Isabella
Isabella isn't a great name for Queen Consorts of England. There have been three of them and all married to unpopular, unsuccessful kings who lost huge amounts of power and in two cases, their crowns and their lives.
Let's start with the second Isabella, a French princess who is the first queen consort to be labeled a she wolf. Her father was King Philip IV of France and she was married for political gain at around the age of twelve to Edward II of England. He was 24, just one year into his reign and already very close to an adviser, Piers Gaveston.
Isabella, the She-Wolf of France, started off life as a pretty French princess with dreams of being a queen
Isabella was the only surviving daughter of King Philip IV of France. Her mother, Joan, died when she was young and she was used to being the most important woman at court. She arrived in England in 1308 with a fabulous wardrobe befitting a queen consort. But she soon found herself sidelined in favour of Gaveston.
Isabella supported her husband in his early reign despite the humiliations she encountered as he showered his favourite with gifts and gave him pride of place at court. The queen consort did her royal duties and the birth of her first child, the future Edward III, co-incided with the fall of Gaveston. For a little while, Isabella was queen of her court and mistress of all she surveyed.
Queen Consort Isabella - her nineteen year reign was mostly an unhappy one
But her husband soon had a new favourite, Hugh Despenser, and queen Isabella found herself shuffled off to the sidelines again where she produced three more children. But after the birth of her youngest child, Joan, in 1321 she began to rebel against her husband's devotion to the Despensers and if your brother is King of France then revenge on an ungrateful husband is just that little bit easier.
Off Isabella went to Paris to pay homage to her brother, now Charles IV, for some of her husband's French lands. She then sent a message to Edward saying that their son should also pay homage. And once the heir to the throne was in Paris, Isabella was in charge. She had hooked up with a powerful lord called Roger Mortimer, rumoured to be her lover, and together and led a coup against her husband that saw him toppled from his throne in 1327. He was taken to Berkeley Castle and his death announced soon afterwards. For centuries historians have argued about whether Isabella and Mortimer had him murdered, whether he died of natural causes or whether he escaped. Whatever happened to Edward, his son became Edward III in 1327 and after three years of mum and Mortimer ruling on his behalf, he had him executed and her sent on a tour of strong castles around England.
Isabella of France returns to England with her son, Edward, in her power
Isabella was called a She-Wolf for her role in the fall of her husband and the brutal revenge she took on the Despensers once she held power - Hugh Despenser was hanged, drawn and quartered. And once the rumour that she had ordered Edward II's death gained currency, they stuck. There's no doubt Isabella thought well of herself - her father and her three brothers were all kings and she was raised to be a queen consort. Her actions were gruesome at times but by the time she acted decisively her husband's reign was chaos, his country was slowly disintegrating and his administration was mistrusted.
The first queen Isabella of England was another young girl who married an older king. Isabella of Angouleme was a renowned beauty and already engaged when she caught the eye of the new king of England, John, in 1200. Like Edward he had just begun his reign and like Edward he wasn't really that good at being a king. Unlike her later namesake, this Isabella was showered with attention by her king.
Isabella of Angouleme was a much sought after bride but a fiancé didn't stand in the way of King John of England making her his second wife
John married Isabella despite massive opposition and as a result found the king of France had confiscated all his lands - Isabella's cast aside fiancé was one of the French king's lords. And he made the most of his marriage with some reports of him staying in bed until midday with his young wife. They had two sons and three daughters but Isabella saw her husband's reign turn into a disaster. He had to fight continuously to retain his French lands and when those campaigns ended badly he returned home to find his own barons in revolt. In 1215 he signed away much of his power in Magna Carta. When he died in 1216 Isabella arranged for her eldest son to be crowned as Henry III.
King John is forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215
But her power over him was short lived. Her daughter, Joan ,was engaged to the son of the man she had jilted to marry King John and was being raised at his court. Isabella visited her and so captivated her fiancé that he dumped her own daughter to marry her. She became the wife of Hugh Lusignan in 1220 and they had nine children. But like the later Isabella, this one like a bit of rebellion and when she thought she was being snubbed by the Queen of France she started to plot against her husband. She was accused of trying to kill King Louis of France in 1244 and only just escaped into Fontevraud Abbey where she died two years later.
The last queen Isabella of England was much less dramatic. She was extremely young when she was married to her king. Isabella of Valois was just six at the time of her wedding to Richard II in 1396. By then, the king's rule was wobbling considerably. He himself had been a boy king and exploited by advisers. His attempts to establish his own rule ended in disaster and he was deposed by his cousin, Henry IV, in 1399.
Isabella of Valois marries Richard II of England in 1396 - she was six and he was a 29 year old widower
The queen saw hardly anything of her husband during her brief stint as consort but they are said to have had a mutual respect for one another. After Richard was deposed he was held in Pontefract Castle but plans to put him back on the throne made him a dangerous person to have around and he died early in 1400, probably of starvation. Isabella was lined up to marry the new heir to the throne, Henry, but she refused and was eventually allowed to return to France where she married the Duke of Orleans. She died in childbirth at the age of 19. Ten years later her youngest sister, Katherine of Valois, married the man she had refused and became queen consort to Henry V.
Margaret
There are millions of Margarets in royal history. Well, not exactly millions but a myriad of them scattered through dynasties from the Plantagenets to the Windsors. So could it be an outside tip for a Cambridge princess? The two consorts called Margaret provide very different examples of queenship.
First, there's Margaret or Marguerite of France. She was the second wife of Edward I of England and married the sixty year old widower in 1299 when she was about twenty. Their wedding followed years of negotiations and fighting which had seen the ageing English king duped out of one royal French bride. But he was happy with his second wife and even happier when she provided two more male heirs for his nursery - only one of his sons with his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, had survived to adulthood.
Margaret or Marguerite of France was the second wife of Edward I of England and the only queen consort to name a daughter after her husband's dead wife
Edward had been devoted to Eleanor but when Marguerite had a daughter in 1305 it was her decision to name her little girl after her predecessor as consort. It surprised many but only increased her popularity. She was already a favourite with many for her tireless work in winning pardons from her royal husband for those in trouble with him. And he called her his 'pearl of great price' - Margaret means pearl. When he died in 1307, Margaret said that all men had died to her and she never married again, dying in 1318.
The second Margaret didn't win quite so many friends but she certainly influenced people. Margaret of Anjou married Henry VI of England in 1445 when she was 15 and he was 23. He was King of England and King of France and she was the daughter of a strong willed mother and an even stronger willed grandmother. She needed to be. Henry had serious mental health problems and within a decade of their marriage had broken down completely leaving his wife to try and rule his already destablised kingdom and raise their son, born in 1453.
Margaret of Anjou was Queen of England from 1445 to 1461 and briefly again in 1471 but her attempts to win back the throne for good in that year failed and she lost her husband and son in a very short period of time
Margaret excluded the Yorkist faction from a Great Council of England in 1455 and soon civil war engulfed the country. She wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty and joined in the fight but the Yorks prevailed and she was forced into exile from 1461 to 1470 when the Kingmaker, Warwick, changed sides and promised to put her husband back on the throne. But the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury did for the Lancastrian claim and also did for Margaret's son, Edward, who died in the latter battle. She was eventually allowed to return to Anjou where she lived the rest of her days in relative poverty.
Isabella and Margaret have checkered histories as names of queen consorts. But Marguerite, the version often given to Edward I's second queen, is coming back into fashion and was also one of the middle names of a hugely successful and popular queen consort, Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Might that be enough to persuade Kate and William to bring back one of the most well used royal names of all time for a girl who will be the first guaranteed to rule?
Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon after she became Queen of England and last Empress of India
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