Isabella of Valois
(1389-1409)
BIRTH
November 9, 1389
PLACE
Paris, France
DEATH
September 13, 1409
PLACE
Blois, France
FAMILY
FATHER
Charles VI of France
(1368-1422)
MOTHER
Isabeau of Bavaria
(c. 1370-1435)
SISTER
Catherine of Valois
(1401-1437)
BROTHER
Charles VII of France
(1403-1461)
HUSBAND
Richard II
(1367-1400)
HOMES
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
RELIGION NOT DOCUMENTED
DENOMINATION NOT DOCUMENTED
MEMBERSHIPS
AWARDS
French princess Isabella of Valois married Richard II of England at the age of six as part of a peace settlement, was widowed at ten, and later married the poet Charles of Orléans. He treated her with kindness. Henry proposed that Isabella marry his son, the future Henry V, but she refused. In 1401 she was sent back to France without the return of her dowry. In 1406 she married her cousin Charles, who became Duke of Orléans and later a celebrated poet.
EARLY LIFE
Isabella was born on November 9, 1389, at the Louvre in Paris, the daughter of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria. Her father's recurring bouts of mental illness began when she was a small child, and the French court was troubled by rivalries among royal princes. As part of efforts to secure a long truce in the Hundred Years' War, she was chosen as the second wife of Richard II of England, whose first wife, Anne of Bohemia, had died in 1394. The marriage treaty was agreed in 1396, and Richard met Isabella near Calais that autumn. They married at Calais on November 4, 1396, when she was six years old.
Isabella was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey in January 1397 and lived largely apart from Richard, at Windsor, with her own household. He treated her with kindness.
In 1399 Richard was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV, and he died in captivity in 1400. Henry proposed that Isabella marry his son, the future Henry V, but she refused. In 1401 she was sent back to France without the return of her dowry.
In 1406 she married her cousin Charles, who became Duke of Orléans and later a celebrated poet. Isabella died at Blois on September 13, 1409, shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Joan.
CAREER
DEATH
Isabella of Valois was finally allowed to return to France on 21 July 1401, but Henry IV kept her dowry, which she was supposed to get back if the marriage was never consummated. In 1401 she was sent back to France without the return of her dowry. In 1406 she married her cousin Charles, who became Duke of Orléans and later a celebrated poet. Isabella was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey in January 1397 and lived largely apart from Richard, at Windsor, with her own household. In 1399 Richard was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV, and he died in captivity in 1400. Henry proposed that Isabella marry his son, the future Henry V, but she refused. Isabella died at Blois on September 13, 1409, shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Joan. The available biographical account does not describe a continuous final medical course. It gives no dependable sequence of treatment and last symptoms from which to reconstruct a more detailed bedside narrative.
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
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