After some pretty good experiences with other Alison Weir books, I was pretty confident in buying more of her biographies. I’ve read a bit about Isabella of France from Helen Castor’s book, She-Wolves, so I was excited to delve into the life of this fascinating woman.

Born to a royal line, French Princess Isabella is married off at the age of twelve to Edward II of England. Unfortunately, Edward was more taken with his current favourite, Piers Gaveston, and his actions during their wedding were serious enough to anger Isabella’s relatives. After Gaveston dies at the hands of angry nobles, Isabella and Edward have a somewhat peaceful family life, with Isabella proving herself to be a good and capable queen. Unfortunately, history repeats when Edward’s new favourite, Hugh Despenser the Younger, gains power and essentially rules England as a petty tyrant. Isabella flees to France, falls in love with one of the rebels, successfully deposes her husband to put her son on her throne, and then is overthrown herself because she can’t say no to her lover (history repeats itself again).

Yes, that is quite a story.

Because the first time I heard of Isabella was in She-Wolves, I’m a bit unfamiliar with her negative reputation. Weir sets out to rehabilitate the image of Isabella, and I think she managed to present a pretty positive account of a smart and savvy Queen who managed to protect herself against enemies (especially since she was on her own since the age of twelve!). But you do have to bear in mind that because this book was written, as least partly as a counter for the negative press Isabella has received over the years, Weir refers to those historians quite a bit so that she can disprove them. In some sense, this book is a refutation of other books.

I’m not a historian so I can’t comment on this, but Weir does take two stands in areas that I understand may be contentious:

1. She argues that Edward and Piers (and later, Hugh) were lovers and that Edward was either gay or bisexual (I’m not sure if this is still debated but a cursory search on the internet makes it seem like it is?)
2. She argues that there is a strong possibility that Edward escaped after being imprisoned by Mortimor and Isabella. This is a bit harder to believe, since it comes after Weir arguing that certain accounts of Edward’s death in captivity were likely to be fake.

Overall, Queen Isabella is a fascinating and sympathetic biography of Isabella of France. I finished this book with no small amount of respect for Isabella and what she managed to accomplish despite being constrained by her society (and, I would argue, the disadvantage of having to come of age in a foreign court).