Spouses who became rivals (5/?)
Isabella of France and Edward II of England
Isabella married Edward II of England when she was twelve and he was in his twenties. In part due to her young age and her husband’s preference for his male favorites (the sexual element of these relationships cannot be determined with certainty), Isabella initially found herself overshadowed as queen. However, as time passed Isabella would prove herself a valuable support for Edward in his conflicts with his barons, acting numerous times as a liaison to her natal family in France and shoring up support in England. The exile and later murder of Piers Gaveston, Edward’s favorite, would further expand Isabella’s political role even as she gave birth to four children. Yet with the rise of the Despensers, Edward’s new favorites, Isabella found her position in jeopardy and her own relationship with her husband deteriorating. Following the seizure of her lands and children by the Despensers, who treated her as a foreign enemy, Isabella traveled to her brother, the King of France, there denouncing those that came between her and her husband and assuming the garments of a widow. Not long after she began an affair with disgruntled Marcher lord, Roger Mortimer, and having had her eldest son brought to her, began to raise a mercenary army to invade England. Edward and the Despensers fled at their approach, yet once captured the latter two were brutally executed, Edward deposed and placed under house arrest and her son named Edward III. Legend holds that Isabella ordered her husband murdered with a red hot poker, however the validity of this is dubious and would shape her later reputation as the “she-wolf of France”, originating in the 18th century. Isabella would rule with Mortimer as regent for her son for four years until Edward III overthrew them and executed Mortimer. Isabella herself would enter a luxurious retirement until her death in 1358, at which time she was buried in her wedding dress with her husband’s heart.
