The Women Who Married Into the Plantagenets and Lived to Regret It

Marrying into the Plantagenet family made you one of Europe’s most important women, and often one of its most miserable. Most of these brides were sent to England as girls, some as young as 11 or 12, to seal an alliance or bring in land and money. 

In return, they got a crown, or the hope of one, and a family that spent much of its time at war with itself.

One of them invaded England and pushed her own husband off the throne. Another lost her father and her first husband in battle within three weeks of each other, when she was just 14.

5 Women Who Married Into the Plantagenet Family

Some of these women ended their lives in convents, some died in childbirth before they were 25, and a few were locked away, written out of records.

Eleanor of Provence and the Mob at the Bridge

Eleanor of Provence married Henry III at Canterbury Cathedral on January 14, 1236. She was about 12, and Henry was about 28.

She brought her family with her, and that was where her problems began. Her uncles from Savoy were given some of the best jobs in England, including Boniface of Savoy, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. The English barons were furious, and Londoners came to see the queen and her relatives as greedy foreigners.

It all boiled over in 1263, during Simon de Montfort’s rebellion. As Eleanor’s barge passed under London Bridge, a crowd shouting “Drown the witch” pelted her with rotten food and tried to sink the boat with stones. She had to take refuge at St. Paul’s until she could be rescued.

Imagine your husband’s own capital city trying to drown you. I’d have been on the first ship home, and in a way she was. She left for France, raised an army in Flanders, and didn’t return until November 1265, after Montfort was dead.

Eleanor outlived Henry by almost 20 years. In 1286, she retired to the convent at Amesbury, though she never became a fully professed nun and kept a close eye on her lands. She died there on June 24, 1291.

Isabella of France: The Queen Who Invaded England

Isabella of France married Edward II at Boulogne on January 25, 1308, and went on to become one of the most powerful queens England ever had. She was about 12, the daughter of Philip IV of France, and she got off to a dreadful start. 

It didn’t help that her new husband was besotted with someone else. At the wedding and again at the coronation, Edward handed Piers Gaveston jewels and treasures that should have gone to Isabella, and her French relatives went home fuming. Can you imagine? She was barely a teenager, in a strange country, watching her husband hand her wedding presents to his favorite.

The barons got rid of Gaveston in the end, but Edward soon found new favorites in the Despensers, father and son. They were even worse for Isabella. Her lands and income were taken from her, and so were her children, and her husband let it happen.

So when Edward sent her to France in 1325 to sort out a quarrel with her brother, Charles IV, she made the most of it. She got her eldest son, the future Edward III, sent over to join her, and then she simply refused to come home while the Despensers were still at court. Frankly, I don’t blame her.

In 1326, she landed in Essex with her son and Roger Mortimer, and England fell to her almost without a fight. Edward II was forced to abdicate in January 1327 and died later that year at Berkeley Castle. How he died is still argued over, and nobody knows for certain.

Isabella and Mortimer then ran the country in her son’s name, and they helped themselves to a great deal of it. 

In 1330, the young Edward III had Mortimer seized at Nottingham Castle, and he was hanged on November 29. Isabella wasn’t punished, but she never held real power again. She lived comfortably on her estates and died at Hertford Castle on August 22, 1358.

Anne of Bohemia, Mary de Bohun, and the Brides Who Died Young

Anne of Bohemia was about 15 when she married Richard II at Westminster Abbey on January 20, 1382. Two days later she was crowned queen. The match was arranged during the Great Schism, when two rival popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon, each claimed to lead the Church. France supported the pope in Avignon. England and Anne’s half-brother, King Wenceslas, supported Pope Urban VI in Rome, and Urban wanted his two allies tied together by marriage.

All the same, Richard seems to have adored her. He rarely let her leave his side, and she often traveled with him. They had no children.

Anne died at Sheen Palace on June 7, 1394, most likely of plague. Richard was beside himself. He ordered the whole palace torn down and, for a year, refused to go into any church where he’d been with her. Five years later, he lost his throne to his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke.

That same June, Henry Bolingbroke was grieving too. His wife, Mary de Bohun, was one of the richest heiresses in England. She married him at Arundel Castle on July 27, 1380, when she was only about 11 or 12.

Mary had six children, including the future Henry V. She died at Peterborough Castle in June 1394, giving birth to her daughter Philippa, and was only about 25. She never became queen. Henry took the throne five years after her death, and they buried her as a countess in Leicester.

Two wives of two cousins, dead within weeks of each other.

Anne Neville and the Crown She Barely Wore

Anne Neville was born at Warwick Castle on June 11, 1456. Her father was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, better known as the “Kingmaker.” He had fallen out with Edward IV and changed sides. To seal his new alliance with Margaret of Anjou, his old enemy, he married Anne to Margaret’s son, Edward of Westminster. The wedding took place in France in December 1470, when Anne was 14.

It lasted a matter of months. Her father was killed at Barnet on April 14, 1471, and her young husband died at Tewkesbury three weeks later.

Anne was handed over to her sister Isabel and Isabel’s husband, George, Duke of Clarence. According to the Crowland Chronicle, Clarence hid her to stop his brother Richard of Gloucester from marrying her, most likely because of the half of the Warwick fortune that came with her. Richard is said to have found her in London disguised as a kitchen maid and taken her to sanctuary. They were married in 1472.

Anne and Richard were crowned together on July 6, 1483. Less than a year later, in April 1484, their only son died at Middleham. A writer at the time said they were “almost out of their minds for a long time” with grief.

By the following winter, Anne was seriously ill. Nobody knows what she had, although tuberculosis is often suggested. There was even gossip that Richard was poisoning her so he could marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, but there’s no evidence of it. Anne died at Westminster on March 16, 1485, on the day of an eclipse of the sun. Five months later, Richard was dead too, killed at Bosworth.

Margaret of Anjou: The Queen Who Went to War

Margaret of Anjou married Henry VI on April 23, 1445, at Titchfield Abbey near Southampton. She was 15. She arrived with a meager dowry of a truce and 20,000 francs, and the cost of bringing her over, plus a long row over whether England would hand Maine back to France, did little to boost her popularity.

In 1453, Henry suffered a complete mental collapse, and that October Margaret gave birth to their only son, Edward. With her husband unable to rule, she became the driving force of the Lancastrian side in the Wars of the Roses. Her armies won at Wakefield in December 1460 and at St. Albans in February 1461, before the Lancastrians were crushed at Towton.

Her last hope ended at Tewkesbury on May 4, 1471, where her son was killed. Henry VI died in the Tower a few weeks later, most likely murdered.

Margaret was held prisoner in England for around five years. In 1475, Louis XI of France agreed to pay a ransom of 50,000 crowns, but only if she gave up her claims to the English throne and her inheritance from both her parents. She went home to France with nothing, lived on a small pension from Louis, and died at Dampierre-sur-Loire on August 25, 1482.

What Did Marrying a Plantagenet Really Cost?

Marrying a Plantagenet cost these women their childhoods, and quite often their safety. They were chosen for what they brought to the party, a peace treaty or a fortune in land, and once they delivered that, plus an heir or two, they had little say in what happened next.

And yet I find it hard to see them only as victims. Isabella took on a king and won, and even 

The Plantagenets themselves didn’t last much longer. After Bosworth, Elizabeth of York, daughter of Elizabeth Woodville, married the man who had defeated Richard III, and so the Tudor dynasty began. 

FAQs About Plantagenet Women