Adeliza of Louvain

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Adeliza of Leuven
Queen consort of the English
Consort 2 February 1121 – 1 December 1135
Consort to Henry I
William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel
Issue
Reynor d'Aubigny
Henry d'Aubigny
Alice, Countess of Eu
Olivia d'Aubigny
Agatha d'Aubigny
William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel
Geoffrey d'Aubigny
Royal House House of Normandy
House of Leuven
Father Godfrey I of Leuven
Mother Countess Ida of Namur[1]
Born c. 1103
Died 23 April 1151 (aged 48)
Affligem Abbey, Brabant

Adeliza of Louvain or Leuven (also called Adela and Aleidis; 1103/1105 to April 23, 1151) was queen consort (at age 15/18) of the Kingdom of England from 1121 to 1135, the second wife of Henry I (aged 53) but they had no children. [2]. She later married William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel, a chief adviser to Henry. Seven of their children survived to adulthood. Her grandson, William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel was one of the twenty-five guarantors of the Magna Carta.

She was the daughter of Godfrey I of Leuven, Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Landgrave of Brabant and Count of Leuven and Brussels. Adeliza was a patron of the church and spent her final years in the abbey of Affligem, where she died at the approximate age of 46-48.

Early life and first marriage

King Henry I of England, Adeliza's first husband

Adeliza was born around 1103 at Louvain, Belgium. Not much is know of her life either before or after she married Henry I of England (son of William the Conqueror) on 2 February 1121, when she is thought to have been somewhere between fifteen and eighteen years of age, while Henry was fifty-three.

It is believed that Henry's only reason for marrying again was his desire for a male heir. Despite holding the record for the largest number of illegitimate children of any British monarch, Henry had only one legitimate male heir, William Adelin, who had predeceased his father on November 25, 1120 in the White Ship disaster the year before he married Adeliza.

Adeliza was reputedly quite pretty and her father was Duke of Lower Lotharingia. These were the likely reasons she was chosen. However, no children were born during the almost fifteen years of the marriage.

Queen

Reading Abbey where Henry I was finally entombed in 1136
File:HenryBeauclerc Plaque.JPG
Henry "Beauclerc" plaque on his grave

Adeliza, unlike the other Anglo-Norman queens, played little part in the public life of the realm during her tenure as queen consort. Whether this is because of personal inclination, or because Henry preferred to keep her nearby in hopes of her conceiving a male heir, is unknown and probably unknowable. She did, however, leave a mark as a patron of literature and several works, including a bestiary by Philip de Thaon, were dedicated to her. She is said to have commissioned a verse biography of King Henry; if she did, it is no longer extant.

When her husband died on December 1, 1135, Adeliza retired for a while to the monastery of Wilton, near Salisbury. She was present at the dedication of Henry's tomb at Reading Abbey on the first anniversary of his death.

Second marriage

As she was still young, she came out of mourning some time before 1139 and married William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel, who had been one of Henry's chief advisers. She brought with her a Queen's dowry, including the great castle of Arundel, and the new king, Stephen of England, created d'Aubigny, Earl of Arundel and Earl of Lincoln.

Adeliza's grandson, William d'Aubigny signed the Magna Carta

Although her husband was a staunch supporter of Stephen during the Anglo-Norman civil war, her own personal inclination may have been toward the cause of her stepdaughter Empress Matilda. When the Empress sailed for England in 1139, it was to her stepmother that she appealed for shelter, and she landed near Arundel and was received as a guest of the former Queen.

Adeliza and William had seven children surviving to adulthood. All were born at Castle Arundel, Sussex, England but the dates are uncertain:

William d' Aubigny, (1140) 2nd Earl of Arundel; Olivia (1141), Godfrey (1143), Alice (1145), Agatha (1147), Rayner (1149), and Henry (1151).

Their son, William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel, was father to William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel who was one of the twenty-five guarantors of the Magna Carta.

Family

One of Adeliza's brothers, Joscelyn de Louvain (Jocelin, Gosuinus), came to England and married Agnes de Percy, heiress of the Percy family.

Although it is clear that the former queen and Joscelyn were very close, he may actually have been an illegitimate son of Adeliza's father and thus her half-brother. His children took their name from their mother's lineage, and their descendants include the medieval Earls of Northumberland.

Legacy and later life

Adeliza spent her final years in the abbey of Affligem (County of Brabant, Flanders, Belgium), which she richly rewarded with landed estates (three English villages called Ideswordam, Westmerendonam and Aldeswurda, probably near Arundel).

She died in the abbey and was buried in the abbey church next to her father, duke Godfrey I of Leuven (d.1139). The abbey necrology situates her tombstone next to the clockwork. An 18th century floor plan of the church shows her tombstone located halfway up the left nave. Her grave was demolished however during the French Revolution (abt. 1798). Her bones had been found and she was reburied in the cloister of the re-erected Affligem abbey.

Adeliza was a patron of literature and was said to have commissioned a non-surviving verse biography of King Henry. She also became an active patron of the church during her second marriage, giving property to Reading Abbey in honor of her former husband, King Henry I and to several other, smaller foundations.

House of Leuven
Born: 1103; Died: 23 April 1151
English royalty
Preceded by:
Matilda of Scotland
Queen consort of England
2 February 1121–1 December 1135
Succeeded by: Matilda of Boulogne

Notes

  1. The Peerage—Adeliza de Louvain Retrieved December 17, 2008.
  2. History Timelines Retrieved December 17, 2008.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Cokayne, George E., and Peter W Hammond. The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, Gloucester : A. Sutton, 1982-1998. ISBN 9780750901543
  • Hammond, Peter W., editor. The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda. Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 1998. ISBN 9780750901543
  • McNaughton, C. Arnold. The Book of Kings: A Royal Genealogy. 3 volumes. London, U.K.: Garnstone Press, 1973. OCLC 59978599
  • Weir, Alison. Britain's Royal Family: The Complete Genealogy. London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1989. ISBN 9780370313108

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