Ermengarde de Beaumont
Queen of Scotland from 1186 to 1214

Ermengarde de Beaumont (c. 1170 – 12 February 1233/1234) was Queen of Alba as the consort of William the Lion. She is reported to have exerted influence over the affairs of state as queen, though the information on her is lacking in detail. Her paternal grandmother was Constance FitzRoy, illegitimate daughter of Henry I of England.
Life
Ermengarde was born c. 1170 to a minor French noble, Richard I, Viscount of Beaumont-le-Vicomte, Fresnay and Ste-Suzanne, and Lucie de l'Aigle (died aft. 1217).
Ermengarde married King William I of Scotland at the royal chapel at Woodstock Palace, near Oxford, in England on 5 September 1186, performed by Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury. The marriage was arranged under terms of the Treaty of Falaise by King Henry II of England, who was at the time the acknowledged overlord of Scotland. William considered her status beneath him, but agreed after Henry offered to pay for the entire wedding, land valued at 100 merks and 40 knight's fees, and to return the castles that he had forfeited as her dowry, one of them being Edinburgh.
The public source identifies “Ermengarde de Beaumont” as queen of Scotland from 1186 to 1214. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ermengarde, Beaumont and Queen.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ermengarde de Beaumont”, the useful work is to connect “queen of Scotland from 1186 to 1214” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2569718. VIAF identifies the subject as 282151246607844132893. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1170, 1233, 1234 and 1217.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ermengarde de Beaumont” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.