Eleanor of Aquitaine Aquitaine

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 8085

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Aquitaine-84

Family/Spouse: Henry II King of England Plantagenet. Henry (son of Geoffrey Plantagenet the Fair Anjou and Empress, Matilda of England Normandie) was born on 5 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, Sarthe, Pays de la Loire, France; died on 6 Jul 1189 in Chateau de Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, Centre, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 8079

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Plantagenet-143

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:

John was born in 1167, the youngest son of Henry II, king of England, and Eleanor de Poitou, duchesse d'Aquitaine. John's mother was well over forty when John was born. He was her favourite, and inherited many of her characteristics. He grew up enjoying the good things of life: food, women and fashion. His parents indulged him; however, when at 18 he was sent to Ireland to complete its conquest, he was recalled when he aggravated the situation by making fun of the beards and clothes of the Irish chieftains.

His father denied him any lands and nicknamed him John Lackland; but when John's brother Richard became king he granted John the county of Mortain in Normandy. Richard I also found him a wife, Isabella of Gloucester. However the archbishop of Canterbury declared the marriage void as John and Isabella were second cousins. The Pope reversed this decision, but that did not improve the marriage and they soon lived apart, the marriage being annulled in 1200.

When Richard I went on crusade, being aware of John's character he appointed William de Longchamp as regent. However, as soon as Richard was gone, John found support not only from the people of England but also from his illegitimate half-brother Geoffrey, archbishop of York. Marching on London, he won the city by allowing the people to elect their mayor. Realising that he could not withstand his sovereign's brother, Longchamp fled disguised as a woman. He was ready to sail from Dover when an amorous sailor discovered who he was.

Before Richard I died he declared John to be his heir, by-passing Arthur of Brittany whose deceased father Geoffrey was John's elder brother. On 25 April 1199 John was invested as duke of Normandy. In 1200 he divorced his unwanted wife as he had become enamoured of the 12-year-old Isabella of Angoulême. Her parents, keen to see their daughter become queen, encouraged the match and they were married by the archbishop of Bordeaux.

As king he had a great concern and interest in the administration of his territories. Ralph of Coggeshall recorded that he ruled 'energetically enough'. He travelled widely in England, often dealing with mundane financial and legal matters. He was munificent and liberal to outsiders but a plunderer of his own people, trusting strangers rather than his subjects. He was eventually deserted by his own men, and in the end he was little mourned.

John produced eight illegitimate children. According to William of Newburgh he lusted after the wife of Eustace de Vesci, who contrived to smuggle a prostitute into the king's bed in her place. Next day when John coarsely told him how good his wife had been in bed, de Vesci confessed, then fled.

In 1203 John was responsible for the murder of his nephew and rival, Arthur. King Philippe of France, overlord for both Normandy and Brittany, was enraged by this action; forfeiting Normandy he attacked and conquered Rouen.

In 1205 John quarrelled with Pope Innocent III as he did not want to accept Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury. As a result John was excommunicated in 1208. This lasted until 1213 when he had to accept England as a fief from the pope.

Campaigns in 1214 in France were disastrous. While he was in France his enemies in England joined forces under the banner of Stephen Langton, and forced John to accept the Magna Carta, which was sealed by John on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede near Windsor. Infuriated, John gained the support of the pope and gathered an army to fight his barons who were supported by the French king. Landing in England, King Louis marched on London. The barons promised the crown to the French king and a civil war began. During John's travels through England, one of his baggage-trains was swept away while crossing a river and he lost all his valuables including his crown. He became so depressed that he fell seriously ill. His illness was aggravated by his gluttony, and he was taken by litter to Newark Castle where he died, aged nearly forty-nine, on 18 October 1216.

Family/Spouse: Isabella de Lusignan Angoulême. Isabella was born about 1188 in Angoulême, Charente, Poitou-Charentes, France; died on 31 May 1246 in Fontevrault, Maine-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 8076

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Plantagenet-167

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:

Edward I 'Longshanks', king of England, was born on 17 June 1239, the son of Henry III, king of England, and Eleanor de Provence. As a boy Edward was once in the middle of a game of chess with one of his knights in a vaulted room when suddenly, for no apparent reason, he got up and walked away. Seconds later, a massive stone, which would have completely crushed anyone who happened to be underneath it, fell from the roof on to the very spot where he had been sitting.

With his mother's strength but without her frivolity, Edward I became a great statesman and an able soldier. He supported his weak father, King Henry III, during the civil wars inflicted upon England by the barons.

He was only fifteen when he went to Spain to be knighted by King Alfonso X of Castile and to marry that king's half-sister, Eleanor. This marriage, like that of his parents, was a happy one and produced fifteen children, of whom only six reached adulthood.

After peace was restored in England, Edward went on crusade in 1270, accompanied by Eleanor. In June 1272 a member of the Hashshashin, a secret society of assassins, who was employed by one of the emirs in negotiation with Edward, obtained a private interview with him under pretence of important secret business, then suddenly attacked him with a dagger, wounding him in the arm. Edward repelled him with a vigorous kick and, seizing a stool, knocked him down and snatched the dagger from him. In doing this, however, he wounded himself in the forehead. As the dagger was poisoned, Edward's wounds gave cause for great anxiety; he made his will, appointing executors and guardians for his children. However the skills of his surgeon saved his life.

In November 1272, when Edward and Eleanor were in Sicily on their way back, his father died. As they knew Edward I's mother to be a capable regent, they did not hurry and so did not arrive in England until the summer of 1274. Edward and Eleanor were then crowned together in Westminster Abbey on 19 August 1274.

In 1279 he proclaimed an edict to the effect that clipped money should no longer be circulated, nor should anyone be forced to accept it. He then designated a small number of places where money could be exchanged and within a short time no one would consider accepting it. Edward kept in touch with and encouraged the parliament. His continuous if unsuccessful attempts to rule Scotland earned him the name of 'Hammer of the Scots'. However, his sojourns into Wales were more successful, and after the death of the last two native princes, Llywellyn and David, Edward I created his son and heir Prince of Wales in February 1301.

In 1290 Eleanor died, and nine years later he married Margaret of France. This marriage was not unhappy and produced three more children. In 1296, while campaigning in Scotland, Edward removed the Stone of Scone on which the kings of Scots had always been crowned. He ordered a wooden chair to be made, which from then on contained the stone and was used for the coronation of English and British monarchs.

In 1298 Edward met William Wallace at the battle of Falkirk. On the night before the battle he slept on the ground, his shield for a pillow and his horse beside him. The horse stepped on his royal master as he lay asleep, and in the confusion of darkness the alarm spread that the king was wounded. Only slightly hurt, Edward went into battle in the morning, but his victory that day was not followed up.

Having survived the murderous attack in Palestine, there were still more miraculous escapes. In Paris lightning passed over his shoulders and slew two of his attendants; and when his horse leapt the town wall at Winchelsea he was uninjured. At the siege of Stirling a bolt from a crossbow struck his saddle as he rode unarmed, and a stone from a mangonel brought his horse down. Even illness had seemed to pass him by, but while on a military campaign he became ill with dysentery, and he died aged sixty-eight on 7 July 1307, at Burgh on the Sands near Carlisle in Scotland. In his last words he was still the warrior: 'Carry my bones before you on your march. For the rebels will not be able to endure the sight of me, alive or dead'.

Family/Spouse: Eleanor of England Provence. Eleanor was born about 1217 in Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France; died on 24 Jun 1291 in Amesbury Priory, Wiltshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Name: Edward Longshanks
• Reference Number: 8070

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Plantagenet-2

From Wikipedia:
Edward I (17/18 June 1239 - 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as The Lord Edward.[1] The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved from an early age in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons. In 1259, he briefly sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciliation with his father, however, he remained loyal throughout the subsequent armed conflict, known as the Second Barons' War. After the Battle of Lewes, Edward was hostage to the rebellious barons, but escaped after a few months and defeated the baronial leader Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Within two years the rebellion was extinguished and, with England pacified, Edward joined the Ninth Crusade to the Holy Land. The crusade accomplished little, and Edward was on his way home in 1272 when he was informed that his father had died. Making a slow return, he reached England in 1274 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 19 August.

Edward spent much of his reign reforming royal administration and common law. Through an extensive legal inquiry, he investigated the tenure of various feudal liberties, while the law was reformed through a series of statutes regulating criminal and property law. Increasingly, however, Edward's attention was drawn towards military affairs. After suppressing a minor rebellion in Wales in 1276-77, Edward responded to a second rebellion in 1282-83 with a full-scale war of conquest. After a successful campaign, he subjected Wales to English rule, built a series of castles and towns in the countryside and settled them with English people. Next, his efforts were directed towards Scotland. Initially invited to arbitrate a succession dispute, Edward claimed feudal suzerainty over the kingdom. The war that followed continued after Edward's death, even though the English seemed victorious at several points. Simultaneously, Edward found himself at war with France (a Scottish ally) after the French king Philip IV had confiscated the Duchy of Gascony, which until then had been held in personal union with the Kingdom of England. Although Edward recovered his duchy, this conflict relieved English military pressure against Scotland. At the same time there were problems at home. In the mid-1290s, extensive military campaigns required high levels of taxation, and Edward met with both lay and ecclesiastical opposition. These crises were initially averted, but issues remained unsettled. When the King died in 1307, he left to his son Edward II an ongoing war with Scotland and many financial and political problems.

Edward I was a tall man (6'2") for his era, hence the nickname "Longshanks". He was temperamental, and this, along with his height, made him an intimidating man, and he often instilled fear in his contemporaries. Nevertheless, he held the respect of his subjects for the way he embodied the medieval ideal of kingship, as a soldier, an administrator and a man of faith. Modern historians are divided on their assessment of Edward I: while some have praised him for his contribution to the law and administration, others have criticised him for his uncompromising attitude towards his nobility. Currently, Edward I is credited with many accomplishments during his reign, including restoring royal authority after the reign of Henry III, establishing Parliament as a permanent institution and thereby also a functional system for raising taxes, and reforming the law through statutes. At the same time, he is also often criticised for other actions, such as his brutal conduct towards the Welsh and Scots, and issuing the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, by which the Jews were expelled from England. The Edict remained in effect for the rest of the Middle Ages, and it was over 350 years until it was formally overturned under Oliver Cromwell in 1657.

Family/Spouse: Eleanor of Castile Castile. Eleanor was born in 1241 in Castile, Spain; died on 28 Nov 1290 in Harby, Nottinghamshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]