Replacing sonless wife

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 19:52:02 +0100
From: "Stephen LARK" <smlark@...>
Subject: Divorce

Are you all watching the Tsars on Channel 4?
Tsar Vasily, during the 1510s and 1520s changes his wife after a long
marriage because she has not had a child.
So that's where Henry the Unspeakable got the idea from.


It was a common enough practice. Francis I replaced his wife Claude, daughter of the previous king.(I believe Claude had daughters but not sons, which means under Salic law that there were no heirs. That's one reason why he was willing to negotiate for Henry's remarriage to a French princess while Henry was still married to Katherine.

Carol




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--- In , Carol Mitchell
<carolshistory2@y...> wrote:
>
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 19:52:02 +0100
> From: "Stephen LARK" <smlark@t...>
> Subject: Divorce
>
> Are you all watching the Tsars on Channel 4?
> Tsar Vasily, during the 1510s and 1520s changes his wife after a
long
> marriage because she has not had a child.
> So that's where Henry the Unspeakable got the idea from.
>
>
> It was a common enough practice. Francis I replaced his wife
Claude, daughter of the previous king.(I believe Claude had daughters
but not sons, which means under Salic law that there were no heirs.
That's one reason why he was willing to negotiate for Henry's
remarriage to a French princess while Henry was still married to
Katherine.
>
> Carol
>
To cite another example, King John's first marriage, to Isabelle de
Clare, was annulled after ten years on grounds that she was barren.
Evidenbtly she was, because she married twice more and never produced
a child. (John's second wife was another Isabelle...sometimes I
think they did these things just to confuse future historians, but
the topper was Isabel de Spencer and her two husbands, Richard
Beauchamp and Richard Beauchamp.)

> To cite another example, King John's first marriage, to Isabelle de
> Clare, was annulled after ten years on grounds that she was barren.
> Evidenbtly she was, because she married twice more and never produced
> a child. (John's second wife was another Isabelle...sometimes I
> think they did these things just to confuse future historians, but
> the topper was Isabel de Spencer and her two husbands, Richard
> Beauchamp and Richard Beauchamp.)

Small point. John diverced Isabella of Gloucester in spite of much
opposition because he was totally smitten with the 14 year old Isabelle of
Angouleme who became his second queen and mother of his child. I thnk the
barren card was only thought about and thrown in when Isabelle one's father
objected to a divorce.
Paul