Great Britain -- History -- John, 1199-1216; Great Britain -- Kings and rulers -- Biography; John, King of England, 1167-1216
On his way to Poitou John issued from Chinon, on June 25, a summons to
Ademar of Angoulême and Guy of Limoges to come and perform their homage
on July 5 at Lusignan,[325] the ancestral home of Hugh the Brown. There
Hugh and Matilda were bringing up their intended daughter-in-law in
company with her boy bridegroom, and there John was no doubt, at the
moment, sure of a welcome, for Hugh and his brother Ralf had become his
liegemen at Caen on January 28.[326] Thus, in all likelihood, it was
under Hugh’s very roof, and as sharers in his hospitality, that the
king of England and the count of Angoulême laid their plot for robbing
Hugh’s son of his plighted bride and his promised heritage. John
indeed, as soon as his divorce was ratified by the southern bishops,
despatched, or gave out that he had despatched, an embassy to Portugal
with instructions to ask for the hand of a daughter of the Portuguese
king;[327] but their mission was a mere blind to divert suspicion
till Ademar should have succeeded in getting his child back into his
own hands. The poor little betrothed--she was only about twelve years
old[328]--was literally stolen by her father,[329] and carried off
by him to his capital city. There her royal suitor met them, and on
August 24 the marriage ceremony was performed by the archbishop of
Bordeaux.[330] The newly married couple immediately afterwards set out
for the north; at the beginning of October they went to England, and on
the 8th they were crowned together at Westminster.[331]
[Sidenote: 1200–1201]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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