Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe: Nancy Goldstone

For a thousand years the thrones of Europe were passed around like trophies, sold to the highest bidder for gold or favors. The sons and daughters of well-placed family were the pawns in this game, moving in and out of kingdoms, living and dying with little more then a historical footnote to mark their place. Parents angled to make the best matches possible to advance not their children, but the family unit as whole and so it was that Raymond Berenger V of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy would manage to manuever their four daughters into the right position to claim four crowns in 13th-century Europe. Though not all of them would leave a lasting mark, they each did their duty by their family.

As the oldest sister Marguerite was the first to be married and made the best match of the four. She was wed to Louis IX of France and though she was just a girl when she was wed she would learn much from her mother in law, Queen Blanche. In time Marguerite would produce many children for France and when it became apparent that Louis was more suited to crusading then kingship she followed him to the Holy Land where she would again give birth, this time among the desert sands. Shortly after her laying-in she was required to pull together the tattered remnants of her husbands forces in order to ransom the king of France back from the Mamluks. Upon returning to France Louis IX was obsessively guily and dispirited over the crushing defeat that his army has suffered. He continued to lead his country well but plotted to eventually return to the Holy Land. He did return in time, and died there. Marguerite had stayed behind in France as regent and continued to oversee things for many years. She would truly prove to be a credit to her family and her crown. She would out live all her sisters and die well past her seventies.

Eleanor was the next sister and though the family was well-connected and respected, they were not terribly wealthy. When a match was suggested with Henry III of England however, he did not seem to mind the lack of dowry and married Eleanor without one. He was enamored of her beauty and grace and felt that she would bring something to the English court. She did indeed bring something to the English court, including many of her Savoyard uncles, nobles from Provence and France to balance the power of the English barons, and enough intrigue to bring about civil war in England for several decades that would just about bankrupt Henry. Unlike Louis IX, Henry III was not a terribly strong king. Eleanor did her best to bolster to her weak husband but the English baronage saw her efforts as meddlesome and the presence of her uncles as questionable. History has continually painted her as one of the causes of the civil war and revolts that took place at this time but truly she was a wife and mother looking out for her family interests and a queen trying to protect her crown. She would finish out her life in a convent, ignored by her son, Edward Longshanks, who saw her as the rest of England did.

Sanchia was the third sister but she was completely unlike the others. She was shy and retiring, though very beautiful. By all accounts Sanchia would have been better served in a convent then marriage but that isn't where destiny placed her. Instead after much wrangling and several papal dispensations to break other contracts, she was married to Richard of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III. Richard was an ambitious and wealthy man, everything that his brother was not. After many years of marriage and much time spent accumulating wealth and connections Richard decided to make a bid for the newly-opened Kingship of Germany, which was an elected postion. After his successful campaigning and bribery Richard was crowned King of Germany and had even less time for the shy wife who had turned out to be such a disappointment to him. They spent fourteen months in Germany before Richard was recalled to England to protect his holdings during the civil war. Eventually Sanchia, who was distraught over the lack of marital affection, would sicken, waste away, and die at age thirty-three. She was alone when she died and neither her sisters nor her husband attended her funeral.

Beatrice was the youngest sister and as can happen with youngest siblings she was by turns both spoiled and neglected. Raymond Berenger V died when she was thirteen and instead of turning his holdings and estates over to be haggled about and torn apart by someone else he decided to make his youngest daughter the sole inheritor of his will. As she was underage at the time this made her mother, Beatrice of Savoy the regent. Overnight young Beatrice became the most sought after heiress on the continent. Provence wasn't terribly liquid but it had a nice salt business as well as the castles and merchant trade routes. It was well-situated for anyone who resided there and controlled it. After being besieged on two sides by the armies of two different and very determined suitors it was finally decided that young Beatrice would be married to Charles of Anjou, the younger brother of Louis IX. On the face of things this may have seemed a good idea but Charles, like Beatrice, was a younger sibling who felt he was owed something and he was determined to take it. The two were well-matched in their ambition and arrogance. Beatrice had inherited all of the Savoyard abilities for plotting and planning and she used it to the best of her abilities. She and Charles would eventually go on to become King and Queen of Sicily. Despite all of her determination however, Beatrice, like Sanchia, would succumb to a young death. She died in her early thirties from a bacterial infection she caught while under siege in a humid Italian castle.

Unfurtunately there is no way I can accurately summarize the wealth of information that the author has managed to pack into this book. I have read many pieces of historical non-fiction and this is the first one that I actually devoured like it was a novel. It was well-written, it was engaging, it was not at all boring. I really like the fact that instead of doing one long chapter for each sister, the author does short sections for each sister, moving back and forth through each one, tying them together bit by bit. I also am pleased with the fact that the subject was a family that we haven't heard about very much. I'm not a college-educated historian but I'm somewhat well-read when it comes to European royalty and I had no idea that this story was out there. I absolutely love this book and I highly recommend it.
--------------------------
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (April 19, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0670038431
ISBN-13: 978-0670038435
Buy the Book