William (Guillaume) IV (Talvas) of Ponthieu, Count of Ponthieu

Notes:

Wikipeida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_IV,_Count_of_Ponthieu

He was Count of Ponthieu, ruler of a small province in northern France. It was one of six feudal counties that eventually merged to become part of the Province of Picardy, in northern France. Its chief town is Abbeville.

He was son and heir of John (Jean) I, Count of Ponthieu (died 1191) by his third wife Beatrice de St Pol. His father was the son of Guy II, Count of Ponthieu (who died on the Second Crusade 1147) and grandson of William III of Ponthieu, also frequently called William III Talvas, and who represented the senior line of the lords of Montgomery, once trusted vassals and allies of William the Conqueror.

Talvas was married on August 20, 1195 to Alys, Countess of the Vexin, the daughter of King Louis VII of France. She was some eighteen years older than he, and was said by some to have been seduced by King Henry II of England while betrothed to his son, King Richard the Lionheart. Richard sent her back to her brother, King Philip II of France, refusing to marry his father's mistress.

Philip then arranged for Alys to marry William Talvas, with the intent that the couple would be childless, and he would thus gain control of Ponthieu, a small but strategically important county. However, Alys then gave birth to a daughter and heiress, Marie, in 1199. This daughter was the maternal grandmother of Eleanor of Castile, first wife of Edward I, King of England, to whom Ponthieu and the disputed Vexin inheritance would eventually pass as Eleanor's dowry. William Talvas died in 1221, his daughter Marie being his heiress.

William was an important army commander in the Anglo-French War (1202-1214). He also participated in the Albigensian Crusade, particularly in the Siege of Termes in 1210.
He led the left wing of the victorious French army in the Battle of Bouvines in 1214.



Buried:
Grave location and cemetery photo:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=102346447

William married Alys of France, Countess of Vexin. Alys (daughter of King Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile) was born 04 Oct 1160; died ca 1220; was buried , Abbey of Valloires, Picardie, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipeida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie,_Countess_of_Ponthieu

She was was Countess of Ponthieu and Countess of Montreuil, in her own right, ruling from 1221 to 1250. Marie was the daughter of William IV of Ponthieu and Alys, Countess of the Vexin, and granddaughter of King Louis VII of France by his second wife Constance of Castile. As her father's only surviving child, Marie succeeded him, ruling as Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil.

She married Simon of Dammartin before September 1208. He was the son of Alberic II of Dammartin and Maud de Clermont, daughter of Renaud de Clermont, Count de Clermont-en-Beauvaisis and Clemence de Bar. Simon and Marie had four daughters.

1.Joan of Dammartin (1220-16 March 1279), second wife of Ferdinand III of Castile.

2. Mathilda of Dammartin (-1279), married John of Châtellerault.

3. Philippa of Dammartin (died 1277/81) who married firstly Raoul II d' Issoudun, secondly Raoul II de Coucy, and thirdly Otto II, Count Geldern.

4. Maria of Dammartin, married John II, Count of Roucy.

Marie married secondly sometime between September 1240 and 15 December 1241, Mathieu de Montmorency, Seigneur d'Attichy, who was killed in battle at Mansurrah on 8 February 1250 during the Seventh Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France.



Buried:
Grave location and cemetery photo:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=102492349

Marie married Simon Demmartin, Count of Ponthieu. Simon was born ca 1180; died 21 Sep 1239; was buried , Abbey of Valloires, Picardie, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan,_Countess_of_Ponthieu

She was Queen consort of Castile and León, Countess of Ponthieu, and Countess of Aumale.

Joan was the eldest daughter of Simon of Dammartin, Count of Ponthieu (1180-21 September 1239) and his wife Marie of Ponthieu, Countess of Montreuil (17 April 1199-1251). Her paternal grandparents were Alberic II, Count de Dammartin and Mahaut de Clermont, daughter of Renaud de Clermont, Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, and Clémence de Bar. Her maternal grandparents were William IV of Ponthieu and Alys, Countess of the Vexin, daughter of Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile.

After secret negotiations were undertaken in 1234, it was agreed that Joan would marry King Henry III of England. This marriage would have been politically unacceptable to the French, however, since Joan stood to inherit not only her mother's county of Ponthieu but also the county of Aumale that was vested in her father's family. Ponthieu bordered on the duchy of Normandy, and Aumale lay within Normandy itself. The French king Philip Augustus had seized Normandy from King John of England as recently as 1205, and Philip's heirs could not risk the English monarchy recovering any land in that area, since it might allow the Plantagenets to re-establish control in Normandy.

As it happened, Joan's father Simon had become involved in a conspiracy of northern French noblemen against Philip Augustus and to win pardon from Philip's son Louis VIII, Simon, who had only daughters, was compelled to promise that he would marry off neither of his two eldest daughters without the permission of the king of France.

In 1235, the queen-regent of France, Blanche of Castile, invoked that promise on behalf of her son, King Louis IX of France, and threatened to deprive Simon of all his lands if Joan married Henry III. Blanche also petitioned the Pope to deny the marriage based on consanguinity. He agreed, denying the dispensation which Henry had sought and paid for. Henry therefore abandoned the project for his marriage to Joan and in January 1236 married instead Eleanor of Provence, the sister of Louis IX's wife.

In November 1235, Blanche of Castile's nephew, King Ferdinand III of Castile, lost his wife, Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen, and Blanche's sister Berengaria of Castile, Ferdinand's mother, was concerned that her widowed son might involve himself in liaisons that were unsuited to his dignity as king. Berengaria determined to find Ferdinand another wife, and her sister Blanche suggested Joan of Dammartin, whose marriage to the king of Castile would keep her inheritance from falling into hostile hands. In October 1237, at the age of about seventeen, Joan and Ferdinand were married in Burgos. Since Ferdinand already had seven sons from his first marriage to Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen, there was little chance of Ponthieu being absorbed by Castile.

They had four sons and one daughter:

1. Ferdinand (1239-ca 1265), Count of Aumale, who married after 1256 Laure de Montfort, Lady of Espernon, and had issue.
2. Eleanor (1240-1290), Countess of Ponthieu, who married king Edward I of England and had issue.
3. Louis (1243-ca 1275), who married Juana de Manzanedo, Lady of Gaton, and had issue.
4. Simon (1244), died young and buried in a monastery in Toledo.
5. John (1246), died young and buried at the cathedral in Córdoba.

After Ferdinand III died in 1252, Joan did not enjoy a cordial relationship with his heir, her stepson Alfonso X of Castile, with whom she quarreled over the lands and income she should have received as dowager queen of Castile. Sometime in 1253, she became the ally and supporter of another of her stepsons, Henry of Castile, who also felt Alfonso had not allowed him all the wealth their father had meant him to have. Joan unwisely attended secret meetings with Henry and his supporters, and it was rumored that she and Henry were lovers. This further strained her relations with Alfonso and in 1254, shortly before her daughter Eleanor was to marry Edward of England, Joan and her eldest son Ferdinand left Castile and returned to her native Ponthieu.

Upon her mother's death in 1251, Joan succeeded as Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil, which she held in her own right. Sometime between May 1260 and 9 February 1261, Joan took a second husband, Jean de Nesle, Seigneur de Falvy et de La Hérelle (died 2 February 1292).

During her marriage to Jean de Nesle, Joan ran up considerable debts and also appears to have allowed her rights as countess in Ponthieu to weaken. The death of her son Ferdinand in 1265 made her next son, Louis, her heir in Ponthieu but around 1275 he, too, died, leaving two children. But according to inheritance customs in Picardy, where Ponthieu lay, Joan's young grandson John of Ponthieu could not succeed her there; her heir in Ponthieu automatically became her adult daughter Eleanor, who was married to Edward I of England.

It does not appear that Joan was displeased at the prospect of having Ponthieu pass under English domination; from 1274 to 1278, in fact, she had her granddaughter Joan of Acre (the daughter of Edward I and Eleanor) with her in Ponthieu, and appears to have treated the girl so indulgently that when she was returned to England her parents found that she was thoroughly spoiled.

That same indulgent nature appears to have made Joan inattentive to her duties as countess. When she died at Abbeville, in March 1279, her daughter and son-in-law were thus confronted with Joan's vast debts, and to prevent the king of France from involving himself in the county's affairs, they had to pay the debts quickly by taking out loans from citizens in Ponthieu and from wealthy abbeys in France.

They also had to deal with a lengthy legal struggle with Eleanor's nephew, John of Ponthieu, to whom Joan bequeathed a great deal of land in Ponthieu as well as important legal rights connected with those estates. The dispute was resolved when John of Ponthieu was recognized as Joan's successor in Aumale according to the inheritance customs that prevailed in Normandy, while Edward and Eleanor retained Ponthieu, and John gave up all his claims there. By using English wealth, Edward and Eleanor restored stability to the administration and the finances of Ponthieu, and added considerably to the estate by purchasing large amounts of land there.




Buried:
Grave location, biography, and cemetery photo:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=102643365

Jeanne married Saint Ferdinand III of Castile. Ferdinand (son of Alfonso IX of León and Berengaria of Castile, Queen of Castile and Queen of Léon) was born Between 1198-1201, Monastery of Valparaíso, Peleas de Arriba, Kingdom of Leon, Spain; died 30 May 1252, Seville, Crown of Castile, Spain; was buried , Seville, Cathedral Seville, Andalucia, Spain. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Castile

She was the first queen consort of Edward I of England, whom she married as part of a political deal to affirm English sovereignty over Gascony.

The marriage was known to be particularly close, and Eleanor traveled extensively with her husband. She was with him on the Eighth Crusade, when he was wounded at Acre, but the popular story of her saving his life by sucking out the poison has long been discredited. When she died, near Lincoln, her husband famously ordered a stone cross to be erected at each stopping-place on the journey to London, ending at Charing Cross.

Eleanor was better-educated than most medieval queens, and exerted a strong cultural influence on the nation. She was a keen patron of literature, and encouraged the use of tapestries, carpets and tableware in the Spanish style, as well as innovative garden designs. She was also a successful businesswoman, endowed with her own fortune as Countess of Ponthieu.

Eleanor was born in Burgos, daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile and Joan, Countess of Ponthieu. Her Castilian name, Leonor, became Alienor or Alianor in England, and Eleanor in modern English. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Eleanor of England.

Edward and Eleanor were second cousins once removed, as Edward's grandfather King John of England and Eleanor's great-grandmother Eleanor of England were the son and daughter of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Following the marriage they spent nearly a year in Gascony, with Edward ruling as lord of Aquitaine. During this time Eleanor, aged thirteen and a half, almost certainly gave birth to her first child, a short lived daughter.

There is little record of Eleanor's life in England until the 1260s, when the Second Barons' War, between Henry III and his barons, divided the kingdom. During this time Eleanor actively supported Edward's interests, importing archers from her mother's county of Ponthieu in France.
She held Windsor Castle and baronial prisoners for Edward. Rumors that she was seeking fresh troops from Castile led the baronial leader, Simon de Montfort, to order her removal from Windsor Castle in June 1264 after the royalist army had been defeated at the Battle of Lewes. Edward was captured at Lewes and imprisoned, and Eleanor was honorably confined at Westminster Palace.

After Edward and Henry's army defeated the baronial army at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, Edward took a major role in reforming the government and Eleanor rose to prominence at his side. Her position was greatly improved in July 1266 when, after she had borne three short-lived daughters, she gave birth to a son, John, to be followed by a second boy, Henry, in the spring of 1268, and in June 1269 by a healthy daughter, Eleanor.

By 1270, the kingdom was pacified and Edward and Eleanor left to join his uncle Louis IX of France on the Eighth Crusade. Louis died at Carthage before they arrived, however, and after they spent the winter in Sicily, the couple went on to Acre in Palestine, where they arrived in May 1271. Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, known as "Joan of Acre" for her birthplace.

They left Palestine in September 1272 and in Sicily that December they learned of Henry III's death (on 16 November 1272). Following a trip to Gascony, where their next child, Alphonso (named for Eleanor's half brother Alfonso X), was born, Edward and Eleanor returned to England and were crowned together on 19 August 1274.

Arranged royal marriages in the Middle Ages were not always happy, but available evidence indicates that Eleanor and Edward were devoted to each other. Edward is among the few medieval English kings not known to have conducted extramarital affairs or fathered children out of wedlock. The couple were rarely apart; she accompanied him on military campaigns in Wales, famously giving birth to their son Edward on 25 April 1284 at Caernarfon Castle.

Their household records witness incidents that imply a comfortable, even humorous, relationship. Each year on Easter Monday, Edward let Eleanor's ladies trap him in his bed and paid them a token ransom so he could go to her bedroom on the first day after Lent; so important was this custom to him that in 1291, on the first Easter Monday after Eleanor's death, he gave her ladies the money he would have given them had she been alive.

In her memory, Edward ordered the construction of twelve elaborate stone crosses (of which three survive, though none of them is intact) between 1291 and 1294, marking the route of her funeral procession between Lincoln and London.

Eleanor is warmly remembered by history as the queen who inspired the Eleanor crosses, but she was not so loved in her own time. Her reputation was primarily as a keen businesswoman.

Eleanor of Castile's queenship is significant in English history for the evolution of a stable financial system for the king's wife, and for the honing this process gave the queen-consort's prerogatives. The estates Eleanor assembled became the nucleus for dower assignments made to later queens of England into the 15th century, and her involvement in this process solidly established a queen-consort's freedom to engage in such transactions. Few later queens exerted themselves in economic activity to the extent Eleanor did, but their ability to do so rested on the precedents settled in her lifetime. Her career can now be examined as the achievement of an intelligent and determined woman who was able to meet the challenges of an exceptionally demanding life.

Children:

1. Daughter, stillborn in May 1255 in Bordeaux, France. Buried in Dominican Priory Church, Bordeaux, France.

2. Katherine (c 1261-5 September 1264) and buried in Westminster Abbey.

3. Joanna (January 1265-before 7 September 1265), buried in Westminster Abbey.

4. John (13 July 1266-3 August 1271), died at Wallingford, in the custody of his granduncle, Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Buried in Westminster Abbey.

5. Henry (before 6 May 1268-16 October 1274), buried in Westminster Abbey.

6. Eleanor (18 June 1269-29 August 1298). She was long betrothed to Alfonso III of Aragon, who died in 1291 before the marriage could take place, and in 1293 she married Count Henry III of Bar, by whom she had one son and one daughter.

7. Daughter (1271 Palestine ). Some sources call her Juliana, but there is no contemporary evidence for her name.

8. Joan (April 1272-7 April 1307). She married (1) in 1290 Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, who died in 1295, and (2) in 1297 Ralph de Monthermer, 1st Baron Monthermer. She had four children by each marriage.

9. Alphonso (24 November 1273-19 August 1284), Earl of Chester.

10. Margaret (15 March 1275-after 1333). In 1290 she married John II of Brabant, who died in 1318. They had one son.

11. Berengaria (1 May 1276-before 27 June 1278), buried in Westminster Abbey.

12. Daughter (December 1277/January 1278-January 1278), buried in Westminster Abbey. There is no contemporary evidence for her name.

13. Mary (11 March 1279-29 May 1332), a Benedictine nun in Amesbury.

14. Son, born in 1280 or 1281 who died very shortly after birth. There is no contemporary evidence for his name.

15. Elizabeth (7 August 1282-5 May 1316). She married (1) in 1297 John I, Count of Holland, (2) in 1302 Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford & 3rd Earl of Essex. The first marriage was childless; by Bohun, Elizabeth had ten children.

16. Edward II of England, also known as Edward of Caernarvon (25 April 1284-21 September 1327). In 1308 he married Isabella of France. They had two sons and two daughters.

Eleanor's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 17 December 1290. Her body was placed in a grave near the high altar that had originally contained the coffin of Edward the Confessor and, more recently, that of King Henry III until his remains were removed to his new tomb in 1290. Eleanor's body remained in this grave until the completion of her own tomb. She had probably ordered that tomb before her death. It consists of a marble chest with carved mouldings and shields (originally painted) of the arms of England, Castile, and Ponthieu. The chest is surmounted by William Torel's superb gilt-bronze effigy, showing Eleanor in the same pose as the image on her great seal.

Buried:
Grave location, biography and effigy photo:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8327744

Eleanor married Edward I (Longshanks) Plantagenet, King of England. Edward was born 16 Jun 1239, Palace of Westminister, London, England; died 07 Jul 1307, Burgh by Sands, Cumberland, England; was buried , Westminster Abbey, London, England. [Group Sheet]