Sometimes, history has to make a side step to clear the way for the bigger path in time, things need to be cleaned up or explained better , someone married someone else before and had offspring who would later cause trouble for the right inheritence of the throne.. , some nephew survived and had a better claim or daughters had sons who would come to cause trouble in their mother's name.. find out below who was who, why and what .. and of course what to read to know a bit more about them.
Arthur of Brittany was the son of Geoffrey II, one of the three sons of henry II. Geoffrey inherited the dukedom of Brittany but died very young at the age of 27 in a jousting tournament in France.
And so when king Richard I joined the crusade he had to name an heir to his throne.
He chose Arthur of Brittany, his nephew of 3 years old, instead of his younger brother John, who his father mockinly called lackland because he had nothinh to offer him as inheritence.
You can imagine that John was not so happy about it.. at all.
When Richard died in 1199 he had no children to inherit his crown and so the fight between John and Arthur ( then around 16 years old) began.
When Arthur raised an army en revolted against his own grandmother Eleanor, John arrived just in time to free his mother and capture Arthur.
Arthur was imprissoned at Chateau de Falaise and later transferred to Rouen.
while his precise fate is unknown, it is generally believed he was killed by John around 1203.
There is no novel or historical fiction about Arthur but there is a novel about his sister, Eleanor
'the fair maid of Brittany'.
She was imprisoned like her brother but was seperated from him and kept in captivaty for 39 years, king John and his son henry III both kept her away from court life but she could live a good and luxurious life behind bars . She died a nun aged around 57 years.
Click on the image below to see the whole picture
Click on this image to go back to my
kings and queens of england page
Cklick here to go to my Aetheling sidestory, conqueror's sidestory and Anarchy Sidestory.
Click on John's image to find out more about him ..