Isabella of France
Isabella of France (1295-1358) was the daughter of the King of France, Philip IV, known as the Iron King. Contemporary accounts of Isabella reveal her to be immensely wealthy and well-educated. From Philip she inherited a hard-nosed love of power, and aged 12 was married off to the son of Edward I, the ruthless king of England. We do not know how she viewed her coming alliance but, like most at the time, she probably expected to be marrying a bold warrior who would build upon the military successes of his father. It was, in theory, a good match.
Alas, theory and practice are oft-divergent. Edward II, her new husband, was as different from his father in personality as it was possible to be. Though a strapping man, Edward did not enjoy jousting, hunting, or military campaigns, but instead indulged himself in wine, music and poetry. Worst of all, 24-year-old Edward was homosexual, and at the time of their marriage ceremony was in the midst of a passionate affair with Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall. Instead of sitting with his wife at the wedding feast, he insulted her by sitting with Gaveston, to Philip’s utter fury.
Gaveston was captured and executed by Edward’s many enemies in 1312, but Isabella could only watch as her husband lost control of his father’s hard-won empire and started another gay relationship with Hugh Despenser. Nevertheless, for years Isabella did everything to support Edward against his many enemies. When de Badlesmere family refused to open the gates of Leeds Castle to him in 1321, the ruthless Isabella forced him to besiege the castle, hang 13 members of its garrison, and imprison the de Badlesmere family in the Tower of London. A harsh measure, of course, but someone had to maintain power.
However, when Edward and Despenser confiscated her lands, imprisoned her staff, and took away her children in 1324, Isabella’s patience was at an end. Mobilising an army opposed to Edward, Isabella seized control of the country with her lover, Roger Mortimer, in 1326. Presiding personally over many of the campaigns in the so-called Despenser War, Isabella had Hugh Despenser hanged, drawn, and quartered, in front of her, but saved the worst execution (allegedly) for Edward, who was murdered in Berkeley Castle with a red-hot iron poker inserted into his anus to symbolize the crime of sodomy he had committed.
Isabella and Mortimer ruled England between 1326 and 1330, with her young son, Edward III, crowned in 1327. Opposition to Mortimer forced Edward to seize complete control in 1330, and Isabella enjoyed a comfortable retirement until her death in 1358. Isabella was known as the ‘She-Wolf of France’ because of her violent retribution against her husband. However, she tolerated and supported her almost openly-gay husband for as long as she could, and it was only when he moved against her directly that she took up arms. Isabella, described as highly intelligent even by contemporaries, was not to be trifled with.