Home ~ Our Ancestors ~ Contact us

PHILIP III, King of France

HUSBAND:
PHILIP III, The Bold, King of France. (Philippe III le Hardi). [CHART A1].
Born on 30 April 1245 in Poissy; son of Louis IX of France and of Marguerite of Provence.

On 28 May 1262, Philip married Isabella of Aragon.

He accompanied his father on the Eighth Crusade to Tunisia in 1270. His father died at Tunis and there Philip was declared king at the age of 25. Philip was indecisive, soft in nature, timid, and apparently crushed by the strong personalities of his parents and dominated by his father's policies. He was called "the Bold" on the basis of his abilities in combat and on horseback and not his character. He was pious, but not cultivated. He followed the dictates of others, first of Pierre de la Broce and then of his uncle Charles I of Sicily.

After his succession, he quickly set his uncle on negotiations with the emir to conclude the crusade, while he himself returned to France. A ten-year truce was concluded and Philip was crowned in France on 12 August 1271. On 21 August, his uncle, Alfonso, Count of Poitou, Toulouse, and Auvergne, died returning from the crusade in Italy. Philip inherited his counties and united them to the royal demesne. The portion of the Auvergne which he inherited became the "Terre royale d'Auvergne," later the Duchy of Auvergne. In accordance with Alfonso's wishes, the Comtat Venaissin was granted to the Pope Gregory X in 1274. Several years of negotiations yielded the Treaty of Amiens with Edward I of England in 1279. Thereby Philip restored to the English the Agenais which had fallen to him with the death of Alfonso. In 1284, Philip also inherited the counties of Perche and Alençon from his brother Pierre.

After Isabella's death, he married Marie de Brabant on 21 August 1274.

Philip all the while supported his uncle's policy in Italy. When, after the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, Peter III of Aragon invaded and took the island of Sicily, the pope, Martin IV, excommunicated the conqueror and declared his kingdom (put under the suzerainty of the pope by Peter II in 1205) forfeit. He granted Aragon to Charles, Count of Valois, Philip's son. Philip intervened in the Navarrese succession after the death of Henry I of Navarre and married his son, Philip the Fair, to the heiress of Navarre, Joan I.

In 1284, Philip and his sons entered Roussillon at the head of a large army. This war, called the Aragonese Crusade from its papal sanction, has been labelled "perhaps the most unjust, unnecessary and calamitous enterprise ever undertaken by the Capetian monarchy." On 26 June 1285, Philip the Bold entrenched himself before Gerona in an attempt to besiege it. The resistance was strong, but the city was taken on 7 September. Philip soon experienced a reversal, however, as the French camp was hit hard by an epidemic of dysentery. Philip himself was afflicted. The French retreated and were handily defeated at the Battle of the Col de Panissars.

He died on 5 October 1285 at Perpignan, the capital of his ally James II of Majorca, and was buried in Narbonne. He currently lies buried with his wife Isabella of Aragon in Saint Denis Basilica in Paris.

WIFE (1):
Isabelle of Aragon
Born in 1247; daughter of James I of Aragon and his second wife Yolande of Hungary, daughter of Andrew II of Hungary. On May 28, 1262, she married Philip III of France, in Clermont. She accompanied her husband on the Eighth Crusade against Tunis, but died after falling from her horse on the way home, in Cosenza, Calabria, still pregnant with her fifth child. She was buried in Saint Denis Basilica. Her tomb, like many others, was desecrated during the French Revolution in 1793.

CHILDREN of PHILIP III, The Bold, King of France, and Isabelle of Aragon:
  1. Louis (1266 – May 1276)
  2. PHILIP IV, The Fair. King of France. King of Navarre. Born in 1268 at Fontainebleau, France. Succeeded his father as King of France. Philip IV carried out a prolonged power struggle with the Roman popes, his reign being notable for the development of royal power. He died on 29 NOV 1314 at Fontainebleau, France; and was buried in St. Denis.
  3. Robert (1269-c. 1276)
  4. CHARLES, Count of Valois. Born 12 March 1270. He married Margaret of Naples, daughter of Charles II, King of Naples and Marie of Hungary. He died on 16 December 1325.


WIFE (2):
Marie de Brabant.
daughter of Henry III of Brabant and Adelaide of Burgundy,

CHILDREN of PHILIP III, The Bold, King of France, and Marie de Brabant
  1. Louis (May 1276 – May 19, 1319), Count of Évreux
  2. Blanche (1278 – March 19, 1305, Vienna), married Rudolf III of Austria on May 25, 1300
  3. Margaret (1282 – February 14, 1317), married Edward I of England


SOURCES: