bernard of Clairvaux, an answer to his prayer to bless the marriage between her mother Eleanor of Aquitaine and her father, King Louis VII of the Franks. She was just two years old when her parents led the Second Crusade to the Holy Land. Not long after their return in 1152, when Marie was seven, her parents’ marriage was annulled. Custody of Marie and her younger sister, Alix, was awarded to their father, since they were at that time the only heirs to the hrone.

Both Louis and Eleanor remarried quickly. Eleanor married King Henry II of the English and became Queen of the English. King Louis VII remarried first Constance of Castile (d. 1160) and then Adele of Champagne on 13 November 13, 1160. Marie had numerous half-siblings on both her mother’s and father’s side, including the eventual kings Philippe II Augusté of France and John and Richard I of England.

Her half brother, King John, changed the English Royal title to King of England and her half brother King Philippe II Augusté changed the Frankish Royal title to King of France.

Marriage

In 1153, Marie was betrothed to Count Henri of Champagne by her father King Louis VII. These betrothals were arranged based on the intervention of Bernard of Clairvaux, as reported in the contemporary chronicle of Radulfus Niger. After her betrothal, Marie was sent to live with the Viscountess Elizabeth of Mareuil-sy-Aÿ and then to the abbey of Avenay in Champagne for her Latin-based education. In 1159, Marie married Henri I, Count of Champagne.

Henri I, Count of Champagne was the eldest son of Count Theobald II of Champagne, who was also count of Blois, and his wife, Matilda of Carinthia.

Regencies

Marie became regent for Champagne when her husband Henri I went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land from 1179 until 1181. While her husband was away, Marie’s father died and her half-brother, King Philippe II Augusté, became King of France. He confiscated his mother’s dower lands and married Isabelle of Hainaut, who was previously betrothed to Marie’s eldest son. This prompted Marie to join a party of disgruntled nobles—including the queen mother Adela of Champagne and the archbishop of Reims—in plotting unsuccessfully against Philippe II Augustus. Eventually, relations between Marie and her royal brother improved. Marie’s husband died soon after his return from the Holy Land in 1181, leaving her again as regent for her young son Count Henri of Champagne.

Marie, who had retired to the nunnery of Château de Fontaines-les-Nonnes near Meaux (1187–1190), served again as regent for Champagne as her son Henry II joined the Third Crusade from 1190 to 1197. He remained in the Levant, marrying Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem in 1192. Over the course of her regencies, Champagne was transformed from a patchwork of territories into a significant principality.

Death

Marie died on March 11, 1198, not long after hearing the news of her son’s death. She was buried in Meaux Cathedral.