A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Blanche
BLANCHE of Castile, Daughter of Alphonso IX. called the Magnificent, King of Castile, and Eleanor of England, Wife of Lewis VIII. and Mother of Lewis IX. King of France, called Saint Lewis. Died 1253; aged 68.
Blanche was the second of eleven children, and educated by her mother, a wise and virtuous princess, with great care. When about fifteen or sixteen years of age, she was chosen to be the guarantee of a peace between two kingdoms, in becoming the wife of prince Lewis, son of Philip Augustus, king of France.
In the continual wars which happened between France and England in those times, much depended on the personal qualities of the monarch; and a weak prince was sure to lose those insecure possessions, which it had usually cost the wisest and bravest monarchs much time, blood, and treasure to secure or obtain. Perpetually reverting from one to the other, each felt little scruple in breaking treaties, when they could thereby recover, as it were, their own.
Philip Augustus had recovered, in this manner, by a breach of faith, Normandy, Touraine, Anjou, and Maine; Guyenne alone remained in the power of his rival John, who, fearing to lose all, hastened to propose an accommodation, of which the chief article was the marriage of his niece, Blanche of Castile, to the son of Philip. Eleanor of Aquitain, mother of John and grandmother of Blanche, went herself to Spain to demand the young princess; and the nuptials were celebrated in 1900. In 1216, Lewis was invited to England by the discontented barons, who offered him the crown of that kingdom, in right of his wife. Soon afterwards the death of her brother, the only son of Alphonso IX. gave Blanche an undoubted claim to the kingdom of Castile; but her younger sister, Berengaria, already regent of the kingdom, and queen of Leon, assumed the sovereignty, which Lewis, who thought himself secure of the crown of England, neglected to secure. When the death of John raised a competitor less obnoxious to the people, and obliged him to return, it was too late to assert her right to a throne already filled and recognised by the Spaniards.
During all the reign of Philip, Lewis and Blanche were much at court, where the beauty and fine qualities of the latter made her equally loved and admired. In 1223, they mounted the throne. She was a tender friend and counsellor to her husband, and the dispenser of his rewards and pardons. Pope Honorius III. the next year, engaged the zealous monarch to begin anew the war against the Albigenses, which his father had prosecuted with so much success; and while engaged in it, he died after a reign of three years, in 1226, after appointing Blanche regent of the kingdom and guardian to her son. Some would not believe that he died a natural death: they remarked, that Thibaud, count of Champagne, who had followed him to the crusade against the Albigenses, had quitted him without taking leave, after the forty days fixed by the feudal laws for the service of a vassal. They were obliged only to remain so long; but, in general, honour and chivalry, especially when religious motives were superadded, retained them near their chief, till the object for which he had called them together was accomplished, Thibaud who loved the queen, soothed his passions by verses, and all the romantic folly of the times. He could not bear this long absence from her sight, and asked leave of absence, which, not being able to obtain, he went without it.
The king, whether he knew, or only suspected the motive for this disobedience, or that the action alone sufficed to irritate him, dropped some menaces which determined the count to rid himself of a rival, and forestall the rage of a superior. Such is nearly the foundation on which M. Paris rests the conjecture that Lewis was poisoned by Thibaud. No suspicion of knowledge or connivance was ever cast on Blanche. They had nine sons and two daughters; five only of the former were living at the death of their father, and all in their infancy. Blanche justified the choice of her husband; she did all that was right and proper in her new character.
From the absence, or flight of the nobility, many of them refusing, upon various pretences, to attend her son's coronation, she found herself in a species of solitude; but, putting her trust in Heaven, she exerted her utmost powers, in despite of discouragement.
"It was a woman, and a foreign woman," says M. Gaillard, "who was seen, for the first time, under the third race of our monarchs, to dare possess herself of the regency; but this woman was the grand-daughter of Henry the second and Eleanor of Aquitain, it was Blanche of Castile." This extraordinary woman, who, to unrivalled beauty, to wit, eloquence, and address, joined the undaunted spirit of a hero, and the foresight and prudence of the most enlightened politician, soon gave a form to the government, and confided the education of her son to the constable de Montmorenci, the greatest statesman and warrior in France. All those she placed about the prince, and her other children, were remarkable for their knowledge and piety.
Blanche had given much of her confidence to one, who, though wise, was, like herself, a foreigner, the cardinal Romain Bonaventura, legate in France, whom she might almost be said to associate in the government. The uncivilized nobility, believing themselves degraded by the dominion of a woman and a priest, believed a pretence was now given them to reassume their power and their tyranny, which Lewis the Fat, and Philip Augustus, had humbled. They assembled together, took up arms, and the princes of the blood, discontented at being excluded from the regency, joined with them. It was a common opinion amongst the vulgar, that they owed no duty to the king till he was crowned; and, knowing the influence of these prejudices on the minds of the people, Blanche was anxious to expedite the ceremony. She summoned all the nobility of the kingdom to Rheims: she was informed of the bad intentions of many, particularly of the duke of Brittany; but this did not delay her design; she went to Rheims well guarded. The young king was crowned in that city: and though it was now December, the rigour of the season did not deter the regent from taking her son into Brittany, to make his first essay in war against the rebels. Among the rest was Thibaud, C. of Champagne. The air of disgrace thrown upon him by his quarrel with the late king, made them reckon much upon him. Their confidence was imprudent, and it was betrayed. It is said, this politic queen made the passions of the young count, whom, herself forty years of age, she disdained, serve her designs, and ordered him to enter into the league, for the purpose of revealing its secrets to her. However this may be, the diligence of Blanche disconcerted all the movements of this cabal. She came upon them in Brittany, when they were unprepared, dispersed, and engaged with them separately; adding to every other advantage, that of sowing disunion amongst them.
After composing those troubles, Blanche, by offering pardon to the Albigenses, on condition of their renouncing their opinions, persuaded their count to abjure them in a public and humiliating manner. But the quiet of the kingdom was disturbed by the intrigues of the malecontent princes. They wanted to get possession of the person of the king, but the ever-awakened vigilance of Blanche defeated all their measures; she raised three armies at one time; one made head against the English, who were come over to Normandy to take advantage of the troubles; one in Touraine, against the allies of the duke of Brittany; and the other laid siege to Belesme, a place then very strong in Per die. The queen was with this part. She visited the camp, and saw that all were taken care of. Once, when it was very cold, she had large fires lighted during the night, near the men at arms and the horses. Watchful and enterprising as she was, aided by the constable de Montmorenci, easy to pardon, on submission, and always fortunate, Blanche found perpetual occasion for new efforts; and the last years of her regency were employed in securing that peace she had so laboured to obtain, in rendering more easy the administration of justice, in redoubling her charities to the poor, and founding many rich monasteries.
In 1233, she made a truce with England, and the next year delivered into the hands of her son the sovereign authority. That son to whom she had often said, "I would rather a thousand times consent to lose you, all royal as you are, and more dear to me than all the world contains, than know you to commit a fault which may deprive you of the protection of Heaven." This prince paid all the deference to her which such a mother merited. From regent she became prime minister. Blanche loved power, but she loved also the glory of her son, and the concord which existed between them was the source of the prosperity of her reign.
In 1248, Lewis, in pursuance of a vow he had made in sickness, undertook an expedition to the Holy Land, leaving his mother regent during his absence. Blanche warmly but ineffectually remonstrated against this action; for, though pious, she was elevated above the political errors of her age, and saw the folly of this waste of blood and treasure. But, when once it was determined, she sought only to render it as little prejudicial to him and to France as possible. She sent him frequent succours of men and money. She watched over his interest, and that of her son Alphonso, who had married the heiress of Provence, and was with him. The news from Egypt was at all times distressing. Whether Lewis was beaten or successful, France lost her youth, and new claims were made upon the treasury. Divided between her maternal fondness and her interest in the public welfare, Blanche sought to perform her duties towards each. She strove to maintain peace and abundance at home, and yet to supply her son with liberality. She suffered by these cares; and when the news arrived that the army was cut to pieces, her son, the count d’Artois, massacred by the infidels, and St. Lewis himself, with the greater part of the princes and nobility taken prisoners, her noble heart failed her, and her health received a considerable shock. From this time she was always weak and languid, but yet redoubled her cares, at least to preserve that state she would have rendered prosperous from ruin. She sent immense sums into Egypt for the ransom of the young monarch, expecting his return, and that of her other children, with great anxiety. Two of his brothers arrived in 1251; but her joy was diminished by a letter from the king, who had determined not to leave Palestine till he had put affairs into a better posture, and demanded new succours. She deplored in silence the infatuation of her son, but she followed his orders.
Disorders, of which the crusades were the origin, arose in the provinces, and a civil war commenced, in which, as usual, the talents of Blanche rendered her successful. Her humanity also was called into action by the unjust pretensions of some ecclesiastics, particularly those of Notre Dame, who pretended to have powers of life and death over the peasants of their jurisdiction. She went in person to the prisons belonging to them, and finding the soldiers hesitated to burst open the doors, struck at them first herself, which emboldened the rest, who soon burst them, and set free the miserable captives. After this, she seized the temporalities of the canons, till they returned to their duty: hut wishing to temper the most exact justice with mercy, she declared the villages, whose inhabitants had been so ill treated, affranchised from those odious rights of the chapter, on condition that they paid a reasonable sum for their liberty.
Her health becoming every day more enfeebled, the physicians counselled her to leave Paris for the country. She went to Melun, and passed there the autumn of the year 1253. A slow and continued fever was upon her; and, feeling that she had but little time to live, she returned to Paris, received the sacraments of the church, and, according to the custom of the age, entered into a conventual order, just before her death, which, undoubtedly, was hastened by the regret she felt, that her toils, for the welfare of France and the prosperity of her dear and excellent son, were in vain.
Her extreme fondness for this son was a source of a sort of enmity between her and his wife. Both loved him too well to love each other. One wanted to govern him without a competitor, and the other to be governed only by him. Lewis managed this point between them in a manner that shewed great simplicity of manners and refined tenderness. Blanche was jealous of his confidence in Margaret; and whenever she found him in her apartments, a marked coldness, an involuntary sharpness, shewed the indignant feeling of her soul. They therefore taught a little dog to announce her arrival; and the moment the animal gave warning, the king went out at a back door. Once, when Margaret was supposed to be dying, the queen dowager found Lewis attempting to succour her; she feared for him the melancholy sight of his wife's death, which seemed fast approaching, and, taking him by the hand, to lead him away, said, in an awful tone, "you are always here."—"Ah," cried Margaret, sorrowfully, who saw only cruelty to her in this maternal anxiety, "will you never let me see my dear lord, either in life or death?" and, on the king's leaving the room, fainted away: he was soon recalled, and Margaret restored to life. It was thus that this amiable monarch was beloved. But though, on the first view, we may blame his mother, let it be considered that her political abilities were of the first order; and that had the well-intentioned Margaret possessed an equal mind, she might more readily have yielded up her influence, to a vigilance, a sagacity, an interest like his own. But her life seems to have been wound up in the glory and happiness of her son; and, with religious fidelity, she not only taught him to fulfil his duties to his people, but seconded herself every view to that end, with indefatigable zeal and activity.