The She-Wolf, the Lovers, a Curse, and Some Big War: The Affair of the Tour de Nesle

Part 2: The Aftermath

Last week, we covered the scandal of the Tour de Nesle, in which the 3 daughters-in-law of the king of France were put on trial for adultery. When we left off, Philip IV was dead, the princesses were in prison, and France had a new king: Louis X. What happened next was a whole OTHER series of unfortunate events.

Louis had a big problem. Well, two of them.

One, he had no heir apart from a young daughter whose paternity was very much in question as a result of his wife’s adultery, which had been broadcast across Europe. And two, said wife was very much alive and undivorceable. Louis didn’t even have a Pope that he could bully into giving him an annulment. So Louis was stuck with no male heir and no way of getting himself one. You almost want to feel sorry for him, if not for the fact that he was such an unpleasant git. Like, for real, nobody ever had anything nice to say about Louis. Also, his solution to the heir dilemma? It had a very Lannister flavour about it.

Almost as soon as Margaret was shut up in the Chateau Gaillard dungeons, Louis began shopping around for a new wife while his advisors tried to figure out how to make him a (legally) free man. Louis’ eventual choice fell on Clemence of Hungary, the daughter of Charles Martel, the titular king of Hungary. One gets the sense that it wasn’t really a top-drawer choice. Clemence’s family was not especially influential and she was 22 at the time, a relatively old age for a noble woman to marry. But Clemence was apparently quite beautiful, as well as pious and meek, which may have been enough reason for Louis to want to marry her. By 1315, Louis was ready to wed again, and only one thing stood in his way: Margaret. And, oh so conveniently, in August of that year, Margaret “fell ill” and died at the Chateau Gaillard. Well, that’s the official version of the story. The unofficial version is that Margaret was strangled to death on Louis’ orders. The timing is frankly suspicious. Louis married Clemence 5 days later, so what are the odds that he gave fate a helping hand? Pretty good, if you ask me.

But Margaret may have had the last laugh after all.

In June 1316, less than a year later, Louis’ love of tennis caught up to him. As the story goes, Louis played a particularly vigorous game, drank a large quantity of cooled wine, and died. Since neither tennis nor wine are usually fatal, rumours immediately sprang up that Louis was poisoned. My favourite theory, detailed by Maurice Druon in The Accursed Kings, is that Louis was assassinated via poisoned candy by Mahaut d’Artois, the mother of Red Joan and Blanche of Burgundy – both as revenge for the prosecution of her daughters in the Tour de Nesle Affair, and as a way to smooth her son-in-law’s path to the throne of France.

Remember Philip Junior? By 1315, he had been reunited with Red Joan, who had been released from house arrest. With Louis dead, Philip Junior was one step closer to the Crown … but before he could grab it, a wrench was thrown into the works. Clemence was pregnant! Which meant that everyone waited to see if the baby would turn out to be a son. And it was! BUT THEN! The child, John I, died shortly after his baptism, having ruled as king for a mere 5 days. Well, you can imagine what everyone said. John’s cause of death remains unknown, but poison does seem like as good a bet as any. Certainly Mahaut d’Artois was still very much in this picture.

With John’s death, the Capetians’ father-to-son succession came to an end. For the first time in 300 years, there were no direct male heirs to a French king. On the other hand, Baby Joan, Louis’ daughter by Margaret of Burgundy, was still alive and, in the eyes of the law, legitimate. But she was young and a girl and in the Middle Ages that was pretty much the worst thing a potential monarch could be. Philip Junior, who had been regent during Clemence’s pregnancy, was not in the mood to give up the reins of power. He quickly moved to secure allies among the key French feudal lords, including Baby Joan’s own uncle, Odo IV of Burgundy. Odo was Margaret of Burgundy’s brother and initially fought to have his niece recognized as Queen of France. His good intentions didn’t last; he was eventually bought off by Philip Junior, who offered him Philip’s 10-year old daughter in marriage. Umm, yuck. Critically, the ascension of Philip to the throne over Baby Joan set a precedent whereby it was accepted that women could not inherit the throne of France, nor pass it on to their children. This later came to be known as Salic law and would have enormous dynastic consequences for centuries to come. What I didn’t know until I started digging into it for this newsletter, is that Salic law was not actually invoked as such in 1316. It was basically invented after the fact, to justify Philip Junior effectively stealing the crown from Baby Joan.

Baby Joan was fobbed off with Navarre, a territory in the southwest of France that would eventually gain a fair bit of prominence. Her descendants included Henry of Navarre, the eventual Henry IV of France. Henry IV is considered one of France’s great kings, and he was the originator of the royal House of Bourbon. His grandson was Louis XIV, the Sun King. By the time the House of Bourbon took over France, the Capetian line had been extinct for centuries.

See, I told that Margaret of Burgundy had the last laugh.

But let’s rewind back to 1316 for now. Philip Junior is now Philip V of France. He seems to have been a capable king, usurpation of the throne aside. But while Philip was known as “le Long”, his reign was not long at all. By 1322, he was dead. Dysentery, not poison, did him in. Either way, Jacques Molay’s curse was clearly still in effect. Ironically, Philip V also had no male heirs; he and Red Joan had had a son, but he died as a baby, and their other children were all girls. By the precedent established with Philip’s own succession, the crown passed to his younger brother, who became Charles IV.

Charles was as unimpressive as a king as he had been as a younger son of a king. By the time he ascended to the throne, he had managed to get his marriage to Blanche of Burgundy annulled. Blanche, by the way, was still imprisoned at Chateau Gaillard, 8 years after her trial. At some point, she was finally released to a nunnery, but died shortly after in 1326. It is best not to dwell on the circumstances of her captivity, which were probably absolutely awful. Charles’ subsequent wives were only marginally happier. His second wife died after a premature birth in 1324. With his third wife, he had a daughter, who could not inherit the throne. Then Charles died in 1328 at the age of 33. As far as I know, his death was not thought to be suspicious, although one can’t help but wonder why none of Philip IV’s son lived past their mid-thirties. I mean, curse of the Templars aside, of course. There was that.

In a repeat of 1316, at Charles’ death, his wife was pregnant, so everyone waited to see what would happen. But, this time, the child was another daughter. In 1328, the direct male line of the Capetians became extinct.

This is a good time to check in with Isabella, Philip IV’s last surviving child. And, boy, Isabella had had an eventful decade! Between 1316 and 1321, she had had 3 more children with Edward II, but their relationship had progressively deteriorated, especially after the Despensers’ rise to prominence. The Despensers were a family of parvenus who gained influence primarily, it was rumoured, because of Edward’s passionate affection for Hugh Despenser the Younger (whose dad was Hugh Senior). Shades of Piers Gaveston, except the Despensers were even more hated by the rest of the English barons than Gaveston had been. And Hugh the Younger WAS a nasty piece of work, by all accounts; not simply greedy and arrogant, but violent and cruel as well – a notorious abuser of women. Whereas Isabella had been able to manage some resemblance of peaceful coexistence with Gaveston, she found the Despensers unbearable. By 1324, they had succeeded in having her kids taken away from her, isolating her from everyone, and effectively leaving her without any money or support whatsoever. The Despensers might have been horrible, but the real person to blame was Edward; he was a real sh*t to Isabella, the woman who had stood by him through thick and thin – tolerating his weak leadership and his myriad lovers – for SEVENTEEN YEARS. Keep that in mind for later.

In 1324, disagreements with France arose again over the Duchy of Gascony. In a repeat of her fateful visit of 1313, Isabella once again headed to Paris on a diplomatic mission in 1325. This time, she went alone, without Edward. A treaty was eventually worked out, but to seal the deal, Edward decided to send his son and heir, Edward Junior, to France to pay homage to Charles IV (still alive at this point) as lord of Gascony. This was a big, big mistake. Huge.

By 1325, Isabella was beyond disgruntled. While in France, she ran into an exiled Welsh nobleman, Roger Mortimer. Mortimer had been a supporter of Edward’s, but they’d fallen out over the whole Despensers situation and Mortimer had been thrown in the Tower of London, from whence he escaped to France. Mortimer was a sexy rebel – tall, dark and handsome, but also clever, cultured and refined. He was also one of the outstanding military leaders of the period; energetic and decisive, unlike Edward. On the flip side, like most barons of the time, he had plenty of less attractive qualities too – he was grasping, arrogant and plenty ruthless. All in all, he cut a noticeably dashing figure. Mortimer was married and had 12 (!!) kids, but this didn’t stop him and Isabella from starting an affair around the end of 1325. Yes, the same Isabella who had denounced her sisters-in-law for adultery 11 years later, was now conducting her very own (doubly) adulterous affair. There has been speculation that Isabella and Mortimer may have started their hanky panky years earlier in England, before Edward clapped Mortimer in prison, but it seems unlikely; most plausibly, there may have been preexisting mutual attraction.

It was, by most accounts, a pretty steamy affair. It’s certainly easy to see Mortimer as the virile and passionate counterpoint to Edward who, whatever his sexual preferences, had never been especially nice to Isabella. Mortimer and Isabella also had shared hobbies, including a mutual fascination with Arthurian legends. Alison Weir writes that “Mortimer dominated Isabella, probably because of the sexual hold he had over her, and also because he was a jealous, possessive man.” Sounds a bit like an old-fashioned Harlequin romance, doesn’t it? But the reality could also have been less passionate and more pragmatic; Isabella was fed up with Edward and looking for a way out, and Mortimer was a good candidate to lead a rebellion against Edward. Given the lack of real autonomy for women in the Middle Ages, Mortimer was Isabella’s likeliest prospect for emancipation from Edward and the Despensers’ tyranny. Not a feminist boss babe move by today’s standards, but a practical choice at the time.

Either way, Isabella and Mortimer had one key advantage: they had Edward Junior.

It didn’t take long for Edward II to realize his tactical mistake in sending his heir to France. He took to hounding Isabella via letters, directing her to come home with Edward Junior, which she totally ignored. Frantic, Edward II wrote to both Charles IV and the Pope asking for them to intervene and make Isabella return to England. No dice. Charles IV, in particular, was more than happy to incite a little chaos by supporting Isabella to defy Edward. It is interesting that the Pope, too, didn’t seem inclined to take Edward’s part either.  

By 1326, having gathered a modest army, Isabella and Mortimer were ready to invade England. The showdown was ON! And Edward II, terminally unpopular with pretty much everyone in England, was not destined to come out on top. Long story short: Isabella and Mortimer seized power, the Despensers were brutally dispatched – and good riddance – and Edward II was deposed. Ostensibly, his son ascended to the throne as Edward III, but in reality, Isabella and Mortimer ran the show for a while. Edward was placed under house arrest at Berkeley Castle in the Welsh borders, not coincidentally in the hands of men loyal to Mortimer.

Edward’s death in September 1327 and Isabella’s role in it have been endlessly debated for centuries. All I can say is that this episode fits right in with the rest of this scandalous and frequently gruesome story. Isabella’s reputation as the She-Wolf of France – NOT a flattering nickname, as you can imagine – was cemented after this event. The official story, which nobody seems to have really believed, is that Edward II died suddenly from some fatal, unspecified illness while in captivity. It would not have been the first time in history – or even this story – when “fate” helpfully intervened to dispose of an inconvenient king. The unofficial story is that Edward was murdered – duh! – in a diabolically ingenious way: the insertion of a red-hot poker up the backside, a killing method allegedly chosen because it left no visible marks on the body and was apt punishment for Edward’s “crimes of the flesh”. Many historians think this story is hogwash, but it certainly stuck. Homophobia has a lot to answer for.

Whatever the actual circumstances of Edward’s death, few believed that Isabella wasn’t somehow involved. Even in captivity, Edward remained a threat to her and Mortimer, and it’s not surprising that she would have moved to neutralize that threat. Still, killing an anointed king was a BIG F*CKING DEAL. Queen Elizabeth I agonized for years over executing Mary Queen of Scots. Isabella got the job done in mere months. She-Wolf, indeed.

It’s easy to see this as the point where Isabella went from being a heroine to a villainess. She certainly had plenty of provocation in wanting to be rid of Edward … but did she really have to kill him? Flip that on its head, though, and ask yourself: would Edward have hesitated to kill Isabella, if he’d had the chance, once she openly rebelled against him? I’m inclined to think not. I’m not saying this to excuse Isabella. She showed herself capable of cruelty – and her tenure as regent for Edward III didn’t make her look very good either – but at the end of the day, her biggest crime was probably that fact that she acted just as a man would have done in the same situation. In the Middle Ages, this was unacceptable for a woman. Hell, it’s still plenty unacceptable now.

With Edward’s death, any lingering sympathy for Isabella in the public discourse vanished. Nothing Edward had ever done to Isabella over the years could excuse complicity in her husband’s demise in her contemporaries’ eyes. As recently as the 20^th century, Isabella has been called a “woman of evil character, a notorious schemer” and worse. One historian went so far as to call her a “woman of no real importance or attraction” which is wildly, laughably inaccurate but clearly illustrates just how much Isabella upended patriarchal norms.

Before we move on, I have to mention one of my favourite little tidbits about the death of Edward II. One of the rumours which has Isabella and Mortimer responsible for Edward’s murder, revolves around an ambiguously worded note sent to his captors. The ambiguity was, allegedly, intentional; if the note fell into the wrong hands, there would be plausible deniability. The note was in Latin and supposedly read: “Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est.” This could be translated in one of 2 ways. It could be read as: “Do not kill Edward, it is a thing to be feared.” ORRRR … it could be read as: “Do not be afraid to kill Edward, it is a good thing.” It all comes down to where you put the comma, you see! As someone who writes a lot – for work and for fun – grappling with commas is a regular pastime of mine. This story, whether true or not, is a good reminder to Mind Your Commas, people!

By 1328, Isabella and Mortimer ruled England, ostensibly in Edward III’s name. That year, Isabella’s brother, Charles IV died without a male heir. Once again, Salic law played a decisive role in the French succession. The throne went to Philip of Valois, a cousin of Charles and Isabella, who ascended as Philip VI, the first Valois king of France. Technically, the Valois were a cadet (junior) branch of the Capetians but historians consider them a separate dynasty. Philip VI was known as “the Fortunate”, probably because he had the good fortune of having the crown of France fall into his lap.

Edward III, who by 1330 had seized control of his kingdom from Mortimer and Isabella, had other ideas. The English did not recognize Salic law, and Edward III considered himself the rightful heir to the throne of France through Isabella, the last of Philip IV’s children. While Edward initially, and reluctantly, recognized Philip VI as king of France, tensions between England and France continued to simmer. In 1337, Philip VI confiscated Gascony (which still technically belonged to Edward) and the war was on. You may have heard about this one: it lasted a Hundred Years. It was kind of a big deal.

But that is another story.

And so we come to the end of our tale about the scandal of the Tour de Nesle Affair. Of all its players, it was Isabella who survived the longest, dying in 1358 at the age of 63. Her lover, Mortimer, was executed by Edward III in 1330, and Isabella herself was sidelined from power with his downfall, though she lived out the rest of her life in relative comfort and luxury. Interestingly, given her alleged role in Edward II’s death, she was never ostracized by her children, including Edward III. Small consolation, perhaps, given the notoriety that has clung to her name for posterity. Of all the women in this story who tried to buck the conventions of their day, none managed to do it more successfully – and with more terrible consequences – than Isabella.

Selected Bibliography

John Julius Norwich, A History of France

Alison Weir, Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England

Elizabeth Norton: She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of England

Maurice Druon: The Accursed Kings series (fiction)