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fourteen, emissaries from the recently widowed Richard II, king of England, arrived at her parents’ favorite castle at Zaragoza to solicit the princess’s hand. A nuptial agreement with the twenty-eight-year-old Richard, who actually ruled his kingdom, and had the sort of financial, diplomatic, and military resources that might prove useful to Aragon in the future, was much more in keeping with her parents’ views of their daughter’s station in life, and they entered into negotiations enthusiastically.
    This marriage, with its implied expectation of an alliance at the highest levels between France’s perpetual enemy, England, and the powerful kingdom of Aragon, was sufficiently disquieting to provoke an energetic response from the French king. Charles VI hastily offered the hand of his own daughter, Isabelle, supplemented by a massive dowry of 500,000 francs to Richard. Despite the French princess’s extreme youth—she was six years old—Charles VI’s proposal was accepted by the English, and Isabelle and a downpayment of 200,000 francs were conducted to London, there to await the bride’s reaching the venerable age of thirteen or fourteen, at which point it would be legally permissible for her patient middle-aged husband to consummate the marriage, the trigger at which the remaining 300,000 francs of the dowry would be paid. *
    Any hopes for the appearance of a third royal suitor were dashed the following year when King John, out riding in yet another hunt—perhaps not the happiest choice of sport for a man with epilepsy—was thrown, or more likely fell, from his horse and died. Yolande of Bar did everything she could to retain ownership of both her crown and the royal castle at Zaragoza, even going so far as to claim that she was pregnant with the king’s posthumous male heir. But after a few months this ruse was inevitably discovered, and the queen was forced to give way to the new king of Aragon, John’s younger brother, Martin.
    The responsibility for choosing Princess Yolande’s future husband now fell to her uncle, and the issue was revisited almost immediately when yet another ambassador, this one representing the French court, appeared in Zaragoza. The indefatigable Marie of Blois had prevailed upon the French king to help her bring about the union of her house with that of Aragon, and to please her Charles VI sent one of his most trusted knights to lobby for the marriage of Yolande to Louis II. The new king of Aragon, with an unmarried sixteen-year-old girl on his hands, was receptive to the idea, but negotiations again foundered, this time because the bride herself opposed the match. Her objection to Louis II did not seem to be personal—after all, she’d never met the man—but rather political. Yolande, having been raised in Aragon, identified with her native kingdom. Louis II’s interests in Sicily clashed with those of her homeland. If she married him, she knew she would be expected to support French ambitions in Italy over those of Aragon, and this she did not wish to do.
    Yolande’s willingness to set herself in opposition to this marriage, and so attempt to exert some control over her future, demonstrated both considerable spirit and a sophisticated understanding of the political situation. But against a veteran campaigner like Marie of Blois she was outmatched. With the return of the now twenty-two, still unmarried Louis II to Provence inJuly 1399—remarkably, his forces had managed to hold the capital city of Naples for nine years until he was ousted by an adept rival—Marie sent her ambassadors again to Aragon on her son’s behalf, and this time succeeded. With his niece rapidly approaching an age when she would no longer be considered quite as desirable as a bride, King Martin came to terms with the Provençal envoys. His relief in having the matter settled may be inferred from the alacrity with which he agreed to pay the 200, 000-franc dowry. Princess Yolande was forced to