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Blanche of England
Spouse Louis III, Elector Palatine
m. 1402; wid. 1409
Issue Rupert, Hereditary Prince of the Palatinate
Father Henry IV, King of England
Mother Mary de Bohun
Born Spring 1392
Peterborough Castle, Northamptonshire
Died 22 May 1409 (aged 17)
Haguenau, Alsace
Burial St Mary's at Neustadt, Electorate of the
Palatinate
Blanche (middle) with her
husband and his second wife
Matilda
Blanche of England
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blanche of England, LG (Spring 1392 22 May 1409),
also known as Blanche of Lancaster, was an English
princess of the House of Lancaster.
She was the daughter of King Henry IV of England by his
first wife Mary de Bohun.
Contents
1 Life
1.1 Family
1.2 Marriage
1.3 Death and Aftermath
2 Ancestry
3 References
Life
Family
Born at Peterborough Castle in Northamptonshire,
Blanche was the sixth of the seven children born during
the marriage of Prince Henry of Lancaster and his wife Mary of Bohun. At
the time of her birth, Henry was only Earl of Derby and, thanks to his
marriage, Earl of Northampton and Earl of Hereford; as the only surviving
son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, he was the heir of the Duchy
of Lancaster. Blanche was named after her paternal grandmother.
Of her six siblings, five brothers and one sister, only the eldest brother,
Edward, died in infancy. The other four brothers were, in order: Henry of
Monmouth (later King Henry V of England), Thomas, Duke of Clarence,
John, Duke of Bedford and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Blanche's sister
was Philippa, who married Eric of Pomerania, King of Denmark, Norway
and Sweden.
Mary of Bohun died on 4 June 1394 in Peterborough Castle after giving birth
to her last child Philippa. Five years later, on 3 February 1399, after his
father's death, Henry inherited the Duchy of Lancaster. Eight months later, on 13 October, he deposed his
cousin King Richard II and was crowned King Henry IV. Blanche and her siblings were then elevated to the
8/28/14 7:49 PM Blanche of England - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page 2 of 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_of_England
The "Bohemian Crown" or
"Palatine Crown" from the
dowry of princess Blanche
(today treasury, Munich
Residenz)
Restored tombstone of
Princess Blanche,
canonchurch Neustadt
rank of Royal Princess and Princes of England. Three years later, in 1402,
her father was remarried, to Joanna, daughter of King Charles II of Navarre
and widow of Duke John V of Brittany. They had no children.
Marriage
After his accession to the English throne, King Henry IV wanted to make
important alliances in order to maintain and legitimize his rule. One needed
ally was King Rupert of Germany, who also took the German throne after the
deposition of King Wenceslaus: a marriage between Rupert's eldest surviving
son Louis and Henry IV's eldest daughter Blanche was soon arranged.
The marriage contract was signed on 7 March 1401 in London; the bride's
dowry was fixed in the amount of 40,000 Nobeln. The formal marriage
between Blanche and Louis took place one year later, on 6 July 1402 at
Cologne Cathedral, Germany. Despite its political nature, the marriage was
said to be happy. Four years later, on 22 Jun 1406 in Heidelberg, Blanche
gave birth to a son, called Rupert after his paternal grandfather.
Death and Aftermath
In 1408 Blanche was made Lady of the Garter. One year later, pregnant with
her second child, she died of fever in Haguenau, Alsace and was buried in
the canonchurch of St. Mary (today St. Aegidius) in Neustadt in the
Palatinate.
Her widower became Elector Palatine as Louis III in 1410 after the death of
his father King Rupert and in 1417 married Matilda, daughter of Amadeo,
Prince of Achaea, member of the House of Savoy, who bore him six
children. Blanche's son Rupert (nicknamed the English) died aged nineteen
in 1426, unmarried and without issue. Elector Louis III died ten years later
and was succeeded by the eldest son of his second marriage, Louis IV.
Ancestry
References
Walther Holtzmann: Die englische Heirat Pfalzgraf Ludwigs III., in: Zeitschrift fr die Geschichte des
Oberrheins No 43 (1930), pp. 122.
The English Marriage of Elector Palatine Louis III (http://www.rzuser.uni-
heidelberg.de/~jv8/archiv/englische_heirat.htm)
The Crown of Princess Blanka in the Munich Treasury Residence (http://www.residenz-
muenchen.de/deutsch/skammer/bild11.htm)
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Categories: English princesses 1392 births 1409 deaths
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