Ingeborg of Denmark (1175-1238)

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Ingeborg of Denmark (1175 - 1237 or 1238) was the daughter of King Valdemar I of Denmark and the queen of king Philip II of France, even if the latter tried to divorce her over two decades.

On August 15, 1193 Ingeborg married the King Philip Augustus of France at Amiens and was renamed Isambour. The couple was crowned the next day in the town cathedral.

Political reasons for this royal marriage are disputed, but Philip probably wanted to gain better relations to Denmark because the countries had been in different sides in the schism of the future succession to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Possibly he also wanted more allies against the rival Angevin dynasty. As a dowry, he had asked the support of Danish fleet for a year and the right to any remaining claims Denmark had to the throne of England. Knud VI, Ingeborg's brother, agreed only to a dowry of 10.000 silver marks. Marriage had been negotiated through Philip's adviser Bernard of Vincennes and Guillaume, the abbot of the Danish monastery of Aebelholt.

However, soon after the marriage, king demanded that the marriage must be dissolved. When Ingeborg protested, king closed her in a convent and sent a letter to Pope Celestine II, asking annulment of the marriage because he, for "bodily reasons", could not have consummated it. (Historians have presented many theories for his exact reason from temporary impotence to bouts of sweating sickness). Ingeborg, however, stated that the marriage had been consummated.

Next the king Philip tried to get the marriage annulled for reason of consanquity. Three months after the wedding, he summoned an ecclesiastical council in Compiègne and had it to draw a false family tree to show that he and Ingeborg would have been related through Philip's first wife. Contemporary Canon law stated that a man and a woman could not marry if they shared an ancestor within the last seven generations. The council therefore declared the marriage void.

Ingeborg protested again and the Danes sent a delegation to meet Pope Celestine. They convinced him that the spurious family tree was false but the pope merely declared the divorce null and prohibited Philip from marrying again. Philip ignored the Pope's verdict.

Ingeborg spent the next 20 years in virtual imprisonment in various French castles. In one stage he spent more than a decade in the castle of Étambes southwest of Paris. His brother Knud VI and his advisers continually worked against the annulment. Contemporary sources also indicate that many of Philip's advisers in France supported Ingeborg.

Meanwhile, in 1196, the king married Princess Agnès of Méranie and later they had three children. However, in 1198, new Pope Innocent III declared that this new marriage was void because the previous marriage was still valid. He ordered Philip to dismiss Agnes and take Ingeborg back. Ingeborg had written to him, stating abuse and isolation and claiming thoughts of suicide because of harsh treatment. When the king did not comply, Pope placed France under interdict in 1199 until September 1200 when Philip said he would obey. He later reneged on that promise. Agnes died the following year.

In 1201 Philip asked the Pope to declare his children legitimate and the Pope complied to gain his political support. However, later that year Philip again asked for annulment, claiming that Ingeborg had tried to bewitch him in the wedding night and thus made him unable to consummate the marriage. So he asked for divorce on the grounds of witchcraft. This attempt failed as well.

Ingeborg's father continued to pressure king Philip and the argument continually worsened the king's relationship with the papacy. Eventually, in 1213, he finally agreed to recognize Ingeborg as his queen, albeit not his wife. Later in his deathbed he had attributed to telling his son Louis VIII to treat her well. Later both Louis VIII and Louis IX acknowledged Ingeborg as a legitimate queen.

Ingeborg of Denmark died in either 1237 or 1238 and was buried in the Church of the Order of St John in Corbeil.