Isabella of England

Isabella of England (1214 – 1 December 1241) was an English princess of the House of Plantagenet. She became Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Sicily, Italy and Germany from 1235 until her death as the third wife of Emperor Frederick II. Life Birth and early years Isabella was born around 1214 as the fourth child and second daughter of John, King of England and his second wife Isabella of Angoulême. Her exact date of birth is unknown, and the year is calculated based on the fact that Matthew Paris reported that the princess got married at the age of 21. By the time Isabella was born, her parents' marriage had already started to unravel, and the princess spent most of the time with her mother. After the death of King John in 1216, Isabella remained in the full care of her mother and was with her until 1220, when Isabella of Angouleme remarried and left the English court. The princess was raised from an early age by the "nurse and governess" Margaret Biset, who received for her services from 1219, by order of her brother King Henry III, one penny a day "from the hands of the Viscount Hereford"; she remained within Isabella's household and accompanied her to Germany sixteen years later, when the princess married. The services of the rest of the princess's servants (cook, stableman and others) were also paid by her brother, and by his order, when some of Isabella's servants retired from her service, they were assigned a generous pension. The first years of Isabella's life were spent in Gloucester Castle. Later, when the problems that accompanied the early years of her brother's reign ended, she was transported to the court, at first located at Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire and later at Westminster. From time to time, the princess with her family visited other royal residences: Winchester, Marlborough, Northampton, York and others.