Ida of Boulogne was Countess of Boulogne

Count of Boulogne

The county of Boulogne was a historical region in the Low Countries. It consisted of a part of the present-day French département of the Pas-de-Calais , in parts of which there is still a Dutch-speaking minority....

. She was the eldest daughter of Matthew of Alsace

Matthew of Alsace

Matthew of Alsace was the second son of Thierry, Count of Flanders and Sibylla of Anjou. By marriage to Marie de Boulogne, he became Count of Boulogne, in 1160. They were divorced in 1170, but he continued as Count until his death....

 by Marie I, Countess of Boulogne. Her maternal grandparents were King Stephen of England

Stephen of England

Stephen , often referred to as Stephen of Blois , was a grandson of William the Conqueror. He was King of England from 1135 to his death, and also the Count of Boulogne by right of his wife. Stephen's reign was marked by the Anarchy, a civil war with his cousin and rival, the Empress Matilda...

 and Matilda I of Boulogne.

Her mother had been placed in a convent, but was removed in order to marry Matthew. As a consequence, her parents' marriage was rather controversial and they finally divorced in 1170. Her father continued to rule until his death in 1173, when she succeeded.

On the advice of her uncle, Philip I, Count of Flanders, she married first in 1181 to Gerard of Guelders, but he died the same year. Ida quickly remarried to Berthold IV of Zähringen, but he too died in 1186. According to the contemporary historian Lambert of Ardres

Lambert of Ardres

Lambert of Ardres was a French twelfth century chronicler.He was a parish priest at Ardres, and related to the Counts of Guînes. He wrote for that family a Historia comitum Ghisnensium, between 1194 and 1198. It is mixture of history and folklore...

:

"...so left without a man, [Ida] indulged herself in worldly delights and pleasures of the body. She fell passionately in love with Arnold II of Guînes, and tried as hard as she could to seduce him; or rather, with typical feminine fickleness and deception she feigned that emotion. Emissaries and secret tokens passed back and forth between them as indications of certain love. Arnold either loved her or with masculine foresight and prudence pretended to; for he aspired to the land and dignity of the County of Boulogne once he could gain the Countess' favor through love feigned or true."

This relationship came to naught when Ida was abducted in 1190 by Count Renaud de Dammartin

Renaud de Dammartin

Renaud de Dammartin was Count of Boulogne from 1190, Count of Dammartin from 1200 to 1214 and Count of Aumale from 1204 to 1214. He was son of Alberic II of Dammartin, and Mathilde of Clermont....

, who carried her off to Lorraine

Lorraine (province)

The Duchy of Upper Lorraine was an historical duchy roughly corresponding with the present-day northeastern Lorraine region of France, including parts of modern Luxembourg and Germany. The main cities were Metz, Verdun, and the historic capital Nancy....

. This was a common enough fate for medieval heiresses. The situation became complicated when Arnold of Guînes received messages of enduring love from Ida. He promptly rode to her rescue, only to be captured and imprisoned by friends of Renaud in Verdun. Arnold was only freed due to the intervention of William, Archbishop of Reims. Ida was supposed to have purposely deceived him to lead Arnold into a trap. Whatever the truth, she remained with Renaud and produced a daughter, Matilda II of Boulogne

Matilda II of Boulogne

Mahaut or Matilda II of Boulogne was Countess of Boulogne in her own right and Queen of Portugal by marriage to King Afonso III from 1248 until their divorce in 1253....

 (died 1258).