Queen Philippa (born 1311)

Philippa was born in Valenciennes (then in Flanders) and was the daughter of William I, Count of Hainaut and Jeanne of Valois, the granddaughter of Philip III of France.

She married Edward III at York Minster, on 24 January 1328, eleven months after his accession to the English throne and, unlike many of her predecessors, she did not alienate the English people by retaining her foreign retinue upon her marriage or bringing large numbers of foreigners to the English court.

Philippa accompanied Edward on his expeditions to the Kingdom of Scotland (1333) and Flanders (1338-40), where she won acclaim for her gentleness and compassion. She acted as a regent on several occasions when he was on the continent.

Philippa and Edward have several children:
Edward of Woodstock, Duke of Cornwall (b.1330)
Isabella of Woodstock (b.1332)
Joan of Woodstock (b.1333)
Lionel of Antwerp (b.338)
John of Gaunt (b.1340)
Edmund of Langley (b.1341)
Mary of Waltham (b.1344)
Through her children, Philippa reintroduced the bloodline of an earlier English King, Stephen, into the royal family. She was descended from Stephen through Matilda of Brabant, the wife of Floris IV, Count of Holland. Their daughter Adelaide of Holland married John I of Avesnes, Count of Hainaut, Philippa's paternal great-grandfather. Matilda of Brabant in turn was the great-granddaughter of Stephen through her mother Matilda of Boulogne, the wife of Henry I, Duke of Brabant.

Philippa was also a descendant of the Saxon king, Harold II of England through his daughter Gytha of Wessex, married to Vladimir II Monomakh of Kiev. His bloodline, however, had been reintroduced to the English royal family by Philippa's mother-in-law, Isabella of France, a granddaughter of Isabella of Aragon, the wife of Philip III of France. Isabella of Aragon's mother, Violant of Hungary, was a daughter of Andrew II of Hungary, a grandson of Géza II by Euphrosyne of Kiev, herself a granddaughter of Gytha. Through her maternal great-grandmother, Maria of Hungary, she was descended from Elisabeth of Bosnia (born before 1241), a daughter of Kuthen, Khan of the Cumens and his Slavic wife, Galicie of Halicz, thus bringing Western Asian blood into the English royal line.

The Queen's College, Oxford is named for Philippa. It was founded in 1341 by one of her chaplains, Robert de Eglesfield, in her honour.