Part 6
It was in the autumn of 1397 that these two high consulting parties arrived at Rheims. The emperor was followed by his landgraves, his margraves, his burgraves and other grave gentlemen who talked German together so gravely that you would have sworn they understood each other. The king escorted by the duke of Burgundy, came with equal splendor. Charles was beginning to show symptoms of returning wildness; but that only made him all the more bent on the interview. Wenceslas on his part, had so strengthened his mind with the delicious wines of Champagne that he was ready to deal with a score of schisms.
They met, they conferred, they argued, they disputed, they quarrelled, they shouted. They called each other schismatics, heretics, traitors, liars, thieves, assassins, till their respective attendants were fain to bear them bodily forth, the one raving drunk, the other raving crazy.
The imperial diet was so little satisfied with this reformer’s success at the conference, that they passed upon him a sentence of deposition. He appealed from the sentence; and it was agreed that the duke of Burgundy and the French Council of State should arbitrate. Wenceslas sent as his advocate John of Moravia the most learned doctor of laws in Europe, who delivered before the duke and council a speech several hours long in latin of which they understood not one word. The diet on its side, sent Stephen of Bavaria the queen’s father who took with him an adroit pettifogging lawyer who spoke French. It was natural that the arbitrators should lean toward the pleadings they comprehended, and they gave in their adherence to the action of the diet. Rupert, count Palatine was elected emperor in the place of Wenceslas.
The evil genius of France at this time, was the king’s brother Louis of Orleans the husband of Valentina. He was showy, accomplished and for a nobleman learned, but he was unprincipled. While squandering money in every extravagance he was in debt for the necessaries of life; and woe to the tradesman who dared present his bill! One day his horses ran away with him and nearly threw him into the Seine. In the imminent peril he made a vow to the Virgin that he would pay his debts. He called his creditors together, and after a touching address in which he ascribed the glory of his rescue to the Queen of Heaven, he dismissed them without their money.
His uncle of Burgundy had excluded him from the council of State; and he put forth all his resources which were considerable, to embarrass the public business. He protested against the approval of the diet, and raised fifteen hundred soldiers and marched or pretended to march to the aid of the fallen emperor. He threatened to go to deliver the pope who was held in a sort of honorable captivity in his palace at Avignon. During the absence of the duke in Flanders, Louis and his compeer in evil, Queen Isabella, seized the reins of government and filled Paris with their satellites. The duke came back with an armed force and bloodshed was threatened; but the two dukes came to a truce and appeared in the streets, riding side by side, to the relief of well-disposed people.
Duke Philip soon returned to Flanders, and while in apparent health he was attacked by a disease then prevalent and which was probably typhoid fever, and died in his castle of Hal, in April 1404, in his seventy-third year. Philip-the-bold was the first and best of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. If the French people were not happy under his administration, it was that happiness could not be their lot. Their country was desolated by the English wars, and war was uppermost in their minds. Even in intervals of peace they would have no peace; and military games not always bloodless were the amusement of all classes. On one occasion a challenge was received from the English pale, that seven French knights should meet seven English to fight à outrance, which means mortal combat. The challenge was accepted. The most noted of the French seven was Tanneguy du Châtel whom we shall meet again in a scene of bloodshed more important. (See Two Jaquelines.) The English knights had planned that at the onset, two of them at once should attack Du Châtel, and he done for they thought to have an easy bargain of the rest. This would of course leave for a moment one of the French champions without an antagonist, and they arranged that this floating warrior should be one they feared the least. This was an awkward gentleman from Champagne, of no great renown, who had been let into the French seven for his ponderous strength. When the signal was given, this unwieldy knight for want of something better, threw himself upon the stoutest of the English seven, and with a single blow laid him dead at his feet. The English could not overcome this disadvantage and were worsted. It is but just to say that the French chroniclers explain differently the defeat of the English. The French seven, before the fight, had heard mass and received the communion, while the English had neglected that precaution.
The king’s mental disorder grew worse. The worthless queen abandoned him on the plea that she was afraid of him, and he was often shamefully neglected. While the whole court was drinking the choicest wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux, the king was served with such abominable piquette, that he was often doubled up with the colic. It is true he was at times stubborn and violent. On one occasion he refused to wash his face and put on clean linen. Three stout fellows sprang in upon him and by main strength washed him and changed him.
The opinion that he was possessed was nearly universal, and means of casting out the evil spirit were not omitted. Three famous exorcists, a priest, a locksmith and a woman who had had much success in that branch of therapeutics, came to cure him. They took him out into a grove, and seated him in a magic chair. They planted around him twelve stakes to each of which was attached a chain, every seventh link of silver. Then they announced that twelve persons of repute must be fastened to the stakes by the neck. Such was the devotion to the monarch that knights, magistrates, burgesses all pressed to offer themselves. Twelve were chosen and with their faces toward the king were chained not tight enough to choke them but enough to give them a gruesome expression which would now be called weird. The incantation was in full blast when one of the twelve losing either faith or breath crossed himself. This broke the spell, and the king lapsed into a worse frenzy than ever.
In March 1405, Margaret countess of Flanders, double duchess dowager of Burgundy died, having survived her second Philip but eleven months. She seems to have been every way reputable and worthy except that she was imperious and domineering. Philip either from unswerving affection or because he knew what would be his portion at home if he did not behave, was always true to her, a virtue not much in vogue in those days. The contention between him and his nephew of Orleans, was fully shared by their wives; and the lofty airs of the Flemish dame were not put up with submissively by the high-spirited Italian: indeed those two august ladies at times so far forgot their augustness as to call each other names.
John-the-fearless was now duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders. In the French peerage, Burgundy was held to outrank Orleans, and John claimed to be first peer of the realm. His claim did not pass undisputed: Louis of Orleans was the king’s brother and in default of the king’s sons, might become king himself; and bitter as had been the feud between him and his uncle, that between him and his cousin, was so much more so that it was fated to destroy them both.
John and Louis mustered their respective forces and marched to Paris. The old duke of Berri uncle to both and to the king, brought about a truce. Then as troops were ready for any mischief, Louis proposed to lead their joint levies against the English provinces; and John consented in hopes that some honest Cockney or Gascon might knock him on the head.
A girl who was crazy and therefore considered inspired, told Louis that the expedition would succeed provided he kissed the head of Saint Denis before setting out. He was proceeding to the abbey of Saint Denis for that purpose when the canons of Notre Dame informed him that it was they who possessed the true head of the saint, and that the other was a fraud. The monks of the abbey retorted the charge of imposture; the canons answered back; and these two reverend bodies opened upon each other such a fire of abuse and recrimination that the king who happened to be rational, imposed silence on them both. In the uncertainty, Louis must have kissed the wrong head, for the expedition failed. It was now duke John’s turn; he made an attack upon Calais and was repulsed. On his return the quarrel between him and Louis broke out more fiercely than ever. Once more did their uncle of Berri interpose and bring them to partake of the communion together; but it was too late, the feud was mortal.
Louis was intimate with the queen and passed much of his time in her company. One night when he was supping with her, the message came that the king wished to see him. He mounted his mule and escorted by a few servants carrying torches, took his way toward the king’s lodgings. Suddenly he was attacked by armed men. Thinking there was some mistake he cried out I am the duke of Orleans! You are the man we want, was the response, and they struck him down and left him dead.
Even at that time when acts of violence were so common, the murder of the king’s brother in the streets of the capital, gave a shock to the court; and vigorous search was made for the assassins. Suspicion fell at first on the lord of Canny whose wife Louis had misled; but it was soon shown that Canny was many leagues away that night. Evidence at last pressed so close around John of Burgundy that he confessed the deed. He laid the blame to the devil who he said had put him up to it. At the same time he proclaimed the duke of Orleans a public enemy deservedly slain. He employed a Franciscan named John Petit renowned for his eloquence, to justify the act. The monk in an oration which has come down to us, and in which dates, events, personages, customs, creeds, epochs are jumbled together in matchless confusion, demonstrated that the taking off of Louis de Valois was the most righteous taking off since the day when Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
Felon as he was, John was still popular with the Parisiens. He had a good deal of rough talent and many of the arts of the politician. Moreover he paid his debts, a rare virtue for a prince of the blood of those days. His father had died owing his butcher and his grocer and his tailor, and John had not hesitated to sell the furniture of his town palace the hotel Artois, to pay these tradesmen. They had not forgotten how his rival had served them on that solemn occasion when all the glory was ascribed to Our Lady; and they were not to blame if they preferred the man who paid to the man who did not.
Duke John married Margaret of Bavaria, and her brother William, Count of Hainault, married John’s sister Margaret. It was decreed that no Margaret should marry without bringing increased power to the house of Burgundy; and it was the nuptials of these two Margarets that made possible some years later, the violence and fraud which wrested Holland, Zealand, Hainault and other provinces from John’s niece Jaqueline, sole issue of the last named marriage. (See Two Jaquelines).
John’s wife Margaret had another brother, John of Bavaria, bishop of Liége, called John-the-pitiless, a riotous prelate and a cruel, whose riotings and whose cruelties were to be one more element of strength to the dukes of Burgundy. The town of Liége on the river Meuse, was a fief of the Empire, but was under ecclesiastical government. The chief magistrate was a bishop. The reigning diocesan at this time, was that disreputable brother-in-law of John-the-fearless. The inhabitants of Liége weary of his unclerical behavior, had driven him out of their territory. He besought his brother of Burgundy to reinstate him; and John, with an eye to acquiring that sort of predominance over both diocese and diocesan, which is now-a-days called a protectorate, levied his troops. The Liégeois prepared to receive him. The two armies met at Hasbain. The duke’s force was small but well disciplined. The Liégeois aided by five hundred English archers were the stronger, and so proud a front did they present, that the duke’s lieutenants warned him of the risk of a general engagement. What, cried he, have I come as far as this to quail before a rabble of tinkers and tailors! and he gave the signal for combat.
There is no doubt that John-the-fearless was in his element on the field of battle. He did not, as did his grandfather John-the-good, mount his charger and precipitate himself into the wrong place at the wrong moment; but astride an active little jennet, he flew from rank to rank, directing everything and inspiring everybody. The Liégeois charged in column upon his centre. His pikemen stood firm. He detached a body of cavalry which spurred into the flank of the advancing column, and it gave way.
Just before the battle John had confessed and received absolution and eucharist, so that his conscience was clear for a new score. He ordered that no quarter be given, and the conflict became a massacre. But few of the men of Liége escaped. Their leader a citizen named Pervez was found dead on the field, still holding by the hand, his son dead by his side.
The Liégeois were crushed, and their mitred but unregenerate suzerain was again set to reign over them. What with those who had perished in the massacre and those he threw directly after into the Meuse, it would seem that he had not many subjects left to govern.
In the articles of submission which the surviving few were compelled to sign, it was agreed that if they were again disobedient, they were to be laid under that awful discipline an interdict, provided there existed any authority competent to fulminate interdicts. The Schism comes up again to explain this curious proviso. The Council of Pisa was sitting to restore unity to the Church. They had declared the throne of Saint Peter to be one and indivisible; and they had declared it vacant in spite of the incumbent at Rome and the incumbent at Avignon. They had elected a new pope to that vacancy. The other two refused to abdicate, so there were three popes; and as each was himself under double interdict by the anathemas launched at him by his own rivals, it was doubtful whether a rescript from such maimed authority would be canonical. So paralysed was the Church that even her curses would no longer hold. The degree to which they recovered their validity when the Schism was healed, is a point of history that illustrates the saying that truth is stranger than fiction.
The news of the victory of Hasbain was not good news to the queen and the court who favored the Orleans faction, and were alarmed at the growing power of the duke of Burgundy. A council was held, and the king spirited away to Tours. An accidental delay of the duke, gave them time for this. He had stopped at Lille to settle a quarrel between his brother, Anthony and his brother-in-law William of Hainault, touching 50,000 florins left by the late duchess of Brabant. They were on the point of deciding by mortal combat which should have the money, when the duke came. I regret I cannot inform you which of them got the 50,000 florins.
The escape of the king from under his hand, was a serious loss to the duke who was aiming at supreme control; and on reaching Paris he bent all his diplomacy to recover possession of the monarch. He won over the grand master of the king’s household, a parvenu named Montague; and by his means Charles was brought back to the capital.
Montague by minding his own business, had grown wealthy; and as he was now of no further use to his new friends, they put him to torture, and made him confess a list of crimes he had never committed. They then cut off his head, gibbetted his carcass, and divided his estates among them, duke John getting the castle of Marcoussis for his share.
When the distracted king came slowly and mistily to a sense of the way his faithful steward had been done to death, and his wealth seized by his murderers, he was wroth. He wandered about the palace of Saint Paul muttering vengeance; but the queen who in the meantime had sold herself to the Burgundians, represented to him how unseemly it was for a parvenu like Montague to own castles; and Charles after a vain struggle to master the point, let it drop.
We propose incidentally to resume the history of the dukes of Burgundy in our essay on the Jaquelines.
EPILOGUE.
Madame de Sévigné said that Providence favors the best battalions. It was she who was the author of that remark, and not Frederick-the-great nor Napoleon nor others to whom it is attributed. It has not always proved true. Henry V., ablest of the Plantagenets, at the head of the best armies then existing, tried to wrest the sceptre of France from the palsied hand of Charles VI., and perished in the attempt. From the loins of that crazy monarch and his worse than crazy queen, came forth that House of Tudor which, by the ordeal of battle, displaced the Plantagenet on the throne of England.
Much bad logic and worse history has been put forth in good English, touching the claim of Edward III. to the throne of France. It is often said that Edward denied the validity of the salic law. He did nothing of the kind. His theory was that the salic law, while it excluded females, did not exclude their progeny, and he claimed the crown of France by right of his mother Isabella daughter of Philip-the-fair. But even this theory gave the right to somebody else, as Hume has shown, and as we propose to make visible to the naked eye.
Philip IV.=Joanna, queen regnant of Navarre | +------+---+--------------------------+ | | | | Louis X. Philip V. Charles IV. Isabella. | | | | Joanna. Daughters. Daughter. Edward III. | Charles-the-bad, } King of Navarre }
Edward’s theory would have given the crown of France to Charles-the-bad, grandson of Louis X. It went to Philip of Valois, Philip VI. by right of unbroken male descent from Hugh Capet, as it did long afterwards to the House of Bourbon.
Louis IX. Eighth in male line from Hugh Capet. | Philip III. | +--+--------------+ | | Philip IV. Charles of Valois. | Philip VI. | John II.
Two Jaquelines
They were both Dutchwomen. They were contemporaries and lived in the fifteenth century. They both contributed, though unwittingly and by their love scrapes, to break the alliance between England and Burgundy, and thus to the salvation of the French monarchy. They were both of high lineage and married kings’ sons: one of them married two kings’ sons; and they both married commoners. One of them died without issue; the other by a misalliance with a simple knight, became the mother of a line of kings as long as that which Macbeth saw when the race of Banquo defiled before him. Indeed Macbeth on that dread occasion looked till he beheld those who “two fold balls and triple sceptres bore,” and those were of the generation of Jaqueline.
John-the-fearless, second of the four Valois dukes of Burgundy married Margaret of Bavaria. Her brother William of Bavaria was count of Hainault, lord of Holland, of Zealand, of Friesland and of nearly all the territory which now goes to make up the kingdom of the Netherlands. Now John having married William’s sister Margaret, William to be even with him, turned round and married John’s sister Margaret, Margaret of Valois, Margaret of Burgundy. These two princes having each married the other’s sister Margaret, were thus double brothers-in-law; and this close relationship did not breed any dissention between them: it was otherwise with their children who were, you perceive, double cousins. John and his Margaret were blest with one son and seven daughters. William and his Margaret had but one child, a daughter whom they christened Jaqueline. This lady is called by so many different names in history, that if you were not on your guard you might imagine there were half a dozen of them: Jaqueline of Bavaria, Jaqueline of Holland, Jaqueline of Hainault, Jaqueline of Brabant. Then the Dutch called her Jacoba; so some English writers affect to call her Jacoba, and ring the changes on it. But in spite of these manifold appellations she was but a sole and only child; and as the salic law did not rule in the low countries, she was a great heiress. Her situation was a repetition of that of her grandmother Margaret of Flanders except that the provinces they inherited respectively were different. (See Second House of Burgundy.)
The great expectations of Jaqueline entitled her to a distinguished husband, and when only five years old she was wedded to John of Touraine second son of Charles VI. The marriage was celebrated with much splendor at Compiegne, at the same time with that of prince John’s cousin the count of Angoulême who espoused Isabella, John’s sister, widow of Richard II. of England who had been murdered at Pomfret. It is said that the joy of these double nuptials was saddened by the tears of Isabella who wept aloud at having to give up the title of queen.
Not long after the marriage, John’s elder brother the dauphin died, and John himself became dauphin. Behold then our little Jaqueline in a fair way to become queen of France! But it was not to be: prince John died suddenly one day, and his death like all sudden death of exalted personages in those days, was attributed to poison. But the probability is that all the poison he took was what the doctors gave him in good faith, to cure him of a cold he had caught playing at tennis; and I may hold the case up to you as a warning either against tennis or the doctors as you prefer.
Jaqueline was eleven years old when her husband died. The same year, 1417, she lost also her father the count William. Thus from a great heiress she became a great potentate. She was of course too young to administer her own affairs; and they fell chiefly into the hand of her powerful uncle John-the-fearless. She was not only a great potentate but a stylish young widow, the best match in the market; and great was the scramble for her hand. Not a single princely fortune hunter in Europe but was dying of love for her.