Tuesday 1 March 2011

The Queen who married a commoner

Claire Ridgway's The History Files is a great new idea for guest writers to upload articles about a full range of historical interests and one day soon, I hope to ask Claire to post a guest article about her new project! 

This week, journalist and Oxford graduate, June Woolerton, writes about the unusual love life of Katherine de Valois, the French princess who married King Henry V of England and became mother of King Henry VI.  Yet after her first husband's death, Katherine eloped with a handsome Welsh commoner called Owen Tudor and accidentally ended-up founding one of the most powerful and important families in European history.

June writes: -
"Kate Middleton will, one day, be the sixth queen of England to be called Katherine. The woman who introduced the name to the British royal family is buried just yards from the altar where this 21st century princess will take her wedding vows. Kate has made the headlines as a commoner who caught a king in waiting but almost six hundred years ago that first queen Katherine shocked society and changed the very fabric of royalty when she became the first English queen to marry outside the aristocracy. Katherine of Valois was one half of the most glamorous couple in her world. She married arguably the world’s most eligible bachelor. She was pretty, she was popular and she found herself under intense scrutiny. But there the similarities with her modern namesake end."

For June's full article at The History Files, click here. It's a fantastic story.

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