The king’s heralds announced my ancestry over the blaring of trumpets in the cathedral at Westminster: Isabelle, Countess of Angouleme, great-granddaughter of Louis VI of France, niece to the Emperor of Contantinople, kin to the royal houses of Hungary, Aragon, Castile, Jerusalem and Cyprus, to the counts of Champagne, Hainault, Forez, Namur, Nevers, anointed with the common consent and agreement of the archbishops, bishops, counts, barons and people of the realm of England, by the grace of God, Duchess of Aquitaine and Normandy, Countess of Anjou and Maine. So many titles, so many great names. Names that were recorded on parchments in the monasteries of Europe and howled on battlefields; names that were muttered around peasants’ hearths and cried in the lists of tournaments. And they all belonged to me. I felt too small to carry them. As John and I processed in clouds of incense and ermine the Laudes, the ancient hymn of the Norman dukes, was sung, proclaiming me party to my husband’s empire.
