James II, Count of La Marche

James de Bourbon-La Marche
Count of La Marche
Spouse(s) Beatrice of Navarre
Joanna II of Naples

Issue

Isabelle of La Marche
Marie of La Marche
Eleanor, Countess of Pardiac
Noble family House of Bourbon
Father John I, Count of La Marche
Mother Catherine of Vendôme
Born 1370
Died 1438

James II of Bourbon-La Marche (1370 1438 in Besançon) was the first son of John I, Count of La Marche and Catherine of Vendôme.

Early life

He first bore arms in the crusade which culminated in the Battle of Nicopolis.[1] After returning to France, he commanded a force which invaded England in support of Owain Glyndŵr. His troops burned Plymouth in 1403,[2] but twelve ships of his fleet were lost in a storm while returning to France in 1404.

He was an adherent of John the Fearless and foe of the Armagnac party. However, his affairs in France were interrupted by a sojourn abroad. In 1415, the barons of the Kingdom of Naples arranged his marriage to Joanna II of Naples, hoping he would break the power of her court favorites, Pandolfo Alopo and Muzio Sforza, to their advantage. He had Alopo executed and imprisoned Sforza, but he also kept the queen in confinement and aspired to personal rule. The indignant barons captured and imprisoned him in 1416; he was compelled to free Sforza and resign the kingship, and was ejected from the kingdom in 1419. However their marriage does not seem to have been annulled and neither Joanna nor James would ever marry again.

Returning to France, he fought against the English for Charles VII of France in 1428 and was made Governor of Languedoc.

In 1435, he resigned his titles and became a Franciscan monk, dying in 1438.

Marriage

In 1406 in Pamplona, he married Beatrix d'Évreux, daughter of Charles III of Navarre and Eleanor of Castile. The couple had three children:

In 1415, James married Joanna II of Naples.[3] They had no children.

References

  1. Kenneth Meyer Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571: The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Vol. I, (American Philosophical Society, 1976), 345.
  2. The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 8, ed. John Bagnell Bury, Henry Melvill Gwatkin and James Pounder Whitney, (Cambridge University Press, 1959), 365
  3. Elena Woodacre, The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics, and Partnership, 1274-1512, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 91.


Preceded by
John I
Count of La Marche
1393–1435
Succeeded by
Eleanor
Preceded by
John I
with Catherine of Vendôme
Count of Castres
1393–1435
With: Catherine of Vendôme 1393–1412
Preceded by
Ladislaus of Naples
Prince of Taranto
1414–1420
Succeeded by
Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini
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