Blanca of England
Princess Blanca of England LG (* spring 1392 , Peterborough Castle; † May 22, 1409 , Haguenau , Alsace) was Countess Palatinate in the Electoral Palatinate by marriage . She died before her husband Ludwig III. von der Pfalz came to the government as elector in 1410 .
Life
She was the daughter of King Henry IV of England from the House of Plantagenet - Lancaster and his wife Countess Mary de Bohun . Her birthplace was the castle in Peterborough also called Mount Thodor, right next to the later Peterborough Cathedral , built by William the Conqueror , later destroyed by Abbot Martin de Bec.
A marriage between the eldest daughter of Henry IV, Blanca (also Blanche), and the eldest son of the newly elected German King Ruprecht , Ludwig III., Should consolidate the two new and not undisputed royal houses ( Palatinate-English relationship ). Heinrich IV had succeeded the deposed King Richard II (1399), King Ruprecht I (= at the same time Elector Rupprecht III of the Palatinate) had actively promoted the deposition of King Wenceslaus (1400).
The marriage contract was concluded on March 7, 1401 in London after the establishment of a dowry of 40,000 Nobel and other agreements mediated by the City of Cologne . As a marriage good, the bride u. a. also the so-called "Bohemian Crown" or " Palatinate Crown ", in the Wittelsbach family property, which is still in the treasury of the Residenzmuseum in Munich today. It is the oldest surviving English crown and was believed to have been the bridal crown of Queen Anne of England . The dowry negotiations from Mainz provost Gottfried von Leiningen out as a royal envoy in England.
The wedding between the ten-year-old princess and the 24-year-old prince took place on July 6, 1402 in Cologne Cathedral. Despite the political marriage, the marriage is said to have been happy. Four years later, at the age of fourteen, Blanca gave birth to a son, Ruprecht the Englishman (1406–1426).
In 1409, the newly pregnant Countess Palatinate died of a fever in Haguenau / Alsace . In a solemn procession, the body was transferred to Neustadt and buried in the collegiate church . Her husband reported to his father-in-law in a letter from there dated June 4, 1409 that Blanca was attacked by intermittent fever attacks in May during a stay with him in Haguenau , which was all the more worrying when she was six months pregnant . After the attack had subsided and the patients were hoping for a complete recovery, a permanent fever had set in, which affected his delicate young wife so badly that she was expected to die every day. There were also numerous faints and nosebleeds, which the doctors could have breast-fed with God's help; Nevertheless, the princess was given the sacraments of death. So "on the miserable May 22nd, at dawn, my wife went from this bad world into a better one" , as Ludwig III did. self-formulated. On the following day the funeral took place in Neustadt, which King Ruprecht with his wife and Ludwig's brothers also attended.
Elector Ludwig III. Only eight years after Blanca's death did a new marriage with Mathilde von Savoyen, daughter of Prince Amadeus von Savoyen, from which six children were born.
Blanca's grave is to this day in the Catholic choir of the Neustädter Stiftskirche, a little north of that of Elector Ruprecht I (Palatinate) and his wife Beatrix von Berg . The two adjoining, electoral graves are made visible by bronze inscriptions in the modern floor of the central aisle, that of Count Palatine Blanca only by a small, carved cross on which pews stand. The original cover plate, with a Gothic majusc inscription but without a picture, is currently (2010) on a wall in the northern choir chapel. When the original grave plates laid in the church floor were removed or secured in December 1906, the three brick graves were found intact, but filled with rubble and groundwater. For reasons of piety, they were "not examined further, but covered again", as stated in the report to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior (LA Speyer, H3, 8370, page 71).
On the choir ceiling of the collegiate church in Neustadt, founded as a memoria by the House of Wittelsbach , there is a representation of the “Last Judgment” from around 1420, with large figures of Elector Ludwig III kneeling in front of Christ . , his parents and his first wife Blanca from England. It is assumed that Ludwig III. had the splendid paintings made to decorate the grave of his first wife, whom he greatly mourned. The entire “Last Judgment” was painted over during the anti-image Reformation period and was not exposed again until 1885.
Blanca's father, King Henry IV of England, is the main character in William Shakespeare's two-part drama "Henry IV" ; his dramatic work "Heinrich V." deals with the life of her brother Heinrich V.
Another brother, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford , was the English regent of northern France. He had St Joan of Arc sentenced and executed in 1431.
Blanca's sister Philippa of England (1394–1430) was queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden by marriage. She often stayed at the grave of St. Birgitta of Sweden , in the Vadstena monastery , became a benefactress of the convent and is also buried there.
The Blessed Ferdinand von Avis and his brother, Heinrich the Seafarer , were cousins of Countess Palatine Blanca.
progeny
- Ruprecht the English , born May 22, 1406; † May 20, 1426, burial place: Heiliggeistkirche (Heidelberg)
literature
- Walther Holtzmann : The English marriage of Count Palatine Ludwig III. In: Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine NF 43 (1930), 1-22
- Andreas Kraus: Handbook of Bavarian History , 1995, Volume 3, Page 73; (Text scan of the relevant section)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ The "Bohemian or Palatinate Crown" from Princess Blanka in the treasury of the Munich residence
- ↑ About the history of the “Bohemian or Palatinate Crown” from Princess Blanca’s dowry
- ^ Anton Philipp Brück : Count Jofrid von Leiningen, a Rhenish prelate of the late Middle Ages , in Serta Moguntina , Volume 62 of the sources and treatises on the Middle Rhine Church history , Society for Middle Rhine Church History , Mainz 1989, pages 52 and 53
- ↑ Photo of the “Last Judgment” in the choir of the Neustadt / Weinstrasse collegiate church (Blancas figure upside down, top right) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Queen Philippa as benefactor of the Vadstena monastery
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Blanca of England |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Countess Palatine Blanca |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Daughter of King Heinrich IV, Count Palatine Elector Palatinate |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1392 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Peterborough Castle, (Mount Thorold) |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 22, 1409 |
| Place of death | Haguenau , Alsace |