Catherine of Valois

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Catherine of Valois (27 October 1401 – 3 January 1437) was the Queen consort of England from 1420 until 1422.

The relation of Catherine of Valois to the history of England is remarkable: she was the daughter of a king (Charles VI of France), the wife of a king (Henry V of England), the mother of a king (Henry VI of England) and grandmother of a king (Henry VII of England) (through Edmund Tudor).

Catherine (or Katherine) of Valois was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and Isabeau de Bavière. She was born on October 27, 1401, in Paris. On June 2, 1420, she was given in marriage to King Henry V of England, but only after Henry's demand for return of Normandy and Aquitaine as part of the marriage pact triggered the Battle of Agincourt and the subsequent Treaty of Troyes. (Henry's original choice of a bride was Catherine's older sister, Isabella of Valois.) As part of the treaty, Henry won control of Normandy and Aquitaine, became regent of France during Charles' lifetime, and won the right to succeed on Charles' death. If this had come to pass, France and England would have been united under one monarch.

Catherine of Valois was crowned Queen of England at Westminster Abbey in February, 1421. The only issue of Catherine and Henry, the future Henry VI of England, was born on 6 December 1421. Then Henry V suddenly died on 31 August 1422.

Catherine was given Wallingford Castle, but effectively exiled from court, suspicion falling on her nationality. The regents kept her away from her child, and she turned for comfort to Owen Tudor, a Welsh courtier, who would become the founding father of the Tudor dynasty. In 1428 Parliament reacted to the rumors about this relationship by forbidding Catherine from marrying without consent of the king and the council. Historians are divided on whether Catherine had already married Owen Tudor before that Act of Parliament, or whether they married secretly in 1429, or whether they married at all (some have suggested that this was a morganatic marriage). Although Catherine was forbidden to marry, there was a general lack of interest in her on the part of the authorities.

In any case, she gave birth to at least five of Owen Tudor's children. One daughter died in infancy and another daughter and three sons survived. One son, Owen, became a monk. Their other two sons, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond and Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford, were to play an important role in the future of the English monarchy. Their surviving Daughter, Tacina died in May of 1469.

Catherine died on January 3, 1437, in London, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Her husband or lover, Owen Tudor, lived on until 1461, when he was executed by the Yorkists following the Battle of Mortimer's Cross. Their sons were given earldoms by King Henry VI after Catherine's death. Edmund would become the father of the future King Henry VII of England.

The wooden funeral effigy which was carried at her funeral still survives at Westminster Abbey and is on display at the Undercroft Museum. Her tomb originally boasted an alabaster memorial, which was deliberately destroyed during extensions to the abbey in the reign of her grandson, Henry VII. It has been suggested that Henry ordered her memorial to be removed to distance himself from his dubious ancestry. At this time, her coffin lid was accidentally raised, revealing her corpse, which for generations became a tourist attraction. In 1669 the diarist Samuel Pepys kissed the long-deceased queen on his birthday:

"On Shrove Tuesday 1669, I to the Abbey went, and by favour did see the body of Queen Katherine of Valois, and had the upper part of the body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it I did kiss a Queen: and this my birthday and I thirty-six years old and I did kiss a Queen."

Catherine's remains were not properly re-interred until the reign of Queen Victoria.

Preceded by: Joanna of Navarre

Queen Consort of England 2 June 1420 - 31 August 1422

Succeeded by: Margaret of Anjou