Life
Isabella lived during a period of political tension between France and England known as the Hundred Years War, the situation exacerbated by the mental instability of her father. On 31 October 1396, at the age of six, Isabella married the widower King Richard II of England in a move for peace with France. Although the union was political, Richard II and the child Isabella developed a mutual respectful relationship. The Queen was moved to Porchester Castle for protection while Richard went on a military campaign in Ireland. When Richard II was imprisoned and murdered on his return to England, Queen Isabella was ordered by the new King Henry IV to move out of Windsor Castle and to settle in the Bishop of Salisbury's Thameside palace at Sonning.
King Henry IV then decided Queen Isabella should marry his son, the future Henry V of England, but she put her foot down and refused to have anything to do with the prince. Knowing her husband was dead, she went into mourning, ignoring Henry IV's demands. Eventually he let her go back to France.
On 29 June 1406, Queen Isabella married her cousin Charles, Duke of Orléans. She died in childbirth at the age of 19, leaving one daughter, Joan, who married John II of Alençon in 1424. Isabella was interred in Blois, in the abbey of St.Laumer, where her body was found entire in 1624, curiously wrapped in bands of linen plated over with quicksilver. It was then transferred to the church of the Celestines in Paris.
Read more about this topic: Isabella Of Valois
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