Eleanor of Woodstock: Princess and Regent

Eleanor of Woodstock, countess of Guelders (born 18 June 1318)

Eleanor of Woodstock was daughter of Edward II of England and Isabella of France, the "she wolf" we've already met. Eleanor was the third child born to this unhappily married pair. 

An early-fourteenth-century
miniature of Eleanor of Woodstock,
from a Book of Hours

Eleanor became the second wife of Reginald "the Black" of Guelders. The two were married in 1332. The count had four daughters by his first wife, and Eleanor obligingly provided him with two sons, giving birth to the first in 1334, the second in 1336. 

Her husband proved to be as problematic as his name suggests--although he was "the black" because of his dark complexion, his behavior was equally dark.

Even before the marriage was arranged, he couldn't wait to become count of Guelders, so he had seized power and imprisoned his father for six years, from 1318 to 1326 (Reginald didn't release his father from prison; his father died there).

Reginald the Black proved to be no kinder to Eleanor. He dismissed her from court in 1338 (after she had given birth to the two sons), then claimed she had leprosy so he could have the marriage annulled. She managed to prove she didn't have leprosy by stripping down in court to reveal her body, unmarked by the disease. The annulment was denied, and Reginald was supposed to receive her again as his wife.

Whether they were reconciled or not, Reginald died in a riding accident in 1343. Eleanor of Woodstock then became regent of Guelders for her eldest son (unfortunately, another Reginald, this one later to be known as "Reginald the Fat"). 

Eleanor was forced to resign as regent in 1344. In 1350, with her encouragement, Eleanor's younger son, Edward, rebelled against his elder brother. During this period of civil conflict, Reginald confiscated all of his widowed mother's wealth, and she sought refuge in the Cistercian abbey of Deventer, which she had founded and where she died in poverty on 22 April 1355.

(Edward defeated his older brother in 1361, captured him, and imprisoned Reginald. It was during this imprisonment that he became "the fat"--he supposedly became so fat that he couldn't have escaped even if his prison door had been left open. But Edward died in 1371, and Reginald was released--he regained his role as count of Guelders, but died almost immediately.) 

And one further note: it's hard to say much about Reginald the Black's first wife, Sophia Berthout. She seems to have been born about 1303, she was married about 1325, she gave birth to four daughters (1326, 1327, 1328 and 1329), and then died, early in May 1329, at age 26.

There are a few bits and pieces about Eleanor of Woodstock in Alison Weir's biography of her mother, Isabella of France. The longest account is in volume 3 (1857) of Mary Anne Everett Green's The Lives of the Princesses of England; although published in the mid-nineteenth century, Green relies on chronicles written in Guelders at the time of Eleanor's life there for her account of Eleanor of Woodstock's life. Green's Lives is available through Google Books, and you can access it by clicking here.

Isabella of France: He's King But She Rules

Isabella of France, queen of England (1 February 1327)

On 1 February 1327, Edward III was crowned king of England, and although he would become one of England's most powerful kings (reigning fifty years), at the time of his coronation his mother was ruling for him, as regent. 

Isabella of France (1295-1358) had assumed the regency in 1326 before the death of her husband, the notably incompetent Edward II, whose disastrous twenty-year reign staggered from one controversy to another.

(Isabella's father was the French king Philip IV. Her mother was Joan of Navarre--by marriage Joan was queen of France, but she was also a queen in her own right--she had inherited the throne of Navarre. She ruled there, as queen regnant, from 1274 to 1305.)

A fifteenth-century illustration showing Isabella among the troops
at the Siege of Bristol, 1326

Edward II lost his throne after years of mismanagement and civil strife--and Isabella played an active role in the events that led to her husband's defeat, capture, and, in the end, deposition. She seized power in the last few months of 1326, with Edward's formal abdication taking place 25 January 1327.

Isabella's regency lasted until 1330, when Edward III successfully rebelled against his mother's ongoing control. Roger Mortimer, who had long acted as Isabella's political partner (and who is generally believed to have been her sexual partner as well), was accused of treason, convicted, and executed. Isabella was initially under house arrest, but she was allowed to "retire" from power and the court, though she remained very wealthy. She eventually regained some measure of influence, entering into peace negotiations for Edward III in France (1348) and Navarre (1358). She remained very close to her children and, eventually, her grandchildren, a welcome member at court.

History has not been kind to Isabella--contemporary chroniclers condemned her as "that harridan" and "that virago." In his play Edward II, Christopher Marlowe had one character refer to her as "that unnatural Queen, false Isabel," while the fictional Edward described his wife as "my unconstant Queen, who spots my nuptial bed with infamy." In the eighteenth century, stealing a phrase from Shakespeare, the poet Thomas Gray described her as the "She-Wolf of France," who, "with unrelenting fangs" ripped through "the bowels of thy mangled mate." (Shakespeare had coined the phrase for another powerful woman-who-would-be-king, Margaret of Anjou.)

Such descriptions survive--in Berthold Brecht's adaptation of Marlowe's play, "Isabella" applies the name to herself: "I shall become a she-wolf," she says, "Ranging bare-toothed through the scrub." Contemporary historians are not much kinder. Helen Castor's She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth at least gives Isabella some companions in the "she wolf" business, though her discussion of Isabella is titled "Isabella: Iron Lady," which is marginally more positive. Elizabeth Norton uses the same phrase for her She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of England, with the chapter on Isabella titled "The She-Wolf of France."

Isabella landing in England with her son, Edward,
in 1326

While her popular biography of the queen is not particularly condemnatory, Alison Weir's title capitalizes on Isabella's reputation as a monster: Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. In his Treasury of Royal Scandals: The Shocking True Stories History's Wickedest, Weirdest, Most Wanton Kings, Queens, Tsars, Popes, and Emperors, Michael Farquhar writes about Isabella in a brief chapter called "A Royal Pain in the Ass." (At least Farquhar's monsters are gender-balanced.) 

My recommendation? There's also a fine chapter on Isabella of France in Lisa Hilton's Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens.