Difference between revisions of "Philippa of Hainault" - New World Encyclopedia

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Philippa had grown portly in her later years, and this added to the view most of her English subjects had of her as a friendly, homely, motherly woman whom the nation greatly loved. Philippa outlived nine of her 14 children; two of whom were lost during the [[Black Death]] outbreak in 1348.
 
Philippa had grown portly in her later years, and this added to the view most of her English subjects had of her as a friendly, homely, motherly woman whom the nation greatly loved. Philippa outlived nine of her 14 children; two of whom were lost during the [[Black Death]] outbreak in 1348.
  
On August 15, 1369 Philippa died of an illness akin to [[dropsy]] <ref>A swelling from excessive accumulation of watery fluid in cells, tissues, or serous cavities [syn: edema].</ref> in [[Windsor Castle]], Edward at her side, who mourned her and who died eight years later. She was buried at [[Westminster Abbey]]. By all accounts, her 40 year marriage to Edward had been happy, despite his taking a mistress, [[Alice Perrers]], during the later part of it.
+
She did not live to see the sad change which made the last years of her son's life so unhappy; she did not live to see her husband, with a mind once so mighty, sink into helpless old age.
 +
 
 +
When she was dying, she called the king: "We have, my husband, enjoyed our long union in peace and happiness, but before we are forever parted in this world, I entreat you will grant me three requests." "Lady, name them," answered Edward, "they shall be granted." "My lord," she whispered, "I beg you will pay all the merchants I have engaged for their wares; I beseech you to fulfill any gifts or legacies I have made to churches and my servants; and when it shall please God to call you hence, that you will lie by my side in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey." She ceased speaking. The king was in tears. "Lady," he said, "all this shall be done." And Philippa the queen died. He died eight years later.
 +
<ref>[http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=synge&book=englishwomen&story=philippa ]</ref>
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 +
On August 15, 1369 Philippa died of an illness akin to [[dropsy]] <ref>A swelling from excessive accumulation of watery fluid in cells, tissues, or serous cavities [syn: edema].</ref> in [[Windsor Castle]]. She was buried at [[Westminster Abbey]]. By all accounts, her 40 year marriage to Edward had been happy, despite his taking a mistress, [[Alice Perrers]], during the later part of it.
  
 
==Issue==  
 
==Issue==  

Revision as of 20:21, 8 November 2008

Philippa of Hainault
Queen consort of England
Philippa-of-Hainault sm.jpg
Consort January 24, 1328 - August 15, 1369
Consort to Edward III
Issue
Edward, the Black Prince
Isabella, Lady of Coucy
Joan of England
Lionel, 1st Duke of Clarence
John, 1st Duke of Lancaster
Edmund, 1st Duke of York
Mary, Duchess of Brittany
Margaret, Countess of Pembroke
Thomas, 1st Duke of Gloucester
Titles
Her Grace The Queen
Lady Philippa of Hainault
Royal House Plantagenet
Father William I, Count of Hainaut
Mother Joan of Valois
Born June 24 1311(1311-06-24)
Valenciennes
Died 15 August 1369 (aged 58)
Windsor Castle
Buried
Westminster Abbey

Philippa of Hainault (June 24 1311 – August 15 1369) was the Queen consort of Edward III of England.

Life

Philippa was born in Valenciennes (then in Flanders, now France) and was the daughter of William I, Count of Hainaut (Count Guillaume/William III de Avesnes of Hainault and Holland) (d.1337) and Jeanne of Valois, (d.1352) the granddaughter of Philip III of France. She was raised in the cultured court of Hainault where she developed literary tastes and perhaps a real interest in learning. In 1333, on New Year's, she gave Edward a ewer enameled with figures from epic and romance poetry. There are some richly illuminated manuscripts associated with Philippa as well.

Her marriage to King Edward III of England was arranged by Edward's mother, Isabella of France. They were second cousins and on January 24, 1328, they were married, eleven months after his accession to the English throne after the death of his father and she was crowned in 1330. Unlike many of her predecessors, she did not alienate the English people by retaining her foreign retinue upon her marriage or bringing large numbers of foreigners to the English court. He was fifteen and she was sixteen. They had met some time before and liked each other.

When Edward was seventeen, he determined to govern the kingdom without the influence of his domineering mother and her lover Mortimer. He shut his mother up in a castle, and sent Mortimer to the Tower where he was sentenced to die. At that point Edward began a series of reforms to correct many abuses caused by Mortimer, and trade was encouraged with other nations.

Unlike many queens, Philippa accompanied her husband, Edward, on his expeditions to the Kingdom of Scotland (1333) and Flanders (1338-40), where she won acclaim for her gentleness and compassion. But she is best remembered as the tender-hearted and pregnant woman who interceded with her husband and persuaded him to spare the lives of the Burghers of Calais (1346) whom he had planned to execute as an example to the townspeople following his successful siege (she said it would be bad for their baby).

Philippa was a competent woman and was appointed Regent of England by her husband Edward when he was absent on the Continent. When the Scots invaded England as far south as Durham in 1346, Philippa raised an army, winning the battle of Neville's Cross, and taking the Scottish King David II Bruce (d.1371) prisoner. She brought Flemish weavers to teach the English, beginning with a little colony of weavers at Norwich, often going herself to look after them, and encourage their work. She also encouraged coal-mining, and made the French poet and historian Jean Froissart her secretary. It was during the reign of her husband Edward III that English became the "official" language in 1363.[1]

Edward and Philippa were reported to have been loving parents, doting on their brood. Philippa even breast fed her children which was unheard of in a fourteenth century noble. They did not force their eldest son, Edward, into a loveless marriage and was allowed to marry for love, Joan, his second cousin, which did not bring a union of two great royal houses of Europe as most other royal offspring were forced to do. But rivalry found its way into the family which ultimately led to the challenge to the thrown and the ensuing Wars of Roses.

Philippa had grown portly in her later years, and this added to the view most of her English subjects had of her as a friendly, homely, motherly woman whom the nation greatly loved. Philippa outlived nine of her 14 children; two of whom were lost during the Black Death outbreak in 1348.

She did not live to see the sad change which made the last years of her son's life so unhappy; she did not live to see her husband, with a mind once so mighty, sink into helpless old age.

When she was dying, she called the king: "We have, my husband, enjoyed our long union in peace and happiness, but before we are forever parted in this world, I entreat you will grant me three requests." "Lady, name them," answered Edward, "they shall be granted." "My lord," she whispered, "I beg you will pay all the merchants I have engaged for their wares; I beseech you to fulfill any gifts or legacies I have made to churches and my servants; and when it shall please God to call you hence, that you will lie by my side in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey." She ceased speaking. The king was in tears. "Lady," he said, "all this shall be done." And Philippa the queen died. He died eight years later.

[2]

On August 15, 1369 Philippa died of an illness akin to dropsy [3] in Windsor Castle. She was buried at Westminster Abbey. By all accounts, her 40 year marriage to Edward had been happy, despite his taking a mistress, Alice Perrers, during the later part of it.

Issue

Philippa and Edward had fourteen children, including five sons who lived into adulthood and whose rivalry would eventually bring about the long-running civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. Their sons are:

  • Edward, the Black Prince (1330-76), the black title refers to his black breast plate and helmet. He was father to King Richard II, he married his cousin, Joan of Kent. He died before his father did so he never became king.
  • Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338-68), married Elizabeth de Burgh in 1352, received her great Irish land inheritance and in 1347 became the Earl of Ulster. He became the Duke of Clarence in 1361, but couldn't gain control over the Irish people and lands. His wife died in 1363 in Dublin, their daughter Philippa's descendants would claim the throne for the House of York. [4] Lionel then married Violante of Pavia (Milan) but he died in Alba after falling ill at her home, some suggest he was poisoned by his father-in-law who many thought didn't like him.
  • John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340-99), was born in Ghent then called "Gaunt," who helped his nephew Richard II until he was replaced. His heirs are Henry IV, V and VI. He married three times producing 14 children. His first wife was Blanche of Lancaster, mother to Kings Edward IV and Richard III and great grandparents to Henry Tudor. Their daughter Philippa married King John of Portugal in 1387. . He married Constance and had two daughters who married Peter of Castile and King Henry II of Castile. He finally married Katherine and had her children with him legitimized by the the Pope. His son was Henry VII, and son John's granddaughter, was Margaret Beaufort. All monarchs from Henry IV are descendants of John of Gaunt.
  • Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (1341-1402), son Richard was instrumental in the challenge to the English throne in the Wars of Roses. His daughter, Isabella, was mother to Edward, Richard, and ancestor of Kings Edward IV, V and Richard III; he had another daughter, Constance. He then married Joan Holland but they had no children.
  • Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1355-97), was the 14th child. He married Eleanor de Bohan and inherited the title of Earl of Essex. His wife's younger sister married Henry IV who led the group against Richard II, (son of Edward the Black Prince) his nephew, who was murdered.

Another three sons and two daughters died in infancy. There were four surviving daughters:

  • Isabella of England (1332-1379), married Enguerrand VII of Coucy at age 33.
  • Joan of England (1334-1348), betrothed to Castro of Castile but died from the Black Death before she met him.
  • Mary Plantagenet (1344-1362), betrothed to John V of Brittany, they grew up in the same household together. They married in 1361 and they became the Duke and Duchess of Brittany, but three weeks later she became lethargic and died; she was buried with Joan who died weeks before.
  • Margaret Plantagenet (1346-1361), was betrothed to John V of Britanny but Mary married him instead. She grew up in the same house with John Hastings and thus married him instead, aged 13, in 1359 but died two years later.

Legacy

File:Philippa of Hainault.jpg
Tomb effigy of Philippa of Hainault

Through her children, Philippa reintroduced the bloodline of an earlier English King, Stephen, into the royal family. She was descended from Stephen through Matilda of Brabant, the wife of Floris IV, Count of Holland. Their daughter Adelaide of Holland married John I of Avesnes, Count of Hainaut, Philippa's paternal great-grandfather. Matilda of Brabant in turn was the great-granddaughter of Stephen through her mother Matilda of Boulogne, the wife of Henry I, Duke of Brabant.

Philippa was also a descendant of Harold II of England through his daughter Gytha of Wessex, married to Vladimir II Monomakh of Kiev. His bloodline, however, had been reintroduced to the English royal family by Philippa's mother-in-law, Isabella of France, a granddaughter of Isabella of Aragon, the wife of Philip III of France. Isabella of Aragon's mother, Violant of Hungary, was a daughter of Andrew II of Hungary, a grandson of Géza II by Euphrosyne of Kiev, herself a granddaughter of Gytha. Through her maternal great-grandmother, Maria of Hungary, she was descended from Elisabeth of Bosnia (born before 1241), a daughter of Kuthen, Khan of the Cumens and his Slavic wife, Galicie of Halicz, thus bringing Western Asian blood into the English royal line.[5]

The Queen's College, Oxford is named after Philippa. It was founded by one of her chaplains, Robert de Eglesfield, in her honor and placed under her care and protection.

Ancestry

Notes

  1. Women of History womenofhistory.blogspot.com Retrieved November 7, 2008.
  2. [1]
  3. A swelling from excessive accumulation of watery fluid in cells, tissues, or serous cavities [syn: edema].
  4. Philippa married Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March in 1368. Her granddaughter, Anne Mortimer married into the York branch of the royal family which was the basis of the House of York's claim to the throne.
  5. Van de Pas, Leo. WorldRoots.com Retrieved November 7, 2008.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Ashley, Mike. British Kings & Queens, Carroll & Graf, 2002. ISBN 0-7867-1104-3
  • Fraser, Antonia. The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England University of California Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0520224605
  • Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. The Encyclopedia of Amazons. Paragon House, 1991. ISBN 1-55778-420-5
  • Weir, Alison. Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy, The Bodley Head London, U.K., Pimlico, 2002. ISBN 978-0712642866

External links

All links retrieved November 7, 2008.


English royalty
Preceded by:
Isabella of France
Queen Consort of England
24 January 1328 - 15 August 1369
Succeeded by: Anne of Bohemia


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