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Catherine of Valois (27 October 1401 – 3 January 1437) was the Queen consort of England from 1420 until 1422.

Early life

Catherine of Valois was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and Isabella of Bavaria-Ingolstadt. She was born on October 27, 1401, in Paris.

On June 2, 1420, she was given in marriage to King Henry V of England, but only after Henry's demand for return of Normandy and Aquitaine as part of the marriage pact which was triggered by the Battle of Agincourt and the subsequent Treaty of Troyes. As part of the treaty, Henry won control of Normandy and Aquitaine, became regent of France during Charles' lifetime, and won the right to succeed on Charles' death.

If this had come to pass, France and England would have been united under one monarch. However, Charles outlived Henry V by two months and Catherine of Valois thus never became Queen of France.

Catherine of Valois was crowned Queen of England at Westminster Abbey in February, 1421. The only issue of Catherine and Henry, the future Henry VI of England, was born on 6 December, 1421. Then Henry V died on 31 August, 1422. Catherine was given Wallingford Castle, where she retired, distant from the Court and from her infant son.

Second marriage

At Wallingford Castle, she turned for comfort to Owen Tudor, a direct descendant of Rhys Ap Gruffydd (a ruler of the kingdom of Deheubarth in South Wales), who would become the founding father of the Tudor dynasty. In 1428, Parliament reacted to the rumours about this relationship by forbidding queens dowager from marrying without the king's permission. There is no record of their marriage, which is believed to have taken place in around 1428 (based on the dates of birth of their children).

She gave birth to at least six of Owen Tudor's children:

• Owen Tudor (1429-1501). He was a monk at Westminster.
• Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond (1430 - November 1, 1456), married Lady Margaret Beaufort. Father of King Henry VII.
• Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford (1431 - December 21/26, 1495), married Katherine Woodville, daughter to Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers and Jacquetta of Luxembourg. No issue. He did have two illegitimate children.
• Jacina Tudor (1433 - 1469).
• Daughter Mary Tudor born (1432). She married Thomas Gray (1430-1501); they had a daughter Jane Gray (1475-1509)--Note: This was an earlier "Mary Tudor" than Henry VIII's sister; and an earlier Jane Gray with different spelling of last name, than the Jane Grey who was executed. Jane Gray b. 1475, had a daughter Jane Mercer, and granddaughter Jane Wilkinson. Ref. below: OneWorld Tree of ancestry.com

• Daughter Tudor. (born c. 1435) She became a nun.
• Margaret (Katherine) Tudor (born January 1437). Died young.

Death and burial

Catherine died on January 3, 1437, shortly after childbirth, in London, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Her second husband, Owen Tudor, lived on until 1461, when he was executed by the Yorkists following the Battle of Mortimer's Cross. Their sons were given earldoms by King Henry VI after Catherine's death. Edmund would become the father of the future King Henry VII of England.

The wooden funeral effigy which was carried at her funeral still survives at Westminster Abbey and is on display at the Undercroft Museum. Her tomb originally boasted an alabaster memorial, which was deliberately destroyed during extensions to the abbey in the reign of her grandson, Henry VII. It has been suggested that Henry ordered her memorial to be removed to distance himself from his common ancestry. At this time, her coffin lid was accidentally raised, revealing her corpse, which for generations became a tourist attraction. In 1669 the diarist Samuel Pepys kissed the long-deceased queen on his birthday:

On Shrove Tuesday 1669, I to the Abbey went, and by favour did see the body of Queen Catherine of Valois, and had the upper part of the body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it I did kiss a Queen: and this my birthday and I thirty-six years old and I did kiss a Queen.

— Samuel Pepys

Catherine's remains were not properly re-interred until the reign of Queen Victoria.

External links

• Mary Tudor b. 1432: With sourced Ancestry of Owen Tudor, as daughter of Owen Tudor and Catherine De Valois; and Mary Tudor's daughter Jane Gray lived 1475-1509, earlier Jane than Jane Grey who was daughter of the later Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII) at http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/person.aspx?tid=3071280&pid=-1716367594

• Heidi Murphy Catherine of Valois (1401-1437)

References

Historical fiction

Catherine of Valois is the subject of Rosemary Hawley Jarman's novel "Crown in Candlelight" (1978)

• In the book, "The Queen's Secret" by Jean Plaidy, Catherine is the title character.
• William Shakespeare's play Henry V depicts Catherine of Valois' marriage to Henry V of England after the Battle of Agincourt.

• Articles lacking sources from September 2007
• English royal consorts
• French princesses
• People of the Hundred Years' War
• House of Valois
• House of Lancaster
• House of Tudor
• Ladies of the Garter
• Women of medieval England
• Women of medieval France
• Burials at Westminster Abbey
• 1401 births
• 1437 deaths