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The Major and Minor Britain, A Plantagenet Timeline MK2


The Other Breton Girl and the Castilian Maiden
On 1189, a sick girl was able to recover and that girl is Matilda of Brittany, the daughter of Constance of Brittany and her late husband Geoffrey of Brittany, the girl is the other sister of the presumed heir of Richard I of England, Arthur of Brittany.

Eleanor and Matilda both became fatherless at the age of two and was brought up by her uncle King Richard and grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine.However, Richard's ward also meant that they were under Angevin custody, and thus even her mother Constance never considered them as potential heiresses to Brittany, which weakened their later claim to the duchy. As her younger brother Arthur was the heir presumptive to England and Brittany, she was one of the most marriageable princesses at that time. In 1190, after Richard failed to marry his younger sister Joan to Al-Adil I, brother of Saladin, he proposed that Eleanor should be the bride instead, but the negotiation was also in vain, as Al-Adil showed no interest in Christianity. In 1193, she was engaged to Frederick, son of Leopold V, Duke of Austria, as part of the conditions to release Richard, who had been taken prisoner by Emperor Henry VI. However, when she was on the way to Austria with Baldwin of Bethune and the next year, the duke died, so the marriage never took place, and under order of Pope Celestine III she returned to England, accompanied by her grandmother Eleanor and Richard was forced to handover his niece Berengaria of Castile to him because she is already married to Conrad of Swabia but he died in an unknown reason on 1196, the couple was childless.

Berengaria of Castile is betrothed to Peter, Prince of Aragon on 1196 just after the death of first husband, since the marriage would mean that Aragon will be always allied with France, originally it was Eleanor of Brittany who would be the one would be married to Peter, the son of Alfonso II, Berengaria of Castile spent sometime in the English court after her first husband, Conrad died, the marriage was childless.

Originally, Alfonso IX wanted to marry Berengaria of Castile after the dissolution of his marriage to Theresa of Portugal but was offered Eleanor of Brittany instead since Berengaria is betrothed to the King of Aragon and the marriage is in violation of the canon law and Peter II is given dispensation to marry Berengaria, and the King of France opposed a marriage between Eleanor of Brittany and Alfonso IX but the betrothal between a Breton Princess and the Leonese King is still in place and Matilda of Brittany chose that she is the bride of Alfonso IX in order for the marriage to still happen.

Berengaria of Castile and Matilda of Brittany were accompanied by Eleanor of Aquitaine on 1197 in the journey from Richard’s court from Anjou after Berengaria is left in Foix, they continued to Castile and then to Asturias Matilda of Brittany is left in Asturias where in she journeys to the court of Alfonso IX where in the two were married, she takes the name Matilde or Mafalda, but she would be more known as Matilde.

Eleanor of Aquitaine returned to Richard’s court on 1197 after Matilda is left to Asturias to marry the Leonese King.






Ingeborg of Denmark

Ingeborg was married to Philip II Augustus of France on 15 August 1193 after the death of Philip's first wife Isabelle of Hainaut (d. 1190). Her marriage brought a large dowry from her brother Knut VI, king of Denmark. Stephen of Tournai described her as "very kind, young of age but old of wisdom." At the marriage, she was renamed Isambour.

On their wedding night Philip II August was not able to enjoy his night with Ingeborg.

On the day after his marriage to Ingeborg, King Philip changed his mind, and attempted to send her back to Denmark. Outraged, Ingeborg fled to a convent in Soissons, from where she protested to Pope Celestine III.

On 1193, the latter part, Ingeborg gives birth to a son named Charles, Philip II August and Ingeborg would remain separated for a couple of years and Philip would recognize Charles as his son.

Invasion of Sicily

Once Henry had withdrawn with the bulk of the imperial army, the towns that had supposedly fallen to the Empire immediately declared their allegiance to Tancred, for the most part now fearing his retribution. The populace of Salerno saw an opportunity to win some favour with Tancred, and delivered Constance to him in Messina, an important prize given that Henry had every intention of returning. However, Tancred was willing to give up his negotiation advantage, that is, the Empress, in return for Pope Celestine III legitimising him as King of Sicily. In turn, the Pope was hoping that by securing Constance's safe passage back to Rome, Henry would be better disposed towards the papacy and he was still hoping to keep the Empire and the Kingdom from uniting. However, imperial soldiers were able to intervene before Constance made it to Rome, and they returned her safely across the Alps, ensuring that in the end, both the papacy and the kingdom failed to score any real advantage in having the Empress in their custody.

Henry was already preparing to invade Sicily a second time when Tancred died in 1194. Later that year he moved south, entered Palermo unopposed, deposed Tancred's young son William III, and had himself crowned instead.

While Henry moved quickly south with his army, a pregnant Constance followed at a slower pace. On 26 December, the day after Henry's crowning at Palermo, she gave birth to a son, Frederick-Roger (the future Emperor and king of Sicily Frederick II) in the small town of Iesi, near Ancona.

Constance was 40, and she knew that many would question whether the child was really hers. Thus she had the baby in a pavilion tent in the market square of the town, and invited the town matrons to witness the birth. A few days later she returned to the town square and publicly breast-fed the infant, the child turned out to be a female and named Bertha.









John the Usurper
After Richard's death on 6 April 1199 there were two potential claimants to the Angevin throne: John, whose claim rested on being the sole surviving son of Henry II, and young Arthur I of Brittany, who held a claim as the son of John's elder brother Geoffrey. Richard appears to have started to recognise John as his heir presumptive in the final years before his death, but the matter was not clear-cut and medieval law gave little guidance as to how the competing claims should be decided. With Norman law favouring John as the only surviving son of Henry II and Angevin law favouring Arthur as the only son of Henry's elder son, the matter rapidly became an open conflict. John was supported by the bulk of the English and Norman nobility and was crowned at Westminster, backed by his mother, Eleanor. Arthur was supported by the majority of the Breton, Maine and Anjou nobles and received the support of Philip II, who remained committed to breaking up the Angevin territories on the continent. With Arthur's army pressing up the Loire valley towards Angers and Philip's forces moving down the valley towards Tours, John's continental empire was in danger of being cut in two.

Warfare in Normandy at the time was shaped by the defensive potential of castles and the increasing costs of conducting campaigns. The Norman frontiers had limited natural defences but were heavily reinforced with castles, such as Château Gaillard, at strategic points, built and maintained at considerable expense. It was difficult for a commander to advance far into fresh territory without having secured his lines of communication by capturing these fortifications, which slowed the progress of any attack. Armies of the period could be formed from either feudal or mercenary forces. Feudal levies could only be raised for a fixed length of time before they returned home, forcing an end to a campaign; mercenary forces, often called Brabançons after the Duchy of Brabant but actually recruited from across northern Europe, could operate all year long and provide a commander with more strategic options to pursue a campaign, but cost much more than equivalent feudal forces.As a result, commanders of the period were increasingly drawing on larger numbers of mercenaries.

After his coronation, John moved south into France with military forces and adopted a defensive posture along the eastern and southern Normandy borders. Both sides paused for desultory negotiations before the war recommenced; John's position was now stronger, thanks to confirmation that the counts Baldwin IX of Flanders and Renaud of Boulogne had renewed the anti-French alliances they had previously agreed to with Richard. The powerful Anjou nobleman William des Roches was persuaded to switch sides from Arthur to John; suddenly the balance seemed to be tipping away from Philip and Arthur in favour of John.

Philip II August would not recognize John as the King of England but rather he would recognize Arthur, Duke of Brittany as the Rightful King of England and his vassal on Anjou, Maine and Normandy.




The Treaty of Rennes

The King of France is able to support the Duke of Brittany due to the fact that he is stronger and have no problems in the security of his rule since Ingeborg of Denmark has already have a son with Philip II August and the previous year, the two were reconciled with each other.

The Treaty of Rennes was signed by the kings Arthur of Brittany, the rightful heir to England, his mother, the heavily pregnant Constance of Brittany and Philip II of France in June 1200 and aimed to ultimately settle the claims the Angevin kings of England had on French lands. The treaty was a victory for Philip as it asserted his legal claims to overlordship over Arthur’s French lands that John Lackland is ruling defacto.

The terms of the treaty signed at Rouen included clarifications of the feudal relationships binding the monarchs. Arthur recognized Philip as the suzerain of the continental lands in the Angevin Empire and the partition of the Angevin Empire and Brittany would be recognized as independent and not suzerain from France.

Arthur also bound himself not to support any rebellions on the part of the counts of Boulogne and Flanders.

Philip had previously recognised Arthur and earlier Richard as suzerain of Anjou and the Duchy of Brittany, but with the treaty of Rennes he extorted 20,000 marks sterling in payment for recognition of Arthur and Constance’s sovereignty of Brittany.

The Duchy of Aquitaine was not included in the treaty. It was still held by John as heir to his still-living mother, Eleanor. The treaty was sealed with a marriage alliance between the Angevin and Capetian dynasties. Arthur’s Elder sister Eleanor married Philip's eldest son, Louis VIII of France (to be eventually known as Louis the Lion).

According to the treaty the claim to Toulouse and Provence via Philippa of Toulouse will be given to Berengaria of Castile, Queen of Aragon

Eleanor, Fair maid of Brittany and Louis the Lion were married in Paris on July 1200, the heavily pregnant Constance and Arthur of Brittany attended the wedding, the bride is 16 year old and the groom is 13 year old.
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