On my blog today I am hosting ROSEMARY GRIGGS, sharing news of the very recent publication of her new book, The Dartington Bride. This is the second novel Rosemary has written about the Daughters of Devon, forgotten women of history who played their part during the tumultuous 16th century.
You can find out more about The Dartington Bride below but, first, read a fascinating post from Rosemary about Isabeau, the Countess of Montgomery, who was the mother of the “Dartington bride” and plays an important and central role in the novel.
A woman Queen Elizabeth I held in high esteem: Isabeau, Countess of Montgomery
My novel, The Dartington Bride, concerns a young Huguenot woman named Roberda who came to England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Roberda’s relationship with her mother, the formidable Isabeau de la Touche, is at the heart of my story. I explore how the sights and sounds of battle affected eight-year-old Roberda and shaped her character and consider how Isabeau’s warlike actions may have impacted the relationship between mother and daughter.
An incredibly resilient and determined French noblewoman, Isabeau spent a significant amount of time in England. After the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572, Sir Arthur Champernowne welcomed Isabeau, with her family, to Dartington Hall in Devon as refugees. She was also often at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Powerful people, including Robert Dudley and William Cecil, knew her well. According to Alain Landurant’s book ‘Montgommery, le régicide,‘ the queen held Isabeau in such high regard that she granted her a pension. These payments continued until Isabeau died. Yet she remains relatively unknown, even among those who love Elizabethan history.
Isabeau was a determined and resilient woman. A devout Protestant, she went to great lengths to support her husband, Gabriel de Lorges, who became a prominent Huguenot leader during the French Wars of Religion. She risked her own life and even the lives of her children, as she followed him across France.
This extraordinary woman, daughter of François, Lord of Roches Tranchelion, married Gabriel de Lorges on January 12, 1550. Their wedding ceremony was part of a double celebration, as on the same day, Gabriel’s father Jacques, Comte de Montgomery, married Isabeau’s widowed mother, Charlotte de Maille. Charlotte was Jacques’ third wife, and, like her predecessors, she brought with her extensive lands, including an estate at Ducey which is about ten miles away from Mont St Michel in Northern France.
Originally from Scotland, the Montgomerys had made France their home for several generations. Jacques carved out a successful career as a soldier and diplomat in the service of King Francois I. He held the prestigious position of captain of the King’s Scots guards under the next king, Henri II. This elite bodyguard accompanied the king wherever he went. Gabriel took over his father’s post. He was handsome and fit, a renowned athlete who excelled in sports such as hunting and the joust. Isabeau and her entire family lived their lives in the splendour of the royal court since her husband must always be by the king’s side. The children wanted for nothing. However, in June 1559 a tragic accident during a jousting tournament changed their lives for ever.
It was the finale of lavish festivities celebrating peace agreements and two royal marriages. The King’s sister, Marguerite, married Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy and King Henri’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, wed King Phillip of Spain. On the third day of the tournament, June 30, forty-year-old King Henri took on challengers. He insisted that Gabriel ride out against him. Gabriel scored a hit to the king’s shoulder, the lance shattered and a shard of wood entered the king’s eye.
Despite the earnest endeavours of his physicians, the splinter entered King Henri’s brain and he died some ten days later. On his deathbed the king pardoned Gabriel, saying he had merely done his duty. But the new king, Francois II, was young and Gabriel feared reprisals from the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici. He left France to travel, ending up in England in the spring of 1561. Meanwhile, Isabeau retired to the family chateau at Ducey along with their children. Its likely that while her husband was away Isabeau studied the teaching of John Calvin, the Protestant theologian and reformer. When Gabriel returned, with Isabeau’s encouragement, he also converted to the Protestant faith. Many other French noblemen followed suit, and the French Protestants, known as the Huguenots, had gained some small concessions. However, religious tensions, already simmering, boiled over in March 1562 with the murder of Protestant worshippers in a barn at Vassy. Gabriel began his career as a Huguenot military leader.
At least three of eight children born to Gabriel and Isabeau made their entry into the world after 1559. But giving birth and rearing children did not stop Isabeau from following Gabriel into battle. Most significantly in October 1562, when Gabriel was sent to relieve the besieged city of Rouen, she joined him. She took all of her children with her.
Most of the people of Rouen were Protestants. The city had already been attacked by the Catholic Royalist army once before in that year, 1562, in the first half of July. In the autumn they suffered another more sustained, assault and Gabriel took charge of the defences. He had command of around 800 trained soldiers, backed up by 4,000 armed citizens. He also hoped the English would provide additional soldiers. Smarting from the loss of Calais during her sister’s reign, and hoping to regain an English bastion on the Normandy coast, Queen Elizabeth made a rare intervention in France (1). She sent an English force led by Ambrose Dudley to Le Havre, the first English troops arriving on 3 October. A small force under, Captain Leighton, managed to reach Rouen, but many more soldiers were needed to defeat the besieging army.
Royalist forces held all roads to Rouen and they had blocked the Seine with boats filled with sand and rocks, linked by ropes and chains. In mid October a much larger English contingent, led by Sir Henry Killigrew, attempted to sail up the river. Only the vanguard, at most 500 men, managed to reach the city. Frustrated by what she saw as English prevarication, Isabeau chartered a boat herself. She filled it with munitions, and with all her children, left Le Havre (2). Somehow they broke though the barriers and reached Rouen.
Isabeau and the children remained in the city as the battle raged. Eventually the attackers prevailed and Gabriel was forced to flee by jumping into the River Seine. He commandeered a boat by bribing the galley slaves who sat at the oars with a promise of freedom. Isabeau and her children stayed in Rouen and were arrested. (3) However, Catherine de Medici, who had been watching from a nearby hillside, released Isabeau and the children. She sent them after Gabriel with strong messages urging him to give up the fight. But Gabriel would not give up that easily. Isabeau was still seeking help from Queen Elizabeth, writing from Dieppe on 13 March 1563 to ask that more forces be sent from England. Unbeknown to Isabeau, following a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Dreux, the Huguenot leaders were about to agree peace terms. Queen Elizabeth brought her soldiers back to England. It was the first of many temporary truces during the Wars of Religion which would continue for nearly 40 years.
Through the ebb and flow of the wars over many years Isabeau kept up her staunch support. In a rare move, Gabriel granted his wife full power of attorney in July 1566. With this authority, she managed his estates with great skill, arranged advantageous marriages for their children, and was ceaseless in her efforts to lobby wealthy and influential people to raise funds for the Huguenot cause. She was likely in England in November 1571 when Gabriel came ‘for the marriage of my daughter’ (4). During that visit he spent a week or more with the queen at Greenwich.
Only a few months after Roberda’s wedding, the Montgomery family found shelter at Dartington Hall after the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre. They spent Christmas of 1573 at Syon House. Anticipating a long stay, Isabeau arranged places for her sons. Gedeon joined the household of Robert Dudley while the youngest boy, young Gabriel, was taken in by Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex and his wife Lettice. Young Gabriel was a companion for their son Robert, who would eventually become queen Elizabeth’s favourite. The two boys spent time together at Chartley in Staffordshire, Lamphey in Pembrokeshire, and at Trinity College, Cambridge
After her husband’s death Isabeau remained in England for some years, accompanied by another daughter, Charlotte, widow of Christophe de Chateaubriand, who died in 1569, fighting for the Huguenots at the battle of Jarnac. Charlotte, also known as Madame de Beaufort, is mentioned with her mother in the New Year’s Gift Exchanges in 1576 (5). Isabeau is also amongst those who received gifts in 1575.
After she returned to France, Isabeau worked to have the Montgomery estates and titles restored to her sons. She lived in straightened circumstances at the Montgomery’s house in Pontorson, Northern France, until her death in 1593. I have so far discovered no portraits of this fascinating woman who deserves to be more widely recognised.
Notes:
- Elizabeth’s French Wars, 1562-1598 William A Heap
- Cal. of State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, Vol5 – October 1562, Letter from Henry Killigrew to Cecil on Oct 1 – access via British History Online
- Cal. of State Papers, Spain, (Salamancas Vol 1, 1558-1567) Nov 22 1562
- The Elizabethan /court day by Day, November 1571 Folgerpedia
- The Elizabethan New Year’s Gift Exchanges. 1559-1603, Edited by Jane A Lawson
What is The Dartington Bride about?
1571, and the beautiful, headstrong daughter of a French Count marries the son of the Vice Admiral of the Fleet of the West in Queen Elizabeth’s chapel at Greenwich. It sounds like a marriage made in heaven…
Roberda’s father, the Count of Montgomery, is a prominent Huguenot leader in the French Wars of Religion. When her formidable mother follows him into battle, she takes all her children with her.
After a traumatic childhood in war-torn France, Roberda arrives in England full of hope for her wedding. But her ambitious bridegroom, Gawen, has little interest in taking a wife.
Received with suspicion by the servants at her new home, Dartington Hall in Devon, Roberda works hard to prove herself as mistress of the household and to be a good wife. But there are some who will never accept her as a true daughter of Devon.
After the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, Gawen’s father welcomes Roberda’s family to Dartington as refugees. Compassionate Roberda is determined to help other French women left destitute by the wars. But her husband does not approve. Their differences will set them on an extraordinary path…
Book details
The Dartington Bride was published on 28th March 2024 by Troubadour Publishing, and is available as an eBook, in paperback and as an audiobook from various retailers.
The audiobook is narrated by the author, Rosemary Griggs.
Buy Link
About the author
Rosemary Griggs
Author and speaker Rosemary Griggs has been researching Devon’s sixteenth-century history for years. She has discovered a cast of fascinating characters and an intriguing network of families whose influence stretched far beyond the West Country and loves telling the stories of the forgotten women of history – the women beyond the royal court; wives, sisters, daughters and mothers who played their part during those tumultuous Tudor years: the Daughters of Devon.
Her novel A Woman of Noble Wit tells the story of Katherine Champernowne, Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother, and features many of the county’s well-loved places.
Rosemary creates and wears sixteenth-century clothing, a passion which complements her love for bringing the past to life through a unique blend of theatre, history and re-enactment. Her appearances and talks for museums and community groups all over the West Country draw on her extensive research into sixteenth-century Devon, Tudor life and Tudor dress, particularly Elizabethan.
Out of costume, Rosemary leads heritage tours of the gardens at Dartington Hall, a fourteenth-century manor house and now a visitor destination and charity supporting learning in arts, ecology and social justice.
You can connect with Rosemary and follow her on Social Media:
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Thank you so much for hosting Rosemary Griggs today, and with such a fascinating post.
Take care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club