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Royals, people of power during the Black Death?
I've always been interested in the actions of royals throughout history, but there's surprisingly little information I was able to find. Especially about the Black Plague.
So my question is, how did it affect them? How did they respond? Were any royals lost to the plague? Among others.
Here's a list of Asian and European royalty and prominent people who died of the first and most destructive wave of Bubonic plague and the effects that it had on politics.
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Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan: The Ilkhanate disintegrated after his death and bought civil war among rival claimants.
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Alfonso XI of Castile: His wife took over as regent for their teenage son, Pedro, and had her husband's mistress, Leonor Núñez de Guzmán, put to death. This laid the groundwork for bad relations between Pedro and his half-brothers.
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Erik XII of Sweden: His death without children meant that his brother, Haakon VI, became the king of Norway and Sweden.
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Eudes IV, Duc de Bourgogne and his sister, Jeanne de Bourgogne, queen consort of France: Extremely bad news for Philippe VI of France as his wife and brother-in-law were two of his most stalwart supporters despite his humiliating loss at the Battle of Crécy. Jeanne's death caused him to seek a new bride, that alienated his sons and nobles. Eudes
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Jeanne II of Navarre: Launched the career of her unscrupulous son, Charles II of Navarre. His refusal to pay the dowry of one of his sisters, Agnes, led to the breakdown of her marriage to Gaston III, Count of Foix. This led to the marriage being unhappy, them having only son, and said son later being killed by his own father after trying to poison him at the instigation of his maternal uncle, Charles. Charles' other antics are too long to elaborate on here, but they had a vast effect on the politics of France, England, Aragon, and Castile.
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Jitka of Luxembourg, Duchesse consort of Normandie: Her husband remarried to Jeanne I of Auvergne and became the stepfather of her son, the duc de Bourgogne.
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Joan of England: The would-be marriage alliance between England and Castile collapsed. Pedro I of Castile instead later married Blanche de Bourbon and his mistreatment of her led the French to back his half-brothers.
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Leonor of Portugal, Queen consort of Aragon: Her husband, Pere IV, quickly remarried to Elionor of Sicily.
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Margaret Wake, 3rd Baroness Wake of Liddell: Her title passed to her son, John, and after his death in 1352 to her daughter, Joan of Kent.
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Pere II of Sicily (Maybe?) and his brother, Joan, Duke of Randazzo: Pere's son was still a toddler and Joan became regent. After the latter also died, civil war quickly broke out. In 1354, the king of Naples took advantage of the situation and invaded.
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Yuan dynasty: Not directly, mind you, but plague on top of droughts, floods, and famine helped lead to the Red Turban Rebellion, which meant the overthrow of their dynasty by the Ming.
Later recurrences of the plague also killed:
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Anna of Bohemia, Queen consort of England: Richard II became more unstable after Anna's death, which led to him eventually being overthrown.
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Duarte, King of Portugal: He left his wife as regent for their young son, which provoked revolt.
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Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March: The Mortimer Earls of March became extinct and his title and claim to the English throne passed to his nephew, Richard, 3rd Duke of York. Richard later used this claim during the Wars of the Roses and was unable to make good on it, though, his own eldest son, Edward IV, did.
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Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond: His wife, Margaret Beaufort, was left a thirteen-year-old widow. The Lancastrian cause also lost a supporter.
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Edward of Angoulême: Made Richard II of England the heir apparent to his ailing father and grandfather. It's almost impossible to say what kind of king Edward would have made since he died so young, but it is an interesting thought.
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Elisabeth of Carinthia and her children, Lluís I and Constança of Sicily: The throne passed to Elisabeth's youngest son, Frederic III, who had a unremarkable reign other than restricting the rights of Jews.
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Enguerrand VII, seigneur de Coucy: His daughter (by his first wife) and second wife began a fierce battle over the succession rights to his estate.
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George Douglas, 1st Earl of Angus: Um, well... Saved his family the expense of ransoming him from the English? Yeah, let's go with that.
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George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Bedford: Edward IV of England was left with only two surviving sons.
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Gruffudd ab Owain Glyndŵr: The English had one less son of Owain Glyndŵr to worry about.
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Henry de Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster and his wife, Isabel de Beaumont: His lands were inherited by his two daughters. After the death of his elder daughter, Maud, his vast possessions were inherited solely by his younger daughter, Blanche, and her husband, John of Gaunt.
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Hunyadi János: Never managed to capitalize on the renown that his defeat of the Turks had brought, though his sons did.
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Louis I of Naples: His wife, Jeanne I of Naples, became queen in her own right again.
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Al-Mansur Ali bin Salah ad-Din, Imam of Yemen, and his son, an-Nasir Muhammad: The title of Imam of Yemen was claimed by three different candidates.
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Marguerite of Durazzo, Queen consort of Naples: She had already retired from politics, so not much of an effect.
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Maria, Queen of Sicily: Her husband became the sole king of Sicily and remarried to Zuria of Navarre.
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Philippa of Lancaster, Queen consort of Portugal: Her husband and children greatly mourned her death, but otherwise... IDK.
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Philippe I, Duc de Bourgogne: (maybe; he also could have died of a horse riding accident) Jean II of France claimed the duchy as the son of Philippe's great-aunt. It was later inherited by Jean's favorite son, Philippe le Hardi, who married the heiress of the comte of Flanders and controlled some of the wealthiest regions in France and the Holy Roman Empire.
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Simeon of Moscow and his two surviving sons: The Grand Duchy of Moscow passed to Simeon's brother, Ivan II, a rather lackluster ruler.
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Swantibor V, Duke of Pomerania-Stettin and his brother, Ertmar: Their father was left without heirs and the War of the Succession of Stettin began between the Dukes of Pomerania-Wolgast and the Brandenburgs. The Dukes of Pomerania-Wolgast successfully gained the title but had to acknowledge the Brandeburgs as suzerains.
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Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick: Thomas was one of the great English commanders during the Hundred Years' War and his death was a major blow to the English. John Chandos, another great English war leader, died a month later and the English war effort faltered.
The framing story of the famous early work of stories "The Decammeron" are Italian nobility who have fled the black death in the city to take shelter in the country.
They tell each other stories to pass the time.
The English court moved away from plague infested areas.