Isabel of Gloucester

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Isabel of Gloucester (* around 1160, † October 14, 1217 ) was the Countess of Gloucester, an English noblewoman and the first wife of the future English king Johann Ohneland . She is also known by a number of other names including Hadwisa, Hawise, Joan, Eleanor, Avise, and Avisa.

Life

Isabel was the youngest daughter of William FitzRobert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester , and his wife Hawise. Her only brother Robert died in 1166 at a young age. Thereafter, the Earl of Gloucester remained without another male offspring and concluded an agreement with King Henry II on September 28, 1176 in Windsor about the marriage of Isabel to Henry's youngest son Johann Ohneland. He was betrothed to Isabel and made the principal heir of Gloucester. However, since both Isabel and Johann were great-grandson of Heinrich I and therefore closely related, they needed a papal dispensation for their wedding planned for a later date . In the event of their refusal, Henry II undertook to arrange the best possible marriage for Isabel. Should Isabel's father also have a male child, the county would be divided between this son and Johann after the earl's death. Isabel's two older sisters Mabel and Amicia were de facto disinherited apart from a pension.

After Isabel's father died in 1183 without having any children, Henry II took over Isabel's guardianship as the unmarried daughter of a crown vassal and reaped the income from her property. On the other hand, he waited on her marriage to Johann, because he was also traded as a possible husband of Alix , the fiancé of Johann's older brother Richard the Lionheart . But when the latter became the new English ruler after the death of Henry II on July 6th, 1189, he ordered Johann's immediate marriage to Isabel. Their wedding took place on August 29, 1189 in Marlborough Castle ( Wiltshire ). Isabel has now been recognized as the Countess of Gloucester in her own right. According to the historian Matthäus Paris , Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury had forbidden this marriage because the spouses were too closely related. After the wedding, however, he occupied the lands of Prince John with an interdict , which was however repealed by the papal legate Giovanni di Anagni .

After a few years, Johann apparently had no interest in maintaining his marriage to Isabel, presumably because his wife was childless. While Richard the Lionheart was still on the Third Crusade , Johann wanted to accept an invitation from the French King Philip II August , who had offered him the hand of his half-sister, Alix, who had since been cast out by Richard, and the continental Plantagenet property for fief . However, Johann refrained from the trip because his mother Eleanor threatened to confiscate his rich English fiefs. The next year, however, when Richard was taken prisoner by Emperor Henry VI. was advised, Johann promised to marry Alix. The marriage project did not materialize. Shortly after Johann's accession to the throne in 1199, his marriage to Isabel was finally confirmed by Pope Innocent III. canceled due to close consanguinity, as reported by the Annales Londonienses and Matthäus Paris. Isabel was therefore never crowned Queen of England.

Under the same legal title as his father, King Johann made himself the guardian of his former wife, who was now possibly treated like a prisoner of state. Her nephew Amaury, Earl of Évreux , gave Johann the title of Earl of Gloucester together with a smaller part of Gloucestershire . After Amaury's childless death around 1213, this portion of the county, including his earl title, reverted to the English crown, and Isabel again became heiress of Gloucester. Against the obligation to pay Johann 20,000 marks within less than a year , Geoffrey Fitz married Geoffrey de Mandeville, 2nd Earl of Essex, probably under political pressure from the king, his ex-wife in January 1214. Apart from the high marriage fee and the The fact that Isabel was much older than her new husband meant that the latter did not receive the entire inheritance of Isabel. After paying the first of four installments of the 20,000 marks, Mandeville initially no longer met his further financial obligations, whereupon the king let Isabel's lands occupied until Mandeville made further payments in August 1214. In 1215, Mandeville joined the aristocratic opposition against Johann, but was fatally injured on February 23, 1216 in a tournament with a French knight.

Isabel could now personally live a little more freely than before. About a year after the death of King John († October 19, 1216), she married Hubert de Burgh , the later Earl of Kent, in September 1217, her third marriage . Isabel died only a few weeks later, probably on October 14, 1217, in Keynsham Abbey in Somerset and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Estimation of Isabella's date of birth according to Robert B. Patterson, Isabella, suo jure countess of Gloucester (c.1160-1217) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Vol. 29 (2004), p. 416.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Robert B. Patterson, Isabella, suo jure countess of Gloucester (c.1160–1217) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Vol. 29 (2004), p. 416.
  3. ↑ Ulrike Kessler, Richard I. Löwenherz , 1995, ISBN 3-222-12299-7 , p. 21.
  4. ↑ a b c Isabel on Medieval Lands .
  5. ↑ Ulrike Kessler, Richard I. Löwenherz , 1995, p. 176.
  6. ↑ Nigel Saul: Magna Carta 800th: Geoffrey de Mandeville .
  7. ^ Robert B. Patterson, Isabella, suo jure countess of Gloucester (c.1160-1217) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Vol. 29 (2004), pp. 416-417.

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personal data
SURNAME Isabel of Gloucester
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hadwisa; Hawise; Joan; Eleanor; Advices; Avisa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Countess of Gloucester; Wife of the future King Johann Ohneland
DATE OF BIRTH 12th Century
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1217