Alice OF FRANCE (1170?-1218)

Individual Events and Attributes

Additional Information

Marriage

Individual Note

Alys, Countess of the Vexin (4 October 1160 – c. 1220) was the daughter of King Louis VII of France and his second wife Constance of Castile.[1]

LifeAlys was the half-sister of Marie de Champagne and Alix of France, Louis's children by Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the younger sister of Marguerite of France. Just five weeks after Constance died giving birth to Alys, Louis married Adèle of Champagne, by whom he had two further children, including the future Philip II of France.

In January 1169, Louis and Henry II of England signed a contract for the marriage between Alys and Henry's son Richard.[2] The 8 year-old Alys was then sent to England as Henry's ward.

In 1177, Cardinal Peter of Saint Chrysogonus, on behalf of Pope Alexander III, threatened to place England's continental possessions under an interdict if Henry did not proceed with the marriage.[3] There were widespread rumors that Henry had not only made Alys his mistress, but that she had borne him a child. Henry died in 1189. Richard married Berengaria of Navarre on 12 May 1191, while still officially engaged to Alys.

Philip had offered Alys to Prince John, but Eleanor prevented the match.[4] Alys married William IV Talvas, Count of Ponthieu, on 20 August 1195, and had three daughters: Jean (stillborn), Marie, Countess of Ponthieu, and Isabelle. Marie was the grandmother of Eleanor of Castile, queen of Edward I of England and so ultimately Alys became ancestor of the English royal family.

NOTES:

1 Some genealogical sources and websites, relying on P. Anselme, Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France, 1725 (vol. 1 p. 77), state that Alys was born in 1170 and therefore that her mother was Louis VII's third wife, Alix de Blois (whom Louis married in 1164). The birth date of 1170 is impossible, however, not only because Alys was betrothed in January 1169, but because she must have been of marriageable age in 1177, when the Pope demanded that she be married immediately.

2 Robert of Torigny, Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. Richard Howlett, vol. 4 p. 240; John of Salisbury, Letters (ed. W. J. Millor, H. E. Butler) vol. 2 pp. 648–9.

3 Roger of Howden, Annals 1177.

4 Weir, Alison Eleanor of Aquitaine Jonathan Cape 1999

SOURCES:

Churchill, Winston. A History of the English Speaking People.

Poole, A.L. Domesday Book to Magna Carta.

Ralph of Diceto

Roger of Hovedon

Benedict of Peterborough

Gerald of Wales

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alys,_Countess_of_the_Vexin"²

Sources