The Real Isabella de Beaumont

One of the main characters in my upcoming novel, Myself: A Dawning, is Isabella de Beaumont, the arrogant young noblewoman whom the story's protagonist, Isabeau, is forced to accompany on her journey to England.

Never heard of her? Amazingly, few people have, despite the fact she was one of the most influential women in late 13th and early 14th century England.

Isabella was the daughter of Sir Louis de Brienne and Agnés de Beaumont, Vicomtesse of Beaumont. Her lineage was impeccable; her grandfather was John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem.  Through her Castilian great-grandmother, Isabella was a cousin of the wife of England's  Queen Alienor of Castile.

Queen Alienor was particularly adept at arranging matches between her young  French and Spanish female relatives and English noblemen; using the marriages to strengthen bonds of alliance within her husband's realm. Consequently, Isabella was too rich of a prize to ignore. Alienor brought her fifteen-year-old cousin to England to be wed to Baron John de Vesci, one of King Edward I's most influential supporters and a man twenty years older than Isabella.

Isabella remained one of Alienor's closest confidantes until the queen's death in 1290. But Isabella's influence did not wane.  Widowed herself in 1289, Isabella took control of the de Vesci's vast holdings in England and Scotland. Extraordinarily, King Edward made her governor of the royal castles of Scarborough and Bamburg, key fortresses in the line of defense along the Scottish Marches. This appointment was unheard of for a woman and confirms Edward's faith in her capabilities.

In 1307, a new king came to England's throne. Edward II was accompanied by his teenaged French wife, also named Isabella. Now a dowager of forty-two, Isabella de Vesci (née Beaumont) developed a close, personal relationship with the adolescent queen similar to the one she had enjoyed with Queen Alienor.

Twenty years passed, and the relationship between king and queen had disintegrated to the point that she publicly took a lover, Roger Mortimer. When the queen and Mortimer overthrew King Edward, Isabella de Vesci fell from favor as she supported the opposition to the brutal regicide.

When Queen Isabella was deposed by her son, Edward III, Isabella de Beaumont, Isabella de Beaumont, now 65, was restored to royal favor and awarded additional lands in North Wales as a token of the new king's esteem.

Isabella de Beaumont died in 1334 after fifty years at the very heart of English politics.