Catherine of Valois (27 October 1401 – 3 January 1437) was a French princess of the House of Valois who became Queen of England as the wife of King Henry V of England. Her marriage to Henry V was a political element of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) and produced the future King Henry VI of England. Widowed in 1422, she later formed a relationship with and (according to contemporary and near-contemporary sources) secretly married Owen Tudor, a connexion that produced the Tudor line; her grandson would later become Henry VII of England.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Catherine was born at the Hôtel Saint-Pol in Paris, the second surviving daughter of King Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria. Her childhood was marked by her father's recurring bouts of mental illness and the factional politics of the French court; she spent much of her early life in the complicated environment of the Valois household.
Queen of England (1420–1422)[]
As part of the settlement following English victories in France, the Treaty of Troyes arranged the marriage between Catherine and King Henry V of England. The marriage (celebrated 2 June 1420 at Troyes) made Catherine Queen consort of England and was intended to cement Henry’s position as heir and regent of France under the treaty’s terms. She became mother to Henry V’s only legitimate son, the future [[Henry VI of England|]Henry VI], who was born in December 1421. Henry V died in August 1422; Catherine was left a young widow and queen dowager.
Widowhood and the Owen Tudor connection[]
After Henry V’s death Catherine remained in England as queen dowager. English councilors were anxious to control her remarriage because of the political significance of any husband; for a time she lived under household restrictions imposed by the council. Sometime in the later 1420s she entered into a relationship with Owen Tudor, a Welsh courtier. Contemporary evidence indicates the relationship was kept secret and that the couple likely married informally — the marriage is not well documented in official registers, but later Tudor genealogies and multiple sources record that Catherine bore Owen several children, including Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond and Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, establishing the line that would produce Henry VII of England. The secrecy and informality of the union meant Catherine did not obtain a royal licence to remarry, which later created political and legal complications.
Death and burial[]
Catherine died on 3 January 1437 at Bermondsey Abbey (then a royal and religious house in Surrey/Greater London). She was buried in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey; her remains were later moved and treated in various ways during subsequent alterations to the Abbey, but Westminster has traditionally commemorated her as queen consort of Henry V.
Legacy[]
Catherine’s historical importance rests on her role as the link between the Valois and Tudor dynasties in England. Through her son Henry VI she was mother of an infant king whose weak reign contributed to later dynastic conflict, and through her children by Owen Tudor she was an ancestor of the Tudor dynasty which took the throne in 1485. Her life is often discussed in two contrasting lights: as a political pawn in the dynastic wars between England and France, and as a widow whose private choices (real or rumoured) had major dynastic consequences.
Gallery[]
| Queen consort of England | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Joan of Navarre |
1420–1422 | Succeeded by: Margaret of Anjou |