Fascinating post on one of our less well-known or regarded medieval queen consorts. I think anyone who was married to King John was going to have a rough deal and Isabelle has been unfairly judged for events beyond her own control.
Why Isabelle d’Angoulême is hard to love?
At first sight, it is easy to have sympathy for Isabelle of Angoulême. When I started researching her forLadies of Magna Carta: Women of Influence in Thirteenth Century England, I was expecting to be able to go some way to redeeming her reputation. She was married at a very young age – she was no more than 12 and may have been as young as 10 – to ‘Bad’ King John, the man who would later be accused of murdering his own nephew and left awoman to starve in his dungeons.
Isabelle d’Angoulême was the only child of Audemar, Count of Angoulême and Alice de Courtenay. Her mother was the daughter Peter de Courtenay, lord of Montargis and Chateaurenard, and a cousin of king Philip II Augustus of France. Through her Courtenay family connections, Isabelle was related…
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