Irene Angelina - Marriage and Issue

Marriage and Issue

In 1193 she married Roger III of Sicily, but he died on 24 December 1193. Irene was captured in the German invasion of Sicily on 29 December 1194 and was married on 25 May 1197 to Philip of Swabia. In Germany, she was renamed Maria.

Her father, who had been deposed in 1195, urged her to get Philip's support for his reinstatement; her brother, Alexius, subsequently spent some time at Philip's court during the preparations for the Fourth Crusade. She thus had an early influence on the eventual diversion of the Crusade to Constantinople in 1204.

She was described by Walther von der Vogelweide as "the rose without a thorn, the dove without guile".

Philip and Irene had four daughters:

• Beatrice of Hohenstaufen (1198–1212), married Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor, died without issue.
• Kunigunde of Hohenstaufen (1200–1248), married King Wenceslaus I, King of Bohemia, by whom she had issue.
• Marie of Hohenstaufen (3 April 1201 – 29 March 1235), married Henry II, Duke of Brabant, by whom she had issue.
• Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen (1203–1235), married King Ferdinand III of Castile, by whom she had issue.

• and two sons (called Reinald and Frederick) who died in infancy.

After the murder of her husband on 21 June 1208, Irene - who was pregnant by that time - retired to the Hohenstaufen Castle. There, two months later on 27 August, she gave birth to a daughter (called Beatrice Postuma); but both mother and child died shortly afterwards. She was buried in the family mausoleum in the Staufen proprietary monastery of Lorch Abbey, along with her daughter and sons. Her grave, now destroyed, cannot be reconstructed today.