Isabella of Angoulême
1188 – 1246 · Generation XII
Isabella of Angoulême (1188–1246). Married John Lackland in 1200. One of their children is recorded in this archive. The only child and heir of Aymer, Count of Angoulême, she was promised to Hugh IX of Lusignan when John took her for himself, marrying her at Angoulême aged twelve or fourteen — an affront prompting Philip II of France to seize John’s French lands. She gave the king five children, and when he died in 1216 she hurried their young son to his coronation at Gloucester, lending her own gold circlet because the crown had been lost in the Wash. In 1217 she returned to Angoulême, and in 1220, defying the English council, married Hugh X of Lusignan — son of her old fiancé and the intended husband of her daughter Joan — bearing him nine more children. Accounts linking her to a plot against Louis IX and an attempt to poison him cannot be confirmed. She died at Fontevraud and lies beside Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Place in the family
- Isabella of Angoulême was a 8× great-grandmother of King Henry VIII.
- The archive records 141 of her descendants, across 28 generations.
Partners
- Married King John (1166 – 1216) in 1200 — one child together
Children
- King Henry III (1207 – 1272)
Life
- 1188 — Born
- 1200 — Married John Lackland
- 1246 — Died