Charles I De Valois Duke Of ORLEANS

Notes:

Charles of Valois, Duke of OrlÈans (November 24, 1394 ? January 5, 1465) became Duke of OrlÈans in 1407, following the murder of his father, Louis, Duke of OrlÈans on the orders of Duke John-the-Fearless of Burgundy. He was also Duke of Valois, Count of Beaumont and of Blois, lord of Coucy, and the inheritor of Asti in Italy via his mother Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan. He is now remembered as an accomplished poet owing to the more than five hundred extant poems he produced, most written during his twenty-five years spent as a prisoner of war.

Ascending to the title of Duke at the age of fourteen after the assassination of his father, Charles was expected to carry on his father's leadership against the Burgundians, a French faction which supported the Duke of Burgundy. The latter was never punished for his role in Louis' assassination, and Charles had to watch as his grief-stricken mother Valentina Visconti succumbed to illness not long afterwards. At her deathbed, Charles and the other boys of the family were made to swear the traditional oath of vengeance for their father's murder.

During the early years of his reign as Duke, the orphaned Charles was heavily influenced by the guidance of his father-in-law, Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, for which reason Charles' faction came to be known as the "Armagnacs".

A depiction of Charles' imprisonment in the Tower of London from an illuminated manuscript of his poemsAfter war with the Kingdom of England was renewed in 1415, Charles was one of the many French noblemen wounded in the Battle of Agincourt on October 25, 1415. Captured and taken to England as a hostage, he would remain in captivity for the next twenty-five years. The conditions of his confinement were not strict; he was allowed to live more or less in the manner to which he had become accustomed, like so many other captured nobles. However, he was not offered release in exchange for a ransom, since Henry V of England had left instructions forbidding any release: Charles was the natural head of the Armagnac faction and in the line of succession to the French throne, and was therefore deemed too important to be returned to circulation. It was during these twenty-five years that Charles would write most of his poetry, including melancholy works which seem to be commenting on the captivity itself, such as "Le Foret de Longue Attente".

Finally freed in 1440 by the efforts of his former enemies, Philip III, Duke of Burgundy and his consort Isabella of Portugal, he set foot on French soil again after 25 years, "speaking better English than French" according to one source. Meeting the Duchess of Burgundy after disembarking, the gallant Charles said: "M'Lady, I make myself your prisoner." At the celebration of his third marriage, with Marie of Cleves, he was created a Knight of the Golden Fleece. His subsequent return to OrlÈans was marked by a splendid celebration organized by the citizens.

He made a feeble attempt to press his claims to Asti in Italy, before settling down as a celebrated patron of the arts.

Charles appears in Shakespeare's play Henry V as the "Duke of Orleans".

Charles married Isabella Of VALOIS in 1406 in Compiegne. Isabella (daughter of Charles VI King Of FRANCE and Isabeau Of BAVARIA) was born on 09 Nov 1389 in Paris; died on 13 Sep 1410. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Jeanne Of ORLEANS was born in 1409 in Blois; died in 1432 in Angers.

Family/Spouse: Marie Of CLEVES. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Anne D'ORLEANS was born in 1464; died in 1491 in Poitiers.
2. Marie D'ORLEANS was born on 19 Dec 1457; died in 1493 in Mazares.
3. Louis XII King Of FRANCE was born on 27 Jun 1462 in Chateau de Blois, Blois, Touranine; died on 01 Jan 1515.

Charles married Bonne Of ARMAGNAC in 1410. Bonne died before 1440. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Louis of Valois (March 13, 1372 ? November 23, 1407) was Duke of OrlÈans from 1392 to his death. He was also Count of Valois, Duke of Touraine (1386?1392), Count of Blois (1397?1407), AngoulÍme (1404?1407), PÈrigord, Dreux and Soissons. Louis was son of King Charles V of France and Joanna of Bourbon and younger brother of Charles VI. In 1389, Louis married Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan.

Louis had an important political role during the Hundred Years' War. With the increasing insanity of his elder brother Charles the Mad (who suffered from either schizophrenia, porphyria or bipolar disorder), Louis disputed the regency and guardianship of the royal children with John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. The enmity between the two was public and a source of political unrest in the already troubled France. Louis had the initial advantage, being of royal blood, but his character and rumour of an affair with consort queen Isabeau of Bavaria made him extremely unpopular. For the following years, the children of Charles VI were successively kidnapped and recovered by both parts, until the Duke of Burgundy managed to be appointed by royal decree guardian of the dauphin and regent of France.

Louis did not give up and took every effort to sabotage John's rule, including squandering the money raised for the relief of Calais, then occupied by the English. After this episode, John and Louis broke into open threats and only the intervention of John of Valois, Duke of Berry and uncle of both men, avoided a civil war. On November 20, 1407 a solemn reconciliation was vowed in front of the court of France, but only three days later, Louis was brutally assassinated in the streets of Paris, when armed men under the orders of the John, Duke of Burgundy, attacked him while he was mounting his horse, and literally amputated his arms, leaving him defenceless.

Louis married Valentina VISCONTI. Valentina (daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti I Duke Of MILAN and Isabelle Of FRANCE) was born in 1366 in Milan; died on 04 Dec 1408 in Blois. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Charles V the Wise (French: Charles V le Sage) (January 31, 1338 ? September 16, 1380) was king of France from 1364 to 1380 and a member of the Valois Dynasty. His reign marked a high point for France during the Hundred Years' War, with his armies recovering much of the territory ceded to England at the Treaty of Bretigny.

Charles was born at Vincennes, Œle-de-France, France, the son of King Jean II and Bonne of Luxembourg. Upon his father's succession to the throne in 1350, Charles became Dauphin. He was the first French heir to use the title, after the region of DauphinÈ was acquired by his father.

The future king was highly intelligent but physically weak, with pale skin and a thin, ill-proportioned body. He made a sharp contrast to his father -- who was tall, strong and sandy-haired -- and gossip at the time suggested he was not Jean's son. Similar rumors would pursue Charles' grandson, Charles VII.

[edit] The Regency and the Bourgeois Rising
King Jean was a brave warrior but a poor ruler who alienated his nobles through arbitrary justice and the elevation of associates considered unworthy. After a three-year break, the war resumed in 1355, with Edward, The Black Prince, leading an English-Gascon army in a violent raid across southwestern France. After checking an English incursion into Normandy, Jean led an army of about 16,000 south, crossing the Loire in September, 1356, attempting to outflank the Prince's 8,000 soldiers at Poitiers. Rejecting advice from one captain to surround and starve the Prince -- a tactic Edward feared -- Jean ordered a charge up a slope where the enemy forces were entrenched. In the subsequent Battle of Maupertuis (Poitiers), English archery all but annihilated the French cavalry, and Jean was captured. Charles led a battalion at Poitiers which withdrew early in the struggle; whether the order came from Jean (as he later claimed) or whether Charles himself ordered the withdrawal is unclear.

The outcome of the battle left many embittered at the nobility, who popular opinion accused of betraying the King, but Charles and his brothers escaped blame, and he was received with honor upon his return to Paris. The Dauphin summoned the Estates-General in October to seek money for the defense of the country. But the parliament, furious at what they saw as poor management, organized into a body led by Etienne Marcel, the Provost of Merchants (a title roughly equivalent to mayor of Paris today). Marcel demanded the dismissal of seven royal ministers, their replacement by a Council of 28, made of nobles, clergy and bourgeois, and the release of Charles II of Navarre, a leading Norman noble with a claim on the French throne who had been imprisoned by Jean for the murder of his constable. The Dauphin refused the demands, ordered the Estates-General to dismiss and left Paris.

A contest of wills followed. In an attempt to raise money, Charles tried to devalue to the currency; Marcel ordered strikes, and the Dauphin was forced to cancel his plans and recall the Estates in February, 1357. The Third Estate presented the Dauphin with a Grand Ordinance, a list of 61 articles that would have required the Estates-General to approve all future taxes, assemble at their own volition and elect a Council of 36 -- with 12 members from each Estate -- to advise the king. Charles eventually signed the ordinance, but his dismissed councilors took news of the document to King Jean, imprisoned in Bordeaux. The King renounced the entire ordinance before being taken to England by Prince Edward.

Charles made a royal progress through the country that summer, winning support from the provinces. Marcel, meanwhile, enlisted Charles of Navarre, who claimed his claim to the throne was at least as good as that of King Edward of England's. The Dauphin, re-entering Paris, won the city back.

Marcel, meanwhile, used the murder of a citizen seeking sanctuary to make an attack close to the Dauphin. Summoning a group of tradesmen, the Provost marched at the head of an army of 3,000, entered the royal palace and had the crowd murder two of the Dauphin's marshals before his eyes. Charles, horrified, momentarily pacified the crowd, but sent his family away and left the capital as quickly as he could. Marcel's action destroyed the Third Estate's support among the nobles, and the Provost's subsequent support for the Jacquerie undermined his support from the towns; he was murdered by a mob on July 31, 1358. Charles was able to recover Paris the following month; he later issued a general amnesty for all, except close associates of Marcel.

[edit] The Treaty of Bretigny
Jean's capture gave the English the edge in peace negotiations. The King signed a treaty in 1359 that would have ceded most of western France to England and imposed a ruinous ransom of 4 million ecus on the country. The Dauphin (backed by his councillors and the Estates General) rejected the treaty, and King Edward used this as an excuse to invade France later that year. Edward reached Reims in December and Paris in March, but Charles, trusting on improved municipal defenses, forbade his soldiers from direct confrontation with the English. Charles relied on improved fortifications made to Paris by Marcel, and would later rebuild the Left Bank wall and built a new wall on the Right Bank that extended to a new fortification called the Bastille.

Edward pillaged and raided the countryside but could not bring the French to a decisive battle, and eventually agreed to reduce his terms. This non-confrontational strategy would prove extremely beneficial to France during Charles' reign.

The Treaty of Bretigny, signed on May 8, 1360, ceded a third of western France -- mostly in Aquitaine and Gascony -- to the English, and lowered the King's ransom to 3 million ecus. Jean was released the following October, his second son, Louis I of Anjou, taking his place as a hostage.

Though his father had regained his freedom, Charles suffered a personal tragedy. His three-year-old daughter, Jeanne, and his infant daughter Bonne died within two weeks of each other; the Dauphin was said at their double funeral to be "so sorrowful as never before he had been." Charles himself had been severely ill, with his hair and nails falling out; some suggest the symptoms are those of arsenic poisoning.

Jean proved as ineffective at ruling upon his return to France as he had before his capture. When Louis of Anjou escaped from English custody, Jean announced he had no choice but to return to captivity himself -- an action that, despite the cult of chivalry, seemed extreme to 14th century minds. Jean arrived in London in January 1364, became ill, and died the following April.

[edit] King of France

Statue of Charles V of FranceCharles was crowned King of France in 1364 at the cathedral at Reims, France. The new king was highly intelligent but close-mouthed and secretive, with sharp eyes, a long nose and a pale, grave manner. He suffered from gout in the right hand and an abscess in his left arm, possibly a side-effect of an attempted poisoning in 1359. Doctors were able to treat the wound but told him that if it ever dried up, he would die within 15 days. "Not surprisingly," said historian Barbara Tuchman, "the King lived under a sense of urgency." His manner may have concealed a more emotional side; his marriage to Jeanne de Bourbon was considered very strong, and he made no attempt to hide his grief at her funeral or those of his children, five of whom predeceased him.

His reign was dominated by the war with the English, and two major problems: Recovering the territories ceded at Bretigny, and ridding the land of the Tard-Venus (French for "latecomers"), mercenary companies that turned to robbery and pillage after the treaty was signed. In achieving these aims, Charles turned to a minor noble from Brittany named Bertrand du Guesclin. Referred to as a "hog in armor," du Guesclin had fought in that province's bitter civil wars, and learned to fight guerrilla warfare. Du Guesclin defeated Charles II of Navarre in Normandy in 1364 and eliminated the noble's threat to Paris; he was captured in battle in Britttany the following year but quickly ransomed.

To attempt to rid the land of the Tard-Venus, Charles first hired them for an attempted crusade into Hungary, but their reputation for brigandage preceded them, and the citizens of Strasbourg refused to let them cross the Rhine on their journey. Charles next sent the mercenary companies (under the leadership of Du Guesclin) to fight in a civil war in Castile between Pedro the Cruel and his brother, Don Enrique of Trastamare. Pedro had English backing, while Enrique was supported by the French.

Du Guesclin and his men were able to drive Pedro out of Castile in 1365, but The Black Prince, now serving as his father's viceroy in southwestern France, took up Pedro's cause. At the Battle of N·jera (Navarette) in April, 1367, the English defeated Du Guesclin's army and took the Breton prisoner a second time. Despite the defeat, the campaign had destroyed several companies of Tard-Venus and given France a temporary respite from their depredations.

[edit] The war resumes
The Black Prince's rule in Gascony became increasingly autocratic, and when Pedro defaulted on his debts after Najera, the Prince taxed his subjects in Guienne to make up the difference. Nobles from Gascony petitioned Charles for aid, and when the Black Prince refused to answer a summons to Paris to answer the charges, Charles judged him disloyal and declared war in May, 1369. Legally, Charles had no right to do this -- the French had given up sovereignty over Gascony under the Treaty of Bretigny -- but the king ignored this.

Instead of seeking a major battle, as his predecessors had done, Charles chose a strategy of attrition, spreading the fighting at every point possible. The French were aided by the navy of Castile (Du Guesclin had captured Pedro the Cruel by deceit in 1369 and turned him over to Enrique, who promptly killed his brother with a dagger) and by the declining health of the Black Prince, who had developed dropsy and quickly become an invalid. Where Charles could, he negotiated with towns and cities to bring them back into the French fold. Bertrand du Guesclin, appointed Constable of France in 1370, beat back a major English offensive in northern France with a combination of hit-and-run raids and bribery.

The English were crippled by the loss of major leaders and their own tendency to raid the countryside instead of embarking on major offensives. By 1374, Charles had recovered all of France except Calais and Aquitaine, effectively nullifying the Treaty of Bretigny. Peace, however, remained elusive; treaty negotiations began in 1374 but were never able to come up with more than extended truces, owing to Charles' determination to have the English recognize his sovereignty over their lands.

[edit] Papal Schism
In 1376, Pope Gregory XI, fearing a loss of the Papal States, decided to move his court back to Rome after nearly 70 years in Avignon. Charles, hoping to maintain French influence over the papacy, tried to persuade Pope Gregory XI to remain in France, arguing that "Rome is wherever the Pope happens to be." Gregory refused.

The Pope died in March, 1378. When cardinals gathered to elect a successor, a Roman mob, concerned that the predominantly French college would elect a French pope who would bring the papacy back to Avignon, surrounded the Vatican and demanded the election of a Roman. On April 9, the cardinals elected Bartolomeo Prigamo, Archbishop of Bari and a commoner by birth, as Pope Urban VI. The new pope quickly alienated his cardinals by criticizing their vices, limiting the areas where they could receive income and even rising to strike one cardinal before a second restrained him. The French cardinals left Rome that summer and declared Urban's election invalid because of mob intimidation (a reason that had not been cited at the time of the election) and elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva as Pope Clement VII that September.

The French cardinals quickly moved to get Charles' support. The theology faculty of the University of Paris advised Charles not to make a hasty decision, but he recognized Clement as Pope in November and forbade any obedience to Urban. Charles' support allowed Clement to survive -- he would not have been able to maintain his position without the aid of the King -- and led to the Papal Schism, which would divide Europe for nearly 40 years. Historians have severely criticized Charles for allowing the division to take place.

[edit] Death
Charles' last years were spent in the consolidation of Normandy (and the neutralization of Charles of Navarre). Peace negotiations with the English continued unsuccessfully. The taxes he had levied to support his wars against the English had caused deep disaffection among the working classes.

The abcess on the King's left arm dried up in early September, 1380, and Charles prepared to die. On his deathbed, perhaps fearful for his soul, Charles announced the abolition of the hearth tax, the foundation of the government's finances. The ordinance would have been impossible to carry out, but its terms were known, and the government's refusal to reduce any of the other taxes on the people sparked the Maillotin revolt in 1381.

The King died on September 16, 1380, and was succeeded by his twelve-year-old son, Charles VI.

[edit] Legacy
While he was in many ways a typical medieval king, Charles V has been praised by historians for his willingness to ignore the chivalric conventions of the time to achieve his aims, which led to the recovery of the territories lost at Bretigny.

His successes, however, proved ephemeral. Charles' brothers, who dominated the regency council that ruled in the king's name until 1388, quarreled amongst themselves and divided the government. Charles VI, meanwhile, preferred tournaments to the duties of kingship, and his descent into madness in 1392 put his uncles back in power. By 1419, the country was divided between Armagnac and Burgundian factions and Henry V was conquering the northern part of France. The hard-won victories of Charles V had been lost through the venality of his successors.

[edit] Marriage
April 8, 1350 to Jeanne de Bourbon (February 3, 1338 ? February 4, 1378)

Charles married Jeanne DE BOURBON on 08 Apr 1350. Jeanne (daughter of Peter I Duke Of BOURBON and Isabelle DE VALOIS) was born on 03 Feb 1338; died on 04 Feb 1378. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1351 ? September 3, 1402) was the first Duke of Milan and ruled the city for much of the early Renaissance.

Although most famous as Signore of Milan from 1386 to 1402 Gian Galeazzo was born into the branch of the Visconti that possed the signoria of the city of Pavia. In 1385 Gian Galeazzo gained control of Milan by overthrowing his uncle BernabÚ through treacherous means.

A devoted father to his daughter Valentina (wife of Louis, Duke of Orleans and mother of the famous poet, Charles of Orleans), Gian Galeazzo reacted to gossip about Valentina at the French Court by threatening to declare war on France.

Galeazzo's role as a statesman also took other forms. Soon after seizing Milan he took Verona, Vicenza, and Pavia and soon controlled almost the entire Po river valley. He used the bounty of these conquests to buy the title of Duke from the Holy Roman Emperor for the price of 100,000 florins. Galeazzo had dreams of uniting all of northern Italy into one kingdom, and many of the people of Italy supported this ambition. The obstacles to his success included Bologna and especially Florence. In 1394 Gian Galeazzo launched assaults upon these cities. The warfare was extremely costly on both sides, but it was universally believed the Milanese would emerge victorious. In 1395 Bologna fell and the final siege of Florence began. The Florentine leaders, especially Coluccio Salutati worked successfully to rally the people of Florence, but the Florentines were being taxed hard by famine, disease, and poverty. Galeazzo won another victory over the Bolognese at the Battle of Casalecchio on June 26, 1402.

Galeazzo's dreams were to come to naught, however, as he succumbed to a fever in August 10, 1402. He died on September 3. The siege of Florence was lifted and soon his entire empire crumbled as infighting among his successors wracked Milan.

Gian married Isabelle Of FRANCE. Isabelle (daughter of John II King Of FRANCE and Bonne Of BOHEMIA) was born on 01 Oct 1348; died on 11 Sep 1372. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]