Alix of France, Countess of Vexin

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Alix of France (* 1160 or 1170; † after 1218) was a French king's daughter from the house of the Capetians ; she was supposed to be the wife of Richard the Lionheart , but rumor has it that she was the mistress of Richard's father, King Henry II of England .

She is also known as Alaïs, Adélaïde, Adèle, Alais or Alys - but not to be confused with her half-sister Alix of France , later Countess of Blois, the daughter of King Louis VII with his first wife Eleanor of Aquitaine , who in second marriage to Heinrich II. wed mother Richard the Lionheart '.

origin

Following the portrayal of Père Anselme , Runciman and Schwennicke (see below), Alix was the daughter of King Louis VII of France (* 1120, † 1180), born in 1170 from his third marriage to Adela von Champagne (* probably 1140, † 1206), daughter of Count Theobald II , and thus the younger sister of the later King Philip II .

According to Lappenberg / Pauli and Obermeier, on the other hand, she was a daughter of Ludwig VII, born much earlier. After Père Anselme and Schwennicke, there would only be an Alix or Adelheid born in 1160 from Ludwig's second marriage, who lived with Constanze of Castile (* probably 1140, †). 1160), daughter of King Alfonso VII , of whom both report that she died young and shortly after her mother, or was born in 1160 and did not live to see the end of the year.

The years in England (after Père Anselme et al.)

On September 30, 1174, her father and King Henry II of England (* 1133, † 1189) agreed to marry Richard (* 1157, † 1199), the third (and second living) son of the Englishman, after her older half-sister Margarete (* 1158, † 1197) had been married to Richard's older brother, Crown Prince Heinrich (* 1155, † 1183), since 1172 . After the death of her father (1180) and Crown Prince Heinrich (1183), Alix came to the English court in 1185 and was 15 years old (her half-sister Margarete, Heinrich's widow, married the Hungarian King Béla III at the end of 1186 ). Richard, who was already in resistance to his father, refused to marry Alix, so that the marriage could not be concluded, contrary to the agreements. And since the king did not allow the rejected bride to return to her homeland, "all sorts of ugly rumors circulated that [King] Heinrich himself was too familiar with her."

In 1189, Henry II and Philip II, who had succeeded Louis VII since 1180, affirmed their intention to marry Richard and Alix in the Treaty of Colomiers (today in the Haute-Garonne department ). But Richard's military victory over his father and his death in the same year, his assumption of government and the liberation of Eleanor of Aquitaine (* around 1122, † 1204), the mother of the new king who had been appointed for many years, finally turned the tide to the disadvantage of the young French woman . Eleanor wished “now that Heinrich's death had relieved her of all reluctance to see her favorite son not connected to a member of a family she hated, and to a woman who she believed had been her husband's lover. The interests of her native Guyenne were close to her heart; she had therefore decided to marry him to a princess of Navarre… ”. And Richard complied.

In the middle of 1190 Richard and Philip II of France set out on the Third Crusade together . They met in Messina , where they discussed how to proceed on October 8th. When Philip on this occasion "brought up the question of Alice's marriage again, Richard refused to even consider it and gave Alice's bad reputation as the reason". In the spring of 1191, after wintering in Messina, Philip was ready to “put aside all his quarrels with Richard and formally declared him free to marry whomever he wanted. Thus Philip set sail with all his troops from Messina on March 30, 1191, in a mood of general benevolence. As soon as he left the port, Queen Eleanor and Princess Berengaria [of Navarre] arrived there. ”The marriage between Richard and Berengaria was celebrated on May 12, 1191 in Limassol , Cyprus .

Alix was still stuck in distant England. Only when Richard returned to England in 1194 after the crusade and his imprisonment on Trifels was she allowed to return to France in early 1195.

Another youth

According to Lappenburg (p. 152), Alice and Richard were engaged to each other in 1167, but he refrains from mentioning the year the princess was born. With recourse to Père Anselme, it would now be assumed that the fiancé is identical to Alix (or Adelheid), who was born in 1160 as the younger daughter of Ludwig's marriage to Constanze of Castile - unless one ignores the fact that Père Anselme states for this daughter that she died shortly after her mother († 1160).

About the year 1177, ten years later, Lappenburg writes that Alice “had been in Heinrich's hat for a long time”, “without the latter being serious about marrying her to his son”, as well as: “For some time he had Let [Heinrich II.] Negotiate the dowry through envoys, which his sons Heinrich and Richard were to receive by marrying the daughters of Ludwig. For some he used the Vexin and for Richard ... the town of Bourges and the county of Berry ”. In order to emphasize the implementation of the agreement, Louis secured the assistance of the papal legate Peter von St. Chrysogonus, former Bishop of Meaux (1172–1174) and cardinal , “who unexpectedly threatened the lands of the King of England with an interdict if he would not give his consent to the marriage immediately. "

“On September 11th, Henry met the Cardinal of Rouen , who postponed the execution of his threat until a negotiation with the King of France would have taken place. This happened on September 21 between Ivry and Nonancourt . Heinrich once again promised to comply with the request of his liege lord and concluded a friendship agreement with him ... "

There is agreement in the literature about the affirmation of the engagement by Henry II shortly before his death (1189), i.e. in particular the non-fulfillment of the agreement for a further 12 years and the final termination of the agreement by Richard the following year.

The years in France

After his (half) sister's return, Philip II quickly found a husband for her. On August 20, 1195, she married Count Wilhelm von Ponthieu , the son and heir of Count Jean I († 1191) from the house of Montgommery and Beatrice de Saint-Pol . In 1197 she was appointed Countess of Vexin and mentioned on April 17th, 1199 as the mother of a girl: Her and Wilhelm's daughter was Marie de Ponthieu , who was the only child to become the heir to Ponthieu (but not to Vexin).

Alix in contemporary sources

  • Robert von Torigni († 1186): "Constantia regina Franciæ" dies in childbed in 1160.
  • Alberich von Trois-Fontaines († after 1252) names "reginam Margaretam Anglie et comitissam Aaliz" as the children of Louis VII and his second wife, and adds that Alix was married to "Guilelmus comes de Pontivo"
  • Rodericus Ximenes († 1247) names "Adelodis" as the daughter of "Ludovico Regi Francorum" and his wife "Elisabeth" (incorrectly for Constantia), with the reference that she married the "Comitis de Pontivo"
  • Roger von Hoveden († probably 1201) reports that the engagement of Richard and the daughter of Ludwig was first proposed in 1161, when Richard's older brother Heinrich was betrothed to her sister Margarete
  • Gervasius mentions the engagement of "Ricardus… filius regis Anglæ" and "filiam regis Franciæ quam habuit de filia regis Hispanorum" for the year 1169
  • Benedikt von Peterborough († 1194) mentions the engagement of "rex Anglie ... Ricardus comes Pictaviæ filius eius" and "regi Franciæ ... filiam" as part of the peace treaty concluded at the same time for "XI Kal Oct 1177" (I 1177, p. 191) ; Furthermore, he reports that the engagement of "Alesia soror eius [Philippi regis Franciæ]" and Richard was renewed in 1189

reception

Alix is ​​a supporting character in James Goldman's play The Lion in Winter . She is played by Jane Merrow in the 1968 Oscar-winning film adaptation of the same name .

literature

Footnotes

  1. Père Anselme: Alix morte jeune peu de temps après sa mère, p. 77
  2. Schwennicke
  3. Runciman writes in 1190 that she was “sent to the English court as a child five years ago”
  4. This and the following quotations are from Runciman. With Obermeier, the rumors read more concretely: “Alice ... had become the king's lover more or less voluntarily. Richard had no desire to marry his father's mistress for the time being. "
  5. cloth Burg, S. 152
  6. Lappenburg, pp. 152/153
  7. Chronicle I, 1160, p. 329 - for the individual sources, see NORTHERN FRANCE NOBILITY and the accompanying footnotes
  8. Chronica Albrici Monachi Trium Fontium 1164, MGH SS XXIII, p. 848
  9. Roderici Toletani Archiepiscopi De Rebus Hispaniae, Liber IX, VII, 7, RHGF XII, p. 383.
  10. ^ RH I, p. 218
  11. Chronicle, p. 218
  12. 2 1189, p. 70