House of Lusignan
The House of Lusignan was a royal house of French origin, which at various times ruled several principalities in Europe and the Levant, including the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Armenia, from the 12th through the 15th centuries during the Middle Ages. It had great influence in England and France; the family originated in Poitou, near Lusignan in western France, in the early 10th century. By the end of the 11th century, the family had risen to become the most prominent petty lords in the region from their castle at Lusignan. In the late 12th century, through marriages and inheritance, a cadet branch of the family came to control the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus. In the early 13th century, the main branch succeded in the Counties of La Angoulême; as Crusader kings in the Latin East, they soon had connections with the Hethumid rulers of the Kingdom of Cilicia, which they inherited through marriage in the mid-14th century. The Armenian branch fled to France, Russia, after the Mamluk conquest of their kingdom.
The claim was taken by the Cypriot branch. This kingdom was annexed by the Republic of Venice in the late 15th century; the Château de Lusignan, near Poitiers, was the principal seat of the Lusignans. It was destroyed during the Wars of Religion, only its foundations remain in Lusignan. According to legend, the earliest castle was built by the folklore water-spirit Melusine; the lords of the castle at Lusignan were counts of La Marche, over which they fought with the counts of Angoulême. Hugh I Hugh II Hugh III Hugh IV Hugh V Hugh VI inherited by collateral succession the County of La Marche as a descendant of Almodis. Hugh VI Hugh VII Hugh VIII Hugh IX Raoul I Raoul II Marie Hugh IX's son, Hugh X, married Isabelle of Angoulême, thus securing Angoulême. Hugh X Hugh XI Hugh XII Hugh XIII Guy Yolande Yolande sold the fiefs of Lusignan, La Marche, Angoulême, Fougères to Philip IV of France in 1308, they became a common appanage of the crown. In the 1170s, Amalric de Lusignan arrived in Jerusalem, having been expelled by Richard Lionheart from his realm, which included the family lands of Lusignan near Poitiers.
Amalric married Eschiva, the daughter of Baldwin of Ibelin, entered court circles. He had obtained the patronage of Agnes of Courtenay, the divorced mother of King Baldwin IV, who held the county of Jaffa and Ascalon and was married to Reginald of Sidon, he was appointed Agnes' constable in Jaffa, as constable of the kingdom. Hostile rumours alleged he was Agnes' lover, it is that his promotions were aimed at weaning him away from the political orbit of the Ibelin family, who were associated with Raymond III of Tripoli, Amalric I's cousin and the former bailli or regent. Amalric's younger brother, Guy de Lusignan, arrived at some date before Easter 1180; when he arrived is quite unknown, although Ernoul said that he arrived at that time on Amalric's advice. Many modern historians believe that Guy was well established in Jerusalem by 1180, but there is no supporting contemporary evidence. But, Amalric of Lusignan's success facilitated the social and political advancement of his brother Guy. Older accounts claim that Agnes was concerned that her political rivals, headed by Raymond of Tripoli, intended to exercise more control by forcing Agnes' daughter, the widowed princess Sibylla, to marry someone of their choosing.
Agnes was said to have foiled these plans by advising her son to have Sibylla married to Guy. But, the King, now believed to have been less malleable than earlier historians have portrayed, was considering the international implications: Sibylla had to marry someone who could rally external help to the kingdom, not a local noble; as the new King of France, Philip II, was still a minor, Baldwin's first cousin Henry II of England seemed the best prospect. He owed the Pope a penitential pilgrimage on account of the Thomas Becket affair. Guy was a vassal of Richard of Poitou and Henry II, had been rebellious, so they wanted to keep him overseas. Guy and Sibylla were hastily married at Eastertide 1180 preventing a coup by Raymond's faction to marry her to Baldwin of Ibelin, the father-in-law of Almaric. By his marriage Guy became bailli of Jerusalem, he and Sibylla had two daughters and Maria. Sibylla had a son from her first marriage to William of Montferrat. An ambitious man, Guy convinced Baldwin IV to name him regent in early 1182.
But he and Raynald of Châtillon provoked Saladin during a two-year period of truce. More important to Baldwin IV's disillusionment with him was Guy's military hesitation during the siege of Kerak. Throughout late 1183 and 1184 Baldwin IV tried to have his sister's marriage to Guy annulled, showing that Baldwin still held his sister with some favour. Baldwin IV had wanted a loyal brother-in-law, was frustrated in Guy's hardheadedness and disobedience. Sibylla remained at Ascalon, though not against her will. Unsuccessful in prying his sister and close heir away from Guy, the king and the Haute Cour altered the succession, they placed Sibylla's son from her first marriage, in precedence over Sibylla. They established a process to choose the monarch afterwards between Sibylla and Isabella, though Sibylla was not herself
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
La Rochefoucauld, Charente
La Rochefoucauld is a former commune in the Charente department in southwestern France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune La Rochefoucauld-en-Angoumois, it lies close to the line which delineated occupied France and Vichy France during World War II. The village takes its name from the large chateau above the village, open to the public, it is still inhabited by the Duke and Duchess. The site was first used around 980 by Fucaldus, younger brother of the Viscount of Limoges. Fucaldus called it Fucaldus in rupe, or Foucald's Rock. Early in the 11th century, the son of Fucaldus built a square keep, still identifiable at the heart of the present site. Two entrance towers were built from 1350, with three angle towers following, along with a heightening of the keep, in 1453. Galleries and a grand staircase, the latter attributed to designs by Leonardo da Vinci, were added in 1520. Much of the medieval building was demolished in 1615 when the courtyard was opened out and improvements were made to honour a visit by Louis XIII of France.
There was some rebuilding following a fire. Following subsidence problems affecting the keep in the 1960s, the building is in the midst of restoration, during which time one wing remains a family home and much of the rest is open to the public. Guided tours of the libraries are sometimes available, there are costumes for children and adults to wear during their exploration of the rest of the public areas, which include several furnished rooms, some of the foundations within the rock. In the village is a classic car dealership, open to the public 365 days of the year and is decorated with motoring memorabilia, functioning as a free-to-enter motor museum. François de La Rochefoucauld François de La Rochefoucauld Communes of the Charente department Château de La Rochefoucauld visitors' handout
Subprefectures in France
In France, a subprefecture is the administrative center of a departmental arrondissement that does not contain the prefecture for its department. The term applies to the building that houses the administrative headquarters for an arrondissement; the civil servant in charge of a subprefecture is the subprefect, assisted by a general secretary. Between May 1982 and February 1988, subprefects were known instead by the title commissaire adjoint de la République. Where the administration of an arrondissement is carried out from a prefecture, the general secretary to the prefect carries out duties equivalent to those of the subprefect; the municipal arrondissements of Paris and Marseille are divisions of the city rather than the prefecture, so are not arrondissements in the same sense. List of subprefectures of France List of arrondissements of France
James Hamilton, Duke of Châtellerault
James Hamilton, Duke of Châtellerault, 2nd Earl of Arran was a regent for Mary, Queen of Scots. James Hamilton was the eldest legitimate son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran by his second wife, Janet Bethune, his paternal grandmother, was the daughter of King James II. On the death of John Stewart, Duke of Albany, in 1536, he became next in line to the throne after the King's descendants; the children of the immediate royal family proved to be short-lived, so on the death of James V of Scotland on 14 December 1542 at only 30, the Earl of Arran stood next in line to the Scottish throne after the king's six-day-old newborn baby daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, for whom Arran was appointed Governor and Protector of Scotland. In 1543, supporters of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, challenged Arran's claim and legitimacy by suggesting that his father's divorce and second marriage were invalid. A Protestant and a member of the pro-English party, in 1543 he was involved in negotiating the marriage of the Queen of Scots to the infant Prince of Wales.
Cardinal Beaton, who favoured the Auld Alliance, was arrested on 27 January 1543 and imprisoned at Dalkeith Palace and Blackness Castle. Henry VIII of England wanted him deposed. On 18 March 1543, Sir George Douglas of Pittendreich, brother of the Earl of Angus, told the English ambassador, Ralph Sadler, that. For, there is not so little a boy but that he will hurl stones against it, the wives will handle their distaffs, the commons universally will rather die in it, many noblemen and all the clergy be against it." On 3 September 1543 there was panic in Edinburgh when it became known that Arran had left town. Although he had said that he was visiting his pregnant wife at Blackness Castle, the pro-English party guessed he would try to meet Cardinal Beaton; the Governor and the Cardinal were reconciled at Callendar House. Shortly after, Arran became a Catholic and joined the pro-French faction, consenting to the marriage of the Queen to the French Dauphin Francis II of France, earning the Duchy of Châtellerault in the process.
This led to the seven-year war with England now called the Rough Wooing, declared on 20 December 1543, signed by Arran the following month. The declaration of war was brought by Henry Ray to give to the Parliament of Scotland. Arran replied that the parliament was dissolved, so he thought it expedient not to answer Henry VIII on the points raised at the time. In 1544 an attempt was made to transfer the regency from him to Mary of Guise, Queen Mary's mother, but Arran fortified Edinburgh and her forces retired. In September 1547 Arran assembled a large Scottish army to resist an English invasion led by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset but was defeated at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, he held onto the regency and continued to lead forces against the occupying troops. He reluctantly agreed in July 1548 to the marriage of the dauphin to Mary, she went to live in the French court. For his work on negotiating her marriage, Hamilton was created Duke of Châtellerault, made a knight of the Order of Saint Michael.
His eldest son James was thenceforth styled Earl of Arran. In 1554, Arran surrendered the regency to Mary of Guise, was appointed her lieutenant in Scotland, he gave up the Regency on the condition. But the Scottish succession had been secretly promised to France. In the first months of the Scottish Reformation Hamilton continued to support Mary of Guise, he faced a Protestant army with the French commander at Cupar Muir in June 1559. He changed his allegiance in August 1559, joining the Protestant Lords of the Congregation to oppose the regency of Mary of Guise, lost his French dukedom as a result. In order to discredit him with the English government a letter was forged by his enemies, in which Arran declared his allegiance to Francis II of France, but the plot was exposed. On 27 February 1560 he agreed to the Treaty of Berwick with Elizabeth I, which placed Scotland under her protection. After the death of Guise, Hamilton persuaded the Parliament of Scotland to back a plan to marry his son James to Elizabeth I, after the death of Francis II in 1560 he attempted, without success, to arrange for James to marry the young widowed Queen Mary.
After Mary married Lord Darnley in 1565 he withdrew to his estates in France, where he made vain attempts to regain his confiscated duchy. In 1569, he was imprisoned. Although he assembled a parliament and was declared a traitor, in 1573 he agreed to recognise Mary's infant James as King of Scotland. A building from his heyday as Regent survives at Kinneil in West Lothian, his Eastern residence, including carvings and paintings of his heraldry with the collar of Saint Michael. Hamilton married in 1532, to the Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of James Douglas, 3rd Earl of Morton, Catherine Stewart, herself a natural daughter of James IV, his older half-brother James Hamilton of Finnart paid Morton 4000 marks as part of the marriage settlement. They had the following issue: James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran Lady Anne Hamilton – married George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly Lady Jean Hamilton – married Hugh Montgomerie, 3rd Earl of Eglinton Lady Barbara Hamilton – married first Alexander Gordon, Lord Gordon J
William X, Duke of Aquitaine
William X, called the Saint, was Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Poitou from 1126 to 1137. He was the son of William IX by Philippa of Toulouse. William was born in Toulouse during the brief period, his birth is recorded in the Chronicle of Saint-Maixent for the year 1099: Willelmo comiti natus est filius, equivoce Guillelmus vocatus. That same year, much to Philippa's ire, Duke William IX mortgaged Toulouse to Philippa's cousin, Bertrand of Toulouse, left on Crusade. Philippa and her infant son William X were left in Poitiers; when Duke William IX returned from his unsuccessful crusade, he took up with Dangerose, the wife of a vassal, set aside his rightful wife, Philippa. This caused strain between father and son, until 1121 when William X married Aenor de Châtellerault, a daughter of his father's mistress Dangerose by her first husband, Aimery. William had three children with Aenor: Eleanor, who became heiress to the Duchy, he had one natural son, William. For a long time it was thought that he had another natural son called Joscelin and some biographies still erroneously state this fact, but Joscelin has been shown to be the brother of Adeliza of Louvain.
The attribution of Joscelin as a son of William X has been caused by a mistaken reading of the Pipe Rolls pertaining to the reign of Henry II, where'brother of the queen' has been taken as Queen Eleanor, when the queen in question is Adeliza of Louvain. William administered his Aquitaine duchy as both a lover of a warrior, he became involved for France. Inside his borders, William faced an alliance of the Lusignans and the Parthenays against him, an issue resolved with total destruction of the enemies. In international politics, William X supported antipope Anacletus II in the papal schism of 1130, opposite to Pope Innocent II, against the will of his own bishops. In 1134 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux convinced William to drop his support to Anacletus and join Innocent. In 1137 William died during the trip. On his deathbed, he expressed his wish to see king Louis VI of France as protector of his fifteen-year-old daughter Eleanor, to find her a suitable husband. Louis VI accepted this guardianship and married the heiress of Aquitaine to his own son, Louis VII.
Dukes of Aquitaine family tree Parsons, John Carmi. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, 2002 Bernard F. Reilly, The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, 1031-1157, Blackwell Publishing, 1995. John of Salisbury's Memoirs of the Papal Court translated from the Latin with introduction and notes by Marjorie Chibnall
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen consort of France and England and duchess of Aquitaine in her own right. As a member of the Ramnulfids rulers in southwestern France, she was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages, she was patron of literary figures such as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Bernart de Ventadorn. She was a leader of the Second Crusade; as duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor was the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after becoming duchess upon the death of her father, William X, she married King Louis VII of France, son of her guardian, King Louis VI; as queen of France, she participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade. Soon afterwards, Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage, but her request was rejected by Pope Eugene III. However, after the birth of her second daughter Alix, Louis agreed to an annulment, as 15 years of marriage had not produced a son; the marriage was annulled on 21 March 1152 on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree.
Their daughters were declared legitimate, custody was awarded to Louis, Eleanor's lands were restored to her. As soon as the annulment was granted, Eleanor became engaged to the duke of Normandy, who became King Henry II of England in 1154. Henry was 11 years younger; the couple married on Whitsun, 18 May 1152, eight weeks after the annulment of Eleanor's first marriage, in Poitiers Cathedral. Over the next 13 years, she bore eight children: five sons; however and Eleanor became estranged. Henry imprisoned her in 1173 for supporting their son Henry's revolt against him, she was not released until 6 July 1189, when Henry died and their second son, Richard the Lionheart, ascended the throne. As queen dowager, Eleanor acted as regent. Eleanor lived well into the reign of John. Eleanor's year of birth is not known precisely: a late 13th-century genealogy of her family listing her as 13 years old in the spring of 1137 provides the best evidence that Eleanor was born as late as 1124. On the other hand, some chronicles mention a fidelity oath of some lords of Aquitaine on the occasion of Eleanor's fourteenth birthday in 1136.
This, her known age of 82 at her death make 1122 more the year of birth. Her parents certainly married in 1121, her birthplace may have been Poitiers, Bordeaux, or Nieul-sur-l'Autise, where her mother and brother died when Eleanor was 6 or 8. Eleanor was the oldest of three children of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, whose glittering ducal court was renowned in early 12th-century Europe, his wife, Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimery I, Viscount of Châtellerault, Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard, William IX's longtime mistress as well as Eleanor's maternal grandmother, her parents' marriage had been arranged by Dangereuse with her paternal grandfather William IX. Eleanor is said to have been named for her mother Aenor and called Aliénor from the Latin alia Aenor, which means the other Aenor, it became Eléanor in the langues d'oïl of northern Eleanor in English. There was, another prominent Eleanor before her—Eleanor of Normandy, an aunt of William the Conqueror, who lived a century earlier than Eleanor of Aquitaine.
In Paris as the queen of France she was called Helienordis, her honorific name as written in the Latin epistles. By all accounts, Eleanor's father ensured. Eleanor came to learn arithmetic, the constellations, history, she learned domestic skills such as household management and the needle arts of embroidery, sewing and weaving. Eleanor developed skills in conversation, games such as backgammon and chess, playing the harp, singing. Although her native tongue was Poitevin, she was taught to read and speak Latin, was well versed in music and literature, schooled in riding and hunting. Eleanor was extroverted, lively and strong-willed, her four-year-old brother William Aigret and their mother died at the castle of Talmont on Aquitaine's Atlantic coast in the spring of 1130. Eleanor became the heir presumptive to her father's domains; the Duchy of Aquitaine was the richest province of France. Poitou, where Eleanor spent most of her childhood, Aquitaine together were one-third the size of modern France.
Eleanor had only one other legitimate sibling, a younger sister named Aelith called Petronilla. Her half-brother Joscelin was acknowledged by William X as a son, but not as his heir; the notion that she had another half-brother, has been discredited. During the first four years of Henry II's reign, her siblings joined Eleanor's royal household. In 1137 Duke William X took his daughters with him. Upon reaching Bordeaux, he left them in the charge of the archbishop of Bordeaux, one of his few loyal vassals; the duke set out for the Shrine of Saint James of Compostela in the company of other pilgrims. However, he died on Good Friday of that year. Eleanor, aged 12 to 15 became the duchess of Aquitaine, thus the most eligible heiress in Europe; as these were the days when kidnapping an heiress was seen as a viable option for obtaining a title, William dictated a will on the day he died that bequeathed his domains to Eleanor and appointed King Louis VI of France as her guardian. William requested of the king that he take care of both the lands and the duchess, an
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Velbert, Germany, since 1965
Kaya, Burkina Faso, since 1976
Corby, United Kingdom, since 1979
Bouctouche, Canada, since 1984 [1]
Castellón de la Plana, Spain (since 1987)
Piła, Poland, since 1994
