Enguerrand III of Coucy

Enguerrand III of Coucy (1182 - 1242), known as Enguerrand the Builder , lord of Coucy, Fère, Marle, Crépy and Vervins. I am not roy, prince, count aussy. I am the lord de Coucy Born in 1182 with the Castle from Coucy, he is the oldest son of Raoul Ier de Coucy and of Alix, girl of the count Robert Ier de Dreux.

History

Enguerrand III is, with Enguerrand VII the, most prestigious and most interesting of the lords of Coucy. It was also without the most ambitious question of them. Enguerrand III symbolizes the obstinate fight of large feudal against the crown to preserve their independence. During its principat long of about fifty years, it grants charters of franknesses to several communes concerned with its authority.

Enguerrand takes share, in 1214, in the Bataille of Bouvines, where its action points out its courage, then takes part in the Albigensian Crusade, who ensanglante South of France during nearly one half-century. In 1226, the king Louis VIII the Lion dies suddenly by leaving the throne of the Capétiens to a twelve year old child, the future holy Louis. The Régence of the kingdom is entrusted to the mother of the young prince, the queen Blanche of Castille. Enguerrand considers the period convenient definitively to sit the supremacy of the large barons, of which it is made the spokesperson.

To show its power and to thus legitimate its intentions, he undertakes the construction of many strong castles of which the Château of Coucy, Marle, Sitted-on-Greenhouse, Saint-Gobain and Folembray. Work of the castle of Coucy, started towards 1225, will continue until its death in 1242. At the western end of the town of Coucy, it builds an enormous quadrilateral, which it flanks of four colossal towers and which it crowns of a Donjon whose Purple-the-Duke will say: “near this giant, the largest known towers, either in France, or in Italy, or Germany, are only spindles”. Dimensions of this keep - fifty four meters height, thirty-two meters diameter, hundred meters of circumference, and seven meters fifty thickness of walls at the base translate the disproportion of the ambition of this prince who will marry, inter alia, the grand-daughter of Henri II Plantagenêt, king d' Angleterre.

In strong position, Enguerrand succeeds in convincing the large lords, its pars, to help it to remove the young person Louis IX (future holy Louis) to gird the royal crown in its place. The plot having failed thanks to the White action of of Castille which it had underestimated, the lord de Coucy will not keep of it less the reputation of the most powerful baron of the kingdom.

When he dies, killed accidentally by its own sword which will transpierce it following a fall of horse, he will leave with his descent a considerable field, dominated by an imposing fortress.

Genealogy

In first weddings, he marries Béatice de Vignory, widow of the count de Roucy, Jean Ier.
In second weddings, he marries Mathilde of Saxony and Bavaria (1172 - † January 13rd 1209), girl of Henri the Lion, duke of Bavaria and of Saxony, and Mathilde of England. Mathilde is the widow of Geoffroy III, count of the Pole.
In third weddings, Enguerrand III marries Marie d' Oisy and of Montmirail, girl of Jean, lord of Montmirail which gives him six children:

Marie de Coucy which married the king Alexandre II of Scotland known as the Pacific , then towards 1251/1252 Jean d' Acre († 1296), wire of Jean de Brienne, king de Jérusalem and emperor of the East.
Raoul II of Coucy († in 1250 during the Battle of Mansourah in Egypt at the time of the Seventh crusade, close to the count d' Artois, brother of holy Louis, which it defended at the price of his blood.
Enguerrand IV of Coucy († 1311)
Jean de Coucy
Alix de Coucy which marries the count de Guînes, Arnould III
Jeanne de Coucy which marries Jean I {{er}} lord of Mailly, of Acheu and Ploich.

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