Geoffrey the Son of Henry II
He was fifteen years old when he joined the first revolt against his father, and was later reconciled to Henry in 1174, when he took part in the truce meetings at Gisors (when Richard was not present) and later, when Richard was reconciled at a place between Tours and Amboise. Geoffrey also figured prominently in the second revolt of 1183, fighting against Richard on the side of the Young King.
He was a good friend of the French king Philip Augustus, and the two statesmen were frequently in alliance against King Henry. Geoffrey spent much time at Philip's court in Paris, and Philip made him his seneschal. There is evidence to suggest that Geoffrey was planning another rebellion with Philip's help during his final period in Paris in the summer of 1186. As a participant in so many rebellions against his father, Geoffrey acquired a reputation for treachery. Gerald of Wales said the following of him: "He has more aloes than honey in him; his tongue is smoother than oil; his sweet and persuasive eloquence has enabled him to dissolve the firmest alliances and his powers of language to throw two kingdoms into confusion..."
Geoffrey also was known to attack monasteries and churches in order to raise funds for his campaigns. This lack of reverence for religion earned him the displeasure of the Church and also of the majority of chroniclers who were to write the definitive accounts of his life.
Death
Geoffrey died on August 19, 1186, at the age of twenty-eight. There are two possible versions of what happened to him: the more common story is that he was trampled to death during a jousting tournament. At his funeral, a grief-stricken Philip was said to have tried to jump into the coffin with him. The source of this story is Roger of Hoveden's chronicle, and the detail of Philip's hysterical grief comes from Gerald of Wales. However, the chronicle of Rigord, a French royal clerk, claims that Geoffrey died of a sudden illness: an attack of acute abdominal pain, which apparently happened immediately after Geoffrey made a speech to Philip, boasting of his intentions to lay waste to Normandy. It is possible that this version of events was an invention of the chronicler, the sudden illness representing God's judgement on an ungrateful son for plotting rebellion against his father and for his lack of regard for religion. Alternatively, the tournament story itself may have been an invention, created by Philip to prevent a plot from being discovered by Henry II. By inventing a purely social reason, a tournament, for Geoffrey to be in Paris, Philip would have obscured the probable nature of their plotting. See [1]
Sources
* Everard, Judith. Charters of Duchess Constance of Brittany and her Family, 1171-1221, 1999
* Everard, Judith. Brittany and the Angevins: Province and Empire, 1158-1203, 2000
* Gillingham, John. The Life and Tmes of Richard I, 1973
* Reston, James. Warriors of God: Richard the Lion-Heart and Saladin in the Third Crusade, 2001
http://halfvalue.com/wiki.jsp?topic=Geoffrey_II%2C_Duke_of_BrittanyJoan of England .....Apparently she was her brother Richard's favorite Sister
oan was married in October 1196, at Rouen, to Raymond VI of Toulouse, with Quercy and the Agenais as her dowry. She was the mother of his successor Raymond VII of Toulouse (1197-1249), and a short lived daughter (1198).
This new husband treated her none too gently, however, and Joan came to fear him and his knights. In 1199, while pregnant with a third child, Joan was left alone to face a rebellion in which the lords of Saint-Félix-de-Caraman were prominent. She laid siege to their castle at les Cassès but was menaced by treachery. Escaping this threat, Joan travelled northwards, hoping for her brother's protection, but found him dead at Chalus.[1] She then fled to her mother Queen Eleanor's court at Rouen, where she was offered refuge and care.
Joan asked to be admitted to Fontevrault Abbey, an unusual request for a married, pregnant woman, but this request was granted. She died in childbirth and was veiled a nun on her deathbed. Her son lived just long enough to be baptised (he was named Richard). Joan was thirty-three years old. She was buried at Fontevrault Abbey, and fifty years later her son Raymond VII would be interred next to her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_England%2C_Queen_of_Sicily * Payne, Robert. The Dream and the Tomb, 1984
* Owen, D.D.R. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend
* Wheeler, Bonnie. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, 2002
* Robert of Torigni
* Roger of Hoveden
* Ralph of Diceto
* Duvernoy, Jean, editor (1976), written at Paris, Guillaume de Puylaurens, Chronique 1145-1275: Chronica magistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii, CNRS, ISBN 2910352064
