Adele of Champagne



Adele of Champagne

Adèle of Champagne (c. 1140 – June 4, 1206), also known as Adelaide and Alix, was the third wife of Louis VII of France and the mother of his only male heir, the future Philip II. She was also the daughter of Theobald II of Champagne and Matilda of Carinthia.

She was active in the political life of the kingdom, along with her brothers Henry I of Champagne, Theobald V of Blois, and Guillaume aux Blanches Mains, archbishop of Reims. Henry and Theobald were married to daughters of Louis VII and his first wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. She and her brothers felt their position threatened when the heiress of Artois, Isabelle of Hainaut, married Adèle's son, Philippe. Adèle formed an alliance with Hugh III, Duke of Burgundy and Count Philip of Flanders, and even tried to interest Frederick Barbarossa. War broke out in 1181, and relations became so bad that Philippe attempted to divorce Isabelle in 1184.

Although her power decreased after the accession of Philippe in 1180, she acted as regent of the kingdom in 1190 while Philip was away on the Third Crusade. She returned to the shadows when he returned in 1192 but participated in the founding of many abbeys.

She died on June 4, 1206, and was buried in the church of Pontigny Abbey near Auxerre.

She had two children with Louis VII of France:

• Dieudonné, the future Philippe Auguste (born August 21, 1165), Louis VII's only male heir
• Agnes of France (1171 – after 1207)

Sources

• Gislebert of Mons' Chronicon
• Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 101-25, 109-28, 137-25.