PC: Why Does Charles VIII ALWAYS Die...

[Kellan Sullivan]

...Before the 15th century is out. I can't think of a TL I've seen where such a thing DOESN'T happen. No matter the POD or the wife, Charles always seems to find a doorway that's too low to hit his head on.

@BlueFlowwer at least ducked this in her Richard III TL (although there Charles dies in battle, without issue); and @Kynan in a TL wehre Charles VIII marries Elizabeth of York and has issue. But the general gist seems to be that Charles is fated to die childless.

Why? I haven't read anythig to suggest that he was prticularly unhealthy or even insane. Sure, he and Anne of Brittany struggled for a kid, but considering how she likewise struggled with Louis XII, the problem doesn't seem to have been Charlie's.

 

[Orcot]

Maybe you should write a story (it ill be funny if he still ends up hitting his head on a doorframe when he's 85 tough)
edit funny is a weird word but thir all mortal end die eventually might as well stick with the classics

 

[Brita]

Well, if he doesn't hit his head he may well live another 20/25 years, time enough for him to have at least one surviving child even if said child is "just" a girl.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

Well, dad and granddad made ~60yo. Which would make it that Charlie would die around 1530 if he lives the same length of time. He and Anne had 7 pregnancies in their brief marriage (only four live births though, of which all but one was a boy), and Anne had another 9 with Louis XII (only two live births, but four sons amongst the miscarriages/stillbirths).

I'd say the odds of Charles having a healthy son is a question of "when" rather than "if"

 

[VVD0D95]

Well, dad and granddad made ~60yo. Which would make it that Charlie would die around 1530 if he lives the same length of time. He and Anne had 7 pregnancies in their brief marriage (only four live births though, of which all but one was a boy), and Anne had another 9 with Louis XII (only two live births, but four sons amongst the miscarriages/stillbirths).

I'd say the odds of Charles having a healthy son is a question of "when" rather than "if"

What sort of ruler was Charlie? And how might he have been as a father? I ask because I'm tempted to do something with him.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

What sort of ruler was Charlie? And how might he have been as a father? I ask because I'm tempted to do something with him.

Not really sure myself. Anne de Beaujeu was regent mostly AIUI even after Charlie reached his majority. Although Charlie ejected her at some point in the mid 90s.

 

[Orcot]

Well, dad and granddad made ~60yo. Which would make it that Charlie would die around 1530 if he lives the same length of time. He and Anne had 7 pregnancies in their brief marriage (only four live births though, of which all but one was a boy), and Anne had another 9 with Louis XII (only two live births, but four sons amongst the miscarriages/stillbirths).

I'd say the odds of Charles having a healthy son is a question of "when" rather than "if"

I disagree Anne would have had roughly the same lifestyle being married to the French king twice
Charles 8 died in april 1488, Louis married anne in december 1488. Anne eventually had 2 children (one did not reach the age of 30),for comparison Louis(12) was 37 when his oldest daughter was born, for comparison Louis XI was 47 when he got Charles 8.
At best it's a 50% change Anne produced a live son that reached the age to reproduce. You can offcourse write what you want. But I wouldn't call it a "when"

 

[Brita]

What sort of ruler was Charlie? And how might he have been as a father? I ask because I'm tempted to do something with him.

IIRC many historians judged him rather severely, saying he was childish or ill-advised, ruining the kingdom with his Italian Wars (and yet Louis XII and Francis I had their own Italian Wars and weren't blamed as much as he was) etc. It changed only in the last 60 years I think - I didn't read her book but I heard Yvonne Labande-Mailfert was one of the first French historians to redeem Charles VIII's reputation. From what I know about the subject, he seems to be more of a misunderstood figure.

 

[VVD0D95]

IIRC many historians judged him rather severely, saying he was childish or ill-advised, ruining the kingdom with his Italian Wars (and yet Louis XII and Francis I had their own Italian Wars and weren't blamed as much as he was) etc. It changed only in the last 60 years I think - I didn't read her book but I heard Yvonne Labande-Mailfert was one of the first French historians to redeem Charles VIII's reputation. From what I know about the subject, he seems to be more of a misunderstood figure.

Excellent, just the type that would be interesting to write.

 

[BlueFlowwer]

...Before the 15th century is out. I can't think of a TL I've seen where such a thing DOESN'T happen. No matter the POD or the wife, Charles always seems to find a doorway that's too low to hit his head on.

@BlueFlowwer at least ducked this in her Richard III TL (although there Charles dies in battle, without issue); and @Kynan in a TL wehre Charles VIII marries Elizabeth of York and has issue. But the general gist seems to be that Charles is fated to die childless.


To be fair I killed him with a doorstop in my Burgundy au, but then he had four children. Don't say I never do anything for you!

 

[Milites]

It ain’t much, but I wrote this short take on a surviving Charles VIII for a map contest a few years ago:


At the Battle of Fornovo, king Charles VIII of France manages to defeat the forces of the Italian League albeit the victory comes at a heavy cost. Leaving his cousin Louis of Orleans behind as duke of Milan, Charles returns to France to regroup and rearm his battered forces in Provence - thus avoiding striking his head on a lintel in Amboise. Meanwhile in Florence, Girolamo Savonarola crushes all domestic political opposition prompting Pope Alexander VI to authorise his son Cesare Borgia to march into Florentine territory and enforce the papal interdict of the messianic friar. Doing so with ease, Borgia is proclaimed duke of Florence by his troops and the Guelph nobles and citizens.

Two years later, Charles returns to Italy to defend his dynasty's right to the throne of Milan, occupying the Duchy of Savoy on his march into the peninsular. This second invasion leads Cesare and Alexander to force the republics of Siena and Lucca into subservience of Borgian Florence in opposition of the French intervention. The Venetian Republic also rallies to the side of anti-French coalition. As Charles marshalls his forces in Milan, Ercole I d'Este, known as The Diamond, duke of Modena and Ferrara marries his son Alfonso to a French princess partly to ingratiate himself with the French behemoth to the North and partly in reaction to the execution of Savonarola by the Florentine authorities. In return for his loyalty Louis of Orleans sweeps down south and aids Ercole in conquering the Duchy of Mantua. Although technically still an independent prince styling himself divus, The Diamond has in effect become a French satrap.

The states of Northern Italy are thus posed for another round of brutal warfare between those subservient to the King of France led by the Duke of Milan, Louis of Orleans, and those under the Papal aegis of Cesare Borgia. However, events are still in flux. The Emperor has not yet responded, the matter of the Neapolitan throne is still disputed and who's to say that Louis of Orleans will continue to do his cousin's bidding?

 

[alexmilman]

What sort of ruler was Charlie? And how might he have been as a father? I ask because I'm tempted to do something with him.

By all accounts (that I’m aware of 😉), he was neither too competent as a ruler nor excessively intelligent. You can start with his Italian adventure for which he basically gave away all disputed parts of the Burgundian Inheritance leaving few generations of his successors with a task of conquering them back (Rousillion, County of Burgundy, Artois, etc.).

The Naples adventure was close to the insanity because it immediately produced a powerful anti-French coalition (joined by Maximilian, Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry VIII, so much for worth of the treaties) and because without a strong navy France was not able to provide a reliable communication with the forces left in the Naples and these forced had been defeated by Ferdinand II of Naples “assisted” by Gonsalvo de Córdoba (taking into an account military talent of Gonsalvo and quality of his troops who was assisting whom is an open question). So the results were zero but the adventure triggered the Italian Wars (both Louis XII and Francis I tried, among other things, to restore the French rule in the Naples) which turned to be a very expensive failure for France.

IIRC, his Italian campaign was a first step of a planned grand strategy involving a new “crusade” (don’t remember if he wanted to reconquer Constantinople or to go straight to Jerusalem to which,IIRC, he had some titular claim).


On a personal level, he was seemingly reasonably fond of his wife (*), which did not prevent him from having numerous lovers in Italy, but that’s pretty much all that we know for sure. Taking into an account that he was planning the next Italian campaign when he hit his head, probably he would be too busy for the years to come to spend too much time on his kid(s) so this would be most up to Anne.



___________
(*) And of a fine Italian jewelry

 

[Emperor Constantine]

I actually thought about this a while back! My long-delayed Renaissance TL will actually have Charles VIII survive past his OTL death date, and with issue.

 

[Tyler96]

I honestly think it's just that his manner of death gives him a memetic hopelessness that carries over into ATLs.

 

[alexmilman]

I honestly think it's just that his manner of death gives him a memetic hopelessness that carries over into ATLs.

Of course his manner and timing of death leave a lot to the speculations but, to be realistic, his life time activities are not too encouraging. The main sensible action of his reign was his marriage but, IIRC, it was arranged by Anne de Burbon.

The rest can be, if one inclined to be overly sympathetic, written down to the ..er.. “chivalric” ideas, which is not a compliment for a ruler. His diplomacy was so naive that one may start wondering if he was a son of his father.

His abilities in the area of a military leadership seemingly were on a level of an ordinary knight and he could not even pick the capable subordinates. Strategically, the Naples campaign was an idiocy because no measures had been taken to protect the communication lines and if anybody at that time seriously believed in a reliability of the Italian states, that person was an idiot. Especially taking into an account that on their way across Italy his troops created for themselves reputation for looting that was unbeatable until Spaniards came into the picture.

By the time of his death he was planning a new expedition so we can expect more of the same.

At least his successors had been mostly concentrating on the Northern Italy, which made some practical sense.

 

[Kynan]

IMO: He’s less compelling than every other major ruler in Europe at the time so usually it’s more interesting to replace him with his cousin and let things go from there. He doesn’t have the lingering personality of the Plantagenets/Tudors, the fiery piousness of Isabella I of Castile or the casual awfulness of Ferdinand II of Aragon. Even in his own kingdom, Louis XII is more competent and has a level of personality and pathos to him that Charles VIII doesn’t, he just remains dumb and bland. And yes, this is all projection but I think it’s accurate to how these figures are portrayed. There’s certain archetypes at play even in the most complex of timelines and no one is fascinated by him. If you want Anne of Brittany to produce children, it’s more interesting to go with Louis XII because there’s more to play with there.

 

[Old1812]

Personally, I'd really like to a TL focusing primarily on Charles VIII-Elizabeth of York/Catherine of Navarre wreaking havoc in the name of France, but that's just me.

 

[isabella]

Personally, I'd really like to a TL focusing primarily on Charles VIII-Elizabeth of York/Catherine of Navarre wreaking havoc in the name of France, but that's just me.

A Charles VIII who take Navarre marrying his cousin Catherine would be really interesting (and the only scenario in which I would like more Charles surviving than replacing him with his cousin Louis... But I think I was the first to propose a Charles/Catherine match (we were searching an alternative bride for which Louis XI would dump Elizabeth of York as daughter-in-law if Marie of Burgundy lived)

 

[Brian Boru]

A bump on a door killed him? Good grief how fast was he going?

 

[VVD0D95]

A bump on a door killed him? Good grief how fast was he going?

So fast he made Macron look good?

I'll see myself out.