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homomenhommes · 7 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more

1644 – The Abbé de Choisy, also known as François Timoléon (d.1724), born in Paris, among the notable Frenchmen of the seventeenth century, has left for posterity a vivid firsthand description of a strong cross-gender wish. During his infancy and early youth, his mother had attired him completely as a girl. At eighteen this practice continued and his waist was then "encircled with tight-fitting corsets which made his loins, hips, and bust more prominent." As an adult, for five months he played comedy as a girl and reported: "Everybody was deceived; I had [male] lovers to whom I granted small favors."

de Choisy as a woman

In 1676, he attended the Papal inaugural ball in a female attire. In 1687, he was received into the Académie de France. In 1696 he became the Ambassador of Louis XIV to Siam.

Regarding his gender identity he wrote,

I thought myself really and truly a woman. I have tried to find out how such a strange pleasure came to me, and I take it to be in this way. It is an attribute of God to be loved and adored, and man - so far as his weak nature will permit - has the same ambition, and it is beauty which creates love, and beauty is generally woman's portion … . I have heard someone near me whisper, "There is a pretty woman," I have felt a pleasure so great that it is beyond all comparison. Ambition, riches, even love cannot equal it …

In 1676, he attended the Papal inaugural ball in a female attire. In 1687, he was received into the Académie de France. In 1696 he became the Ambassador of Louis XIV to Siam.

Regarding his gender identity he wrote,

1667 – Louis de Bourbon, Légitimé de France, Count of Vermandois (d.1683) was the eldest surviving son of Louis XIV of France and his mistress Louise de La Vallière. He was sometimes known as Louis de Vermandois after his title. He died unmarried and without issue.

Louis de Bourbon was born at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He was named after his father. Like his elder sister, Marie Anne de Bourbon, who was known at court as Mademoiselle de Blois, he was given the surname of de Bourbon not de France as a result of his illegitimacy. As a child, he called his mother Belle Maman because of her beauty. Louis was legitimised in 1669, at the age of two, and was given the title of comte de Vermandois and was made an Admiral of France.

In 1674, his mother entered a Carmelite convent in Paris, and took the name Sœur Louise de la Miséricorde. Afterwards, they saw very little of each other. From his mother and his father, Louis had five full siblings, many of whom died before his birth.

After his mother left, Louis lived at the Palais Royal in Paris with his uncle, Philippe of France, duc d'Orléans, and his wife Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. At the Palais-Royal, he became very close to his aunt despite her well-known dislike of Louis XIV's bastards. The affection the aunt and nephew had for each other never diminished.

While he was at the court of his libertine and homosexual uncle, he met the Chevalier de Lorraine, his uncle's most famous lover. It is said that the young count was seduced by the older chevalier and his set (including the Prince of Conti) and began practicing le vice italien (the contemporary appellation for homosexuality).

Louis XIV decided to exile his son and the Chevalier de Lorraine.

In order to cover up the scandal, it was suggested that the boy be married off as soon as possible; a bride suggested was Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon; Louis was exiled before anything could materialise.

In June 1682, Louis was exiled to Normandy. In order to smooth things over between father and son, his aunt Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate suggested to the king that Louis be sent as a soldier to Flanders, which was then under French occupation. The king agreed with the suggestion and his son was sent to the Siege of Courtray. It was there that Louis fell ill.

Despite his illness, Louis was desperate to regain his father's love and continued to fight in battle regardless of advice given by the royal doctor and the marquis de Montchevreuil that he return to Lille in order to recuperate.

Louis died on 18 November 1683, at the age of sixteen. He was buried at the cathedral at Arras. His loving sister and aunt were greatly impacted by his death. His father, however, did not even shed a tear. His mother, still obsessed with the sin of her previous affair with the king, said upon hearing of her son's death: I ought to weep for his birth far more than his death.

Louis was later suspected of being the Man in the Iron Mask.

Gandhi and Kallenbach

1869 – Mohandras Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist, who employed nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahatma ("great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.

Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to stay for 21 years.

It was in South Africa that Gandhi raised a family, and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India. He set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban laborers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

Was Mahatma Gandhi gay? A Pulitzer-Prize winning author Joseph Lelyveld claims the god-like Indian figure not only left his wife for a man, but also harbored racist attitudes.

According to Lelyveld, his lover was Hermann Kallenbach, a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder. The couple built their love nest during Gandhi's time in South Africa where he arrived as a 23-year-old law clerk in 1893 and lived for 21 years.

At the age of 13 Gandhi had been married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji, but after four children together they broke up so he could be with Kallenbach. As late as 1933 Gandhi wrote a letter telling of his unending desire and branding his ex-wife "the most venomous woman I have met." Kallenabach emigrated from East Prussia to South Africa where he first met Gandhi. The author describes Gandhi's relationship with the man as, "the most intimate, also ambiguous relationship of [Gandhi's] lifetime."

Much of the intimacy between the two is revealed in Kallenbach's letters to his Indian friend after Gandhi left his wifen 'Ba' — an arranged marriage — in 1908 for Kallenbach, a lifelong bachelor, according to the book.

The source of much of the detail of their affair was found in the "loving and charming love notes" that Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach, whose family saved them after the architect's death. They eventually landed in the National Archives of India. Gandhi had destroyed all those from Kallenbach.

It was known that Gandhi was preoccupied with physiology, and even though he had a "taut torso," weighing 106 to 118 pounds throughout his life, the author says Gandhi was attracted to Kallenbach's strongman build.

In letters, Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach, "How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance."

"Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in the bedroom," he writes. "The mantelpiece is opposite the bed."

The pair lived together for two years in a house Kallenbach built in South Africa and pledged to give one another "more love, and yet more love."

Gandhi implored Kallenbach not to "look lustfully upon any woman" and cautioned, "I cannot imagine a thing as ugly as the intercourse of men and women."

By the time Gandhi left South Africa in 1914, Kallenbach was not allowed to accompany him because of World War I. But Gandhi told him, "You will always be you and you alone to me…I have told you you will have to desert me and not I you."

Kallenbach died in 1945 and Gandhi was assassinated in 1948

1985 - Rock Hudson, American actor died (b.1925); Hudson's death from HIV/AIDS changed the face of AIDS in the United States.

1997 – "Variety" objected to the Motion Picture Association of America's decision to give the movie "Bent" an NC-17 rating, pointing out that the sex scenes were far less graphic than heterosexual sex scenes in movies which receive R ratings.

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cincinnatusvirtue · 2 years

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Isabel de Clare 4th Countess of Pembroke (1172-1220 AD). Anglo-Irish women of the nobility in profile...

Isabel de Clare’s life is largely known in detail for her proximity to people in her life during the late 12th & early 13th centuries of Medieval England. Her parents and ancestors were of noble & royal extraction. Her husband rose through the ranks from son of a relatively minor noble to being the man regarded as the best knight and most trustworthy nobleman in all of the Angevin Empire and a powerful statesman who ruled in England in all but name for a brief period. In death he was lionized as the “greatest knight who had lived” and their children would either become nobles & warriors in 13th century England themselves or marry into other noble families of note.

All of this overlooks just how important, strong and capable Isabel was of her own merit. Something her husband and indeed Anglo-Norman law at the time recognized. Despite its male dominance, there were women capable of being major power players in the ranks of nobility & royalty and Isabel played a contribution to that. Her life offers us a unique glimpse into a noble woman’s life during the High Middle Ages in Western Europe.

Royal Roots, Birth & Early Life:

-Isabel de Clare was born circa 1172 AD, somewhere in Leinster (southeastern), Ireland. From the start she was a symbolic & physical bridge between two cultures. She was the result of a political but dutiful marriage, and her physical being would be of crucial importance in later years.

-Her father was Richard FitzGilbert, also known as Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (1130-1176). Richard would be best known to history by his nickname Strongbow. He was an Anglo-Norman nobleman of the De Clare family. The De Clare or Clare family originated in Normandy and came to England where they accompanied William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy who would become the first Norman King of England.

-The first Richard FitzGilbert (1035-1090) was a companion of Duke William and distant kinsman. They both shared a common ancestor in Richard I of Normandy (932-996), Count of Rouen & Duke of Normandy. The name De Clare was from the Norman French for a place name, to be from or “of” said location. As a reward for being companion to Duke William in the Norman Conquest of England. Richard FitzGilbert like other Norman nobles was granted landholdings in England, becoming the new English nobility which replaced the Anglo-Saxons of old. Richard’s particular land holding was in centered in the town of Clare in Suffolk England which made him the first Lord of Clare. He also gained territory in Tonbridge in Kent, England.

-Over the generations the family expanded its holdings in England and in the Welsh Marches, Anglo-Norman controlled portions of southern Wales. Strongbow’s father Gilbert de Clare (1100-1148) became 1st Earl of Pembroke under King Stephen of England, gaining control of important parts of the Welsh Marches, including the Pembroke peninsula in southwest Wales. He also held Striguil in southeastern Wales on the River Wye, forming the strategic border between England & Wales.

-Gilbert de Clare was married to Isabel Beaumont, a former mistress of King Henry I of England & daughter of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester & his wife Elizabeth de Vermandois. Elizabeth was a French noblewoman was the paternal granddaughter of French King Henry I (1008-1060) of the House of Capet. While her maternal grandfather Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois (1028-1080) was a descendant of Charlemagne and the Carolingian dynasty of Franks. Also, by virtue of Henry I’ of France’s marriage to Princess Anne of Kiev, Strongbow and subsequently Isabel de Clare were direct descendants of the Kievan Rus’s royal ruling House of Rurik which ruled Medieval Ukraine & Russia. Also confirmed among their ancestors from this line were Swedish royalty, Polish tribal royalty & possibly Byzantine Greek royalty, if the debated connections regarding Anne of Kiev’s purported paternal grandmother (Anna Porphyrogenita) are indeed true.

-Isabel de Clare’s mother and the wife of Strongbow was Aoife MacMurrough of Eva of Leinster (1145-1188) an Irish princess who was daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster. Ireland at the time was not ruled by one king but was instead made up of several feudal petty kingdoms, Leinster being one of them located in the southeast of the country, a land of rivers, hills and the famed Wicklow Mountains. Aoife’s and subsequently Isabel’s ancestry in Ireland went back to various Irish petty kings & even the vaunted High Kings of Ireland, who ruled as a somewhat symbolic overlord of the other petty kings. This included her paternal ancestor through Brian Boru, High King of Ireland & King of Munster and founder of the O’Brien dynasty who defeated the Vikings at their settlement in Dublin in 1014, taking the area back for the Gaelic natives of Ireland after years of Viking rule. Though Brian Boru died in the process.

-Isabel de Clare’s parents came together in the 1170′s following a power struggle in Ireland between her maternal grandfather Dermot MacMurrough & then High King of Ireland, Rory O’Connor who worried that Dermot would become too powerful as King of Leinster, so he launched an invasion of Leinster, this forced Dermot off his throne and into exile in 1166.

-Dermot’s exile took him to the court of Henry II, King of England & Duke of Normandy who was in France at the time, trying to hold together his many French possessions (Normandy, Brittany, Aquitaine, Anjou etc.) which made up his Angevin Empire. Henry would not personally partake in restoring Dermot to the throne in Ireland, but he did authorize Dermot to negotiate and make mercenary use of some of his Anglo-Norman nobility and their knightly retinues. Strongbow would be one of these Norman nobles Dermot would negotiate with.

-Strongbow promised to assist Dermot in the recapture of his throne, in exchange for Aoife’s hand in marriage and kingship of Leinster upon Dermot’s death, co-ruling with Aoife to give it air of legitimacy among the native Irish. The Norman invasion of Ireland commenced in small waves as early as 1169 with Strongbow himself arriving in 1170 where his Anglo-Norman forces, some 200 mounted knights and 1,000-foot soldiers teamed with earlier Norman war parties from the prior year, they took the port city of Waterford, once a Viking a stronghold. Here Aoife & Strongbow were married, uniting the Irish royalty with Anglo-Norman nobility in a political manner.

-Children would of course cement this marriage with the birth of Isabel probably in 1172 and her brother Gilbert.

-Dermot’s gamble paid off, his Norman mercenaries overwhelmed the forces loyal to High King Rory O’Connor. The Gaelic Irish military in terms of arms & armor were no match for the Anglo-Normans who sported the most high-quality weapons and armor of their day in Western Europe. Dermot was once again agreed to be King of Leinster in agreement with O’Connor. However, his deals with his new son-in-law Strongbow & the other Anglo-Normans unintentionally and unbeknown to them opened the door to the start of England’s several centuries of involvement in Ireland...

-Dermot would die in 1171 shortly after the retaking of the kingdom, leaving his son and son-in-law (Strongbow) to claim kingship of Leinster. His son and Aoife’s brother claimed it under traditional Brehon law while his deal with Strongbow left it as part of the dowry for marriage.

-Meanwhile. Henry II of England was concerned about his Anglo-Norman nobles over in Ireland. Strongbow in particular had through marriage and acquisition of lands, begun a private colonization of Ireland. Other nobles who took part in Dermot’s operation did so too. This resulted in Henry and Strongbow making a deal, in exchange for keeping Leinster and the restoration of Strongbow’s English, Welsh & French landholdings, he would surrender the ports of Wexford, Waterford & Dublin to royal authority directly. He’d also be required to assist Henry on campaign in France against rebels. He was made in title by Henry II, Lord of Leinster & Justiciar of Ireland (chief justice). Henry II arrived in Ireland in late 1172 for a six month stay where royal troops directly loyal to him took over the key cities of Wexford, Waterford & Dublin from the earlier Anglo-Norman mercenaries. All the Anglo-Norman nobles who gained land in Ireland during the initial invasion were forced to pledge fealty to Henry II as Lord of Ireland in exchange for their right to keep their newly colonized lands. Likewise, the native Gaelic kings were to pledge fealty to Henry II as their feudal overlord, essentially ending the now meaningless institution of High King of Ireland. Waves of Anglo-Norman, Welsh, & Flemish colonists began to settle and establish new English towns in Ireland. Some established relations with the Gaelic Irish, intermarrying, becoming a new cultural group which would expand, ebb and flow over the centuries, the Anglo-Irish. Thus began a fusion of Anglo-Norman architecture, warfare, language and with a gradual cultural assimilation of Gaelic customs that began to blur the differences overtime until the early Anglo-Normans became just accepted as Irish. Nevertheless, politically the longer lasting implications of England’s occupation of Ireland had begun.

-Isabel de Clare was born into this new political realty, her maternal ancestral homeland permanently transformed within a few years due to her maternal grandfather’s personal struggle to regain power in his homebase. None of the the participants, including her parents & grandfather had the slightest notion of the longer-term implications of their decisions. Isabel & her brother were, nevertheless, the flesh and blood realty of this new political & cultural fusion. Meant in part as political bridges between two worlds.

-Strongbow intended for his son Gilbert to inherit Leinster and the various holdings in Wales, England and Normandy. His own death came about in 1176 following an infection of the leg. He was buried in Dublin, with his tomb & effigy still found Christ Church Dublin. Aoife took charge of her children’s upbringing hoping to ensure their inheritance. She was by many accounts fierce in this regard, she was also seemingly well-educated for anybody in that time period but especially a woman, a trait she passed on to Isabel. She is also said to have led Anglo-Norman & Irish loyalist troops into battle against those who tried to take Leinster from her, she earned the nickname Red Eva.

-Gilbert de Clare, died as a teenager around 1185. Thus, all the inheritance remained with his mother Aoife and would by right of Anglo-Norman law pass on to his nearest relative, his sister Isabel and any man she would marry.

-Aoife died in 1188 by some accounts, this left the teenage Isabel orphaned without and without her brother. She was, nevertheless, rightful heir to Leinster, the castles in Wales & England that had belonged to her father and paternal grandfather (Gilbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke). She was the 4th Countess of Pembroke in this line after her brother’s brief tenure. Isabel, became a royal ward of Henry II personally. Meaning he would ensure the safekeeping of her legal inheritance and person. He entrusted this to Ranulf of Glanville, Justiciar of England. She was therefore kept in London for her safekeeping.

-In practical terms this royal wardship was essentially a foster home for orphaned nobility until the king could marry them off to some other noble. Sometimes, other nobles would be entrusted as their personal guardian and be tasked with arranging the marriage of the ward to another noble, sometimes to their guardian’s child or even the guardian themself for personal gain. This would of course require the king’s blessing.

-Isabel was described as beautiful, kind & intelligent “the good, the wise and courteous lady of high degree.” She was among the wealthiest heiresses in the Angevin Empire (Henry II’s personal empire which through conquest, inheritance and diplomacy included all of England, parts of Wales, Ireland and most of Northern & Western France). She was well educated like her mother and could speak her father’s language of French, the courtly language of the English royalty and the Anglo-Norman nobility at the time. She could also speak her mother’s native Irish (Gaelic) & Latin, the language of clergy, diplomacy and government bureaucracy. This coupled with her bloodlines would be of tremendous political import, meaning she could navigate the Irish and Anglo-Norman cultures she was born of. Rather than her education in language, courtly manners, warfare, diplomacy and politics being perceived as a threat to any husband, it would have likely been seen as a great asset.

-Her hand in marriage was promised by Henry II, to one William Marshal in 1189. Marshal was himself an Anglo-Norman noble born and raised in England around 1147. He was the son of a relatively minor noble in England’s West Country with his mother coming from a more distinct Norman family. He came of age through training as a knight with his mother’s relative in Normandy, enduring a six-year apprenticeship in knightly warfare, court etiquette & the arts. He saw some combat but was assigned to the personal service of England’s Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and then the service of her and Henry II’s son, Henry the Younger. They bonded especially in the late 1170′s by becoming famous knights on the European knightly tournament circuit that was just blossoming at the time. Marshal became perhaps the most renowned tournament knight of all, capturing or unhorsing some 500 knights. Henry the Younger would eventually die after Marshal served him for over a decade loyally.

-Marshal then found himself in Henry II’s personal service and during a war against the King of France who was briefly joined by Henry II’s son and heir Richard where he personally unhorsed Richard with a lance, killing the horse but sparing the prince. Supposedly, the only man to do so. After Henry II’s death, Richard rose to the throne of England & Normandy. He was preparing to go on Crusade to the Middle East and liberate Jerusalem from Muslim rule. He would in time be known as Richard the Lionheart.

-Despite Marshal’s recent opposition with King Richard, the new monarch kept Marshal in his service. He also fulfilled his father’s promise to wed Isabel de Clare to William Marshal. This would make Marshal not only a wealthy and increasingly influential knight but by right of marriage make him now one of the wealthiest landowners & nobles in the Angevin Empire.

Marriage, until death do you part;

-William Marshal & Isabel de Clare were married in August 1189 in London. There was an age difference, she was not quite 18 and he was in is early 40′s. Despite the political nature of the marriage, it appears to have been a genuinely happy one by all accounts. Neither party appears to have been unfaithful to one another. The written records show a great mutual appreciation for one another and produced 10 children, 5 sons and 5 daughters over the next several decades.

-Marshal was technically by right of marriage, Earl of Pembroke but he would not officially acquire the title in his own name until 1199, a decade after his marriage. Nevertheless, he was overlord of Leinster and Striguil and set about making improvements to the castles both he had acquired in England & France for loyal service to the monarchs but his marital gains in Wales & Ireland.

-For the first decade of marriage, William was in service to Richard the Lionheart, particularly when he was gone on Crusade, he stayed behind as a member of the ruling council. This kept him in England, Wales & France mostly, with little attention to affairs in Ireland. Isabel for her part focused on raising a family and supporting her husband as he navigated politics. Though his wartime commitments to defending England from rebels & the French throne often kept them separated. Isabel, appears to have been like her mother before devoted to ensuring the cultured learning of her children.

-Affairs in her native Ireland wouldn’t be pressing for the Marshal family until around the year 1200, during the reign of Henry II’s youngest son with Eleanor of Aquitaine, John. John became king after the death of his eldest brother Richard who had returned from years in the Crusades and then a captive in Germany from a rival monarch, found himself campaigning against Philip II of France (his father’s rival) to regain territory that had been lost under John’s regency of throne. John was eventually back in Richard’s good graces when the Lionheart died of infection from a crossbow wound fired by a rebel soldier in southern France where Richard was campaigning to suppress a revolt.

-John was now King of England and had a reputation for being paranoid, highly emotional and making rash decisions, making him more unpredictable than his older brothers and father.

-Marshal found himself both in John’s good graces and bad graces at various times over the years. He and Isabel were turning to press their rightful rule in Leinster in the early 1200′s despite John’s warnings he not to do so. John like his father Henry II had been concerned about Strongbow now worried Marshal and Isabel would be too powerful and independent in Ireland. Indeed, in the two decades since the Norman invasion of Ireland, the Anglo-Norman nobility who settled there had become accustomed to their own relative autonomy. Loyalty to the king was in name but in practice, so long as they didn’t rebel against the king, they were basically free to do as they please. John’s predecessors did little to enforce this and initially John was more concerned about England & France.

-Marshal & Isabel helped develop the town of New Ross in Leinster, an English town separate from the Gaelic towns nearby, it was peopled with English & Welsh colonists, many of whom were part of the Marshal family retinue and to whom they owed their feudal allegiance. The castles of Kilkenny, Trim & others were developed and expanded by Marshal & Isabel.

-Meanwhile, Marshal earned John’s ire for having paid homage to Philip II of France in exchange for retention of Norman lands after the French kicked John’s English armies out of Normandy, forever losing his ancestral duchy of Normandy to France.

-Concerned of Marshal’s power in Ireland and anger over his dueling homages to John in England and Philip in France. John organized for Marshal to come pay homage in England where he was duly placed under house arrest at the royal court. Meanwhile his own Justiciar in Ireland, Meiler Fitzhenry who had his own ambitions on Leinster invaded using his own Irish & Anglo-Norman forces with John’s blessing. John sought to teach Marshal a lesson and increase personal control over Ireland by having a Norman noble with more loyalty. It also worked in Fitzhenry’s favor.

-Marshal himself was considered fair if not especially popular among the Anglo-Normans already settled in Leinster under his rule. While the native Gaels were less than enthused by him or any other Anglo-Norman lord. Isabel, however, appears to have been the critical element & saving grace for Marshal. Given her ancestry including the native Irish rulers of Leinster and the Anglo-Norman new elite, her command of language & diplomacy appears to have held things together while this Anglo-Norman civil war with the king’s blessing raged in Ireland.

-in 1208 Fitzhenry’s men besieged Isabel (who was pregnant) and the Anglo-Normans who were loyal to Marshal all while Marshal himself and his sons remained personal hostages of King John. Only thanks to an alliance between Marshal’s & Isabel Anglo-Norman loyalists with another rival of Fitzhenry, Hugh de Lacy (1176-1242) Anglo-Norman noble who was first Earl of Ulster did the war come to an end in Marshal & Isabel’s favor. Isabel is said to have helped direct the defense of her castles under siege while de Lacy’s men came to their relief, defeating and capturing the men John had sent to assist Fitzhenry.

-Fitzhenry remained a noble in Ireland but he was removed as Justiciar. Marshal was released by John, and he was allowed to reunite with Isabel.

-Isabel’s day to day to involvement in the civil war is hard to gauge but almost certainly if not the military matters, the diplomatic ones she learned from her Irish princess mother, along with her symbolic blood ties to the Irish & Anglo-Norman nobility of Leinster still held important sway. As Marshal had said prior to his departure to his custody in England, all he had emanates from her. This was mostly true in a political and legal sense, but he appears to have meant it in a romantic sense since she was his faithful wife & mother of his children, the vessel to his dynastic future.

-In the coming years, Isabel & Marshal looked to marrying off their children to important Anglo-Norman nobility. Though successful in this regard and Marshal & Isabel have thousands if not millions of descendants today, none of their sons would bring about descendants meaning, their holdings in Ireland, Wales and England would transfer to other families since their daughters were married off into other noble families and hence the Marshal dynasty was short lived-in terms of male direct descendants. All five daughters Maud, Isabel, Joan, Eva & Sibyl all had children that lived and went onto have descendants that live into the modern era, including members of the British royal family today as well as numerous people in America and elsewhere due to colonial descendants from English nobility.

-Marshal found himself back in John’s good favor and counselled him during the rough times of the First Baron’s Rebellion (1215-1217). He also helped guide John to signing the famed Magna Carta, meant as a peace treaty to ensure certain royal guarantees for the rebellious nobility. Making Marshal one of the Magna Carta “signers”, though the peace was broken shortly thereafter, and John died of illness during rebellion. To make matters worse England’s civil war between nobles revolting against John’s excesses and those loyal to him, including Marshal now attracted the attention of the French king Philip II and his son Louis. The rebel barons now swore fealty to Louis and asked he take over as King of England. Marshal had been made guardian of John’s son 9-year son who was crowned Henry III, making him the 4th crowned King of England that Marshal would serve. Marshal was styled as “Guardian of the Realm” and swore to defending England and its rightful king from the predations of the rebel barons and the French pretender.

-As regent he was now the head of the country in practical matters, yet he was also 70 years old. Marshal would help Henry III and England’s royalist forces when the war when at age 70 and donning knight’s armor one last time he would lead a royalist force to defeat a combined Anglo (rebel)-French force in the Battle of Lincoln in May 1217. This along with the English naval victory over France at Sandwich ended the war in the royalist favor. Henry III was recognized by France at the rightful King of England and the rebels would be forgiven in exchange.

-Marshal won the war for England but his old age was catching up with him. He now set about as Regent of England on behalf of Henry III to try and restore the treasury which was drained under John. He also reissued updated versions of Magna Carta, later cited by historians as a cornerstone moment in the gradual expanding of human rights and democracy, though the original document was narrow in scope and intended for the nobility and the preservation of their rights against royal abuse. It would influence English common law and American Constitutional law in centuries to come.

-From 1217-1219 Marshal was the de-facto the ruler of England, he wasn’t always successful, but he did ensure some measure of peace and lay a foundation that Henry III’s other regents and the king himself could later build upon.

-Isabel remained faithful to the very when Marshal died at home near Reading England in May 1219. She was said to have wept uncontrollably at his passing and could not walk during his funeral procession to London where he was buried in Temple Church.

-Nevertheless, evidence shows that despite her husband’s passing she immediately set about ensuring inheritance was due. Writing the other regents that her lands in Ireland, Wales (minus Pembroke which went to their eldest son) and England were duly granted in her name. She also negotiated with the French king to ensure inheritance of her Norman lands. She even got William Marshal II, their eldest son the hand in marriage to Henry III’s younger sister Princess Eleanor, though this marriage would produce no heirs.

-Isabel’s son William Marshal II was effective as agent managing her various estates, but illness caught up with her in March 1220 and she died in Wales ten months after her husband’s death. She was buried Tintern Abbey near Striguil Castle, now Chepstow Castle which had belonged her father Strongbow and his father before him. Her grave is there to this day alongside her mother Aoife of Leinster. Though the abbey which the De Clare & Marshal families patroned is now in ruin, the grave markers are located on the ground.

-So passed a woman of high birth within the High Middle Ages of Western Europe. She was born of two different cultures and served as a living bridge immersed in the customs of both. As a result, she was given a unique and rich in-depth education unusual for anybody for the times but especially someone of her sex. Her life is mostly known for a seemingly peripheral role in relation to her family and acquaintances of great political importance but the evidence we have suggests she was regarded by especially her family and husband in particular as an absolutely vital and strong character in the events of the time. She played a part in shaping the history of nations, by dint of her birth and by her cultured and determined character.

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histoireettralala · 1 year

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Blanche as Regent, and the narrative of Louis's minority

There was no real threat or challenge to the status of young Louis as king. He had been designated by his father in his will, and the Capetian line had descended from father to son since 987. But when power was personal, minority government was always contested government. Magnates like Theobald of Champagne and Peter Mauclerc, who had been chafing under the heavy fists of Philip Augustus and Louis VIII, would certainly take advantage of the minority to push claims to additional land and power as far as they could, and protect themselves against what they saw as royal encroachment on their lordships. Others who were fundamentally loyal to the Capetians would still see a minority as an opportunity to bolster their positions. Peter Mauclerc was already exploiting Henry III's desires to regain the Angevin lands as a lever of personal power: he would not let slip the opportunity offered by a minority. All this could be expected.

Blanche's status as guardian and custodian of king and kingdom was another matter. There were no established norms for regency, whether in the case of a minority or when the king was out of the country in Crusade. The only previous Capetian to have succeeded as a minor was Philip I in 1060. The realm was ruled during his minority by his uncle by marriage, Count Baldwin of Flanders, probably with some assistance from Philip's mother, Anna of Kiev. Arrangements for Crusading regencies had varied. Philip Augustus had left the country in the guardianship of his mother, Adela of Champagne, her brother, the archbishop of Reims, and six prominent Paris merchants, who supervised the financial accounts. During the Second Crusade, the regents, "elected" under the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux, were an unlikely, and not very successful, triumvirate: Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, the archbishop of Reims and Louis VII's cousin Ralph of Vermandois. No powers were vested in Louis VII's mother, Queen Adela of Maurienne. The great principalities had a stronger tradition of leaving power in the hands of an absent prince's wife or a minor prince's mother. Recent notable examples were the successive countesses of Champagne, Mary of France and Blanche of Navarre. But leaving the kingdom in the hands of the queen alone was novel. (At least in France, though there was the recent example of Margaret of Navarre in Sicily). At the very least, one might have expected her to hold power jointly with a prominent churchman. The archbishop of Reims was the traditional choice- but William of Joinville had died shortly before Louis, on the return from the Albigensian Crusade.

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There certainly were challenges to the regency from the French baronage. Political songs of the day accused Blanche of sending money to Spain, and accused both Blanche and Walter Cornut of preferring the men of Spain to the barons of France. They accused Blanche of keeping young Louis unmarried so that she could remain in power, and accused her of being the mistress of, variously, Theobald of Champagne and Cardinal Romanus Frangipani. Like most regents, Blanche would have to make concessions and obtain by diplomacy what a king would have obtained by command.

The narrative of Louis's minority produced by all his biographers, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, William of Nangis and Joinville, is a dramatic one, of terrible threat to Blanche's rule, and even to the king himself. All of them were writing long after the events, but all of them knew many of the protagonists, and reported first-hand accounts from Louis himself. The same dramacic story is told by the contemporary chroniclers, the Flemish Philip Mousquès, the English Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris, and the slightly later Ménestrel of Reims. But there are problems with all these sources. Their chronology of events is unclear and sometimes contradictory. Wendover may have had some information from those who campaigned with Richard Marshall alongside the most fractious of the French barons, Peter Mauclerc; at all events, Wendover's account, while a splendid source of French "baronial" gossip, is not always reliable as to facts. Matthew Paris, reworking Wendover's text, could not resist the baronial gossip, though he often dismissed it as lurid rumour. Of the contemporary French chroniclers, Philip Mousquès was well informed on French court gossip from a Flemish perspective, but his chronology is confused. The Ménestrel of Reims' court gossip was more second-hand, and his main aim was to entertain: his chronology is even more confused. St Louis's biographers tend to collapse together events that happened over a long time span, while Joinville, as seneschal of Champagne, was particularly concerned with events in and affecting that county. For all these sources, the narrative of the valiant widowed queen protecting her young son against the powerful wicked barons of France was irresistible. Indeed, it is clear from Louis's reminiscences, as reported by his biographers, that it had become the family's own narrative.

But it is a dramatization and an oversimplification. Many French magnates remained loyal. Those who proved particularly fractious had already been so under Louis VIII. The most consistent plotter of all, Peter Mauclerc, count of Brittany, continued his conspiracies long after St Louis had reached his majority; and Theobald of Champagne's major revolt occurred under Louis's personal kingship. Private war remained endemic in France, though Louis tried to outlaw it, to the disgust of his barons, in 1258. Blanche faced a continual need to control marriage alliances that might lead to dangerous power blocs — but that had been true in the previous two reigns, and continued to be an issue after Louis attained his majority. Much of the worst trouble was not aimed at toppling Blanche’s status as guardian of the realm; it was a series of attacks against Theobald of Champagne. The succession to Champagne had long been an issue, as had the border zone berween Champagne and Burgundy. Blanche and Louis intervened, for the king (or his regent) should ensure peace within his realm, and they did so with reasonable success. The exact chronology of the troubles is difficult to establish, but it seems that, after a difficult few months, stability had been restored by March 1227. In summer 1229 came the major attack on Champagne by members of the Burgundian aristocracy together with various related allies — though the fact that their relations included Peter of Brittany gave it a dangerous edge, for Peter was also plotting an invasion from England with Henry III. By summer 1230 it was clear that had failed, and although Peter of Brittany made war in western Normandy and the western Loire in most subsequent campaigning seasons until 1236, he was increasingly isolated. After 1230 he was an irritant rather than a threat to the Capetian kingship.

Joinville makes much of Blanche being a foreigner, from Spain, "who had neither relatives nor friends in all the kingdom of France". This was untrue. She had both friends and relatives on whom she could depend. The friendship and patronage networks that she had developed since her arrival in France, as the Lady Blanche and as queen consort, now supported her. The administrators, both lay and eccsiastical, who had worked so closely with her husband, and who were in many cases inherited from Philip Augustus, notably Bishop Guérin of Senlis (until his death in April 1227), Walter Cornut, archbishop of Sens, and his relations, the Clément family, Bartholomew of Roye, the chamberlain, and Matthew of Montmorency, the constable, proved intensely loyal. It was in their interests to support the Capetian crown, from which they derived their power and prestige. They might have been slightly cool in support of a queen regent, but they were not. Like her husband, Blanche could rely on the support of the aristocracy of the north-east, where her dower lands lay, such as Michael of Harnes, Arnold of Audenarde and John of Nesle, and on some of the most important reformist churchmen, notably the Cistercian bishop Walter of Chartres. She made the loyal, and partly Spanish, Theobald of Blaison seneschal of the politically sensitive Poitou. The important Angevin families of Craon and Des Roches supported the Capetians, as did the rich city of La Rochelle. Many of the great barons, too, were faithful, notably Stephen of Sancerre, John of Nesle, Amaury of Montfort and the counts of Blois and Chartres. The last two held their counties through their wives, the sister countesses Margaret of Blois and Isabella of Chartres, who were members of the Capetian family and cousins of Blanche herself.

Lindy Grant- Blanche of Castile, Queen of France

#xiii #lindy grant #blanche of castile queen of france #blanche de castille #queens of france #louis ix #regents #thibault iv de champagne #pierre mauclerc #philippe ii #louis viii #frère guérin #mathieu ii de montmorency #and many more #regencies and troubles

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philippesquared · 4 years

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Every time Pinterest shows me this painting (yes, maybe my Pinterest is full of court portraits so WHAT)

I'm like

#yes this is intended to be vague #louis de bourbon #count of vermandois

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eksynyt-virvatuli · 7 years

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Two very similar portraits by François de Troy

Left: Louis de Bourbon, Count of Vermandois (1667–1683), son of Louis XIV

Right: Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1674–1723), son of Louis XIV’s brother

#art #portrait #17th century #17th century art #louis de bourbon #count of vermandois #philippe ii #duke of orléans #louis xiv #sun king #philippe d'orleans #philippe duke of orleans #my post

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willbashor · 9 months

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youtube

THE BASTARD PRINCE OF VERSAILLES (Available Sept. 6, 2023)

#youtube #will bashor #gay history #gay versailles #gay prince #gay royals #bastard prince #bastard prince of versailles #bastard children of Louis XIV #Louis de bourbon #count of vermandois #vermandois #lgbtq #gay novel #lgbtq novel #historical novel #gay historical novel #lgbtq historical novel

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thepinkseat-askthemoonbunny · 5 years

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The House of Bourbon was SUPER gay. AKA: Gay History: Versailles Edition

Louis XIV had a gay brother, a gay bastard son who joined some secret gay fraternity with his uncle’s boyfriend the Chevalier (a lot of people hadn’t heard of Louis Jr, the Count of Vermandois), and a dad who is heavily rumored to have been either gay or bi. Instead of having the one gay cousin at family reunions, he was the one straight cousin.

#louis xiv of france #louis xiv #french history #versailles #philippe duc d’orleans #philippe d'orléans #chevalier de lorraine #house of bourbon #was gay as FUCK #louis count of vermandois #louise de la valliere #sun king #gay history #shit i found browsing french history on the web

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mariatheresaofspain · 2 years

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Louis, count of Vermandois by Pierre Mignard. 1680. Oil on panel.

#Louis comte de Vermandois #Pierre Mignard #mine

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city-of-ladies · 3 years

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Emma - Queen and commander

Emma (894-934) was a royal princess, daughter of Robert I, king of West Francia, present-day France. She was said to have been clever and beautiful.

Emma wedded Duke Rudolph of Burgundy, who became king thanks to his marriage to her. She thus played a key role in strengthening his position. Indeed, Emma was consecrated queen at Reims and was designated as “royal consort” in official documents.

Emma’s personal network gave her an exceptional autonomy and a strategic position. She took advantage of her husband’s connexions to increase her power. She was regularly active in the diplomatic sphere and, starting from 926, intervened on her own in diplomatic documents, without her husband ever being mentioned, something that only widows could technically do.

The queen was also involved in a number of military actions. In 927, a conflict arose between the king and Herbert II, Count of Vermandois. Emma was with the king when he besieged the town of Laon. After the town was captured, Rudolph left her in charge of the town. Emma held Laon and the king couldn’t at first persuade her to relinquish the town. She finally left Laon after Herbert and the king reached a peaceful agreement and the town was given to the count.

In 931, Emma captured the castle of Avallon. In 933, she besieged with the king the Vermandois stronghold of Chateau-Thierry. It’s interesting to note that the castle surrendered to her and not to the king, The castellan pledged allegiance to Emma and the castle was “placed in her faith and care”.

Emma died in 934, without an heir.

Bibliography:

Flodoard of Reims, The annals

Raoul Glaber, Historiarum libri quinque ab anno incarnationis DCCCC usque ad annum MXLIV

Rosé Isabelle, “L’histoire du genre à l’épreuve du quantitatif ? Itinéraire réticulaire de la reine robertienne Emma (vers 890-934)”

Viennot Eliane, La France, les femmes et le pouvoir. L’invention de la loi salique (Ve-XVIe siècle)

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“...While it was becoming customary in northern France and in England for lordships to be divided among daughters if no son survived to inherit them as a unit, the duchy of Aquitaine was not to be divided between Eleanor and her sister Aélith. As the elder daughter, Eleanor alone was to become countess of Poitou and duchess of Aquitaine and of Gascony. It would not have been unusual for her to have succeeded to the duchy of Aquitaine and her younger sister to some other component parts of their father’s principality, perhaps Gascony, absorbed into Aquitaine only in the time of their great-grandfather.

William X was not likely to have regarded his two duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as indivisible, yet he apparently made no provision for a division of his lands between his two daughters. Whatever the count-duke’s reasoning, he declared on his deathbed his wish that Eleanor should succeed as sole heir to his lands without making any provision for his younger daughter. Nor did Louis VI settle any property on Aélith to make her a more attractive bride. Eleanor’s succession and her marriage to Louis VI’s son and heir would fix firmly the indivisibility of the two territories, Poitou and Gascony; and Louis VII, as if acknowledging their unity, would style himself “duke of Aquitaine,” discarding the titles “count of Poitou” and “duke of Gascony.”

Since no authentic document setting forth William X’s wishes survives, it is not at all certain that in naming Louis VI as Eleanor’s guardian he intended her marriage to the French monarch’s son and heir. Although the duke’s wishes were not set down in writing, Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis wrote in his biography of Louis that the duke “had decided to deliver to the king for the purpose of marriage his daughter . . . and all his land, so that he could hold it for her,” but Suger’s statement relates only to the right to manage young Eleanor’s marriage. Yet other chronicles maintain that the duke had arranged Eleanor’s betrothal to Louis’s heir before his death, placing Aquitaine under the French king’s sway.

For Eleanor to have been without either fiancé or husband at age thirteen was unusual among aristocratic families, and perhaps it is a sign of her father’s fecklessness that he had never arranged a marriage for her. It is possible, however, that Duke William could find no candidate for Eleanor’s hand whom he considered worthy of her and concluded that the only suitable husband for such a great duchess was the heir to the French Crown. Whether he thought far enough ahead to see that the marriage might mean the duchy’s annexation to the French Crown is problematic.

Probably playing a key role in the marriage of young Eleanor to the Capetian heir was Archbishop Geoffrey du Loroux, an acquaintance of Suger. It was from the archbishop’s messengers who reached Louis VI in the Île de France near the end of May 1137 that Suger learned of the duke’s death, and possibly they also brought a proposal that Eleanor should marry the Capetian heir. If Geoffrey du Loroux did not suggest the marriage to the French monarch, he at least supported the proposition. Geoffrey and the Bordeaux clergy very much favored the marriage, knowing the Capetian kings’ reputation as advocates for the Church and fearing that rivalries among the magnates of Aquitaine damaging to the Church’s interests could result if the young duchess were married to one of them.

Apparently the lay magnates of Aquitaine raised no objection to a Capetian spouse for Eleanor, preferring a duke residing far away in Paris to one of their own number. They assumed that a Capetian king-duke would be a largely absentee ruler and that he would appoint some local lesser-ranking noble to act as his agent in his new duchy. They were confident that they could intimidate easily such a royal representative, leaving them unfettered in their cherished freedom. Not all the Aquitanians favored a royal marriage for Eleanor, however.

In a song by the troubadour Marcabru composed in autumn 1137, his bitter reference to Louis VII’s rule over the Poitevins reveals his sense that the county was being subjected to a “foreign” lord’s dominion. With the French monarch ruling over Aquitaine, Marcabru and another poet, Cercamon, moved on in search of patronage elsewhere. Louis VI, in poor health since 1135, knew that his days were numbered and that he must act quickly to carry out his responsibility of finding a husband for Eleanor. At the same time he saw an opportunity to acquire the duchy of Aquitaine for the French Crown by marrying the girl to Louis the Younger, hoping to see his son secure in his possession of the duchy of Aquitaine before his death.

Abbot Suger writes in his biography of Louis VI, “Having taken counsel with his close advisors, he happily accepted the offer with his usual greatness of soul and promised [Eleanor] to his dear son Louis.” The king and his counselors were not following established laws of inheritance, for such rules hardly existed, but they were hurrying to settle the succession to Duke William’s lands before uncertainty led to confusion and collapse of authority there. Louis Senior would have understood that marrying his heir to a girl bringing with her as her inheritance Aquitaine, the greatest duchy in the kingdom, was a huge opportunity for advancing the monarch’s position in France.

The marriage by no means assured Aquitaine’s permanent absorption into the French royal domain, however. The union of the duchy with the French Crown was purely personal, and should Eleanor bear Louis the Younger no sons, the duchy would probably pass out of royal hands. If she should produce several children, a younger son could be designated heir to the ducal title, removing it from direct royal control. Yet Louis VI recognized the Capetians’ strategic advantage in possessing Aquitaine. It would assist his son in corralling the expansionist counts of Anjou, whose Loire valley lands lay between the French royal domain in the Île de France and Eleanor’s heritage; and also it could strengthen his hand against the expansionist dukes of Normandy who were also kings of England.

To avoid a power vacuum, Louis the Younger headed south from Paris to meet and marry Eleanor at the earliest possible moment. He was accompanied by a very large body of men—500 knights from “the best men in the kingdom and led by powerful nobles.” Such a force, swelled by the nobles’ retainers, was more an army capable of dealing with resistance either along the route or in Eleanor’s patrimony than merely a “stately escort” for the young bridegroom. Heading the royal party were the count of Blois-Champagne, Theobald II, Ralph, count of Vermandois (one of Louis VI’s stalwarts), and Abbot Suger himself.

…Eleanor could not have expected to play any part in choosing her husband, even had her father returned from Spain in 1137. In an age when arranged marriages were the norm among aristocrats, she would have become aware at an early age that marriage was a matter for families, not individuals. All aristocrats viewed the marriages of their children as opportunities for their family’s political or pecuniary advantage, not for the personal happiness of their offspring; and a bride and her future husband had little choice in the matter.

Eleanor, who had learned in her earliest years of her distinguished ancestry, took pride in her dynasty’s ducal title, and the prospect of marriage to the heir to the French Crown must have flattered her. She is unlikely to have had many illusions about finding romantic love in her marriage to young Louis, a stranger to her, although she may have been led by legend or love lyrics, like some other aristocratic maidens, to unrealistic aspirations for happiness in her arranged marriage, anticipating that she would fall in love with her husband eventually, if not immediately.”

- Ralph V Turner, “Bride to a King, Queen of the French, 1137–1145.” in Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England

#eleanor of aquitaine: queen of france queen of england #eleanor of aquitaine #history #ralph v. turner #high middle ages #medieval #marriage #french #louis vii of france

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