Showing posts with label Charles VI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles VI. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

The Truce of Leulinghem

England and France were at war for a long time, and neither side was in great shape in the late 1380s. England had been unsuccessful in several military engagements and was in severe financial straits. Moreover, King Richard II and parliament were at odds over money and authority. In France, King Charles VI was showing signs of psychosis. (For much more on the Hundred Years War in this blog, click here.)

Neither side was able to achieve a definitive win that would establish rule over the other's country, no matter how hard they wanted one. They were each willing to try, however. Despite this, King Richard wanted to simply negotiate a truce, against the wishes of parliament and the Lords Appellant. Not thinking he would succeed, they allowed him to go to Calais and meet with Charles, which they did outside of Calais in the town of Leulinghem.

As it happens, representatives of the kings met and tentatively arranged a three-year truce, but when the two kings met they extended it to 27 years (although it only lasted 13). By claiming they were at peace, they stopped hostilities between Portugal and Castile in Iberia, who were supporting England and France respectively. England and France also agreed to a Crusade against Turks in the Balkans.

They also agreed to keep meeting to discuss further joint ventures, so when Richard's wife Anne died in 1396, negotiations began to wed Richard to Charles' daughter Isabella, uniting the two royal families. The fact that Isabella was born in 1389 and was therefore only seven years old did not bother anyone; such is the nature of royal marriages. The wedding took place on 31 October 1396:

A tearful Princess Isabelle, dressed in a blue velvet dress sewn with golden fleurs de lys and wearing a diadem of gold and pearls, was carried by the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy to Richard’s pavilion. She was taken away by a delegation of English ladies led by the Duchesses of Lancaster and Gloucester. Four days later, on 4 November 1396, she was brought to the church of St. Nicholas in Calais where Richard married her. She was five days short of her seventh birthday. Her dolls were included in her trousseau. [Sumption, Jonathan (2011). The Hundred Years War, Volume 3: Divided Houses. p.831]

The two countries also agreed on helping to end the Western Schism, but Richard backed out and France decided to seize Avignon to force an end. Richard used the lack of war with France to concentrate on dealing with his enemies at home, confiscating their properties to redistribute them to his favorites. This was simply more of the same egregious behavior that led to the Wonderful Parliament and the Merciless Parliament.

When Richard went to Ireland to deal with a rebellion by Irish chieftains, his enemies saw their chance to deal with him once and for all. By this time, his uncle John of Gaunt was dead and the title Duke of Lancaster had fallen to Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke had been one of the Lords Appellant created by parliament to manage the king's excesses years earlier. Richard had managed to exile Bolingbroke, but his trip to Ireland gave Bolingbroke the opportunity to return.

After his return? History was made. I'll tell you about that next time.

Saturday, June 4, 2022

The Hundred Years' War, Part 4

(If you want to see parts one and two and three.)

If we follow Shakespeare's themes, King Henry V surprised his subjects when his coronation transformed him into an able and savvy ruler, as compared to the frivolous youth he had recently been.

He had plenty of military experience, however, prior to his father's death. He had commanded the English forces in Wales during the revolt of Owain Glendower. By 1410, with Henry IV ailing, the 24-year-old young Henry had been running much of the government (albeit with the help of his uncles, Henry and Thomas Beaufort; Thomas was named Chancellor at this time).

Still, Henry might have been content to rule England when he was crowned on 9 April 1413, but for the situation in France. Charles VI—whose first bout with delirium happened at the age of 24 in 1392, when he attacked his own men during a military expedition—was becoming increasingly unstable. Placed under the regency of two uncles, the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy, he became a pawn between them and his own brother, the Duke of Orléans, who wanted control by being a regent. These opposing forces created the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War that lasted from 1407 until 1435.

A France in military and political turmoil looked ripe for a resumption of hostilities; and France had given support to Owain Glendower. Meddling in England's affairs was reason enough.

Henry sailed for France on 12 August 1415. His first target was the principal seaport of Harfleur. The siege took weeks, and dysentery hit the English troops hard. Henry had to leave a part of his army in Harfleur while he marched toward Calais, but an approaching French army forced him inland, away from his ships and his target. Unfortunately, this move by the French forced the encounter at Agincourt, where the French soldiers were bogged down in the muddy fields, making them easy targets for the longbow men commanded by Henry. The victory of the English was sufficient to lead to the Treaty of Troyes, in which Charles "disinherited" his son: Henry V would become King of France upon Charles' death. Charles' daughter Catherine de Valois married Henry in 1420. They had a son, Henry.

The deaths of both Charles V and Henry V within two months of each other in 1422. Henry VI became king of both England and France; he was nine months old, and the only English king to have been officially named King of France. Skipping over decades of rocky reign, the English lost control of France decisively at the Battle of Castillon on 17 July 1453, which lost Gascony/Aquitaine, the English throne's major territory on the continent for the previous three centuries.

This has been (necessarily) a much-abbreviated look at the Hundred Years War, which ended in 1453. Next I want to explain why I think 1453 is a good year to say the Middle Ages were well and truly over.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The Bastille

A 1552 map depicting the Bastille
Yesterday was Bastille Day, the anniversary of French peasants storming the Bastille to release prisoners as part of the French Revolution. The Bastille existed long before it became a symbol for overthrowing aristocratic oppression, however.

The name is from a Provençal bastir, meaning "to build"; its full name is the Bastille Saint-Antoine because it was placed at the Port of Saint Antoine on the east side of Paris. It was begun in 1357 in order to have a defense against invading Englishmen during the Hundred Years War, the 116-year conflict from 1337 to 1453 caused by English kings asserting their "right" to chunks of France. Two towers were built.

The first phase of the Hundred Years War ended in 1360, however, with the Treaty of Brétigny between Edward III of England and Philip VI of France, so construction largely stopped. When Charles V of France decided to start the war up again in 1370, construction resumed, producing 3 more pairs of towers for defense. It was completed by his son, Charles VI, years later. The result was a rectangle 223 feet by 121 feet, with 78-foot towers and walls creating a walkway around the entire perimeter. Six of the towers had dungeons at their base. Charles V moved his royal apartments closer to the Bastille, since it was one of the safest places to be in Paris in case of an attack.

It was turned into a prison in 1417.