Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall
Richard of Cornwall, Richard of Cornwall ( born January 5, 1209 Winchester, † April 2, 1272 in Berkhamsted ), Earl of Cornwall was Count of Poitou, since 1257 Roman- German king from the house of Plantagenet.
Life
Richard was the son of King John Lackland and his wife Isabella of Angoulême. He was a nephew of Richard the Lionheart and grandson of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Richard was married three times: first in 1231 to Isabella of Pembroke († 1240), then in 1243 with Sancha of Provence († 1261 ) and finally in 1269 to Beatrice of Falkenburg († 1277 ).
As a younger brother of King Henry III. He gained early military experience in an expedition to Gascony in the years 1225-1227. France he supported an opposition of the barons under Peter Mauclerc against the reigning Queen Blanche of Castile. When the rebels in Vendôme interrupted the fight in March 1227, Richard moved back to England.
Due to its proximity to King Henry III. and by his administrative talent, it was Richard able to take over the administration of Crusade money and the responsibility for the royal coinage. So he managed to build up a great fortune.
Richard of Cornwall was founded in July 1235 by the marriage of Frederick II with his sister Isabella to the brother in law of Hohenstaufen. He undertook, among other things a try, the excommunicated Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX. to reconcile. In 1240 he visited his brother in law in the Kingdom of Sicily, when he lodged there on the way to the Holy Land a stopover.
Crusade of the barons
In September 1240 Richard led an English army crusade to the Holy Land. A French crusading army under Theobald of Champagne was there already arrived in 1239 and received on the diplomatic offers of mutually warring Muslim Ayyubid empires Cairo and Damascus. First, Damascus had ceded them Galilee and finally Cairo had promised them, to give them all the territories west of the Jordan over Jerusalem to Ashkelon. Theobald had left shortly before Richard's arrival and so gave Richard the implementation of the latter agreement. These were the biggest territorial gains of the Crusaders since the First Crusade. Richard also supervised the restoration of the citadel of Ashkelon, and the release of prisoners and the burial of the fallen crusader from the Battle of Gaza, who had lost the French in 1239.
After his return to England Richard accompanied his brother on an expedition against France in the Saintonge. There they had in July 1242 at the Battle of Taillebourg a defeat against King Louis IX. accept of France.
King
From Pope Innocent IV him 1252/53, the Kingdom of Sicily was offered, but he refused due to lack of further assistance.
In the double election of 1256/57 a Roman- German king after the death of William of Holland ( 1256), the English party of the German electors (Cologne, Mainz, Palatinate ) Richard chose the Roman- German king. He was crowned in Aachen, but was able to win little more than his counterpart King Alfonso of Castile. In Germany, he spent only four times for a short time (most recently 1269 ). His real successor Rudolf I of Habsburg ( Alfonso of Castile came a few months after Richard's death back ) ended the period of interregnum while the seven electors established as the actual territorial ruler and a king electoral college.
Progeny
From his marriage to Isabella of Pembroke:
- John of Cornwall (1232-1233)
- Isabella of Cornwall (1233-1234)
- Henry of Almain (1235-1271)
- Nicholas Cornish ( born January 17, 1240), died shortly after his birth and was buried next to his mother.
From his marriage to Sancha of Provence:
- Richard of Cornwall (1246-1246)
- Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall ( 1250-1300 ), married to Margaret de Clare († 1312)
- Richard of Cornwall (1252-1296)