Royal Lives: The Devil’s Brood (6/7)-Joan of England, Queen of Sicily, Countess of Toulouse
“An illustrious lady….Like her mother, she was energetic, and farsighted”-Guillaume de Puylaurens
The third daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II, Joan was born in Anjou in 1165, spending her childhood with her mother and was possibly educated at Fontevraud Abbey. When she was 12, Joan was married to William II of Sicily and was crowed in Palmero. She seems to have enjoyed a harmonious marriage, however the union produced no surviving offspring. When William II died in 1189, his cousin, Tancred seized the throne and Joan’s dower possessions, leaving her with little resources. The next year, her brother, Richard landed in Sicily en route to the Holy Land and forced Tancred to cede Joan’s rightful possessions. Joan would accompany the Third Crusade east, with her eventual sister-in-law, Berengaria of Navarre, as her companion. Joan’s experiences on crusade saw her briefly captured in Cyprus and later, possibly offered in marriage by Richard to the brother of the Muslim leader, Saladin, and Philip II of France. Upon her return to Europe, Joan was married to Raymond VI of Toulouse in 1196, a union aimed at healing the hostile relations between the Angevin kings and the counts of Toulouse that had persisted for some time. It was not a happy marriage, whether due to relations between the spouses or conditions in Toulouse at the time. Facing the hostility of her husband’s vassals, in 1199, Joan, while heavily pregnant, fled to Richard’s lands, only to find he had died. With her mother’s support, Joan entered Fontevraud, asking to be veiled as a nun shortly before dying in childbirth at the age of 33. Joan had at least three known children, Raymond, Joan, and Richard, who died shortly after his mother.
BellezzoNero 