Powerful husbands were sought
for the king's three sisters. On June 19, 1221, Joan, Henry's second
sister, was married to the young Alexander of Scotland, at York. At the
same time Hubert, a widower by Isabella of Gloucester's death, wedded
Alexander's elder sister, Margaret, a match which compensated the
justiciar for his loss of Isabella's lands. Four years later, Isabella,
the King of Scot's younger sister, was united with Roger Bigod, the
young Earl of Norfolk, a grandson of the great William Marshal, whose
eldest son and successor, William Marshal the younger, was in 1224
married to the king's third sister, Eleanor. The policy of
intermarriage between the royal family and the baronage was defended by
the example of Philip Augustus in France, and on the ground of the
danger to the royal interests if so strong a magnate as the earl
marshal were enticed away from his allegiance by an alliance with a
house unfriendly to Henry.[1]
[1] _Royal Letters_, i., 244-46.
The futility of marriage alliances in modifying policy was already made
clear by the attitude of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, the husband of Henry's
bastard sister Joan.
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