Isabella of Angouleme: A Tale of Power, Intrigue, and Royalty

If you want to know the story of Isabella of Angouleme, the fiery Queen, you’re in the right place.

I live just 30 minutes from the city of Angouleme and am a frequent visitor. And history is one of my favourite subjects. It fascinates me how intertwined the history of England and France was during the Middle Ages, and Angouleme doesn’t disappoint in that regard.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the Hôtel de Ville d’Angoulême, the city where Isabella of Angouleme was born. It was organised through the Angoulême Tourisme, and we had a wonderful guide, Marie, who brought the story behind the building to life. 

Listen to a Podcast Episode about the City of Angouleme

How much was fact and how much was fiction?

There are so many stories about Isabella, and it’s hard to know what is fact and fiction, as there is so little actual evidence.

In this article, we’ll answer the question of whether she was more Jezebel than Isabel and dig a little deeper into the story behind the woman herself.

Was she really the Helen of Troy of the Middle Ages in France, as she was apparently nicknamed? Let’s find out.

Who was Isabella of Angouleme, France?

We can’t be sure of when Isabella was born. It’s thought to be between 1186 – 1188, but her actual birth date is unknown. 

She was the daughter of Aymer Taillefer, Count of Angoulême and Alice de Courtenay, and was the sole heir to her father’s estates in Angouleme, which then formed part of the Duchy of Aquitaine. 

But it was through her mother that she got her looks and widely reported beauty, with her blonde hair, blue eyes and reported voluptuous figure.

She had royal blood flowing through her veins, which also came from her mother’s side as Isabella’s maternal grandfather, Peter de Courtenay, was the cousin of King Philip II Augustus of France.

And it was through the Courtenay family tree that she was related to the royal houses of Jerusalem, Hungary, Aragon and Castile.

In 1202, when her father passed away, she became the Countess of Angouleme in her own right inheriting his lands and estates.

The real story behind Isabella of Angouleme

So now we know a little more about the history of the castle where Isabella spent quite a bit of her life, what about the woman herself? 

To understand who Isabella of Angouleme was, we must take another step back in time to the end of the 12th century when daughters were important pawns in the game of politics. They were sold off, so to speak, by their families to the highest and most influential bidder to make powerful alliances.

These alliances weren’t love matches, and the daughters had no say in who they were to be married to.

And it wasn’t unheard of for betrothals to be made almost as soon as they were born. Although, the marriage itself couldn’t take place until they were of canonical age, which was twelve.

And this was the case with Isabella of Angouleme.

Who was Isabella of Angouleme originally betrothed to?

Isabella was married twice, firstly to King John of England, 4th surviving son of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II, and secondly to Hugh X de Lusignan, Count of La Marche. 

But before either of these marriages, she was originally betrothed to Hugh IX de Lusignan. 

It was a strategic move by Isabella’s father as it would have united the Lusignan family with the Counts of Angouleme, who had been feuding for years.

But when King John of England set eyes on her, that all changed.

When John first saw Isabella, she was, as I said, betrothed to Hugh IX de Lusignan, having not yet come of age and being too young to get married.

Now this is where things start to get a little hazy, and you need to try and pull out the facts from the fictitious stories.

Why did King John of England really marry Isabella of Angouleme?

Some accounts speak of John falling wildly in love with the young Isabella and driven wild with desire. He was determined to have her no matter the cost, and despite her being betrothed to another man.

Other accounts are very different and show John seeing the potential threat to him and his lands if Isabella married Hugh. 

In my opinion, this seems more likely because a marriage alliance like this would unite the neighbouring regions of Aquitaine, thereby weakening John’s stronghold in Poitou and Gascony. And this could be problematic for John, with him potentially losing his power there.

By marrying Isabella, he would ensure the lands of Angouleme would fall into his hands through his wife, as she was her father’s sole heir.

Isabella’s father played his part in this too and didn’t seem to have a problem breaking the agreed betrothal of his daughter and marrying her off to John. 

For him, seeing his daughter as a Queen was more important than an alliance with his rivals.

How old was Isabella of Angouleme when she married King John?

Again the exact date is in dispute, but It’s thought that Isabella was 12 years old when she married John. However, she could have still been eleven, as this would explain why she was still only betrothed to Hugh and not married.

She was already living in the court of Hugh IX de Lusignan, her betrothed, when her father abducted her in the summer of 1200, so she could wed King John of England.

And on August 24th, 1200, they were duly married in Angouleme before setting sail for England shortly after.

They were crowned on October 8th in Westminster Abbey before setting off on a tour of Northern England.

You can just imagine how Hugh felt, and as you would expect, he started attacking the English strongholds in Aquitaine, thus beginning over a decade of unrest and attacks.

Who was King John’s first wife, and what happened to her?

But John wasn’t free to marry. He was already married to Isabel of Gloucester, whom he cast aside in order to marry Isabella. He had the marriage annulled, and that was that. 

Interestingly, his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, also had her marriage annulled to King Louis VII. 

Although she instigated it, Louis eventually agreed, and the marriage was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. 

Nobody knows for sure whether the marriage was immediately consummated. My guess is, it probably wasn’t, as Isabella didn’t produce her first child until six years into the marriage.

But what we do know is that Isabella was treated as a child for the first few years of her marriage, which in all fairness, she was. She had no lands of her own and was entirely dependent on her husband financially.

One interesting little fact I discovered when researching was that Isabella spent time in the care of Isabel of Gloucester, John’s ex-wife, who remained within the pay of the King even after their annulment. 

How that arrangement worked, I have no idea. But it’s well-documented that Isabella lived apart from John in the early years of their marriage and was looked after by the household of his ex-wife.

From child bride to mother of five

Finally, after six years of marriage, Isabella and John produced a son, Henry, named after John’s father. This was followed by another son, Richard of Cornwall, and three daughters, Isabella, Joan and Eleanor.

But it took longer than that for a truce to be reached between John and Hugh, fourteen years to be exact, and the victory was shortlived.

Not long after the truce with Hugh, the English nobles and barons revolted against John, unhappy with the way he was governing the country. 

On June 15, 1215, he met with them in Runnymede to try and restore peace, where he was forced into signing a charter, which we now know as the Magna Carter.

With no intention of sticking to the agreement, he appealed to Pope Innocent III, which led to the Baron’s War of 1215-1217. It was in this war that John met his death in 1216 at Newark Castle in Nottingham.

At just 28 years old, Isabella was a widow, but there was no time to grieve if indeed she wanted to. Her immediate concern was to ensure her eldest son Henry was crowned as rightful King.

Just eight days after John died, nine-year-old Henry became King Henry III.

Isabella of Angouleme and Hugh X de Lusignan

Isabella stayed in England for around a year after Henry was crowned, but was given no role in the government, which in part was due to how unpopular she was, along with her lack of experience. 

Without a close relationship with her children, as they were raised in different households, she was pretty much isolated.

It made sense for her to return to Angouleme and the lands she had in her own right.

And that’s where things get really interesting.

Isabella and John’s eldest daughter Joan was betrothed to Hugh X de Lusignan, the son of Hugh IX, whom Isabella had originally been betrothed to, and was already within his household in France.

And this is where the scandal comes in because Instead of ensuring the marriage between her daughter and Hugh X, Isabella married Hugh herself in 1220.

So Joan’s betrothed became her stepfather, and her mother kept her hostage in France, refusing to return her to England. She was held for ransom over the ownership of Isabella’s lands.

Isabella wrote to her son Henry to explain what had happened, citing that Hugh’s friends had counselled him against marrying someone as young as Joan. 

As he had no heir, the onus was on Hugh to reproduce quickly to secure an heir. Isabella was therefore put forward as the ideal candidate, given that she’d already had five children with John. 

The spin on this from Isabella was that if she’d not stepped in, the lands would have been lost to England, and she was doing them both a favour by stepping into the breach.

In modern-day terms, she might have written that she was taking one for the team.

Sorcery, witchcraft and betrayal

Things remained strained between England and France, and reconciliation between Isabella and Henry didn’t happen until 1226. But the waters never did run smoothly again.

Hugh and Isabella constantly played the two Kings off against each other. Whether this was for their own gain or through necessity, I’m not sure. 

Isabella’s relationship with France was tenuous, to say the least, due to her ties with England.

And it’s well documented that Isabella hated the Queen of France, who snubbed her at court and refused to acknowledge her as an equal.

Things between Hugh and Isabella weren’t rosy either, and despite having nine children together, their relationship was tumultuous and fiery.

She was accused of witchery and sorcery and a self-absorbed, heartless mother only interested in her own success. 

When her husband Hugh supported a French candidate ahead of her son Henry for the county of Poitou, she took her revenge by banishing Hugh from the castle in Angouleme for three days.

And she was also implicated in a plot to poison King Louis IX and his brother, which was foiled at the last minute. Two cooks admitted to trying to administer the poison saying they’d been paid by Isabella of Angouleme.

Isabella never admitted nor denied the allegations.

But in order to avoid arrest, she took refuge in the sanctuary of Fontevraud Abbey, where she died in 1246 and was laid to rest in the churchyard.

However, when her son Henry III came to pay his respects, he was so shocked that she’d not been buried inside he had her moved. She now lies alongside her mother-in-law, Eleanor of Aquitaine, father-in-law Henry II and their son Richard the Lionheart.

Isabella of Angouleme, Jezebel or Isabel?

Knowing what we know, did Isabella deserve the title of Jezebel, or was she seriously misunderstood?

I’d love to go with the latter, but the little evidence we have seems to point in a very different direction. However, as with many stories from Medieval times, you have to take things with a pinch of salt. 

In those days, rumours circulated and spread like wildfire, with the people behind the rumour using it for their own gain.

So many stories were told, and rumours spread about Isabella and how she had been the ruination of King John. One of these was that she kept him in her bed chamber till after Midday stopping him from attending to his duties. Labelled as a temptress and blamed for the loss of Normandy, she was an unpopular Queen and guilty by association for being bad King John’s wife.

And, of course, that’s not the only thing she did to add fuel to the fire. Marrying her second husband, originally betrothed to her daughter Joan, didn’t exactly help matters. 

Where is the city of Angouleme in France?

Angouleme is the capital city of the Charente built on top of a rock overlooking the Charente River. 

Its strategic position made it a stronghold during the religious wars, and you can still walk the ramparts and see the remains of what was once a fortress. 

Known now as the cartoon capital of Europe, Angouleme is split into two parts, the upper and lower city. And sat in the heart of the upper town is the Hôtel de Ville d’Angoulême, originally known as Le Chateau Comtal.

Isabella and her second husband, Hugues X de Lusignan, built the castle on land they acquired in 1228.

The early history of Hôtel de Ville d’Angoulême

Hôtel de Ville d’Angoulême, just like Isabella, has had an interesting history. 

Isabella and Hugh built their castle, Le Chateau Comtel, with a semicircular courtyard fortified with towers. And it was here that they lived with their household.

By the late 13th century, Hugues XII de Lusignan had constructed a polygonal keep aptly named the Lusignan Tower, one of only two original remaining towers.

Jeanne de Fougères, Countess of la Marche and wife of Hugh XII of Lusignan added another room, known as the “Queen’s Chateau Room,” which served as an “arsenal” during the Revolution.

In 1308 the city of Angouleme returned to the French crown and, in 1394, was given to Louis d’Orléans. Through the lines of succession, his son Jean de Valois, grandfather to Francis I and Marguerite d’Angoulême, took possession.

In the middle of the 15th century, Jean de Valois-Orléans, also known as “the good Count Jean”, returned from English captivity and extended the castle again.

He built the second remaining tower, the Tour des Valois, known as the Tower of Marguerite, and said to be the birthplace of its namesake, Marguerite d’Angoulême, in 1492.

The destruction of Le Chateau Comtal and the creation of the Hôtel de Ville

In 1838, Mayor Normand de La Trancha decided the castle should become the property of the city and be turned into the Town Hall.

An agreement was reached by the council in 1842 on the understanding that the monumental and historical character was unchanged.

The architect, Paul Abadie, was commissioned to draw up plans for the reconstruction, but it wasn’t all plain sailing. 

Numerous protests about the reconstruction saw Paul Abadie (the elder) replaced by his son, also Paul Abadie, as architect.

The younger Abadie wanted to build a municipal palace doing away with the old and bringing in the new.

As you can imagine, this caused more uproar in the city, and expenses spiralled out of control as the plans got bigger and grander.

He was all for destroying the original castle completely, but luckily, due to the opposition of the Archaeological and Historical Society of Charente, not everything was destroyed. The polygonal tower of Lusignan (13th century) and the Tour des Valois were saved and can still be seen today.

In the present day, if you’re a resident of Angouleme, you can actually get married in the Hôtel de Ville in the 19th-century part of the building. 

The architecture and surroundings here change dramatically. It felt as though you were stepping through time, walking from one world into another as we made our way down from the towers and along the corridor and into 2023.

A grand red-carpeted staircase takes you to the official room where the weddings take place. And there is a grand salon next door, which unfortunately was locked when we did our tour.

CONCLUSION: Isabella of Angouleme

It’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s fiction, and we’ll never know the truth about Isabella of Angouleme. But one thing is for sure, she’s a character that makes for an interesting read. 

And faced with being married off at the tender age of 12 in medieval times,  I’m not sure how any of us would fare.