Marie of Brabant, Queen of France

Marie of Brabant
Queen consort of France
Tenure	21 August 1274 – 5 October 1285
Born	(1254-05-13)13 May 1254 Leuven
Died	12 January 1322(1322-01-12) (aged 67) Les Mureaux, France
Burial	Cordeliers Convent, Paris
Spouse	Philip III of France
Issue	Louis d'Évreux Blanche, Duchess of Austria Margaret, Queen of England
House	House of Reginar
Father	Henry III, Duke of Brabant
Mother	Adelaide of Burgundy
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Marie, at her coronation

Marie of Brabant (13 May 1254 – 12 January 1322^[1]) was Queen consort of France. Born in Leuven, Brabant, she was a daughter of Henry III, Duke of Brabant, and Adelaide of Burgundy.

Marriage

Marie married the widowed Philip III of France on 21 August 1274. His first wife, Isabella of Aragon, had already given birth to three surviving sons: Louis, Philip and Charles.

Philip was under the strong influence of his mother, Margaret of Provence and his minion, surgeon and chamberlain (Chambellan) Pierre de La Broce. Not being French, Marie stood out at the French court. In 1276, Marie's stepson Louis died under suspicious circumstances. Marie was suspected of ordering him to be poisoned. La Brosse, who was also suspected, was imprisoned and later executed for the murder. Margaret suspected Marie of ordering the death of Louis, and Philip did seem to agree more with his mother than his wife.

Widowhood

After the death of Philip III in 1285, Marie lost some of her political influence, and dedicated her life to their three children: Louis (May 1276 – 19 May 1319), Blanche (1278 - 19 March 1305) and Margaret (died in 1318). Her stepson, Philip IV was crowned king of France on 6 January 1286 in Reims.

Together with Joan I of Navarre and Blanche of Artois, she negotiated peace in 1294 between England and France with Edmund Crouchback, the younger brother of Edward I of England.^[2]

Marie lived through Philip IV's reign and she outlived her children. She died in 1321, aged 66, in the monastery at Les Mureaux, near Meulan, where she had withdrawn to in 1316. Marie was not buried in the royal necropolis of Basilica of Saint-Denis, but in the Cordeliers Convent, in Paris. Destroyed in a fire in 1580, the church was rebuilt in the following years.

Ancestry

See also

• Marie of Brabant (disambiguation)

Notes

Sources

• Morris, Marc (2008). Edward I and the Forging of Britain. Windmill Books 2009. 
• Grandes Chroniques de France. Jules Marie Édouard Viard, trans. and ed. Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1930.