You’re off by a year. Eleanor divorced Louis VII and married Henry II in 1152, but her son William wasn’t born until August 17, 1153. So he was undoubtably conceived in wedlock. 
Nah. William I did not get along with his eldest at all, fighting with him constantly ( we’re talking open warfare ) and even supposedly giving him his nickname of Curthose/brevis-ocrea ( short-stocking/short-boot - like dear old dad he was apparently a big fat guy, but also added stubby legs to the package ). He didn’t want to give him diddly-squat. England was far more valuable and a had much more prestigious title, so it went to William’s favorite, his second surviving son William II Rufus. William I would have left Robert with nothing, but was persuaded otherwise as he lay dieing and thus Robert temporarily ended up with the lesser half of the Conqueror’s domains ( until his brothers took it from him ).
An interesting contrast between the Capetians and the Normans/early Plantagenets was the constant inter-familial strife in the English royal houses up until at least Henry III, as opposed to the comparatively pacific relations and smooth successions of their French counterparts.
Nice thread Mississippienne 
( you know, I always have to copy and paste your user name ;)).
Tomorrow, All My Capuchins!
I had a history teacher in 7th grade who for the first time made history interesting. He got us into the heads of the people of the time period we were studying, and made connections between what had previously been disparate facts and got us to see how attitudes towards taxes affected attitudes towards the Iroquois by way of attitudes towards wars financed by taxes and etc etc…
Before that, yes, just dry dates and names and who won what battles signed what treaties yadda yadda yawn yawn…
Well the bit about Eleanor was straight out of one of my history books. Perhaps I should toss in the towel and sit, learn, spending my free time reading up rather than posting in this thread:)
I still like history. Maybe my mind is dropping off more memories than I’d thought. Sorry for the mis-remembered “factoids”.
an seanchai
Ok, to avoid having to cite everything I resorted to The Internet. This may not be much of an explanation but you can bet your sweet bippy that it’ll do as my excuse!
http://www.fact-index.com/h/he/henry_ii_of_england.html
re: Henry and Eleanor and their pre-wedding contacts:
" … Some historians believe that the couple’s first child, William, Count of Poitiers, was born in 1152. It is possible that this was why Henry came home at that time, and the progress they made through Eleanor’s lands was to mark the birth of the new heir – that is, that their stated purpose of “introducing the new count” to the people meant Count William, not Count Henry. Others think William was born in 1153, and point out that Henry might still have been there nine months before William was born."
One tends to forget that history is rarely cut and dried. I cut my historical teeth on the
Richard III - Henry VIII era, and I still don’t know much about it these 40+ years later.
an seanchai
seanchai, the important thing to me is that you want to learn about this subject and you’re interested in it. If you’d like to know more about Eleanor, I suggest *Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady *by John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (2003).
William was born in 1153; Ralph of Diceto tells us so. The date of his birth was well known at the time because he was born on August 17, 1153, the exact same day that Henry II’s rival for the English throne, Eustace, son of King Stephen, died. William died in 1156, aged three.
On the last episode of All My Capetians…
Fulk IV: “I’m leaving you!”
Bertrade: “Not if I leave you first!” slams door in his face
Queen Bertha: “How could you abandon me for that harlot?”
King Philippe: “Well… you’ve grown fat!”
Queen Bertha: “So have you!”
Fulk IV: “You ran off with my wife!”
King Philippe: “You’ve had five, surely you could spare one!”
Louis VI, known as “Le Gros” (The Fat) was the long-awaited son of Philippe I and Bertha of Holland. He was about twelve when his father took up with Bertrade de Montfort and locked his mother up in Montreuil, where she shortly died. Louis VI and Bertrade were often at odds, and as I mentioned before, Orderic claims that she tried to kill Louis by means of dark sorcery.
Before his death, Philippe I took steps to ally his family with that of Rochefort-Montlhéry, a family of the French nobility that nonetheless possessed castles of strategic value. In 1104, his son by Bertrade, Philippe, married Elisabeth, the daughter of the disgraced Guy Trousseau.
Guy Trousseau had returned home from the Holy Land a broken man. He had been at Antioch when it was beseiged by the forces of Kerbogha (Kürboğa), atabeg of Mosul. The fighting, so fierce that it raged from dawn till dusk for two days, so that “a man with food had no time to eat, and a man with water no time to drink”, left some of the Crusaders in such a panic that by cover of night they lowered themselves from the city’s walls and fled. Guy Trousseau had been among them.
Guy Trousseau’s uncle, Guy Rufus de Rochefort, had been seneschal to Philippe I, and he must’ve been a trusted friend, for Philippe convinced Louis to marry Guy Rufus’ daughter, Lucienne de Rochefort. She was underage, however, and the Chronique de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens states that the other barons of the kingdom judged Lucienne unworthy of the royal dignity; her family was too minor. In 1107, the Council of Troyes dissolved the betrothal.
His father died a year later and Louis, now King Louis VI, was free to choose his own bride, and he took his time. He was looking for a woman of high birth and good connections, and in 1115 he found her in Adelaide de Maurienne, the plain but distinguished daughter of Umberto II, count of Savoy 1. Her brother was a papal legate who in 1119 became Pope Calixtus II and her sister Clemence was the formidable countess of Flanders.
Louis and Adelaide hit the royal jackpot by producing seven surviving sons and one daughter, Constance 2. Their eldest son and heir, Philippe, was killed in 1131 after his horse was tripped by a ‘diabolical pig’. His grief-stricken parents were forced to recall their second son, Louis, from the monastery where he had been receiving training to be a priest, and make him the heir.
Louis VI spent his reign humbling one rebellious lordling or another. The barons were revolting 3, and although Louis usually tried to solve his problems with them judicially at first, he usually had to resort to force. One such incident involved Hugues de Crecy, the brother of Louis’ former fiancee, Lucienne. Hugues strangled his cousin Miles de Bray and imprisoned Eudes de Corbeil. Louis fought him with such ferocity that Hugues de Crecy repented of his evil deeds and became a monk.
But Louis VI’s most dangerous enemy was Thomas de Marle, who was so vicious that he was ‘like a wolf gone mad’. Guibert of Nogent says that Thomas tortured peasants, hanging them by their testicles, and beating and starving them to death. He cut the throat of his own kinsman, Walter, bishop of Laon. Louis VI seized two of his castles and Thomas begged his forgiveness, and received it. But no sooner had Louis turned his back on him but Thomas was back pillaging and terrorizing the populace. Louis VI sent his cousin, Raoul of Vermandois, after him in 1130. Raoul pierced Thomas with his lance, then brought the wounded madman before the king. This time, Louis took no chances. He imprisoned Thomas, who soon died.
In 1127, Louis VI’s cousin, Charles of Flanders, was murdered while at prayer at the church of St. Donatien in Bruges. The culprits were four brothers (Lambert, Didier, Bertulf, and Wilfrid) and more than 20 of their cronies. Louis VI came down on them swiftly and mercilessly. The brothers received deaths too vile to recount here 4. Then he appointed his brother-in-law, William Clito, the new count of Flanders.
William Clito was the son of Robert Curthose, and the senior grandson of William the Conqueror of England. He had been taken in by Louis VI in 1119, and married Queen Adelaide’s half-sister, Jeanne de Montferrat. He’d divorced his first wife, Sybil, on grounds of consanguinity so that he could marry Jeanne. When Sybil’s father, Fulk V of Anjou 5, got news of the divorce he was so angry that he captured the papal ambassadors and burned off their hair and beards. Anyway, William Clito’s main hobby was annoying the shit out of his uncle, Henry I of England. In 1118 he teamed up with a bunch of disaffected nobles, including his cousin, Stephen of Aumale 6, to make trouble and on and off for the next few years he caused Henry I many sleepless nights and grey hairs.
The Flemings rebelled against William Clito pretty much instantly. Thierry of Alsace, the brother of the deceased Count Charles and the new husband of William Clito’s cast-off ex-wife Sybil of Anjou, put his own claim forward. William Clito was fighting him at Alost when he got an arrow through the hand; the wound turned gangrenous and killed him. Thierry became the new count of Flanders and Sybil got the last laugh after all.
Down south in Aquitaine was the domain of William IX, duke of Aquitaine 7, the famous troubadour, Crusader, and lover of women. He’d had several children by his lawful wife, Philippa of Toulouse, but fell in love with a woman with the astonishingly apt name of Dangereuse, the wife of one of his vassals. He painted her portrait on his shield, declaring that ‘it was his will to bear her in battle as she had borne him in bed’, according to William of Malmesbury. His wife Philippa complained to the papal representatives, and William IX threatened to behead the bishop threatening him with excommunication. Eventually Philippa seems to have given up and retired to the sanctuary of Fontevrault.
William IX arranged for his son and heir by Philippa, William X, to marry Dangereuse’s daughter by her husband, Aenor. William X and Aenor in turn had three children: Alianor (Eleanor, “the other Aenor”), Alix-Petronille, and William Aigret. Their son died young, leaving eldest daughter Eleanor heiress to the vast duchy of Aquitaine.
William X proposed that Eleanor should marry Louis VI’s son, Louis, an idea that worked well for both parties. Eleanor would be queen of France, and Louis would be lord of Aquitaine. William X died while on pilgrimage in 1137, and soon afterward Eleanor was married to Louis. The bridegroom’s father took ill soon after the wedding, and soon Louis VI had died as well.
The reign of Louis VII had begun.
Footnotes:
- Adelaide’s great-aunt Bertha of Savoy once brutally beat her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich IV, with a chair-leg, according to the chronicler Bruno.
- Constance would be married to King Stephen of England’s tyrannical son, Eustace, who died choking on a meal of eels in 1153. She married to Raymond V, count of Toulouse.
- They were troublesome, too.
- Seriously, it was gross. Bertulf’s face was eaten by a dog. You don’t wanna know the details.
- The son of Bertrade de Montfort and Fulk IV. He’d been a baby when his mother ran off with King Philippe.
- King Henry I of England hated Stephen of Aumale’s wife Hawise so much that he named a castle ‘Whore-Humbler’ in her honor.
- The son of William VIII and Hildegarde-Audearde of Burgundy that I mentioned before. He was a second cousin to Louis VI.
SOURCES:
Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History, 2004.
Bradbury, Jim. The Capetians: kings of France, 987-1328, 2007.
Suger, Abbot of Saint Denis. The deeds of Louis the Fat, ed. John Moorhead and Richard Cusimano, 1992.
snerk
Yet, despite this he would have been very likely to succeed him as King of England ( and Duke of Normandy ) had he lived. As the only surviving male-line Norman ( and the senior line to boot ), he certainly would have trumped the female-line Stephen of Blois/Boulogne and Henry’s daughter Mathilda, who had the bad luck to be both female and married into a house traditionally regarded with suspicion by the Norman nobility. It might have been a three-way contest, but possibly not much of one. Medieval legalism and traditionalism being as ingrained as they were, William Clito may well have been swept in by wide acclaim, possibly with Henry’s blessing.
Which makes for very interesting “what if?” musings. Flanders was very slightly disjunct from the other Norman possessions but was also, with Normandy and the Capetian royal demesne, one of the most highly centralized regions of France and was almost certainly wealthier than Greater Anjou. Further it had strong economic ties to England and had long been a traditional ally of Normandy, unlike Anjou. It would have made a very well-fitted and rich mate to the Norman realm and flanked the Capetian territories on either side.
I just came in to say that even George R.R. Martin couldn’t come up with as cool a name for a villain as Fulk Nerra.
Super-awesome thread, Mississippienne. Were there any really brave and heroic Capetians? Perhaps something along the lines of “Capetians Courageous”?
BobArrgh, there were a couple of Capetians who were certainly courageous. I think a latter episode about Louis IX could easily be entitled “Capetians Courageous!”
I would like to call this episode “Divorced, Died, Survived.” The reasons why will become apparent shortly.
Of all the Capetian kings, Louis VII is one of the ones I feel the most sympathy for. He was not a bad sort by any means, and he was in fact a genuinely pious and kindly man who had the misfortune to be pitted against two of the most exuberant and powerful personalities of the age: Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Louis, being the second-born son, was intended for a career in the church. It was only because of his elder brother Philippe’s sudden death in 1131 that he was plucked from his monastic studies and thrust into a world of high stakes politics and scheming. He was a newly-married lad of seventeen when his father died and Louis VII found himself the king of France and lord (by right of his wife) of Aquitaine.
From the start, domestic problems began to fracture the royal household. The dowager queen, Adelaide of Maurienne, quarreled with her daughter-in-law Eleanor and conspired with Raoul of Vermandois to control the court. The venerable Abbot Suger stepped in and Raoul and Adelaide quickly backed down. Adelaide then remarried to a minor noble, Mathieu de Montmorency 1, and retired from court.
For his part, Louis VII “loved [Eleanor] almost beyond reason” according to John of Salisbury, but Eleanor found him boring, ‘more monk than king’. She openly mocked his advisor, the eunuch Thierry Galeran. He never missed Mass and kept a diet of bread and water on Fridays. His closest friends were churchmen. The campaigns that Louis launched to try to enforce Eleanor’s claims to Toulouse and Poitiers ended miserably. Worse yet, several years passed and there was no sign of an heir to the throne. Eleanor had suffered a miscarriage during their first year of marriage, and after that no pregnancy seemed forthcoming.
In 1141, a scandal heated up. Eleanor’s younger sister, Alix-Petronille, took up with Louis’ cousin, the battle-hardened, one-eyed, and very married Raoul, count of Vermandois. Raoul tried to divorce his wife on the grounds of consanguinity; she complained to her kinsman, the powerful Count Thibaut of Champagne 2. Thibaut had been a loyal baron, but he had earlier refused to intervene in Poitiers on Eleanor’s behalf in 1138, and then again in 1140 when Louis demanded he send military support for the campaign in Toulouse. Thibaut seems to have had little love for Eleanor and her family, and less than that after Raoul of Vermandois abandoned Thibaut’s niece for Eleanor’s sister.
The papal verdict arrived in 1142: Raoul of Vermandois was to remain married to Thibaut’s niece, both Raoul and Alix-Petronille were excommunicated, and the prelates who had approved the divorce were suspended. Louis was humiliated. He attacked Thibaut’s lands out of pure spite, marching into Vitry late in 1142. The castle-town was put to the torch, and a horrific incident occured in which the townspeople crowded into a church, seeking sanctuary, only to be burned alive. Louis wept at the sight of Vitry and was wracked with guilt.
It would be more than two years, and considerable effort on the part of Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot Suger, and Pope Celestine II, before peace was made between Louis VII and Thibaut of Champagne. Eleanor had consulted with Bernard of Clairvaux about her barrenness. Bernard promised her a child if Louis would reconcile with Thibaut. Louis, by all accounts madly in love with Eleanor and willing to do anything for her, agreed. Something worked, for Eleanor became pregnant and delivered a daughter, Marie, in spring 1145. Marie was not the longed-for son, but perhaps her birth eased Louis’ troubled mind somewhat. Still overwhelmed with guilt for the burning of Vitry, he declared his intention to embark on the Second Crusade at the Christmas court of 1145. By taking the cross and fighting for the Holy Land, Louis meant to do his part for God, Pope, and country, and perhaps wash some of the blood from his hands.
The French army of Louis VII and the German army of Konrad III were almost annihilated while trying to plow through Anatolia on their way to the Holy Land. By the time they made it there, neither was in any shape to liberate anything. Once they arrived in Antioch, Louis and Eleanor were met by Eleanor’s handsome and dashing uncle, Raymond 3. William of Tyre calls Eleanor a “foolish woman” who “disregarded her marriage vows and was unfaithful to her husband.” Louis became suspicious of his wife’s closeness with her uncle and decided to leave. Eleanor, angry at his abandoning Raymond, confronted Louis and declared that their marriage was itself invalid, due to consanguinity. Louis being a man of conscience as he was, became very disturbed by this. On their return to Europe, Louis and Eleanor stopped in Rome and met with the Pope, Eugenius III. According to John of Salisbury, the pope insisted that they reconcile and sleep in the same bed. This seemed to work, as Eleanor became pregnant and gave birth to a second daughter, Alix, in 1150 4.
But Eleanor hadn’t given up on being rid of Louis. Her conduct was unbecoming; Walter Map claims that she had an affair with Geoffrey of Anjou, and Gervase of Canterbury and William of Newburgh both claim that she planned to marry Geoffrey’s son Henry even before her divorce was final 5. Lambert of Wattrelos states that Louis “rashly” divorced Eleanor; I think he was finally just fed up. Eleanor had given him little but heartbreak and two daughters, and now she no longer even wished to be married to him. Louis was eating her dust as she rushed off to be married to Henry of Anjou. A year later, she had borne him the son that Louis had so longed for.
In 1154, Louis VII remarried. His choice fell on Constanza, the daughter of Alfonso VII of Castile. Sadly we know very little about this Spanish princess; she bore two more daughters, Marguerite and Alys, dying in childbirth with the second. Five weeks after Constanza’s death in 1160, Louis remarried with undue haste to Adele of Champagne, the daughter of Thibaut of Champagne who’s castle at Vitry he had burnt decades earlier. Another daughter, Agnes, was born to them, and in 1165, the long-awaited heir, Philippe Auguste6 .
Louis VII had a lot of bad luck and always seemed a little overwhelmed at having to deal with Henry II of England. His only vicious streak seemed to be his adoration and jealousy over Eleanor, and for a medieval king he was gentle and kindly. He even appointed a protector for his nation’s Jews, something very unusual at the time. He tried to exploit his enemy’s weaknesses, such as when he sided with Henry II’s rebellious sons in 1173-4.
Real quick, I’d like to mention a scandal that went down during Louis’ reign which, while not directly connected to him, was so shocking and bizarre that it has to be mentioned. Conan III, duke of Brittany, had married Maud, one of the many illegitimate daughters of King Henry I of England 7, and by her he had two children: a son named Hoël and a daughter named Bertha. Now, as Conan lay dying in 1148 he suddenly disinherited Hoël, declaring that Hoël was no son of his, and therefore Brittany went to the children of Bertha by her husband, Alan of Richmond.
As if that weren’t weird enough, Bertha and her (half?) brother Hoël were having an incestuous affair. Bernard of Clairvaux was all kinds of against that shit. I think the only soap opera element I’ve never encountered while researching this series is evil twins.
Footnotes:
- Mathieu was the widower of one of Henry I of England’s numerous illegitimate daughters. He was therefore the uncle-by-marriage of Henry II. All these people married in circles.
- Thibaut was the son of Count Etienne-Henri of Blois and William the Conqueror’s formidable daughter, Adela of England. His brother was Stephen who stole England’s crown from his cousin Maude.
- Raymond was the youngest son of Duke William IX and Philippa of Toulouse. He’d married Constance of Antioch, herself the granddaughter of Constance of France (Philippe I’s daughter).
- No shit, huh.
- She traded in for the younger model.
- William le Breton reports that Louis had a prophetic dream before his son’s birth, in which Philippe was serving chalices of human blood to the French barons. Fucking creepy, Louis.
- Confusingly, she had the same first name as her legitimate half sister, the Empress Maude, the mother of Henry II. Also, see footnote 1.
SOURCES:
Gervers, Michael. The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, 1992.
Parsons, John Carmi and Wheeler, Bonnie. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, 2003.
With all the marrying in circles you’ve got to wonder if any of these guys were not consanguineous. I suppose it was a convenient excuse if (or when) the marriage didn’t work out:
“We can’t be man and wife–you’re the daughter-in-law of my great-uncle’s second cousin once removed! (It certainly has nothing to do with me wanting to marry that younger prettier girl over there with the enormous…tracts of land.)”
Great stories, although the cast is some confusing!
How odd 'tis, that the REAL stories behind historical figures are so unknown to the rest of us. I mean to say, research on the people rather than the high points of, say, a king’s reign, opens up doors that piques our interest - maybe history has been given a bum rap.
Of course, it has been said that history is written by the winners, so there is a wee bit of bias in any “formal” account. Search out the bias and the truth, Mississippienne, and keep on giving it to us straight. You have excellent storyteller genes goin’
an seanchai
There were the Anglo-Norman nobles Robert and Waleran de Beaumont. I don’t know that either of them were particularly evil, but Waleran did some pretty nasty stuff during the English war between Stephen and Matilda, and as part of Geoffery of Anjou’s siege of Rouen, he burnt down the church of St. Sever, which was full of poor refugees seeking safety. That was pretty evil.
Hey, check out what just got released. Sweet!
Once upon a time, I read a book by Josephine Tey, an historical novel which did line out one point of view re: Richard III, the book being “The Daughter of Time”. This book so fascinated me that I went nuts reading about the man, history books both pro (he was a good man of his time) and con (he was a rotter who never should have been whelped).
The more I read, the more I was confused. He had apparently been a good guy up until his brother, King Edward, died, when Richard appeared to have fallen off the rails and Turned Extremely Bad. Some say Richard seized the main chance. Some say Richard was forced into taking on the kingship due to, among other things, Edward’s prior choices re: women. Every historian’s works that I read was obviously biased one way or the other.
You have to make up your own mind.
Don’t fall into the trap of not keeping current with new research and new discoveries.
Mississippienne’s trail would be a good one to follow - and one that will be my new “hobby” this coming while.
an seanchai
Captain Amazing, the Beaumont twins are certainly a good suggestion for evil twins, but I was thinking more along the lines of the classic soap opera 'I’m your long-lost twin! And I’m EVIL!" dun dun dun
As long as we’re on the subject, I’d like to mention that Waleran and Robert de Beaumont’s mother was Isabelle, daughter of Hugh Magnus, himself the son of King Henri I and Anna of Kiev. Isabelle’s mother was Adele, the heiress of Vermandois, who was herself the granddaughter of Raoul of Valois (yes, the same Raoul who eloped with Queen Anna after Henri I’s death). What’d I tell you? Circles. These people married in circles.
Anyway, the Beaumont twins had a pack of siblings and half-siblings from their mother’s second marriage to William de Warenne, earl of Surrey, for whom she abandoned her first husband (Robert of Meulan, the twin’s father). Their sister, Isabelle de Beaumont, was a mistress of King Henry I of England (she ended up marrying Gilbert de Clare and became by him the mother of the famous Strongbow). Robert and Waleran de Beaumont’s maternal uncle was Raoul of Vermandois who in the most recent episode had caused all sorts of mayhem by falling in love with Alix-Petronille of Aquitaine.
MEBuckner, I suppose marrying consanguineously could be a useful escape hatch in case the marriage turned out to be a total disaster. During this time period, you really didn’t see the crazy first cousin and double first cousin and uncle/niece marriages you’d see later amongst the Hapsburgs, for example. It helped that the Reformation was a few generations off, so without a Protestant/Catholic divide there were more marriage partners open to you. There were the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox, but it seems like they were happy to work that issue out if it was politically useful.
In the above-mentioned example, when Count Raoul of Vermandois eloped with Anna of Kiev, he was already married and I suppose they weren’t cousins, so instead he charged his wife with adultery in an attempt to get rid of her (oh, the irony). He got excommunicated for that.
seanchai, first and foremost I hope to inspire a little interest in these people and this time by writing these episodes. As I said in my OP, I hate the way history is taught. Why should you care about Louis VII’s fiscal policies? That sort of information is a very niche interest, and its understandable that it would make most people yawn. But if I could – even just a little bit – introduce y’all to these people, and tell you about who they were and what they did (and *who *they did 
) then perhaps y’all will take an interest, and see this for what it is: a rollicking, crazy, scary, bawdy, sexy, violent, tragic, scandalous multi-generational saga. You could never make this stuff up.
Also, if you’re interested in Richard III, then may I recommend The Unromantic Richard III blog.
Sometimes I start hearing the song “I’m My Own Grandpa” in my head when I read about this stuff. 