Jeanne and Edouard

On this day in 1306 John de Warenne, heir to the earldoms of Surrey and Sussex, was married to Edward I's granddaughter Jeanne de Bar. She was the child of the king's eldest daughter Eleanor (died 1298) and Comte Henri du Bar. Or, depending on context, Graf Heinrich von der Bar: the province of Bar lay on the fringes of the Holy Roman Empire, and to an extent the franco-imperial borderlands resembled the Marches of Wales i.e. a hotchpotch of shifting identities.

Oh, what tangled webs. Eleanor had been married off to Henri as part of Edward I's policy of constructing dynastic alliances with the best blood of the empire and the Low Countries. To that end he married off several of his daughters to the counts of Bar and Holland and the Duke of Brabant. These political marriages didn't always go without a hitch. For instance, at the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth in 1297, the king had a blazing row with the bride and threw her coronet into the fire. It was quickly repaired, and a Wardrobe account book also notes hefty compensation Edward paid to a random esquire, whom – for unknown reasons – the old man had seen fit to thrash with a cane. Too much drink had been taken, methinks.

When war broke with France in 1294, these alliances came into play. In June Eleanor's husband, Comte Henri, invaded Champagne in north-east France on behalf of his father-in-law, destroying the abbey of Beaulieu and throwing down several castles. This was supposed to be part of a combined operation with Adolf of Nassau, the German emperor, but he failed to send requested military aid until September.

A much later 16th century French account claimed Henri was taken prisoner by Joan of Navarre, Philip IV's consort, but this was a folk-tale. Unfortunately it was very popular and has influenced histories of medieval France up to the present day. A recent study of Edward I's daughters has presented Jean as a lonely but heroic figure, guarding her husband's lands while he languished in prison. In reality he spent autumn 1297 collecting more troops to fight the French, only for the war to peter out into a truce.

Eleanor died in 1298, aged just 29. Her husband died in Naples in 1301 and the couple left two children, Edouard and Jeanne. Edouard, named after his grandfather, fought in the War of Metz (don't ask) and apparently constructed a 'hydraulic forge' at Moyveure-Grande in north-east France. So now you know.

Note: at the siege of Metz in 1324 it is said (by Wikipedia) that cannons were used for the first time in Western Europe. Boom.