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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Effigy of Isabel d'Angouleme, Queen of King John is in Monumental Effigies of Great Britain.
ISABEL D'ANGOULESME was the third and last wife of King John. She was daughter and inheritrix of Aymer Earl of Angoulesme. Her mother was Alice, daughter of Peter Lord of Courtenay, fifth son of Louis le Gros. She was married to King John in the first year of his reign, and crowned his queen on the 8th of October. She had issue by him, Henry (afterwards Henry III.); Richard Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans; Joan, married to Alexander the Second, King of the Scots; Eleanor, married to William Mareschal the younger, Earl of Pembroke; then to Simon de Montfort, the celebrated Earl of Leicester, who was slain at the battle of Evesham; and lastly, Isabel, who became the sixth and last wife of Frederick the Second, Emperor of Germany.
Surviving King John, she married Hugh Brun, Earl of Marche, and Lord of Lusignan and Valence, in Poitou. By him she had several children, some of whom were much advanced by Henry the Third, their half-brother, as William de Valence, created Earl of Pembroke; and Athelmar, raised to the Bishopric of Winchester. On the death of the Earl of Marche she took the veil at the monastery of Fontevraud [Map], and was at first unceremoniously interred in the churchyard of that place; her body was however taken up by order of her son, Henry the Third, and the effigy which is delineated placed over her remains.
Details. Plate 1. The camise, fermail, patterns on the border of the tunic and girdle. Plate II. Pattern of the border of the mantle.
