A path to Franglowank : the Curse of the Templar

"Pape Clément! ... Chevalier Guillaume! ... Roi Philippe! ... Avant un an, je vous cite à comparaître au tribunal de Dieu pour y recevoir votre juste châtiment! Maudits! Maudits! Tous maudits jusqu'à la treizième génération de vos races!"
Thus Jacques de Molay "cursed" on the 18th March 1314 the French King Phillipe IV le Bel, also known as le Roi de Fer, the Pope Clement V and the French Chancellor (ministry of Justice) Guillaume de Nogaret. Historically, all three had died in 1314, the last one being .
However , what if an epidemic had struck the Louvre in October 1314, killing all of the Roi de Fer's offspring, except his daughter Isabelle, who had maried Edward II, king of England, her son Edward (future Edward III), and his son Philippe V, who was in Lyon having a new pope elected.
 
France 1310-1330

France in the 1310s is booming; and at Philippe IV's death in November 1314 his equally competent son follows on the throne. Despite his wife still suffering from the Louvre epidemic, he firmly keeps the Kingdoms of France and Navarre a prosperous place. When his wife dies in 1316, just after her brother Robert de Bourgogne, Phillipe inherits the County of Burgondy (OTL Franche-Comté). However, the lack of a heir destabilises his country; the Shepherds' Crusade is slightly more violent than OTL. Still, he keeps a firm grasp on France.
He reforms the French administration for even more efficiency than during his father's reign, creating the Cour des Comptes. However, the 1315 Flanders' revolt is a tough hit as he will not easily be able to reach the Flanders' cities in the foul weather. The conflict ends up diplomatically because of England backing the Flanders.
In 1322, he asks his nephew Edward of Windsor to perform homage for the Duchy of Aquitaine, but due to conflicts between his stepbrother Edward II and his sister Isabelle, Edward doesn't leave Paris before the beginning of his mother's expedition in England, in early 1326. Meanwhile, Charles de Valois had managed to have th future King of England engaged to his daughter Marie de Valois.
However, Philippe V had caught tetanos from one of the Holy Cross's nails, and died the same week.
Therefore, the young Edward of Windsor, being the elder of Philippe IV's surviving grandsons, and having been chosen by his uncle as successor, became Édouard Ier, King of France and Navarre, Count Elector of Burgondy. In November, Edward becomes King of England at his father's death.
If Edward is able to learn a king's duty in France, England is still under control of his mother and her lover, Mortimer. In 1328, he marries Marie de Valois, in an attempt to keep the French Nobles under check. In 1329, he launches an expedition in England to take his crown and in 1330 Edward is in full control of both countries.
 
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Why do the Anti-English French nobles not assume Salic Law much as OTL and declare Charles Comte de Valois (brother of Philippe IV) as King of France?
Isabelle/Edward would still inherit Navarre though
 
Well 1) Phillippe could ask Edward be his successor on his deathbed
2)Salic law had been created on demands by Philippe V after his brother Louis X's deatf. no brother, no Salic Law.
Either way, it would at least made a French Succession War - but here we're looking for a wank. It's also why I left young Edward in France for 4-5 years, to leave time for French nobles to accept him.
 
Well 1) Phillippe could ask Edward be his successor on his deathbed
2)Salic law had been created on demands by Philippe V after his brother Louis X's deatf. no brother, no Salic Law.
Either way, it would at least made a French Succession War - but here we're looking for a wank. It's also why I left young Edward in France for 4-5 years, to leave time for French nobles to accept him.

Salic Law was set up to stop an English King becoming King of France and creating all kinds of competition for the French nobles.
TTL that situation still exists, albeit to a lesser extent if Edward is living in France, and there's the handy Charles of Valois who's been looking for a crown for the past 20 years...
I'm not entirely sure that Philippe would be successful against his uncle and a cabal of nobles.
Even removing Charles will leave several of his sons with a claim.
 
I would have chosen the solution of Philip IV living 14 more years, until 1329. So his 3 sons are dead sonless and Edward is Philip IV's elder living male descendant (let's not forget John, Edward's younger brother).

But this sounds great.
 
Well there was historically a Valois takeover of the Duchy of Burgondy. ITTL they could remain as one of the most powerful Grands, possibly a durable threat to French stability - and I intend to keep some Valois under my hand if there is a dynastic war in the second half of the XVth Century.
However the Salic Law was invented so Philippe V would follow on the French throne after his brother Louis X (if you forget Jean I), and not Louis's daughter Jeanne.
 
No. In 1316 as in 1328, nobody mentionned the Salic law. It was just the will of the nobility to have a capetian adult male on the throne and then to have a french prince.

The Salic law's argument was forced later and retroactively.
 
I think you should read Les Rois Maudits, for the little part about the Salic law.
Either way, new update coming just now.
 
England 1310-1330

England in 1310 is not as well as it used to be. If King Edward I had created a strong administration and attacked Wales and Scotland, his son Edward II, who was prone to favoritism, and lost the war with Scotland after the Battle of Bannockburn.
The favorites, Gaveston then the Despensers, would bring nobles to revolt more than once, and the additionnal fighting between Edward II and his wife, then between Edward III and his mother, would not leave the kingdom unscathed.
Meanwhile, England was becoming increasingly dependant on navy for its trade : while wool was exported to the Flanders, wine which used to be produced in Southern England had to be imported due to the decrease in temperature. In this time, the English still hadn't a fleet strong enough to defeat the French Navy, which was shown by the ease Edward III had in taking back England from Isabelle de France.
Militarily, England was starting to undergo changes : the earlier introduction of the Welsh longbow by Edward I would give the English an advantage, meanwhile Edward II's failures against Scottish guerilla warfare and defeat at Bannockburn showed weakness of pure strength in heavy cavalery against skilled, organised infantry.
 
France and England 1330-1350

In 1330 Édouard Ier had just taken control of its second kingdom. But France left way too much power for nobles, and given Édouard's English origins, as well as his being the King of England, nobles would every four or five years go on a revolt.
However, Édouard had an advantage over the previous French kings in handling the nobles : Aquitaine and its large revenues had become part of the French Royal Estates, as well as Champagne, which had great fairs. Thus he could ask for limited war taxes and ensure every peasant paid his taxes, so as to deal with nobles.
Among nobles, the most troublesome family was the Valois family. Not only did they have quite large estates and corresponding debt, but they also had a claim on the crown they would push despite having their sister maried to the King. They were thus the rallying point of the nobles' rebellions. They wouldn't remove their claim on the crown even when offered the County of Burgondy.
However, France was also undergoing a series of bad harvests from 1343 onwards, and the population, which was already too large for the country to feed, started starving and rebelling too. By 1345, the combination of both had cornered Édouard Ier. If he didn't manage to gain a large amount of prestige, he would have to bring troops from England - which would cost him his throne on the long term.
The Flanders were less troublesome, as most of their riches came from trading with England; and were them to stop paying taxes, Edward could confiscate land as French King and start an embargo as King of England.
Meanwhile, England was still in turmoil : the Anglo-Scottish war had started anew, and Edward Baillol had temporarily regained the throne on its own. The Scottish question remained a troublesome one for England as military intervention in Scottish affairs could bring on the great rebellion in France, while the lack of intervention couldn't help. Only a diplomatic success could help.
Or so he thought. Hardly had Edward Baillol been ousted from the Scottish throne, that Scotland declared war on England. It allowed England to attack Scots without giving the French Nobles the possibility to call their king a warmongerer and an usurpator. The Scots and the English clashed near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, killing half the Scottish army and capturing the rest. Meanwhile, to show its support for the war - and through massive amounts of money - Louis IV, Emperor of the HRE, made him general vicar of the HRE.
Although he intended to conquer all Scotland, Edward III of England could not as doing so would leave Scotland in the same state as France. The inconclusive Treaty of Leicester simply allowed him to restore peace - by gaining land enough to push frontiers to OTL, and a large amount of money.
Although the battle of Newcastle had been a great success for England, Edward himself found out he hadn't really gained in prestige from it. When asked why he hadn't joined with his army, he said : "In increasing order of importance, the quality of my generals, the situation in France, and the English weather." There was only one thing left he could do : enlarge France, if possible in the South.
 
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HRE 1340-1350

In the 1340s the Holy Roman Empire was just as weak as it used to be. Not only was Switzerland slowly heading for independance, but the Pope was opposing the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV for pre-eminence over the Christiandom from its safe place in Avignon. This would had turned against the Pope as the HRE electors had issued the Fidem Catolicam manifesto, where they stated the Emperor was independent from the Papacy and held his power by election.
When Louis IV died on the 11th October 1347, it started again the wars and bribing associated with the Emperor's election. If Charles of Luxembourg, heir of the King of Bohemia, had been crowned King of Romans in 1346 against Louis IV, he didn't hold the reality of power, and was still to be elected Emperor. Charles of Luxembourg faced only one competitor : Günther von Schwarzburg, which he didn't even need to fight as Günther progressively lost his allies, and ended defeated by English troops in the battle of Eltville.
Edward III's support to Charles IV of the HRE was easily repaid, as he only need to close his eyes on Édouard Ier's invasion of Provence, then a HRE fief.
 
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What is elector of Burgundy ????

I also wonder why you have Edward marrying Philippa of Hainaut. He absolutely does not need to. As king of France and England, Edward has almost total control on Flanders : he holds it by balls.

The Logic would be for him to make a strategic marriage : either one strengthening his position and legitimacy in France, or one strengthening an alliance with another kingdom.

In the first hypothesis, the best match would be the elder daughter of Philip V or a Valois princess to apease them.
In the second hypothesis he should go for Castile or Aragon.

Going for the HRE at that stage will weaken him and bring him into trouble in an area where he has no power base. Antagonizing the Luxemburgs would be a mistake : they were France main bridge for spreading its influence in the HRE.
 
The Invasion of Provence

King Édouard Ier was a smart man. He knew that if he wanted to have peace in his kingdom, he needed not only to gain prestige for himself, but also ruin that of his opponent, Jean de Valois, son of Edward's now dead cousin Philippe.
Thus he played a double game. On the one side, he called on the royal host. As most of it was made of heavy noble cavalery, he recruited separately a second force with a larger amount of infantry and some artillery. Meanwhile, using English money, he adviced secretly the Count of Provence to hire pikemen, capable of dealing to the heavy cavalery a blow larger than the battle of Cambrai.
Thus he sent the French noble troops, led by Jean de Valois to attack Provence from Nîmes towards Arles, meanwile his smaller troops would strike from Dauphiné, a French possession since Philippe V had bought it. Alongside Édouard came his son Edouard , Prince of Wales and Dauphin de France.
The great ost met the Provençal army near Arles and was utterly butchered. Philippe de Valois was captured, the King of Bohemia had died as well as most of the French military establishment. But when the Count of Provence sent its troops against the King of France, they were smashed by English longbowmen and artillery in Lançon de Provence. France soon annexed the small county, reaching up to Nice in the east, but Arles was a massive blow to Valois prestige, unlike Édouard's.
 
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