Philip de Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais, took part in the Albigensian Crusade; naturally, he would. When he was freed from captivity in 1199, he was forced to swear that he’d not fight again against his fellow Christians. Not surprisingly, he did not honor this promise, and played a prominent role at the Battle of Bouvines, mentioned below, where he captured John’s half brother William de Longespée. He died in 1217, at age fifty-nine.
Berengaria’s younger brother Fernando died at the age of thirty in 1207 when he was killed in a tournament. Her youngest sister, Blanca, had a brief but happy marriage to Thibault, the Count of Champagne, brother of Henri of Champagne; she was a great comfort to Berengaria during the latter’s widowhood. Berengaria’s brother Sancho’s story is another sad one. His health deteriorated and he grew so heavy that he could no longer mount a horse and became a recluse. His marriage to Raimond of Toulouse’s daughter Constance failed, and although he had four illegitimate sons, he died without an heir in 1234, Navarre’s crown passing to his nephew, his sister Blanca’s son.
Leopold of Austria’s eldest son, Friedrich, assumed the papal penance imposed upon his father and took the cross. Like so many crusaders, he was stricken by a fatal illness, dying in April 1198 at the age of twenty-two. His brother Leopold inherited the duchy. He would have a long and very successful reign, earning himself the epithet “Leopold the Glorious” before his death in 1230. Friedrich, the son of Heinrich von Hohenstaufen and Constance de Hauteville, would become Holy Roman Emperor and even King of Jerusalem; he was one of the most intriguing, colorful, and controversial figures of the Middle Ages, called Stupor Mundi, the Wonder of the World.
As I explained in Lionheart, I chose to retain Richenza’s German name although she’d changed it to Matilda during her family’s exile in England. Her husband Jaufre, Count of Perche, died suddenly in April of 1202, leaving her a widow at age thirty. Jaufre entrusted her with the minority of their son, Thomas. She wed again between April of 1203 and April of 1204 to Enguerrand de Courcy, the French king’s cousin, and Kathleen Thompson, in her excellent history Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France, argues convincingly that what slight evidence there is indicates this second marriage was not of Richenza’s choosing. She died in January 1210, only thirty-eight, and her son, Thomas, was slain at the Battle of Lincoln in 1217.
Richenza’s brother Otto was crowned King of Germany in 1198, but he continued to be challenged by Heinrich’s brother, Philip of Swabia. Richard’s death was a great blow to him, and his hold on power became more precarious after John’s loss of Normandy, the tide shifting in Philip’s favor. But then Philip was tragically murdered in 1208 by a deranged vassal with a personal grudge, and the German barons turned again to Otto, as did Pope Innocent III. He was crowned as the Holy Roman Emperor in October 1209. He soon fell out with the Pope, though, who threw his support to Friedrich von Hohenstaufen, who was then seventeen. Since Philippe Capet was backing Friedrich, John resumed aid to Otto. The result was the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, which ended in a defeat for Otto and John, although the English king had not taken part in the battle. Otto was forced to abdicate the imperial throne in 1215 and died in May 1218, at age forty-one. His elder brother Henrik died in 1227 and his younger brother Wilhelm married the daughter of the King of Denmark, but he died young in 1213.
Anna is my own name for the Damsel of Cyprus. As I explained in Lionheart, the best source for the history of Isaac Comnenus and his daughter remains the article by W. H. Rudt de Collenberg, “L’Empereur Isaac de Chypre et sa fille, 1155–1207.” He speculated that her name may have been Beatrice, for a Beatrice received a generous bequest in Joanna’s will. But that Beatrice seems to have been one of Joanna’s two ladies-in-waiting who took the veil at Fontevrault after her death. The Damsel of Cyprus had an interesting marital history. Her marriage to the Count of Toulouse did not last long, and was over by the time Raimond went to the Holy Land in October 1202. In 1203, “Anna” wed Thierry, the illegitimate son of Philip d’Alsace, the Count of Flanders. They sailed with the army during the debacle that was the Fourth Crusade, and upon their arrival in Cyprus, Anna’s new husband claimed the island in her name. The then–King of Cyprus, Amaury de Lusignan, was having none of that and declared them persona non grata. They then went to Anna’s homeland, Armenia. In 1207, Thierry turned up in Constantinople, now ruled by his cousin, but we do not know if Anna accompanied him or remained in Armenia. After that mention in 1207, Thierry and Anna disappear from history; I am sentimental enough to hope that the remainder of her life was a happy one.