Philippa of Hainault

Philippa of Hainault (24 June^[1] 1315^[2] – 15 August 1369) was the queen of Edward III of England.

Philippa was the daughter of William I, Count of Hainaut, nicknamed the Good, and Joan of Valois, the granddaughter of Philip III of France.^[3]

King Edward II wanted an alliance with Flanders to benefit England and sent Bishop Walter de Stapledon to choose a good wife for Prince Edward. He chose Philippa, who was about nine years old. Four years later, Philippa was bethrothed to Prince Edward.

Philippa married Edward at York Minster on 24 January 1328. That was eleven months after he was made King. The real rulers of the kingdom were his mother, Queen Dowager Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, who jointly acted as his regents. The couple lived at Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire. Philippa was crowned queen on 4 March 1330 at Westminster Abbey. She was almost six months pregnant.^[4] She gave birth to her first son, Edward in June, just nine days before her seventeenth birthday.

In October 1330, Edward III began to rule. He ordered the arrest of his mother and of Mortimer, who was killed for treason. Isabella was sent to Castle Rising, in Norfolk, where she spent the rest of her life.

Philippa went with Edward on his trips to Scotland and the Continent of Europe during his early campaigns of the Hundred Years' War. She acted as regent in England on several times when her husband was away from his kingdom.

On 15 August 1369, Philippa died of an illness similar to dropsy in Windsor Castle at the age of fifty-six. By all accounts, her forty-year marriage to Edward had been happy. even though he had an affair with her lady-in-waiting, Alice Perrers, during the later years.

The Queen's College, Oxford, is named after Philippa. It was founded in 1341 by one of her chaplains, Robert de Eglesfield, in her honour.

• Warner, Kathryn (2019-10-15). Philippa of Hainault: Mother of the English Nation. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-6280-0.