Isabeau of Bavaria

Isabeau of Bavaria. Tomb effigy.
Isabeau of Bavaria. Tomb effigy.

Isabeau de Bavière (also Isabella of Bavaria-Ingolstadt; ca. 1370 – September 24, 1435) was a Queen Consort of France (1385 - 1422) after marrying Charles VI of France, a member of the Valois Dynasty, on July 17, 1385. She assumed a prominent role in public affairs during the disastrous later years of her husband's reign.

Lineage

Isabeau of Bavaria was the daughter of Stephen III of Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Thadea Visconti. Her paternal grandparents were Stephen II, Duke of Bavaria and Elizabeth, Princess of Sicily, daughter of Frederick III of Sicily and his wife Eleonora. Eleonora was herself a daughter of Charles II of Naples and Maria of Hungary. Maria was a daughter of Stephen V of Hungary and Elizabeth of Cumania. Elizabeth was daughter of Koteny or Kuthens, a chieftain apparently descending from the Kipchaks.

Her maternal grandparents were Barnabo Visconti (d. 1385), Lord of Milan and Regina-Beatrice della Scala. Regina was daughter of Mastino II della Scala, Lord of Verona from 1329 to 1351 and his wife Taddea di Cararra.

Career

Isabeau of Bavaria was the prominent and unpopular queen of an unsuccessful reign. She assumed an unusually powerful role in government to fill the gap left by her husband's frequent bouts of insanity. Around this time she organised the disastrous Bal des Ardents, or 'Ball of the Burning Men'.

Others who vied for power included the King's brother Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans and their cousin John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. Queen Isabeau's strong partisanship for the Duke of Orléans led to rumors of an extramarital affair and a feud that ended in the assassination of the Duke of Orléans in 1407. Bitter resentment continued and the late duke's supporters became known as the Armagnacs.

Henry V of England took advantage of French internal strife and invaded the northwest coast. He delivered a crushing defeat to the French at Agincourt. Nearly an entire generation of military leaders died or fell prisoner in a single day. John the Fearless, still feuding with Queen Isabeau, remained neutral as Henry V conquered towns in northern France.

Most of Isabeau's twelve children did not survive to adulthood. Shortly after her fifth and final son assumed the title of dauphin as heir to the throne, the sixteen-year-old future Charles VII of France negotiated a truce with John the Fearless in 1418. Armagnac partisans murdered John while the two met on a bridge under Charles's guarantee of protection.

The new Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good entered an active alliance with the English. With most of northern France under foreign domination, Isabeau agreed to the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. This arranged the marriage of her daughter Catherine of Valois to Henry V and assigned the French royal succession to Henry V and their children. Isabeau's detractors and the Dauphin's political enemies cited this treaty as evidence that he was not the legitimate son of Charles VI. The treaty did not have its intended effect on the French royal succession but did have an ultimate effect on English royal succession. Catherine's second marriage resulted in the eventual Tudor dynasty.

Both Charles VI and Henry V died within two months of each other in 1422. Charles VII, now fully grown, claimed that the Treaty of Troyes was illegal and assumed leadership of the Armagnac party, ruling what was left of central and southern France.

Isabeau and her son Charles VII shared no apparent love for each other. Charles was to face a similar relationship with his own son Louis XI. Charles' principal female mentor was his childhood guardian Yolande of Aragon.

Isabeau moved to English-controlled territory and exerted no further influence over public affairs. She died in Paris in 1435 and is interred in the Saint Denis Basilica.

Posterity has not been kind to Isabeau of Bavaria. A popular saying late in her life was that France had been lost by a woman and would be recovered by a girl. Many took this to be a prediction of Joan of Arc. In fairness to Isabeau it must be noted that her leadership confronted double prejudice as a woman and a foreigner. There are a few bright spots in her reign, such as her artistic patronage. Isabeau aided the era's most significant French author Christine de Pizan and sponsored artisans who developed innovative techniques in decorative arts.

Children

 

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