The Royal Pawn
© Phyllis Agronsky
She was the daughter of Louis VII and his third wife, Alix de Champagne, and the younger sister of Phillip Augustus - and she's one of the sorriest women in medieval history. On the face of it, her position as full sister to the heir to the French throne should have resulted in a comfortable life married to a prince, at the very least. Instead, she became the mistress of a man old enough to be her grandfather, while betrothed to his son.
It's hard for us to imagine that women in the Middle Ages had so little say in how their lives turned out. From cradle to grave, their lives were managed and manipulated by the men in their lives. As Louis' daughter, Alais was a bargaining chip in the dynastic wars that dominated Europe. The man who married her would have the next king of France as an ally.
When she was seven, she was sent to England to be raised in the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, to be educated in preparation for her role as Duchess of Aquitaine. She was to marry Richard, second son of the English king, and she was in good company. In 1172, her half-sister Marguerite had married Richard's brother Henry, and her own marriage was intended to cement the family ties by which Louis hoped to blunt the English King's ambitions.
In this, as with everything else about his nemesis, Louis was wrong. Once Henry got his hands on a province, he'd fight to keep it. When the Young King died in 1183, by rights Margeruite's dowry (the Vexin) should have been returned to France along with his widow. The Vexin remained an English possession until Phillip Augustus took it from John years later.
The match between Alais and Richard was problematical at best. Richard was already a grown man with a reputation as a general - and his sexual preferences had been known for years. This dark-eyed little girl held no interest for him whatsoever; besides, she was in England and he was campaigning on the Continent.
When Alais came to Henry's court, Eleanor had already been imprisoned for 4 years, and one wonders what kind of role model the young princess had in that masculine court. Perhaps the legendary Rosamond Clifford influenced the child, being the King's longest and most loved extramarital attachment. In any case, by 1183, the 13 year-old Alais would have been considered old enough for marriage, and old enough to be attractive to the aging king. It is certain that Alais remained with Henry until his death in 1189, after which the thorny question would have been: What do we do with her now?
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