Philippa of Hainault

Philippa of Hainault knelt in front of her husband to beg for the lives of the burghers of Calais, and the story has been sculpted, painted and disputed ever since. She was the daughter of the Count of Hainault, and the marriage to Edward III in 1328 was arranged as part of the price of her father's ships and men for the invasion that deposed Edward II. It became one of the few genuinely affectionate royal marriages of the period; she bore at least thirteen children, travelled on campaign with him, and was with the army in the north when the Scots were beaten at Neville's Cross in 1346. At Calais in 1347, after an eleven-month siege, Edward demanded six leading citizens come out with ropes round their necks to be executed, and Froissart records that Philippa, heavily pregnant, knelt and asked for them; they were spared. Froissart was her own protege and later secretary, which is the reason to treat the scene carefully. She encouraged Flemish weavers to settle in Norfolk, which mattered to the English cloth trade. Queen's College, Oxford is named for her. She died of an illness resembling dropsy and Edward's reign deteriorated markedly afterwards. She brought her own household from Hainault and kept Flemish servants and craftsmen around her for life. She acted as regent during Edward's absences in France, which is when the Neville's Cross campaign fell to her. Her second surviving son was born at Ghent and known ever after as John of Gaunt, an English mangling of the town. Her tomb effigy in Westminster Abbey was carved by Jean de Liege from an alabaster likeness she commissioned in her own lifetime, and it is one of the earliest attempts at an actual portrait rather than a type in English royal sculpture. Edward ordered space left beside it for himself.

• Lived: 1310 CE – 1369 CE
• Nationality: English
• Roles: royalty