In his biography of Henry II, W.L. Warren claims that the king did not have any ‗grand design‘ for the marriages of his daughters.1
Certainly at first glance, this statement appears correct; Matilda was married to the duke Saxony, Eleanor to the king of Castile, and Joanna to the king Sicily, all in far-reaching areas of western Christendom, with no easily detectable connections. However, when they are compared to the marriages and betrothals made by Henry II for his other children, and for the two generations after him, patterns do begin to emerge: Matilda‘s marriage was the first in a number of attempted and successful alliances with the German Empire,2 designed to keep the emperor on the Plantagenet rather than Capetian side of any territorial arguments. Eleanor‘s marriage to Alfonso of Castile was the second planned Spanish marriage—the first, the 1159 betrothal of Richard to the house of Aragon-Barcelona did not lead to marriage—in a long line of matches with the Spanish kingdoms, stemming from the need for a friendly western neighbour to Aquitaine, an ally against the counts of Toulouse. Only Joanna‘s marriage to William of Sicily does not appear to follow any long-term policy, though it foreshadows Henry III‘s efforts to make Edmund King of Sicily in the 1250s. Joanna‘s later marriage to Raymond of Toulouse was also demonstrative of the Angevin focus moving further south. So, while it cannot necessarily be said that Henry was aware of the patterns, he certainly was the progenitor of a number of long-term Angevin marriage practices.
There were other significant patterns to the marriages and betrothals made during this period. For the princesses, the practice was generally to marry them off at a young age, to a foreign power, as part of the confirmation for an alliance or peace treaty. Henry II‘s two daughters mentioned above were both married to confirm a pact of friendship, while John‘s three daughters were given away similarly: Joan to Alexander II of Scotland, a marriage that endeavoured to settle territorial disputes going back to 1209; Isabella to Emperor Frederick II in an effort to guarantee German support for English endeavours on the continent; and Eleanor to William Marshal, to ensure his
1 Warren, Henry II, p. 221.
2 The first for the Angevin kings, that is, though her grandmother the Empress Matilda had been married
acquiescence in the actions of the Minority Council and prevent his marriage with a foreign, potentially hostile power. Henry III married his daughters in the same fashion, with Margaret given to Alexander III of Scotland in a second attempt to settle disputes and provide Henry with a reason to interfere in the kingdom, and Beatrice eventually married to John of Brittany. Though the motives listed above are of course simplified, what can certainly be seen is a trend towards the establishing of friendships by marriage, often with lands distant from England.
For princes, marriages were more varied in their ultimate goal. The motive for marriage of younger sons was most commonly to provide land for those who would not receive an inheritance from their father or sometimes their mother. The most common manner of gaining such landed wealth was marriage to an heiress: Geoffrey, John, Richard of Cornwall and Edmund of Lancaster all married heiresses. It would appear to have been preferable for the heiresses to be outside the kingdom of England—Brittany was not strictly part of Henry II‘s domains until he took it over in 1166, John‘s first intended match was with Maurienne in southern France, and the first attempts for Edmund‘s marriage were made with Sicily and Cyprus. Only on occasions where these plans fell through were lands in England considered; Isabel of Gloucester was an advantageous match for John, providing him with a wealthy gathering of lands, but it was not as significant as being made count of Savoy, as he would have become through marriage to Alice of Maurienne. Attempts to find Edmund of Lancaster a wife seem to have almost been forgotten after the failure of the Sicilian project, and it is only in 1269, over ten years after the 1256 negotiations with Sicily, that Aveline de Forz was found for him. Richard of Cornwall‘s first attempt to marry the daughter of the King of León had probably the intention of creating him ruler of Gascony, but his second marriage to Isabel Marshal was done at least partially for access to her extensive lands. It can only be guessed what John might have planned for Richard, had he lived past 1216, but certainly both his father, Henry II, and his son Henry III, made significant efforts to find landed wealth for their younger sons.
This strategy of finding an heiress to provide lands is unsurprising, and was used through all levels of society, throughout Europe. The more interesting marriages were those made for the three heirs to the throne by their fathers: Henry the Young King in 1158, Henry III in 1209, and Edward in 1254. The prestige associated with the chosen
mates in each of these cases is unquestionable; all were daughters of kings—Margaret daughter of Louis VII of France, Margaret daughter of William the Lion of Scotland, and Eleanor daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile. What is interesting about these marriages, then, is the light they shed on the mindset and priorities of the king at the time. The marriage of an heir was, arguably, the most important royal marriage to be made, second only to that of a reigning king. Henry II betrothed his heir, the Young King, to the daughter of his rival and overlord, Louis VII, an understandable pairing. For dowry, he sought only the Norman Vexin, a comparatively small sliver of land. Its significance of course lay in its position as the essential frontier between the areas controlled by the French and English crowns; the main issues of contention between the kings took place here, centred around the three vitally important strategic castles of Gisors, Neufles and Châteauneuf. Furthermore, the Vexin had been part of Normandy until the 1140s, and was doubtless considered to be rightfully so by Henry II.3 The Norman Vexin was important enough to induce Henry to give away his eldest son and heir, demonstrating both the importance of Normandy and his desire to make peace with Louis VII.
John, too, made what could be considered a surprising betrothal for his heir, Henry III. In 1209 he agreed to wed his son to the daughter of William the Lion, the first royal Anglo-Scottish wedding since Henry I and Edith/Matilda, over 100 years before. At least part of this reason was prestige—after the Treaty of Falaise in 1174, Henry II had forced William the Lion to wed the daughter of one of his lesser nobles, Ermengarde de Beaumont, as an example of his feudal superiority.4 However, John gained a great deal from the 1209 betrothal: William granted to John not just one daughter but two, along with the right to find husbands for them, along with 15,000 marks, money which was sorely needed to finance John‘s campaigns on the continent. Whether John ever intended to go through with the promise and actually marry his heir to Margaret of Scotland can never be known, but after his death the two princesses were abandoned to the will of the Minority Government. The betrothal demonstrates then not so much the importance of Scotland to John, as his willingness to use William‘s weakness to benefit himself.
3 For more discussion of this idea, see the Case Studies, p. 17.
Finally, the marriage of Edward to Eleanor of Castile in 1254 might be seen as the most apt match of all. As dowry, Eleanor brought the rights to all of Gascony, disputed since the death of Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1204. Though Edward was forced to travel to Castile to be married, and to be knighted by Eleanor‘s brother Alfonso, Henry still got exactly what he needed out of the marriage: Gascony, and a promising queen for his son. The marriage does show the continuing southern interests of the Plantagenet kings; though the northern French lands had been lost, the southern lands were still foremost in the interests of the king.
Overall, then, there are several general trends to notice which together can be seen as the basis of an Angevin marriage policy. Firstly, the Angevins were at least twice as likely to initiate negotiations for a marriage as they were to be approached. Though this could be seen to be at least partially caused by the predominantly Anglo- Norman sources available, the overwhelming difference in numbers still indicates that they did the asking more often than they were asked. Clearly, marriage was a tool the Angevins liked to use, and to offer to use. This may be to do with the large number of royal family members, or to the frequency with which first-time betrothals did not end in marriage, meaning there were often at least one or two unmarried Angevin royals around for negotiation.
Furthermore, the frequent use of marriage may have to do with the relative success rate of such alliances; though not all were as successful marriages as, say, Edward and Eleanor of Castile in 1254, only two were really all-out failures. Most can generally be classed as successes, including those cases wherein the greatest profit may have been enjoyed by the foreign side. Thus, in the case of Matilda and Henry of Saxony, there was also significant advantage to Henry II, who was to have the prestige of mediating between the duke and the emperor, and the honour of raising the duke‘s children at his court. Henry III‘s marriage to Eleanor of Provence was also not only advantageous to the bride‘s family; rather, Henry was able to obtain council from men more aware of continental politics than he might be, the personal relationship was strong, and he was able to successfully beget both an heir and a spare. Also, he was able to temper or at least equal the influence of the Capetians on his father- and uncle- in-law, the counts of Provence and Savoy. Even the marriage of Margaret to Alexander III in 1251, was not unhelpful for Henry III—he was invited to mediate between
quarrelling factions in the Scottish minority government, and exerted some influence on Alexander at least until his majority. Henry‘s influence over Scotland only really faded when he lost control of his own kingdom, in 1258.
Above all, every proposal, betrothal, and marriage which was initiated by the English crown—this is excepting the four marriages made for personal gain by Richard of Cornwall, Eleanor de Montfort and Edmund of Lancaster—had clear political motivation. But what is evident from the marriages, both those that were successful and those that were not, was the lack of long-term control that could be exercised through marriage diplomacy. The most important goal for a marriage negotiation, then, was to get the most out of the alliance in the short-term. There is only one example where we can be sure that the English king did not get what he wanted, even initially, from the match, and that was in the marriage of Isabella to Frederick II in 1235. Most historians seem to agree, and Matthew Paris‘ account of the agreement supports the idea, that what Henry III most desired was, ‗aid and suitable forces [to fight] against the king of France.‘5 This, he never received. In every other case, however, the English side got what they wished for out of the arrangements, at least initially. Even John‘s marriage to Isabelle of Angoulême could be said to have been a success, at least at first—he succeeded in depriving Hugh de Lusignan of his wish to unite La Marche and Angoulême—even if he eventually lost Normandy and Anjou. Plan effectively, get what was desired, and try to control the long-term effects as best as was possible, seems necessarily to have been the Angevin strategy. Certainly, when the strategy worked, it was a highly rewarding one; Henry‘s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, Eleanor‘s to Alfonso VIII in 1170, Joanna‘s to William II in 1177, Richard‘s to Berengaria of Navarre in 1191, Joanna‘s to Raymond of Toulouse in 1196 and Edward‘s marriage to Eleanor of Castile in 1254 were all politically successful marriages that benefited the English crown.
There is much sense in what was written by Henry III in the 1224 marriage agreement between William Marshal and Eleanor that there was, ‗not anything more valuable in our treasury than the marriage of our self and our sisters.‘6 For the most part, the Angevin kings kept close control of this valuable asset. As was seen above,
5 CM, III, pp. 324-5. 6 DD., no. 140.
Henry II, Richard and John were almost certainly personally present at all marriage negotiations for themselves and their children. Only after the Minority Council understandably took control of marriage negotiations in the 1210s and 1220s did it become common for the king to send ambassadors for negotiations, and even then those ambassadors were counsellors very close to the king.7
There were some peculiarities in the patterns of Angevin marriage. For one thing, no legitimate children of any English king in this period entered holy orders. As was discussed at the start of chapter seven, several illegitimate children did do so— Henry II‘s son Geoffrey became archbishop of York under Richard, and his daughter, Matilda, became abbess of Barking. There were also a number of legitimate children of other kings who took the veil, including King Stephen‘s daughter Mary, who became abbess of Romsey—though she was later forced to leave the church when she became sole heiress to her mother‘s lands8—and one of William the Conqueror‘s daughters,
who was abbess of Caen. Edward I‘s daughter Mary also became a nun, taking the veil at Amesbury.9 The fact that daughters of previous and later kings entered convents may point yet further to the importance of marriage diplomacy to the Angevins—no child, even a third daughter such as Joanna, appears to have been considered for holy orders. One might speculate that Henry II may have thought of having her take the veil at Fontevrault or one of its daughter houses, due to the long period of time during which he did not seek a husband for her, but the idea is pure conjecture.
How, then, did Angevin marriage practice compare to that of the nearby kingdoms? Though an extensive study would be required to compare such aspects of marriage as dower, dowry, initiation and negotiation, it is possible to make some observations regarding geography and strategy. What a swift glance at Capetian marriages tells us, is that the French crown was just as adept at making astute, politically motivated marriages as was the English crown. Louis VII‘s first marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine brought the Capetian kings influence in the south in a manner they
7 For more discussion, see above, pp. 118-20.
8 S.P. Thompson, ‗Mary of Blois, princess and abbess of Romsey,‘ in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (Oxford, 2004), p. 1
9 Michael Prestwich, ‗Mary of Woodstock, princess and Benedictine nun,‘ in Oxford Dictionary of