Isabel le Despenser Countess of Arundel

✓ Isabel le Despenser, daughter of Sir Hugh le Despenser the younger, Lord le Despenser (I100592, hanged 1326) by Eleanor de Clare (I100593): married as a child of about 8, 9 Feb 1320/1, to Richard FitzAlan, heir of Arundel, the match sealing her father's alliance with the Earl; set aside by papal mandate 4 Dec 1344 after her family's fall - the papal letters record that the pair 'contracted espousals ... by fear of their relations, and on coming to years of puberty expressly renounced them, but were forced by blows to cohabit, so that a son was born'. Mother of Sir Edmund de Arundel (b. c.1327, 'said to have been 20 in 1347'), Philippe and Isabel. Source: Complete Peerage 2nd ed. vol. I (1910), 'Arundel' pp.242-244 and notes (archive.org completepeerageo01coka), read 27 Oct 2026. [DIRECT ANCESTOR OF THE COMPILER: flag added 27 Oct 2026 by walking the tree from Aynsley, so that this marker is reliable and can be searched.]