The Demon Countess of Anjou

 

According to legend, The Plantagenets, the dynasty that ruled England for more than 300 years, was descended from the devil. Gerald of Wales tells the colourful tale of the demon countess who the Plantagenets were descendants of...

"there was a certain countess of Anjou, of remarkable beauty, but of an unknown nation, whom the count married solely for beauty, who was in the habit of coming very seldom to church, and there manifested no devotion in it, she never remained in the church until the celebration the mass, but always went out immediately after the gospel.

she was eventually noticed by the count; and when she had come to the church, and was preparing to depart at her usual hour, she saw that she was kept back by four soldiers at the command of the count; leaving behind her two little sons, she took up under her arm the two others, and in the sight of all flew out through a lofty window. And so this woman, was never afterwards seen there."

This obviously ridiculous tale, however colourful it may be, is outdone by the dynasty that was supposedly spawned by this demon countess. The fact of the matter is that, no matter how imaginative medieval chroniclers were in their writing, and they were certainly imaginative, this was a case of the truth being stranger than fiction. The story of the Plantagenet kings, whether it be the sorrowful tale of Bad King John, the chivalric heroics of Edward III, the brilliance of Henry V and so on could never be outdone. In fairness to Gerald, he died in the first quarter of the 13th century so he would not be able to grasp how influential this dynasty would become. In his own time though, he bore witness to the horrors of John's reign and no doubt he must have seriously questioned, at the very least, what made John the man he was. Certainly, some of John's actions were demonic like.