alternatehistory.com
1322-3: France
1322-3: THE SECOND REGENCY BEGINS
"If the question of who was to become the next regent of France was simply decided by proximity of blood then the answer would have been simple--Charles, Count of de la Marche would have taken the position. However, there were several problems standing in his way, most notably the fact that he was not in France when his brother perished, but in Cyprus, attempting to swear his sword to the service of the King of Armenia, having taken up the cross two years previously[1]... Indeed, it would be several months after the fact before Charles even learned of his brother's death and weeks after that before he was able to even get a ship back to France...
"Of course, distance alone was not the only obstacle--there was also a matter of rank--while Charles possessed an appanage and title, he had never been formally recognized as a Peer of France. Arguably, this was a fairly negligible reason to keep him from the Regency, one a vigorous and skillful politician could have easily side-stepped. But that was another, more significant problem--the Count of de la Marche was not a vigorous, skillful politician. Instead, he was a rather notoriously earnest young man whose reputation suffered from being the husband to an acknowledged adulteress--one who, rather than conveniently dying in the manner of his elder brother the Hutin's wife, lived on in her imprisonment, and had in fact born a child to one of her jailers[2]. Things which had prevented the absent prince from gaining much in the way of champions during his absence...
"Thus, the competition for the regency came down to two men, Charles of Valois, and Eudes of Burgundy. Valois could boast of closer relation to the young king, but Eudes maintained that he possessed the greater title and peerage as Duke of Burgundy, in contrast to Charles' peer rank as Count of Anjou[3]. However Eudes was a more blunt and aggressive man, more prone to alienating those he would need as allies--further, his sister Joan was married to Valois' son. In the end, he was bought off by being allowed to his administer the vast estates of his brother-in-law, the young Count of Poitiers[4], until the latter reached his majority. By the time the Count of de la Marche arrived, Valois was well-ensconced as Regent, leading the Count to leave after a few months of ineffectual plotting in return for further funding of his increasingly desperate crusading pretensions...
"An ambitious man with an undeniable flair for the dramatic, Charles of Valois took power in a grand ceremony in Paris. He followed his assumption of power with another expulsion of France's Jews 'for the manifold deeds of wickedness with which they have troubled our land' as well as sundry arrests of Philip the Tall's ministers for corruption, even as he took steps to crush the rebelling nobles and revolting peasants that troubled his nephew's final year as Regent... By 1323, Charles of Valois was the undisputed master of France, an act he cemented by the marriage of his daughter Isabella[5] to the King... He was now not only John's Regent, but his father-in-law..."
--John I of France, Vol. 1; A King in His Cradle, Antony Oates (1978)
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[1] For clarification, the Kingdom of Armenia talked about is what we could call Cilicia. More on this in our next installment, which will detail the Count's misadventures in the East in full.
[2] Actually what happened OTL.
[3] Charles of Valois had gotten the title by his marriage to his first wife. And then hung onto it after she passed.
[4] IOTL, Philip V's son was dead by this point.
[5] This would be his third daughter Isabella by his third wife, who IOTL married the Duke of Bourbon. Not his elder daughter Isabella by his first wife, who married the Prince of Brittany, and is presently dead. Or his other elder daughter Isabella by his second wife, who is a nun. This isn't half as bad as his two daughters named Joan, both of whom are alive, and married to very important men.
"If the question of who was to become the next regent of France was simply decided by proximity of blood then the answer would have been simple--Charles, Count of de la Marche would have taken the position. However, there were several problems standing in his way, most notably the fact that he was not in France when his brother perished, but in Cyprus, attempting to swear his sword to the service of the King of Armenia, having taken up the cross two years previously[1]... Indeed, it would be several months after the fact before Charles even learned of his brother's death and weeks after that before he was able to even get a ship back to France...
"Of course, distance alone was not the only obstacle--there was also a matter of rank--while Charles possessed an appanage and title, he had never been formally recognized as a Peer of France. Arguably, this was a fairly negligible reason to keep him from the Regency, one a vigorous and skillful politician could have easily side-stepped. But that was another, more significant problem--the Count of de la Marche was not a vigorous, skillful politician. Instead, he was a rather notoriously earnest young man whose reputation suffered from being the husband to an acknowledged adulteress--one who, rather than conveniently dying in the manner of his elder brother the Hutin's wife, lived on in her imprisonment, and had in fact born a child to one of her jailers[2]. Things which had prevented the absent prince from gaining much in the way of champions during his absence...
"Thus, the competition for the regency came down to two men, Charles of Valois, and Eudes of Burgundy. Valois could boast of closer relation to the young king, but Eudes maintained that he possessed the greater title and peerage as Duke of Burgundy, in contrast to Charles' peer rank as Count of Anjou[3]. However Eudes was a more blunt and aggressive man, more prone to alienating those he would need as allies--further, his sister Joan was married to Valois' son. In the end, he was bought off by being allowed to his administer the vast estates of his brother-in-law, the young Count of Poitiers[4], until the latter reached his majority. By the time the Count of de la Marche arrived, Valois was well-ensconced as Regent, leading the Count to leave after a few months of ineffectual plotting in return for further funding of his increasingly desperate crusading pretensions...
"An ambitious man with an undeniable flair for the dramatic, Charles of Valois took power in a grand ceremony in Paris. He followed his assumption of power with another expulsion of France's Jews 'for the manifold deeds of wickedness with which they have troubled our land' as well as sundry arrests of Philip the Tall's ministers for corruption, even as he took steps to crush the rebelling nobles and revolting peasants that troubled his nephew's final year as Regent... By 1323, Charles of Valois was the undisputed master of France, an act he cemented by the marriage of his daughter Isabella[5] to the King... He was now not only John's Regent, but his father-in-law..."
--John I of France, Vol. 1; A King in His Cradle, Antony Oates (1978)
--------------------------------------------
[1] For clarification, the Kingdom of Armenia talked about is what we could call Cilicia. More on this in our next installment, which will detail the Count's misadventures in the East in full.
[2] Actually what happened OTL.
[3] Charles of Valois had gotten the title by his marriage to his first wife. And then hung onto it after she passed.
[4] IOTL, Philip V's son was dead by this point.
[5] This would be his third daughter Isabella by his third wife, who IOTL married the Duke of Bourbon. Not his elder daughter Isabella by his first wife, who married the Prince of Brittany, and is presently dead. Or his other elder daughter Isabella by his second wife, who is a nun. This isn't half as bad as his two daughters named Joan, both of whom are alive, and married to very important men.
- Space Oddity
- Word Count: 710