Jacquetta of Luxembourg
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Jacquetta of Luxembourg (1415/1416 – May 30, 1472) was the elder daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg, Comte de Saint Pol, Conversano et Brienne and his wife Margaret de Baux (Margherita del Balzo of Andria).
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[edit] Family and ancestry
Her father Peter I, comte de St-Pol was a hereditary Count of Briene from 1397 to his death in 1433.
Peter had succeeded his father John, Lord of Beauvoir and mother Marguerite of Enghien. They had co-reigned as Count and Countess of Brienn from 1394 to her death in 1397.
John was a fourth-generation descedant of Waleran I of Luxembourg, Lord of Ligny, second son of Henry V of Luxembourg and Margaret of Bar. This cadet line of the House of Luxembourg reigned in Ligny-en-Barrois.
Her mother Margaret de Baux was a daughter of Francois de Baux, Duke of Andria and Sueva Orsini. Sueva was a daughter of Nicola Orsini, Count of Nola (August 27, 1331 - February 14, 1399) and Jeanne de Sabrano.
Nicola Orsini was a son of Roberto Orsini, Count of Nola (1295-1345) and Sibilla del Balzo. Sibilla was a daughter of Hugh de Baux, Great Senechal of the Kingdom of Naples.
Roberto Orsini was a son of Romano Orsini, Royal Vicar of Rome and Anastasia de Montfort. Anastasia was the oldest daughter and heiress of Guy de Montfort, Count of Nola and Margherita Aldobranderschi.
Guy de Montfort was a son of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and Eleanor of England. Eleanor was the youngest child of John of England and his Queen consort Isabella of Angoulême.
Jacquetta herself was an eighth-generation descedant of John and thus distantly related to the Kings of England descending from him.
[edit] First marriage
On April 22, 1433 at 17 years of age, Jacquetta married John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford at Therouenne. The Duke was a son of King Henry IV of England and Mary de Bohun.
Jacquetta was a cousin of Sigismund of Luxembourg,the reigning Holy Roman Emperor, and King of Bohemia and Hungary. The marriage was meant to strengthen the ties of the Kingdom of England with the Holy Roman Empire and to increase English influence in the affairs of Continental Europe.
The marriage was childless and the Duke died on the night of September 14/15, 1435 at Rouen. There are famous events associated with this first marriage. Jacquetta's brother, Jean de Luxembourg, was the one who betrayed Joan of Arc and arrested her.[citation needed] He brought Joan in chains to Rouen castle, seat of the Duke of Bedford. During Joan's two year long trial there, she was attacked by a drunken English lord who, according to rumour, had taken her maidenhood. Joan had to be examined in order to prove this rumour false, and it was up to Jacquetta, as duchess of Rouen castle, to examine Joan of Arc and declare her maidenhood still intact.[citation needed] When Joan was burned in the castle courtyard, Jacquetta witnessed the execution beside a young Thomas Malory, later author of Le Morte D'Arthur, who remained attached to her throughout her life.[citation needed]
[edit] Second marriage
Sir Richard Woodville, son of Sir Richard Wydevill who had served as the late Duke's chamberlain, was commissioned by Henry VI of England to bring the young widow to England. During the rough journey, the couple fell in love and married in secret (before March 23, 1436/1437), without seeking the king's permission. Enraged, Henry VI refused to see them but was mollified by the payment of a fine.
By the mid-1440s, the Woodvilles were in ascendency. Queen Consort Margaret of Anjou influenced her husband Henry VI to create Richard Woodville 1st Earl Rivers in 1448. Jacquetta was related to both the Queen and the King. Her sister, Isabelle de Saint Pol, married the brother of Queen Margaret, while Jacquetta was herself the erstwhile widow of the uncle of Henry VI.
As royalty, she outranked all ladies at Court with the exception of the Queen herself. As a personal favourite and close relative of the Queen, she also enjoyed special previleges and influence at court. Happily married to the love of her life, Jacquetta bore Richard sixteen children, among them Elizabeth Woodville who was to become the wife of King Edward IV of England, and mother of Elizabeth of York (in her turn mother of King Henry VIII, thus making Jacquetta his great-grandmother).
Jacquetta weathered two accusations of witchcraft during her second marriage.[citation needed] Once by the mob that illegally beheaded her second husband and once when a little leaden figure of a man of arms "about the size of a thumb" bound up in wire was discovered among her personal effects.[citation needed] She was acquitted by her son-in-law, King Edward IV. But these instances were recalled and cited after her death when Richard III ordered Parliament in 1483 to attaint her daughter, the widowed Queen Elizabeth Woodville, for witchcraft.
[edit] Wars of the Roses
The death of her son-in-law Sir John Grey (Elizabeth's husband) in the Second Battle of St Albans (February 22, 1461) against King Edward IV brought out the strong calculating and manipulative mind in Jacquetta. Following her mother's directives, in 1464, Elizabeth (with her two minor sons) accosted Edward (out on a hunt) at Whittlebury Forest near the family home and pleaded with the King to return the confiscated estates of her husband to her sons. Thoroughly bewitched by her beauty, Edward offered to make her his mistress, but she held out for marriage. A desperate Edward married Elizabeth in secret, but the marriage was not disclosed as it would mean difficulty for the House of York. Once it became common knowledge, however, the alliance displeased Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, the King's most trusted ally, and his friends.
With Elizabeth as Queen of England, Jacquetta managed to find rich and influential spouses for all her children and helped her grandchildren achieve high posts. She arranged for her 20-year-old son, John Woodville, to marry the widowed and very rich dowager Duchess of Norfolk, Catherine Neville. The bride was at least forty years older than the groom at the time of the wedding. The marriage caused a furore and earned the Woodvilles considerable unpopularity. Catherine Neville's son, John de Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, especially, turned against the Queen and her family and vowed vengeance against the Yorkist allies for the slur on his family honour.
Sadly, the Woodvilles' luck soon ran out. The Lancastrian side (on which the Woodvilles found themselves) was the losing side in the the War of the Roses. In 1466, Richard Woodville was captured by Warwick and executed subsequently in 1469. A broken hearted Jacquetta survived her beloved husband by six years and died in 1472, at about 56 years of age.
Jacquetta was as influential in death as she was in life. She is credited with being the ancestress of most of present day European monarchs.
[edit] Children of Jacquetta de Luxembourg by Richard Woodville[1]
- Sir Edward Woodville (d. 1488)
- Richard Woodville, 3rd Earl Rivers (d. 1491)
- John Woodville
- Lewis Woodville
- Eleanor Woodville
- Martha Woodville
- Elizabeth Woodville (b. ca.1437, d. 1492)
- Anne Woodville (b. ca.1438, d. 1489). Married George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent.
- Margaret Woodville (b. ca.1439, d. ca.1490)
- Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers (b. ca.1440-42, d. 1483)
- Catherine Woodville (b. ca.1442, d. ca.1513)
- Mary Woodville (b. ca.1443, d. 1481)
- Sir John Woodville (b. ca.1445, d. 1469)
- Jacquetta Woodville (b. ca.1444-45, d. 1509)
- Lionel Woodville (b. ca.1446, d. 1484)
- Thomas Woodville
[edit] Notes
- ^ per Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy by Alison Weir
