A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Constance
CONSTANCE,
Daughter of Conan, Duke of Brittany, wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet, son of Henry the Second, King of England. She was contracted to him while they were both in the cradle, and, by her right, Grcoffrey became Duke of Brittany. By him she had two children, Eleanor, called the Maid of Brittany, and Arthur, who was born after the death of his father. She afterwards married Ralph Blundeville, Earl of Chester, who suspected her of an intrigue with John of England, his most bitter enemy. He obtained a divorce, and Constance married Guy, brother of the Viscount de Thouars. She had by him a daughter Alix, whom the Bretons, on the refusal of John to set free her elder sister, elected for their sovereign. The King of France and Richard Cœur de Lion, King of England, both claimed Brittany as a fief. Constance, to keep It in her own name, fomented divisions between the two sovereigns. On the death of Richard, it was found that he had left the kingdom to his brother John, instead of his nephew Arthur, to whom it rightfully belonged. Constance resented this injustice, and being a woman of judgment and courage, might have reinstated her son in his rights, if she had not died before she had opportunity of asserting his claims. Her death occurred in 1202.