Moments in Royal History: January 19

1419 - The French city of Rouen surrendered to Henry V of England during the Hundred Years' War

Rouen as seen from the air.

     Rouen was the capital city of the Duchy of Normandy and the home of its dukes, including William the Conqueror until he moved his residence to Caen. By the reign of Henry II of England in 1154, it was one of the principal cities within the Angevin Empire, the collection of states and provinces ruled by Plantagenet's, who were originally the Count's of Anjou - hence the name "Angevin". The result was that the kings of England were also vassals of the kings of France, but the vastness of the Empire threatened to undermine the authority of French kings. In 1204, Philip Augustus of France marched into Rouen and took over Normandy as part of a personal campaign to break up the Angevin Empire. 


     Henry V's taking of Rouen more than 200 years later competed his reconquest of Normandy in the name of his ancestors, and was part of his bid restore that Empire and eventually claim dominion over all of France.


Photo Credit: Muffin76 via Wikimedia Commons cc

Royal Profile: Catherine of Valois

Queen Catherine

     On this day in 1437, Catherine of Valois died in London at the age of 35.

     She was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria, and was married to Henry V of England in 1420 when he was recognized as her father's heir in France as a result of Henry's victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt and the Treaty of Troyes. At the time of the union, Henry was 34 whilst Catherine was just 19, and she was taken to England to be crowned as Queen consort in 1421. At the end of that year, she gave birth to a son named Henry, who became Henry VI as an infant due to his father's death in August 1422. 

     Catherine eventually entered into a relationship with a Welshman named Owen Tudor, who was in the service of Henry V's steward, Sir Walter Hungerford and may have fought at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Tudor was closer in age to Catherine than was Henry V, and they were supposed to have married in 1428 or 1429. It is not known if this marriage were legal at the time or if it even happened since no surviving documents attest to its occurrence. They had four children, who were declared legitimate by Parliament and their half-brother, Henry VI. The eldest of those children, Edmund Tudor, was named Earl of Richmond and became the father of Henry Tudor, who would eventually become Henry VII of England.

     Queen Catherine died soon after childbirth in 1437, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.