Countess Joanna Dammartin PONTHIEU

   Other names for Joanna were Joana, CASTILE & LEON Queen, AUMALE, PONTHIEU Countess and Jeanne.

   Ancestral File Number: 8XJD-31. User ID: 4727439.

   General Notes:

Jeanne of AUMALE, Countess of PONTHIEU, Queen of CASTILE & LEON.

BOOKS
Barber Grandparents: 125 Kings, 143 Generations, Ted Butler Bernard and Gertrude Barber Bernard, 1978, McKinney TX, p95: "446R St Ferdinand, King Spain, (Parents not known, F of 454); married Joana, Countess of Ponthieu; desendant of Sancho III, of Navarre,Emperor of Spain in 1000."

Kings and Queens of Europe, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute, 1989: "Fernando III, Son of Alfonso IX King of Leon and Berenguela of Aragon, King of Castilla 1217-1252, King of Leon 1230-1252, Mar =1 Beatrix Daughter of Philipp of Schwaben, =2 Jeanne of Aumale & Ponthieu."

A History of The Plantagenets, Vol II, The Magnificent Century, Thomas B Costain, 1951, Doubleday & Co, p135:
"When Henry [III] reached the age of twenty and nine it was agreed in the Council that the problem of finding a wife for him must be solved at once. The choice fell on Joanna, daughter of the Earl of Ponthieu in Normandy. It is probable that the girl's mother had been angling for Henry because it is on record that she sent him a present of a costly table of Sardinian ivory, whatever that is. A favorable response was received from the parents, and Joanna herself was said to regard the prospect with approval. The marriage contractwas drawn up and ambassadors were posted off to Rome to obtain the consent of the Pope.
"The ambassadors had reached a point within a few day's journey of their destination when word was received from Henry that they were to return at once to England. He had changed his mind. A princess had been found who more closely touched his fancy and who, moreover, was ready to become Queen of England... Joanna of Ponthieu might or might not have made Henry a good wife, but the lady on whom his choice had fallen was to prove the most unpopular queen England ever had."
p218: "On reaching Bordeaux, Henry found conditions to be worse than ever. While he had fiddled at home, the fires of Gascon dissension had burned briskly. Gaston of Bearn had supplied yeast to the bread of discontent by making an open alliance with Alfonso the Wise of Castile. The latter was to push his claims to the province with the active aid of the troublesome Gaston and, in the event of success, Gaston was to be made seneschal...
"A solution was now in sight. The craftily smiling Alfonso of Castile had always been in the background of Gascon intrigue and Gaston of Bearn had never been more than a gadfly responding to the fan of Castile. If Alfonso could be persuaded to withdraw his pretensions, the disobedient nobility would be left without any prospect of support and would cease to be defiant. The first step toward such an agreement had been taken before Henry leftEngland, a proposal that the Lord Edward, heir of England, should marry Alfonso's half sister the infanta Dona Eleanora of Castile. It was decided now to pursue the proposal actively.
"The plenipotentiaries were dispatched from Bordeaux to open negotiations in Burgos, Peter d'Aigueblanche, Bishop of Hereford, and the inevitable John Mansel. The Catilian ruler was found in a receptive mood. It is doubt ful if he had ever entertained serious designs on Gascony. Rather he had beenusing his claims as a means to an end. The infanta, a lissome girl of ten years with charming manners and the promise fo great beauty, pleased the English representatives. The bishop and the resourceful Mansel found one reservation in the mindof the Spanish monarch. English princes in the past had been notoriously fickle in matrimonial matters. The infanta's mother was the Joanna of Ponthieu who had been so unceremoniously tossed aside by Henry himself in his desire to have Eleanorof Provence as his Queen. There must be no playing fast and loose in this case. The Lord Edward must appear in Burgos not laterthan five weeks before Michaelmas of the following year to claim his young bride. If he failed to arrive within thattime, the marriage contract would be canceled.
"The major stipulation of the contract was a solemn promise that Alfonso's claims in Gascony would be relinquished. When word of this reached Gaston of Bearn he realized that he had been leftto face the consequences of his treason alone. Dissension and civil war ended with dramatic suddenness."
p327: "...[Eleanor of Castile's] quite unusual attractiveness may have been due to the mixture of blood in her veins. Her grandmotherhad been the Alice of France who was affianced to Richard of the Lion Heart and whose charms had won the affections of Richard's father, Henry II. Her mother was the Joan of Ponthieu who would have been Henry III's wife if he had not become so enamored of the reputation of Eleanor La Belle of Provence (not to mention the lush romance she had penned) and who subsequently married Ferdinand III of Castile. Eleanor had lived through the years of turmoil with her widowed mother at Ponthieu."

A History of the Plantagenets, Vol I, The Conquering Family, Thomas B Costain, 1949, Doubleday & Co.
p118: "After Richard became King, Philip tried to force him to carry out the old arrangement and marry Alice. Richard refused on the ground that she had been his father's mistress and had borne him a son. If such were the case, the child was born abroad, for there are no records of it in England, and must, moreover, have died in infancy. Philip did not dipute the statement. He finally agreed to a cancellation of the betrothal, and Richard married Princess Berengaria of Navarre instead. Philip then gave his unfortunate sister in marriage to a nobleman of France; a sorry conclusion for her...but this was after thedeath of Henry. As long as he lived, he refused to give Princess Alice up. She was thirty-two when he died and for seventeen years had been the object of his infatuated attachment."

Eleanor of Aquitaine the Mother Queen, Desmond Seward, 1978,Dorset Press
p62: "Alice Daughter of Constance of CASTILE and Louis VII King of FRANCE, Betrothed to Richard I King of ENGLAND, Married 1195 William III Count of PONTHIEU."
p145: "[Philip II] complained about the delay in solemnizingthe marriage between Richard and Philip's half-sister, Alice of France, knowing very well that Richard was reluctant to marry her; the reason, according to Gerald of Wales (who was probably right), was that the old king had seduced the girl during her long stay at his court. Whe Henry proposed that she should marry John instead and be duchess of Aquitaine, Philip slyly revealed the plan to Richard. The latter was so infuriated that he agreed to co-operate in the war against his father."
p157: "Early in the summer of 1190 king Richard and king Philip met at Gisors to discuss the final details of their joint crusade. Philip insisted on discussing the position of his half-sister Alice, demanding that Richard should marry her before setting out on an expedition from which he might possibly never return. The English king stalled. He refused to surrender either Alice or her dowry..."
p191: "One beneficiary from the peace negotiations during 1196 was Richard's former betrothed, Alice of France, who was still unmarried at thirty- three in an era when royal princesses usually became brides at twelve or thirteen. She had been moved from her prison at Rouen to various castles, in case of any attempt at rescue. Her half-brother Philip, moved by considerations of strategy rather than affection, at last obtained her release and married her to count William of Ponthieu, whose county lay between Flanders and the northern Plantagenet lands; he was a usefully placed ally should king Richard and Baldwin of Planders try to join forces. But at least Alice had acquired a husband whose rank was worthy of her. One cannot but suspect that Eleanor's withdrawal from affairs of state at this timehad saved Alice from perpetual imprisonment."

A History of the English Seaking People Winston S Churchill Vol I The Birth of Britain Dodd Mead & Co 1956 p133 "...[Richard] had promised Philip of France to marry his sister Alice, about whom, except for her looks, the tales were none too good. Philip claimed that Richard had tried to seduce her, and there was bad feeling between the monarchs. However that may be, after he rested for the winter, his mother brought out to him Berengaria, daughter of the King of Navarre, whom he had known and admired, and now resolved to marry. It was fitting that the `Lion-heart' should marry for love and not for policy, but the rejection of Alice prevented a tie between the Kings of Franceand England which had been deemed essential to their comradship in the Crusade..."

The Political History of England 1216-1377, Vol III, T F Tout, 1905, AMS Press,
p55: "...In the spring of 1235 a serious negotiation for [Henry III's] marriage with Joan, daughter and heiress of the Count of Ponthieu, only broke down through the opposition of the French court..."
p73: "...[Henry III's] master-stroke was the conclusion, in April 1254, of a peace with Alfonso of Castile, whereby the Spanish king abandoned his Gascon allies and renounced his claims on the duchy. In return it was agreed that the lord Edward should marry Alfonso's half-sister, Eleanor, heiress of the county of Ponthieu through her mother, Joan, whom Henry had once sought for his queen. As Edward's appanage included Aquitaine, Alfonso, in renouncing his personal claims, might seem to be but transferring them to his sister."
p145: "...[1281] Edward's position against France was further strengthened in 1279 by the death of his wife's mother, Joan of Castile, the widow of Ferd- inand the Saint and the stepmother of Alfonso the Wise, whereupon he took possession of Ponthieu in Eleanor's name. Scarcely had he established himself at Abbeville, the capital of the Picard county, than the negotiations at Paris were so far ripened that Philip III went to Amiens, where Edward joined him. On May 23 both kings agreed to accept the treaty of Amiens by which the more important ofthe outstanding difficulties between the two nations were amicably regulated. By it Philip recognised Eleanor as Countess of Ponthieu, and handed over a portion of the inheritance of Alfonse of Poitiers to Edward..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica,1981, Micropaedia, Vol IV, p98, Ferdinand III the Saint: "Ferdinand was a religious zealot and, perhaps urged on by his first wife, Beatrice of Swabia, set about destroying Moorish rule in Andalusia with a vigour and a crusading zeal that werenew in Spanish Christian relations with the Moors. From 1224, taking advantage of the political disintegration of the Almohads in the south, he began a series of campaigns that led to the permanent conquest of most of the cities of Andalusia, including Cordoba in 1236, Jaen in 1246, and Seville, the Andalusian capital, which fell in 1248 after a year's siege. He also occupied the kingdom of Murcia while James I of Aragon was busy conquering Valencia and so secured a Castilian outletto the Mediterranean. Only the Muslim kingdom of Granada survived the Christian occupation Andalusia, but as a vassal state of Castile. A new feature of Ferdinand's great conquests was that hte defeated Moorish inhabitants were expelled from their former homes by the Christian conquerors with disastrous and permanent results to the econo- my of Andalusia and to that of Castile as well. For his remarkable achievement, which virtually completed the long-delayed reconquest of Sp marriedher to count William of Ponthieu, whose county lay between Flanders and the northern Plantagenet lands; he was a usefully placed ally should king Richard and Baldwin of Planders try to join forces. But at least Alice had acquired a...

ANCESTRY.COM
World Ancestral Chart No. 31759 Ancestors of Warren Cash 1760.

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File 8XJD-31 Jeanne PONTHIEU Countess, 8XPV-4M, 9BLB-BX, 8JDR-M2 Joana or Joan De DAMMARTIN [COUNTESS OF PONTHIEU] Queen of CASTILE Mar 1237Ferdinand III CASTILE King, TMC Joanna, KQE Jeanne of AUMALE & PONTHIEU.

INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGICAL INDEX
IGI Birth T990361-151-0884798 Leonor Princess of CASTILE Father Ferdinand III King of CASTILE Mother Jeanne Countess of PONTHIEU 1244 Burgos Burgos Spain.

   Marriage Information:

Joanna married King Saint Ferdinand CASTILE & LEON, III, son of King Alfonso CASTILE & LEON, IX and Queen Berengaria Aragon CASTILE & LEON, in 1237 in , Castile, Spain. (King Saint Ferdinand CASTILE & LEON, III was born bet 5 - 19 Aug 1201 in Leon, Leon, Spain, christened on 19 Aug 1201, died on 30 May 1252 in Seville, Seville, Spain and was buried in Seville, Seville, Spain.)