Were They A Usurper? King John

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and Count of Poitiers, and Nantes and overlord of Brittany, Anjou, Aquitaine and Gascony, Arthur of Brittany, Duke of Normandy, Geoffrey II of Brittany, King of the English, King Philippe II Auguste of France, Lord of Cyprus, Maine, Richard I the Lionheart, Third Crusade, William II of Sicily

On July 4, 1189, the joint forces of Richard of England and King Philippe II Auguste of France defeated the army of King Henry II of the English at Ballans. King Henry II agreed to name Richard his heir apparent. Two days later King Henry II died at Chinon, and Richard succeeded him as King of the English, Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes and overlord of Brittany.

King Richard I was officially invested as Duke of Normandy on July 20, 1189 and crowned king in Westminster Abbey on September 3, 1189.

After Richard became king, he and Philippe II Auguste agreed to go on the Third Crusade, since each feared that during his absence the other might usurp his territories.

In late September 1190 Richard and Philippe II Auguste arrived in Sicily. After the death of King William II of Sicily in 1189 his cousin Tancred had seized power, although the legal heir was William’s aunt Constance, wife of Heinrich VI, Holy Roman Emperor. Tancred had imprisoned William’s widow, Queen Joan, who was Richard’s sister, and did not give her the money she had inherited in William’s will.

When Richard arrived he demanded that his sister be released and given her inheritance; she was freed on September 28, but without the inheritance. The presence of foreign troops also caused unrest: in October, the people of Messina revolted, demanding that the foreigners leave.

Richard attacked Messina, capturing it on October 4, 1190. After looting and burning the city Richard established his base there, but this created tension between Richard and Philippe II Auguste. He remained there until Tancred finally agreed to sign a treaty on 4 March 4, 1191. The treaty was signed by Richard, Philippe II Auguste, and Tancred. Its main terms were:

1. Joan was to receive 20,000 ounces (570 kg) of gold as compensation for her inheritance, which Tancred kept.

2. Richard officially proclaimed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, son of Geoffrey, as his heir, and Tancred promised to marry one of his daughters to Arthur when he came of age, giving a further 20,000 ounces (570 kg) of gold that would be returned by Richard if Arthur did not marry Tancred’s daughter.

The two kings stayed on in Sicily for a while, but this resulted in increasing tensions between them and their men, with Philippe II Auguste plotting with Tancred against Richard. The two kings finally met to clear the air and reached an agreement, including the end of Richard’s betrothal to Philippe II Auguste’ s sister Alys.

August 24, 1200: King John of England marries Isabella, Countess of Angoulême

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Arthur of Brittany, Count of La Marche, Henry III of England, Hugh IX of Lusignan, Hugh X of Lusignan, Isabella of Angouleme, Isabella of Gloucester, King John of England, King Philippe II of France, Richard I of England

Isabella (c. 1186/ 1188 – June 4, 1246) was Queen of England, as the second wife of King John of England, from 1200 to 1216, and Countess of Angoulême in her own right from 1202 until her death in 1246.

Isabella was the only daughter and heir of Aymer Taillefer, Count of Angoulême, by Alice of Courtenay, who was a sister of Peter II of Courtenay, Latin Emperor of Constantinople. Alice and Peter II were grandchildren of King Louis VI of France through their father Peter I of Courtenay.

Isabella became Countess of Angoulême in her own right on June 16, 1202, by which time she was already queen of England.

When King Richard I of England died, his younger brother John, claimed the throne as the son of King Henry II of England. The other to claim the throne of England was Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, nephew of John and the son of John’s older brother. Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany.

Neither side was keen to continue the conflict, and following a papal truce the two leaders met in January 1200 to negotiate possible terms for peace. From John’s perspective, what then followed represented an opportunity to stabilize control over his continental possessions and produce a lasting peace with Philippe II of France in Paris.

John and Philippe II negotiated the May 1200 Treaty of Le Goulet; by this treaty, Philippe II recognized John as the rightful heir to Richard in respect to his French possessions, temporarily abandoning the wider claims of his client, Arthur of Brittany.

John, in turn, abandoned Richard’s former policy of containing Philippe II through alliances with Flanders and Boulogne, and accepted Philippe II’s right as the legitimate feudal overlord of John’s lands in France. John’s policy earned him the disrespectful title of “John Softsword” from some English chroniclers, who contrasted his behaviour with his more aggressive brother, Richard.

In order to remarry, John first needed to abandon his wife Isabella, Countess of Gloucester; the King accomplished this by arguing that he had failed to get the necessary papal dispensation to marry the Countess in the first place—as a cousin, John could not have legally wedded her without this.

It remains unclear why John chose to marry Isabella of Angoulême. Contemporary chroniclers argued that John had fallen deeply in love with her, and John may have been motivated by desire for an apparently beautiful, if rather young, girl.

On the other hand, the Angoumois lands that came with her were strategically vital to John: by marrying Isabella, John was acquiring a key land route between Poitou and Gascony, which significantly strengthened his grip on Aquitaine.

Isabella, however, was already engaged to Hugh IX of Lusignan, an important member of a key Poitou noble family and brother of Raoul I, Count of Eu, who possessed lands along the sensitive eastern Normandy border.

Just as John stood to benefit strategically from marrying Isabella, so the marriage threatened the interests of the Lusignans, whose own lands currently provided the key route for royal goods and troops across Aquitaine. Rather than negotiating some form of compensation, John treated Hugh “with contempt”; this resulted in a Lusignan uprising that was promptly crushed by John, who also intervened to suppress Raoul in Normandy.

King John officially married Isabella, Countess of Angoulême on August 24, 1200.

As a result of John’s temerity in taking her as his second wife, King Philippe II of France confiscated all of their French lands. War recommenced in the aftermath of John’s decision to marry Isabella of Angoulême.

At the time of her marriage to John, the blonde-haired blue-eyed Isabella was already renowned by some for her beauty and has sometimes been called the Helen of the Middle Ages by historians. Isabella was much younger than her husband and possessed a volatile temper similar to his own.

King John was infatuated with his young, beautiful wife; however, his acquisition of her had at least as much to do with spiting his enemies as romantic love.

It was said that he neglected his state affairs to spend time with Isabella, often remaining in bed with her until noon. However, these were rumors spread by John’s enemies to discredit him as a weak and grossly irresponsible ruler, given that at the time John was engaging in a desperate war against King Philippe II of France to hold on to the remaining Plantagenet duchies. The common people began to term her a “siren” or “Messalina” for her allure. Her mother-in-law, Eleanor of Aquitaine, readily accepted her as John’s wife.

On October 1, 1207, at Winchester Castle, Isabella gave birth to a son and heir, the future King Henry III of England, who was named after his grandfather King Henry II. He was quickly followed by another son, Richard, and three daughters: Joan, Isabella and Eleanor. All five children survived into adulthood and made illustrious marriages; all but Joan produced offspring of their own.

Isabella had five children by the king, including his heir, later Henry III.

Second marriage

When King John died on October 19, 1216, Isabella’s first act was to arrange the speedy coronation of her nine-year-old son at the city of Gloucester on October 28. As the royal crown had recently been lost in the Wash, along with the rest of King John’s treasure, she supplied her own golden circlet to be used in lieu of a crown.

The following July, less than a year after his crowning as King Henry III of England, she left him in the care of his regent, William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, and returned to France to assume control of her inheritance of Angoulême.

In the spring of 1220, Isabella married Hugh X of Lusignan, “le Brun”, Seigneur de Luisignan, Count of La Marche, the son of her former fiancé, Hugh IX, to whom she had been betrothed before her marriage to King John. It had been previously arranged that her eldest daughter Joan should marry Hugh, and the little girl was being brought up at the Lusignan court in preparation for her marriage.

Hugh, however, upon seeing Isabella, whose beauty had not diminished, preferred the girl’s mother. Joan was provided with another husband, King Alexander II of Scotland, whom she wed in 1221.

Isabella and Hugh X of Lusignan, Count of La Marche, had another nine children.

Isabella encouraged her son, King Henry III in his invasion of Normandy in 1230, but then did not provide him the support she had promised.

Some of Isabella’s contemporaries, as well as later writers, claim that Isabella formed a conspiracy against King Louis IX of France in 1241, after being publicly snubbed by his mother, Blanche of Castile, for whom she harbored a deep-seated hatred.

In 1244 two royal cooks were arrested for attempting to poison the King Louis IX; upon questioning they confessed to having been in Isabella’s pay.

After the plot had failed, Isabella was accused of attempting to poison the king. Before Isabella could be taken into custody, she sought refuge in Fontevraud Abbey, where she died two years later, on June 4, 1246. However, none of this can be confirmed.

By Isabella’s own prior arrangement, she was first buried in the abbey’s churchyard as an act of repentance for her many misdeeds. On a visit to Fontevraud, her son King Henry III of England was shocked to find her buried outside the abbey and ordered her immediately moved inside. She was finally placed beside Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Afterwards, most of her many Lusignan children, having few prospects in France, set sail for England and the court of Henry, their half-brother.

April 1203: Death of Arthur I, Duke of Brittany

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Arthur of Brittany, Constance of Brittany, Geoffrey of England, Henry II of England, Philippe II of France, Treaty of Le Goulet

Arthur I (March 29, 1187 – presumably April 1203) was 4th Earl of Richmond and Duke of Brittany between 1196 and 1203.

Early life
Arthur was born in 1187, the son of Duchess Constance of Brittany and Duke Geoffrey II of Brittany, who died before he was born. As an infant, Arthur was second in line to the succession of his paternal grandfather King Henry II of England, after his uncle Richard. King Henry died when Arthur was 2 years old, and Richard I became the new king in his place.

In the 1160s, Henry II began to alter his policy of indirect rule in Brittany and to exert more direct control. Henry had been at war with Conan IV, Duke of Brittany. Local Breton nobles rebelled against Conan, so Conan sought Henry II’s help.

In 1164, Henry intervened to seize lands along the border of Brittany and Normandy and, in 1166, he invaded Brittany to punish the local barons. Henry then forced Duke Conan IV to abdicate as duke and to give Brittany to his five-year-old daughter, Constance, who was handed over and betrothed to Henry’s son Geoffrey. This arrangement was quite unusual in terms of medieval law, as Conan might have had sons who could have legitimately inherited the duchy.

Geoffrey and Constance eventually married, in July 1181, and Geoffrey became Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany
Via the law Jure uxoris (a Latin phrase meaning “by right of (his) wife”) describes a title of nobility used by a man because his wife holds the office or title suo jure (“in her own right”). Similarly, the husband of an heiress could become the legal possessor of her lands.

In 1190 Arthur was designated heir to the throne of England and its French territory by his uncle, Richard I, the intent being that Arthur would succeed Richard in preference to Richard’s younger brother John. Nothing is recorded of Arthur after his incarceration in Rouen Castle in 1203, and while his precise fate is unknown, it is generally believed he was killed by John.

While Richard was away on the Third Crusade, Arthur’s mother Constance sought to make the Duchy of Brittany more independent. On November 11, 1190, Arthur was named as Richard’s heir presumptive and was betrothed to a daughter of King Tancred of Sicily as part of their treaty. However, Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich VI conquered the Kingdom of Sicily in 1194, so the betrothal of Arthur came to nothing.

A marriage plan, originally aiming to establish an alliance between King Richard and King Philippe II of France to marry Arthur’s elder sister Eleanor to Philippe’s son Louis also failed.

In 1196, Constance had the young Arthur proclaimed Duke of Brittany and her co-ruler as a child of nine years. The same year, Richard summoned Arthur, as well as Arthur’s mother, Constance, to Normandy, but Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, stepfather of Arthur, abducted Constance. Richard marched to Brittany to rescue Arthur, who was then secretly carried to France to be brought up with Louis.

When Richard died on April 6, 1199, on his deathbed he proclaimed his brother John as his heir, fearing Arthur was too young to look after the throne. Arthur was only twelve years old at the time and under the influence of the French king.

Arthur of Brittany pays homage to King Philippe II of France

John immediately claimed the throne of England, but much of the French nobility were resentful at recognising him as their overlord. They preferred Arthur, who declared himself vassal of Philippe II.

Philippe II recognised Arthur’s right to Anjou, Maine, and Poitou. Upon Richard’s death Arthur led a force to Anjou and Maine. From April 18, he styled himself as Duke of Brittany, Count of Anjou and Earl of Richmond.

On September 18, John persuaded the seneschal of Anjou, William des Roches, to defect, claiming Arthur would be a Capetian puppet. Four days later William took Arthur and Constance prisoners to Le Mans. Viscount Aimery, the seneschal appointed by John, took Arthur and Constance and fled the court to Angers, and later the court of Philippe II.

Treaty of Le Goulet

The Treaty of Le Goulet was signed by the kings John of England and Philippe II of France in May 1200 and meant to settle once and for all the claims the Norman kings of England had as Norman dukes on French lands, including, at least for a time, Brittany.

Under the terms of the treaty, Philippe II recognised John as King of England as heir of his brother Richard I and thus formally abandoned any support for Arthur. John, meanwhile, recognised Philippe II as the suzerain of continental possessions of the Angevin Empire.

Philippe II had previously recognised John as suzerain of Anjou and the Duchy of Brittany, but with this he extorted 20,000 marks sterling in payment for recognition of John’s sovereignty of Brittany.

Battle against John of England

After the signing of the Treaty of Le Goulet, and feeling offended by Philippe II, Arthur fled to John, his uncle, and was treated kindly, at least initially. However, he later became suspicious of John and fled back to Angers. Some unidentified source said that in April 1202, Arthur was again betrothed, this time to Marie of France, a daughter of Philippe II and Agnes of Andechs-Merania.

After his return to France, and with the support of Philippe II, Arthur embarked on a campaign in Normandy against John in 1202. Poitou revolted in support of Arthur. The Duke of Brittany besieged his grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, John’s mother, in the Château de Mirebeau. John marched on Mirebeau, taking Arthur by surprise on July 31, 1202. Arthur was captured by John’s barons on August 1, and imprisoned in the Château de Falaise in Falaise, Normandy.

Imprisonment and disappearance

Arthur was guarded by Hubert de Burgh at the Chateau de Falaise. According to contemporaneous chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall, John ordered two of his servants to blind and castrate the duke. De Burgh could not bring himself to let Arthur be mutilated.

Fearful of John, de Burgh leaked news that Arthur had died of natural causes. This news infuriated Brittany, who suspected that Arthur had been murdered. The following year Arthur was transferred to Rouen, under the charge of William de Braose. Arthur vanished in April 1203, in the background of several military victories by Philippe II of France against King John.

Arthur’s disappearance gave rise to various stories. One account was that Arthur’s gaolers feared to harm him, and so he was murdered by John directly and his body dumped in the Seine. The Margam Annals provide the following account of Arthur’s death:

After King John had captured Arthur and kept him alive in prison for some time, at length, in the castle of Rouen, after dinner on the Thursday before Easter, when he was drunk and possessed by the devil [‘ebrius et daemonio plenus’], he slew him with his own hand, and tying a heavy stone to the body cast it into the Seine. It was discovered by a fisherman in his net, and being dragged to the bank and recognized, was taken for secret burial, in fear of the tyrant, to the priory of Bec called Notre Dame de Pres.

William de Braose is also rumoured to have murdered Arthur. After the young man’s disappearance, he rose high in John’s favour receiving new lands and titles in the Welsh Marches. Many years after Arthur’s disappearance, and just prior to a conflict with King John, de Braose’s wife Maud de Braose accused the king of murdering Arthur.

Not only the Bretons, but even Philippe II, were ignorant of what actually happened, and whether Arthur was alive or dead. Whatever his fate, Arthur left no known issue. William promised to direct the attack of Mirebeau on condition he was consulted on the fate of Arthur, but John broke the promise, causing him to leave John along with Aimeri of Thouars and siege Angers.

Succession

The mystery surrounding Arthur’s death complicated his succession. This succession was presumably influenced by both King John and King Philippe II. There were no male heirs to the ducal crown and so his succession as duke was constrained to several choices among his sisters.

Arthur’s sister Eleanor, the ‘Fair Maid of Brittany’, was also King John’s prisoner. Eleanor also presented a complicating factor, if not a threat, to John’s succession plans as King of England.

While permitted by John to succeed Richmond and claim her rights to Brittany, she remained imprisoned for the rest of her life, through the reign of John’s actual successor, his son Henry III of England.

While imprisoned, she never married and had no issue. Her imprisonment and the fact that she was located in England made it impossible for her to reign as hereditary Duchess of Brittany.

Arthur I was succeeded by his half-sister, Alix of Thouars, the daughter of Constance and her third husband Guy of Thouars.