Isabella of Valois (9 November 1389 – 13 September 1409) was a Princess of France, daughter of King Charles VI and Isabella of Bavaria-Ingolstadt. She was Queen consort of Richard II, King of England from 1396 to 1400.
Life
Isabella's younger siblings included: John, Dauphin; Catherine of Valois (who later married Henry V, King of England) and Charles VII of France. She lived during a period of political tension between France and England known as the Hundred Years War, the situation was exacerbated by the mental instability of her father who was known as the Mad (French:le Fol or le Fou).
On 31 October, 1396, when Isabella was six, she married the widower King Richard II of England, in a move for peace with France. Although the union was political, Richard II and the child Isabella developed a mutual respectful relationship. Isabella was moved to Wallingford Castle for protection while Richard went on a military campaign in Ireland. When, on his return to England, Richard II was imprisoned and murdered, Isabella was ordered by new king Henry IV to move out of Windsor and to settle in the Bishop of Salisbury's Thameside palace at Sonning.
Henry IV then decided Isabella should marry his son, the future Henry V of England, but she put her foot down and refused to have anything to do with the prince. Knowing her husband was dead, she went into mourning, ignored Henry IV's demand and eventually he let her go back to France.
On 29 June 1406, Isabella married her cousin Charles, Duke of Orléans. She died in childbirth at the age of 19, leaving one daughter Jeanne who married John II of Alençon in 1424.
Ancestry
Ancestors of Isabella de Valois
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