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The First English Queen- Katherine of Valois

Catherine of valois

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The First English Queen- Katherine of Valois

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Katherine of Valois

Katherine of Valois was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and his wife Isabelle of Bavaria. She was born on October 27, 1401. Early on there had been a discussion of marrying her to the son of Henry IV, but the King died.The new king, Henry V, also proposed the match, butdemanded a large dowry and acknowledgement of his

rightto the throne of France. Henry V went to war with France and even after the English victory at Agincourt, plans for the marriage continued. Katherine was said to be very attractive and when Henry finally met her at Meulan he became enamored. In May 1420, a peace treaty was made between England and France and Charles acknowledged Henry of England as his heir. Katherine and Henry were married at the parish Church of St. John. Catherine was

then 18, and Henry V was 32.

Katherine went to England with her new husband andwas crowned as Queen in Westminster Abbey in February 1421. In June 1421, Henry returned to France to continue his campaigns.Catherine became pregnant,and the future King Henry VI was born in December1421. The boy and his father would never see each

other,as he died on campaign in August 1422.

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Henry VI was the only child of Henry V and Catherine of Valois,

born on December 6, 1421.

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Katherine was not quite 21 and was left a widow and Dowager Queen of England.

Charles VI died a couple of months after Henry V, whichmade the young Henry VI king of both England and France.Katherine doted on her young son during his earlychildhood. However, Katherine was still young and might wish to remarry. In

the Parliament of 1427-8, a bill was introduced setting the rules for the remarriage of a Queen Dowager. The bill stated that if the Queen and a new husband married without the King's consent, the husband would lose his lands and possessions, although any children from the marriage would still be members of the royal

family. Another rule was that the king's permission could only be grantedonce he had reached his majority.At the time the bill was written, theking was only six years old.Despite all of this, Katherine did remarry in secret, sometime in 1431 or 1432. Her new husband was Owen ap Maredudd ap Tudur of Wales. Somewhere at this time, the Queen stopped living in the King's household and in May 1432 Parliament granted Owen the rights of an Englishman. There are many tales, of how Katherine and Owen met. We don't know for sure what position Owen held when he met the Queen, but he was most likely keeper of the Queen'shousehold or wardrobe. The couple had six children (Thomas Tudor and Owen Tudor were monks, Edmund Tudor married Margaret Beaufort

and fathered Henry Tudor, later King Henry VII, Jasper Tudor married Catherine Woodville, sister of Elizabeth Woodville, who married KingEdward IV, and two other daughters became nuns).

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Death and burial

Catherine of Valois died in January 1437 at the age of 35, shortly after giving birth to a daughter who died as a baby. She was buried in Westminster Abbey. In a frankly revolting episode, Catherine of Valois’ tomb was damaged in the early 16th century, and her body exposed.

No-one got round to doing anything about it for about 350 years, and her body remained visible for the entire period. It became a kind of bizarre tourist attraction, to view the corpse of the long-dead Queen.

After the Queen's death, Owen and Katherine's enemies decided to proceed

againstOwen for violating the the law of the remarriage of the Dowager Queen. Owen appeared before the Council, acquitting himself of all chargesand was released. On his way back to Wales, he was arrested and his possessions seized. He tried to escape from Newgate jail in early 1438 and eventually ended up at WindsorCastle in July of that year.

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EDMUND AND JASPER TUDOR AND MARGARET BEAUFORT In 1452, Edmund and Jasper Tudor were formally brought into the royal family and were made earls: Edmund the Earl of Richmond and Jasper the Earl of Pembroke. Their brother Owen was already a monk at Westminster Abbey. They had been formally recognized at the half brothers of the King whose uncles -- other possible heirs -- were all dead by this time. But the Tudors had no blood connection to the English throne at this time (although they did to the throne of France through their mother Katherine of Valois).

The new earls were given precedent over all the other nobles of the realm save the dukes and the King and Queen. Along with the titles came estates and revenues, as well as the potential of noble brides. In March 1453, Edmund and Jasper were given joint custody of Margaret Beaufort, heiress of the Duke

of Somerset.

Margaret Beaufort was born May 31, 1443. Her father died in 1444, leaving his young daughter a very desirable bride. A few years later, Margaret was married to John de la Pole but he was murderedin 1450 and in early 1453, the marriage of John and Margaret was annulled.

The annulment may have come at the request of the King, who also may have been the one to match Margaret and Edmund Tudor. The couple were married in 1455.

Edmund Tudor died in November 1456 and his brother Jasper took Margaret the child she was carrying into his protection. The child was a son born in 1457, and was named Henry.

Jasper himself was still not married and wouldn't find a bride for almost 30 years.

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Henry VI of England

Henry was the only child and heir of King Henry V of England. He was born on 6 December 1421 at Windsor, and succeeded to the throne at the age of nine months as King of England on 31 August 1422 when his father died, thus making him the youngest person ever to succeed to the English throne. Two months later, on 21 October 1422, he became King of France upon his grandfather

Charles VI's death in agreement with the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. On 28 September 1423, the nobles swore loyalty to Henry VI.

They summoned Parliament in the King's name and established a regency council until the King should come of age. One of Henry

V's surviving brothers, John, Duke of Bedford, was appointed senior regent of the realm and was in charge of the ongoing war in

France. During Bedford's absence, the government of England was

headed by Henry V's other surviving brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who was appointed Protector and Defender of the

Realm. His duties were limited to keeping the peace and summoning Parliament.

Henry was soon crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey

on 6 November 1429,followed by his own coronation as King of France at Notre Dame de Paris on 16 December 1431, although

it was not until a month before his sixteenth birthday on 13 November 1437 that he obtained some measure of independent

authority.He finally assumed full royal powers when he came of age.

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Coronation as King of France

Henry, shy and pious, averse to deceit and bloodshed,

immediately allowed his court to be dominated by a few

noble favourites who clashed on the matter of the French war.

After the death of Henry V, England had lost momentum in the Hundred Years' War,

while, beginning with Joan of Arc's military victories, the Valois gained ground. The

young king came to favour a policy of peace in France.

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Cardinal Beaufort and the Earl of Suffolk persuaded the king that the best way of pursuing peace with France was through a

marriage with Margaret of Anjou. Henry agreed, especially when he heard reports of Margaret's stunning beauty, and sent Suffolk to negotiate with Charles, who agreed to the marriage on condition that he would not have to provide the customary

dowry and instead would receive the lands of Maine and Anjou from the English. These conditions were agreed to in the Treaty of Tours.The marriage took place on 23 April 1445, one month

after Margaret's 15th birthday.Henry, who was more interested in religion and learning than

military matters, was not a successful king. He had reigned since he was only a few months old and his

actions had been controlled by regents. When he married Margaret, his mental condition was already unstable and by the time their only son, Edward of Westminster, was born on 13 October 1453, he had suffered a complete

breakdown. Rumours were rife that he was incapable of fathering a child and that the new Prince of Wales was the

result of an adulterous liaison. Although Margaret was aggressively partisan and had a volatile

temperament,she shared her husband's love of learning by dint of her cultured upbringing and gave her patronage

to the founding of Queens' College at Cambridge University.

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Wars of the Roses(first part)

On Christmas Day 1454, King Henry regained his senses. Disaffected nobles who had grown in power during Henry's reign took matters into their own hands by backing the claims of the rival House of

York, first to the Regency, and then to the throne itself. After a violent struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York, Henry was deposed and imprisoned

on 4 March 1461 by his cousin, Edward of York, who became king, as Edward IV. By this point, Henry was suffering such a bout of madness that he was apparently laughing and singing while the Second Battle of St Albans raged, which secured his release. But Edward was still able to take the

throne, though he failed to capture Henry and his queen, who fled to Scotland. During the first period of Edward IV's reign, Lancastrian resistance continued mainly under the leadership of Queen Margaret and the few nobles still loyal to her in the northern counties of England and Wales. Henry, who had been safely hidden by Lancastrian allies in Scotland, Northumberland and Yorkshire was

captured by King Edward in 1465 and subsequently held captive in the Tower of London.Queen Margaret, exiled in Scotland and later in France, was determined to win back the throne on behalf

of her husband and son. By herself, there was little she could do. However, eventually Edward IV had a falling-out with two of his main supporters. At the urging of King Louis XI of France they

formed a secret alliance with Margaret. After marrying his daughter to Henry and Margaret's son, Edward of Westminster, Warwick returned to England, defeated the Yorkists in battle, and restored Henry VI to the throne on 30 October 1470. However, by this time, years in hiding followed by years

in captivity had taken their toll on Henry.

Henry's return to the throne lasted less than six months. Warwick soon overreached himself by declaring war on Burgundy, whose ruler responded by giving Edward IV the assistance he needed to win back

his throne by force. He won a decisive victory at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, where Henry's son Edward was killed.

Henry was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he died during the night of 21/22 May 1471. In all likelihood, Henry's opponents had kept him alive up to this point rather than leave the Lancasters

with a far more formidable leader in Henry's son Edward. According to the Historie of the arrivall of Edward IV, an official chronicle favourable to Edward, Henry died of melancholy on hearing news of the Battle of Tewkesbury and his son's death.It is widely suspected, however, that Edward IV, who

was re-crowned the morning following Henry's death, had in fact ordered his murder.

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The marriage of King Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou

Margaret of Anjou

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The end.