• DOI:10.2307/2852635
• Corpus ID: 154858717

The Political Repercussions of Family Ties in the Early Fourteenth Century: The Marriage of Edward II of England and Isabelle of France

@article{Brown1988ThePR,
  title={The Political Repercussions of Family Ties in the Early Fourteenth Century: The Marriage of Edward II of England and Isabelle of France},
  author={Elizabeth A. R. Brown},
  journal={Speculum},
  year={1988},
  volume={63},
  pages={573 - 595}
}

• E. A. Brown
• Published 1 July 1988
• History
• Speculum

Medieval marriages in high places were political events. International weddings were negotiated like truces and treaties, and the marriages often affected the course of relations between the powers involved. The union of Edward II of England and Isabelle of France in 1308 is distinguished from other similar marriages by the power and ambitions of the two contracting parties, the couple's fathers, Edward I and Philip the Fair, and by the idiosyncrasies of character of the bride and groom, which eventually doomed the marriage. These, however, are differences of degree, not kind, and the rich surviving documentation concerning the union casts light on the dangers, the advantages, and the process of political marriage. Three documents, hitherto unpublished,' illuminate the negotiations that preceded and followed the wedding. The first is a French memorandum written shortly before the wedding. Setting forth Philip the Fair's responses to requests made by Edward II after his father's death on 7 July 1307, it demonstrates the complexity of the issues raised by such marriages, issues that often remained the subject of negotiation even after the formal marriage contract was sealed. In this case, one was the settlement which Isabelle was