Isabella Bossell Countess of Menteith

• Preferred Name: Isabella Bossell Countess of Menteith^{[1] [2]}
  
• Gender: F
  
• http://familysearch.org/v1/TitleOfNobility: Countess
  
• Death: 1272 in Kidrummy Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom at LATI: N7.1508 LONG: E2.0948
  
• FSID: GD48-97N
  
• Find+A+Grave: with note: Countess of Menteith Isabella Menteith Comyn BIRTH 1217 Moray, Scotland DEATH 1272 (aged 54–55) Ely, East Cambridgeshire District, Cambridgeshire, England BURIAL Burial Details Unknown MEMORIAL ID 226872071 · View Source
  
• Birth: 1217 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland at LATI: N6.4 LONG: E3.4333
  
• Burial: 1272 in Scotland
  
• Notes:

  === Life Sketch ===
  Isabella, Countess of Menteith (1217 – 1272) was the eldest daughter of Muireadhach II, Mormaer of Menteith. When the old mormaer died without legitimate male heir in 1233, the province passed to Isabella.
  
  Isabella married Walter Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, bringing the mormaerdom temporarily into the hands of the Comyn family. When her husband died in 1258, Isabella married again, this time to an English knight named John Russell. This mediocre marriage left her too weak to protect her status. Already by 1259, Walter Stewart (nicknamed "Ballaich") was claiming the province for his wife, Isabella's sister Mary. By 1261, Isabella was arrested and deposed from rulership of the province on charges of poisoning her first husband. Isabella died in 1272 in England having been stripped of all her nobility.
  
  Bibliography
  Brown, Michael, The Wars of Scotland, 1214-1371, (Edinburgh, 2004)
  Paul, James Balfour, The Scots Peerage, Vol. VI, (Edinburgh, 1909)
  Preceded by
  Muireadhach II Countess of Menteith
  fl. 1233-1260x126
  
  === ISABEL, suo jure COUNTESS OF MENTEITH, a ===
  ISABEL, suo jure COUNTESS OF MENTEITH, and therefore presumed to be, with her sister Mary, daughter and coheir of Earl Maurice the younger. She married, seemingly between 30 June 1233 and 9 January 1233/4, Walter COMYN, who became EARL of MENTEITH. He was one of the guarantors and witnesses to the treaty between England and Scotland, September 1237. In 1244 it was the action of the Earl of Menteith and others, in fortifying castles in Galloway and Lothian against England, that resulted in Henry III's expedition to Scotland that summer, ending in the ratification by Alexander II of the pact of 1237, to which ratification the seal of the Earl of Menteith was, amongst others, affixed. The Earl took an active part in the Coronation of Alexander III, 13 July 1249, and was present at the young King's marriage at York, Christmas 1251. With the Earl of Mar he headed the "national party," which was removed from the King's counsels, at the instance of Henry III, in 1255, but returned to power again in 1258. In 1257 he was a principal in the carrying off of the King from Kinross to Stirling, and in March 1257/8 headed the Scottish nobles who entered into league with Llewelyn. He founded a house of Austin canons on Inchmahome, the larger of the two islets in the lake of Monteith, which became the burial place of his descendants. He died November 1258, s.p. legitimate.[i] His Countess married, 2ndly, Sir John RUSSELL. By the combined action of the nobles of Scotland, they were forced to surrender the Earldom and abjure the kingdom. She, who was living January 1263/4, died s.p.m., before 1272. Sir John Russell died before his daughter came of age, (probably long) before 1291. [Complete Peerage VIII:660-2]
  
  [i] The news of his death was brought to Henry III at St. Albans, at the end of November 1258. He calls him comes in Scotia potentissimus, and says his death was caused by a fall from his horse, when both his legs were broken. The author of Scotichronicon, P. 766, says the magnates of Scotland charged the Countess with poisoning her husband, and she and her 2nd husband, Sir John Russell, whom he describes as a low-born English knight, were put into chains. This statement is borne out by documentary evidence, showing that, in 1260, the accused complained to the Pope that, though they were married in Scotland with the King's consent, and the Earls of Mar, Buchan and Stratherne, and other nobles, took an oath of fealty to them, the said Earls joined with John Comyn (nephew and h. of the late Earl) and others, falsely charging them with the murder of Isabel's 1st husband. They were kept prisoners (they allege) till they agreed to make over to John Comyn and his heirs the Earldom of Menteith, and took oath to leave the realm, and not return until recalled by Comyn, and unless they could then purge themselves of the murder by 7 or more barons, being peers of the realm. They gave Robert Russell, Sir John's brother, as their hostage till they should give up the charters of the Earldom to John Comyn. Further, they say that Comyn and the Earls acted on behalf of the King, then a minor; that Walter "Bailloch" had claimed the Earldom in right of his wife Mary, and had summoned them, as John Russell of the diocese of Ely and Isabel his wife, before the King of Scotland, for the decision of their claims; judgment had been given for Walter and Mary as regards possession of the Earldom, the question of ownership being reserved. Upon this appeal the Pope sent over a legate, who exceeded his powers by summoning the King and magnates of Scotland to attend him in this matter at York, outside the Kingdom of Scotland. They refused so to attend, and the legate reversed the Scottish judgment. The King of Scotland made a representation to the Pope, who appointed 3 Scottish prelates to decide upon his objections (Theiner, Vetera Monumenta Hib. et Scot., no. 237). A charter of Sir John Russell and Isabel his wife, Countess of Menteith, attested by the Earls of Fife, Stratherne, Buchan and Mar, and by John Comyn, then justice of Galway, is reproduced (from the Douglas charter-chest) in the Red Book, vol. ii, P. 213.
  
  === !#21-v8-p660; !elder dau & coh; ===
  !#21-v8-p660; !elder dau & coh;

• m. AFT 1258 in Scotland

1. Alice Bosse Russell, b. 1246 in Tynton Cornwall England     d. 1326 in Trenowyth, Cornwall

1. Isabel de Comyn, b. 14 DEC 1204 in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland     d. ABT 1285 in Rowallan Castle, Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland

1. Title: Legacy NFS Source: John Russell - birth-name: John Russell
   Author: media.type.Ancestry.com, OneWorldTree
   Note: birth-name: John Russell birth-name: John Russell birth: 1225; Cornwall, England birth: 1225; Cornwall, England
   Page: Migrated from user-supplied source citation: urn:familysearch:source:3244467101
   
2. Title: Ancestry Family Trees
   Author: Ancestry Family Tree