John of England and Isabella of Angoulême
King John I of England regularly appears at the top of lists of the country’s worst rulers – and for good reason. He was a terrible combination of tyrannical and incompetent. Not for nothing was he represented as the bad guy in all the Robin Hood stories. What’s more, King John was as bad at being a husband as he was at being a monarch. Indeed, it’s hard to say which of his two wives he treated the worst. However, given her youth, his union to Isabella of Angoulême makes for especially uncomfortable reading.
The youngest son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine – who had a very troubling marriage of their own, resulting in the queen having her husband murdered – John came to the throne in 1199 after the death of Richard I. His first marriage, to his cousin Isabella of Gloucester, was far from idyllic. While it was acceptable for a monarch to have mistresses – in fact, it was pretty much expected that a king would not stay loyal to his wife for the rest of his life – John went about satisfying his sizable lust in an unacceptable manner. He would seduce the wives of noblemen, sometimes even fathering illegitimate children with them.
After a decade, John grew bored of Isabella of Gloucester. He pretended that he never knew they were related and so had the union dissolved. He then turned his attentions to Isabella of Angoulême. This made sense politically as it would give John control of large parts of France. But it was more than that. By all accounts, John had grown infatuated with Isabella despite the fact that she was engaged to another and, more importantly, was 20 years his junior. He had her taken from France and brought to England, effectively kidnapping her. The pair were then wed. John was almost 40 and his wife was, at most aged 12, though some scholars believe she was as young as nine.
John showed cruelty in having his ex and his current wife live together. It’s also believed he carried on being unfaithful. To his credit, the king did show some concern for his wife when she – finally, after many years of trying – fell pregnant. But again, once she had delivered him an heir, Henry, he grew to be cold and distant. When he died in 1216, Isabella was just 30 years old and a mother of three. In a final act of cruelty, John had made no mention of his Queen in his last will and testament. She was left with no money or official title. She was forced to leave her son and returned to France. She died in 1246, having spent the final few years of her life serving as a nun.