Regents: Royals, aristocrats & commoners who took power in empires, kingdoms & domains

Sunday, August 30, 2020

M - Mary to Maud Royal Women in Power

Brief lives of women who reigned or ruled in their own right or by marriage by providing their a) personal and family background; b) proprietary titles; c) parents/pedigree; d) patrimony and properties; e) persona or personality; f) powers exercised, g) patronages and h) partner(s) and progeny.

MARY FITZRANULPH

" . . . Another Ranulph, in the time of King John, translated the canons of Swainby to Coverham, an abbey he had founded near his castle of Middleham; thus lodging them close to his own gates, for the extraordinary reason (assigned by Dugdale) that he had "had much contest with them." The line ended with his son, Ralph Fitz Ranulph, whose eldest daughter Mary was his heiress, and brought the whole of the great Yorkshire fief in marriage to Robert Lord Nevill. Her husband was killed, early in life, in a disgraceful private quarrel, and the "fair and gentle Mary of Middleham" mourned for him till the day of her death. She would never consent to marry again, and lived a widow for forty-nine years. For some reason that has remained unexplained, she passed over her eldest son in her will, and bequeathed all her possessions to her grandson Ralph, the arrogant 'Peacock of the North'. . . ." (The Duchess of Cleveland)

"In 1270, Robert de Nevill received Middleham through his wife, Mary, daughter and heiress of Ralph Fitzranulph. Mary is said to have established the church of St. Helen and St. Alkelda. Mary held the power in Middleham as her son Ralph proved to be a poor land manager. Their son, Robert Neville, referred to as the "Peacock of the North" for his colorful reputation, was killed in a border struggle. . . ." (Middleham Castle)

MATHILDE DE BOURBON (1160's-1218)

[Ref1:217]

Proprietary Title: Dame de Bourbon, 1169-1218

Parents/Pedigree: Only daughter of Archambaud de Bourbon (d..1169) and of Alix de Bourgogne.

Partner/Progeny: Married (1) in 1183 (div. 1195), Gaucher IV de Vienne, Sire de Salins, with whom she had a daughter, Marguerite; (2) in 1195, Gui II de Dampierre (1140-1216), Constable of Champagne, who was in his 50's, with whom she had 7 children.

"The new head of the house of Bourbon was now for the first but not the last time to be a woman: Mahaut or Mathilde, Dame de Bourbon (1165-1227) was only six when she took over and was clearly a very eligible match. She luckily still had her grandmother Agnes of Savoy to act as her guardian. Her first marriage to Gaucher de Vienne took place when she was eighteen and lasted ten childless years during which he was away fighting, either the routiers in Chateaumeillant or the Saracens in the Holy Land, for he joined King Philip II Augustus (f. 1180-1223) on the Third Crusade in 1189. When he returned after three years away in the east he suspected, perhaps, with justification, that his wife had been unfaithful (this was one of the hazards of crusading) for he beat her, flung her in one of their dungeons and arranged for the Church to excommunicate her. She had too many important allies however -- one of them the king -- so the churchmen were persuaded to change their attitude. She was released and allowed to divorce him in 1195 on grounds of consanguinity -- he was related to her mother's family. Gaucher took this reverse very badly and proceeded to burn and pillage the Bourbonnais in revenge. The solution was to find her a husband strong enough to defend her and thus King Philip Augustus recommended one of his trusted knights, Guy II de Dampierre (1155-1216) who was ten years her senior, and had good properties on his own. He became the new Seigneur de Bourbon as well as Seigneur de Dampierre, which was southwest of Paris. So not only were the Bourbon estates substantially increased overall but some of them were closer to the capital and to the notice of King Philip II Augustus." (The Impossible Bourbons: Europe's Most Ambitious Dynasty)

MAUD OF GLOUCESTER, Countess of Chester (d.1190)

a.k.a. Maud FitzRobert
[Bio1]

Proprietary Titles:

Parents/Pedigree: Maud was the daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, and of Mabel FitzHamon of Gloucester.
Patrimony/Properties
Persona/Personality
Powers Exercised
Patronages
Partner/Progeny

MAUD OF HUNTINGDON (1074-1130)

a.k.a. Maud of Northumbria

[Bio1]

Proprietary Titles: Countess of the Honour of Huntingdon and Northampton

Parents/Pedigree: Daughter of Waltheof II, Earl of Northumbria, and of Judith of Lens.

Partners/Progeny: Married about 1090 (1) Simon I de Senlis (d.1109), Earl of Hungtingdon, in right of his wife, c1090, with whom she had 3 children; married in 1113 (2) David I of Scotland, with whom she had 4 children.

Notes: " . . . Most historians have Maud as an Englishwoman, the richest heiress of England and the heiress of Northumbria. That she was those things is quite correct. But she was not so much English as she was Flemish. She was Godefroid of Bouillon's full cousin. . . With her marriage to David, then prince of Strathclyde, later to succeed his brother as king of Scots, trades with Flanders, and particularly with Bruges, became opened to Scotland. . . ." (Albany: 122)

REFERENCES

Evergates, Theodore (2007). The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100-1300.

Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.ca/

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Introduction to Royal Regents

@Italy Magazine

Some information about the regent in this collection includes the following:

A - Age of sovereign
B - Basis of appointment
C - Character
D - Duration
E - End

What is a regent?

"A regent performs the sovereigns functions during minority or other incapacity; councillors of state during absence. No advance statutory provision dor such contingencies existed until 1937. Between 1689 and 1760 Kings appointed Lords Justices to act for them during absences abroad and commonly bound them in detailed instructions. A similar practice obtained in Ireland during vacancies in the Lieutenancy or Deputyship. A regent is always the closest relative, councillors or state are also relatives, but Lords Justices generally were not." (The Companion to British History: 1064)

The Dowager Queen as Regent

"In Gaul, however, unlike Lombard Italy or Visigothic Spain, filial succession remained normal. Thus the only way a queen could secure her position, both in her husband's lifetime and especially after his death, was to produce a son who survived. Because of the frequent succession of minors, regents might govern for relatively long periods (even though the age of majority was fifteen) and a queen-mother clearly had a strong claim to the regency. Hers was not the only claim: the role of nutritor, literally 'male nurse,' which in fact contained that of a regent, thereby illustrating once again the political significance of personal closeness to the king even when he was a child, was appropriated by mayors of the palace on several occasions in the sixth and seventh centuries. But a dowager queen could normally hope to act as regent for her won son. If a dowager queen were childless or had only daughters, then her husband's death would obviously mean her exclusion from power. But even if she had a young son, she might have difficulty in maintaining that physical proximity to him on which a regent's power depended. An infant prince might be reared on a country estate; he would probably be in the care of a nurse. The moment of his father's death might find his mother far away. In any event, what determined a boy-prince's success in claiming the royal succession also directed his mother's future: namely, the attitude of the aristocracy, or, immediately, of a few well-placed aristocrats. A widowed queen was thrown back on the personal ties she had formed during her husband's lifetime, and on her own political skill: for on these depended how much treasure and influence (the two were not unconnected) she might be able to salvage. Throughout Merovingian history, the fates of widowed queens in interregna highlighted the persisting power of bishops and leudes [aristocrats around the king]." (Rosenwien and Little: 225)

A Widow's Title to Estates
" . . . After 1215, a widow in England was entitled to both one-third of her husband's estates and to any jointure, land settled jointly in survivorship on a couple at the time of their marriage. These rights were not reduced by remarriage, and indeed successive widowhoods could increase landholdings substantially. . . . " (Schaus: 8)

Byzantine Empresses as Rulers in their Own Right, Co-Rulers with their Husbands or Regents

" . . . [A] number of empresses played an important part in government and even took control of the empire in appropriate circumstances. Most commonly empresses came to power as regents for young sons, implying a fixed period of caretaker government until the young emperor came of age, usually at sixteen. But not all regents were ready to step aside. . . Co-ruling regents were officially acknowledged on coins, in acclamation and in dating formulas, although generally (but not always yielding precedence to the young emperor. Empresses could also in exceptional circumstances rule in their own right, though it was considered more normal that they should take the opportunity to choose a husband and make him emperor. . . Empresses also possessed powers as consorts, but in these circumstances they were naturally bound by the wishes and temperaments of their husbands. The principle of collegiality, however, ensured that in certain cases they were seen almost as co-rulers. . . Even without official nomination as regent, the long absences of emperors on campaign could still give empresses the chance to wield power and make executive decisions. . . . " (Garland: 1)

Regents Across Generations

"Eleanor of Aquitaine's daughters and granddaughters are for the most part well-known examples of women who served as regents for sons when fathers departed or crusade or died while sons were too young to be able to rule in their own names. Such situations arose not infrequently in the Middle Ages, and any aristocratic wife and mother had to be prepared to step in to fill such a temporary vacuum. . . ." (Wheeler and Parsons: 194)