General Notes

No Queen of England has left so dark a stain on the annuals of female royalty as the consort of Edward II, Isabella of France. She was the eleventh Queen of England from the Norman Conquest and with the exception of Ethelwulpn a princess of higher rank than had ever espoused a King of England. Descended from a long line of French Kings, she was daughter of Philip IV, called the Fair King of France, and sister of three Kings of France--Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV, wife of King Edward of England and mother of Edward III, King of England. Her mother was Jane Queen of Navarre. Isabella was only four years old when her fatal wedlock with Edward of Carnarvon was determined, the preliminaries for that alliance forming a clause in the treaty negotiated between her father and Edward I for the marriage of that monarch to her aunt, Marguerite of France. Isabella was born in 1295. Edward, leaving his favorite Piers de Gaveston, guardian of the realm, sailed Jan. 22, 1308, accompanied by his royal stepmother, Queen Marguerite, to meet his bride. He landed at Boulogne, where Isabella had already arrived with her royal parents. The beauty of the royal pair excited universal admiration, for the bridegroom was the handsomest prince in Europe and the precocious charms of the bride had already obtained for her the name of Isabella the Fair. None who were there could have believed their fatal termination or thought that the epithet of "shewolf of France" could ever be deserved by the bride To the credit of Isabella let us tell how Edward II had given the place of honor to his favorite Gaveston to manage the ceremonial of their coronation. The Queen, her uncle, the Earl of Lancester, and all the baronage of England, made common cause against Gaveston, and Edward sent him to Guienne, but at parting lavished on him all the jewels of which he was possessed, even to the rings, brooches, buckels and other trinkets which the Queen at various times presented to him as tokens of regard. In 1312 Edward recalled Gaveston and finally he was executed. Edward was transported with rage and sullenly withdrew from London and finally joined the Queen at Windsor, where she was awaiting the birth of her first child, which took place Nov. 13, 1312.
One thing and another brought on feuds between Isabella and Edward and she appealed to her brother, the King of France, and Charles testified his indignant sense of his sister's treatment by declaring his intention of seizing all the provinces held by Edward in France. Upon hearing this Isabella volunteered to go to France to negotiate a Pacification. While in France Isabella was joined by her paramour, Mortimer, and all the banished English lords flocked around her. She remained a year in France and was accompanied by Mortimer and a large following of Baronial partisans, her foreign troops, etc. She was hailed as the deliverer of her country and it was at this time that Edward II was deposed and Edward III was declared King. Isabella and Mortimer and their followers ruled with a high hand until Edward III finally arrested his mother's favorite and he was executed, but Isabella was spared the ignominy of a public trial, but was confined in a castle for many years. She died August 22, 1358, aged 63.