Thanks, I am actually looking a lot at the Timurids, India and China atm trying to lay out where things go in the region. I think I have a number of interesting directions for things to go, but I was wondering if anyone had something they wanted me to look into and see if I can incorporate in the TL.
The Dead Live: A Hundred Years' War Timeline
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Thanks, I am actually looking a lot at the Timurids, India and China atm trying to lay out where things go in the region. I think I have a number of interesting directions for things to go, but I was wondering if anyone had something they wanted me to look into and see if I can incorporate in the TL.
OK I'm going to comment on each chapter separately if that's OK. First off, love the that we (tentatively) have Plantagenet Castile. Second, the failed French intervention was quite fascinating. They where hoping to repeat Bertrand du Guesclin's success but instead saw the leading flowers of the nobility slaughtered, their finances stretched and their armies damaged. Things aren't looking good for the French. Hell it's even lay the seeds for a new conflict over the Armagnac inheritance. I for one didn't realize that the family was that wealthy and important. Seems that the Armagnacs are causing as much chaos and damage to France in death as they later would in life. Finally, it looks like the new Juan II is already laying the seeds of his own downfall by making Bolingbroke his heir. I can definitely see a civil war between the new Prince of Asturias and his half-sister Infanta Catalina. Though King Enrique IV could also be interesting. If he's still single he could marry Yolande of Aragon (assuming she exists here) and potentially create Spain a century early.
For chapter twelve, first it seems that butterflies have yet to reach the east just yet. However it's very interesting to see the new pressure for a Crusade growing among the crowned heads of Europe. Hm, if the Crusade can be delayed until the Battle of Ankara (or it's TTL equivalent if once exists) then we could potentially see the Ottoman Turks completely crushed between a European force and the Timurids. Well as long as the Venetians and Genoans don't evacuate the surviving Ottoman army. Second, it looks like Italy is could shape up to be a triple division between Milan, the Papacy and Naples. Though the former's influence has been checked at this point. Finally, it's a surprising relief to see an early end to the Great Schism. Especially before it reached the point of three Popes. Though on the other hand we could see a more organic form of conciliarism, like a power sharing between the College of Cardinals and the Pope. Also, looking at the dates, if Honorius V lives as long as he did OTL he could end up being the longest reigning Pope, just barely surpassing OTL Pius IX. Looking forward to the next chapter.
For chapter twelve, first it seems that butterflies have yet to reach the east just yet. However it's very interesting to see the new pressure for a Crusade growing among the crowned heads of Europe. Hm, if the Crusade can be delayed until the Battle of Ankara (or it's TTL equivalent if once exists) then we could potentially see the Ottoman Turks completely crushed between a European force and the Timurids. Well as long as the Venetians and Genoans don't evacuate the surviving Ottoman army. Second, it looks like Italy is could shape up to be a triple division between Milan, the Papacy and Naples. Though the former's influence has been checked at this point. Finally, it's a surprising relief to see an early end to the Great Schism. Especially before it reached the point of three Popes. Though on the other hand we could see a more organic form of conciliarism, like a power sharing between the College of Cardinals and the Pope. Also, looking at the dates, if Honorius V lives as long as he did OTL he could end up being the longest reigning Pope, just barely surpassing OTL Pius IX. Looking forward to the next chapter.
I am happy to hear that you enjoy what I have so far. I honestly hadn't considered who Enrique IV might marry after Eleanor Bohun, but that isn't a bad idea. Regarding Navarrese claims, it should be kept in mind that Pedro and John are allied, with Henry of Monmouth (OTL Henry V) being engaged to a daughter of Pedro and Catalina so the likelyhood of a conflict between them erupting is minor at the moment. Things might change in the future, but Navarre is going to get drawn into the chaos in France more and more as things go to hell. I have high hopes for Honorius. He was shaped by the aftermath of the Plague and the collapsing prestige of the Church, which is one of the things he will work very hard to reestablish. He is going to be a bit of a reformer and one of the strongest popes of the period. Regarding Conciiarism it is unlikely to see it emerge as anything like OTL. The Conclave of Genoa solved a number of issues but it did that mostly as a brief stand-in for the Pope. There hasn't been the struggle for power between the Pope and Council that there was IOTL, and Honorius isn't a big supporter of councils. As long as he can keep things on an even keel the Papacy is likely to strengthen. It is more likely that if a group of Cardinals find themselves opposed to the Papacy they mmight raise a pope of their own, following the example set by Clement, rather than establish a council.
Update Thirteen: The King's Madness
I am sorry to say that this is another instance in which the vast majority of the update is OTL. I played a bit with the depiction of events because I was able to find quite vivid depictions of several of the events. I really hope you enjoy.
Genoese ambassadors had approached the French king Charles VI in 1390 to subscribe to a crusade, they eagerly supported, with the plan being to fight Muslim pirates from North Africa. These pirates had their main base at Mahdia on the Barbary coast. Genoa was ready to supply ships, supplies, 12,000 archers and 8,000 foot soldiers, if France would provide the knights. The proposal by the doge Antoniotto Adorno was presented as a crusade. As such it would give prestige to its participants, a moratorium on their debts, immunity from lawsuits, and papal indulgence. The French force also included some English participants, such as John of Beaufort - bastard son of John of Gaunt (1), and consisted of 1,500 knights under the leadership of Louis II, Duc de Bourbon. The total force numbered about 5,000 knights and soldiers plus 1,000 sailors. Two priests representing both popes blessed the departing. An armada of about 60 ships left Genoa on July 1, 1390 and landed at the end of July near the town of Mahdi where the soldiers disembarked unchallenged. The crusaders put up their camp and invested the fortified city for the next two months. They had failed to bring sufficient siege engines to breach the walls. A relief army reportedly 40,000 men strong was brought up by Hafsid Sultan Abu al-Abbas Ahmad II supported by the kings of Bugia and Tlemesan, camped nearby, avoided pitched battle, but started to harass the crusaders. The crusaders had to build a wall around their camp and fortify it. The Berbers sent out a negotiating party asking why the French would attack them, they had only troubled the Genoese, a natural affair among neighbors. In answer they were told that they were unbelievers who had "crucified and put to death the son of God called Jesus Christ." The Berbers laughed saying it was the Jews not they who had done that. Negotiations broke off. In a subsequent encounter with the large relief army the crusaders killed many but eventually had to retreat exhausted and tired. The duration of the siege not only frustrated them, but their logistical systems started to weaken. When a final assault on the city was repelled they were ready to settle for a treaty. On the opposing side the Berbers realized that they could not overcome the heavier armed invaders. Both sides looked for a way to end the hostilities. The siege was lifted with the conclusion of a treaty negotiated through the Genoese party. The treaty stipulated a ten-year armistice, an agreement by Mahdia of payment of taxes to Genoa for 15 years, and to Louis II for his expenses. Thus piracy from the Barbary coast was reduced, and the crusaders withdrew. By mid-October the crusaders had returned to Genoa. Losses due to fighting and disease amounted to 274 knights and squires, about 20 percent of the initial force. Both sides celebrated victory afterwards. The Berbers had repelled the invaders, and the Genoese could conduct trade with less interference. The French knights had no tangible goals but had participated for action and glory. They failed to learn any lessons from a "chivalric adventure with religious overlay" Their mistakes of unfamiliarity with the environment, lack of heavy siege equipment, underestimation of the enemy, and internal quarrels were repeated six years later on a much grander scale (2).
Jean II d'Armagnac's death not only led directly to the Armagnac Inheritance Crisis but also served as the beginning of the political career of Louis of France, Duc d'Orléans from 1392. While the two royal dukes fought over the inheritance Louis was able to convince his brother that Olivier de Clisson, who had long been an ally and friend to both brothers, should be promoted to Constable (3). This coup brought Louis to the attention of his uncles, who swiftly realized that they had been outmaneuvered and one of their implacable enemies had become Constable with the result that they began working together, an alliance solidified by the marriage of Antoine de Bourgogne, son of Phillip, to Marie de Berry, youngest daughter of Jean de Berry (4). As the main prop of the ministerial party, he was the object of the uncles’ political enmity. For as long as he retained the controlling military post with access to its immense financial advantages, and remained in partnership with the Marmosets and the King’s brother, the uncles saw themselves kept at a distance from power. The Duke of Brittany feared him as a rival in Breton affairs and had previously attempted to have him killed. In their common desire to destroy Clisson, the interests of Brittany and the King’s uncles met, and they maintained clandestine contact with each other. Serving as a link between them was a Burgundian protégé, related to both the Duchess de Bourgogne and the Duke of Brittany, the same Pierre de Craon who undermined Clisson's war effort and embarrassed the Duc d'Anjou (5). Since then he had assassinated a knight of Laon but used his influence to secure a pardon. These derelictions had not prevented his finding favor in the royal circle of pleasure seekers. However, he angered Louis d’Orléans by informing his wife—apparently from an irresistible impulse to mischief—of an extra-marital passion which Louis had confided to him. Louis had even taken Craon to visit the beautiful, if too virtuous, lady who had resisted an offer of 1,000 gold crowns for her favors. On discovering Craon’s betrayal, Louis in a rage took the tale to the King, who compliantly banished the troublemaker. Craon claimed he was removed because he had tried to make Louis give up engaging in occult practices and consorting with sorcerers (6).
Burning with resentment, he took refuge with the Duke of Brittany, who was his cousin. In Craon the Duke found the agent for another attempt to ruin Clisson. Because Clisson was married to a niece of the Duchess d’Anjou, he automatically shared that family’s mortal enmity for Craon. On this basis Craon already suspected, and the Duke of Brittany easily persuaded him, that Clisson’s hand was behind his banishment—which may have been true. Clisson discovered secret correspondence between Craon and the Dukes. In any event, Craon now “breathed only for vengeance.” On the night of June 13, 1392, having returned secretly to Paris, Craon waited in ambush at a street crossing where Clisson would pass on the way to his hôtel. With Craon in the darkness was a party of forty armored followers, enough to ensure overwhelming odds against an opponent in civilian circumstances. Escorted by eight attendants with torches but unarmed for combat, Clisson was returning on horseback from a party given by the King at St. Pol. He was discussing with his squires a dinner he was to give next day for Orléans and Vienne when suddenly the torchlight fell upon a dark mass of mounted men and on the faint gleam of helmet and cuirass. The assailants charged, extinguishing Clisson’s torches and crying, “A mort! A mort!” Craon’s men did not know whom they were attacking because the identity of the victim had been kept secret. They were appalled to hear their chief shout in his excitement, as with brandished sword he urged them forward, “Clisson, you must die!” Clisson cried out to his unknown assailant, “Who are you?” “I am Pierre de Craon, your enemy!” replied the leader openly, for he anticipated a corpse and an overturn of government in consequence. His men, stunned to discover themselves engaged in murdering the Constable of France, were hesitant in pressing the attack. Armed only with a dagger, Clisson desperately defended himself until, struck by many blows, he was unhorsed. He fell into the doorway of a baker’s shop, forcing open the door by the weight of his fall, just as the baker, hearing the racket, appeared in time to pull him into the house. Believing they had killed him, Craon and his party hastened away. The survivors among Clisson’s squires found him in the shop, slashed by sword cuts, bathed in blood, and apparently lifeless. By the time the King, aroused from bed and informed of the awful news, reached the baker’s shop, Clisson had recovered consciousness. When Clisson named his assassin, Charles swore that “no deed shall ever be so expiated as this, nor so heavily punished.” He called for surgeons, who, on examining the Constable’s hardened body, survivor of a hundred combats, promised his recovery. Orders for the capture of Craon failed because the gates of Paris, still stripped of their bars since the insurrection, could not be closed. Learning that, unbelievably, Clisson lived, Craon escaped from the city, galloped as far as Chartres and then on to Brittany (6).
A Bust of Olivier de Clisson, Constable of France
King Charles, feeling himself attacked in the person of the state’s chief defender, pursued the assassin with insatiable fury. Two of Craon’s squires and a page were beheaded on capture, as was the steward of his Paris residence for failing to report his return to the capital. A canon of Chartres who had given him shelter was deprived of his benefices and condemned to perpetual abstinence in prison on bread and water. Craon’s properties and revenues were confiscated to the benefit of the Royal Treasury; his residences and castles were ordered razed. The King’s excited state of mind communicated itself, as royal rage will, to his deputies. Admiral de Vienne, charged with making an inventory of Craon’s fortune, reportedly evicted his wife and daughter without possessions or money, in nothing but the clothes they wore—after raping the daughter—and helped himself to the rich furnishings and valuables of their residence. Perhaps he felt that Craon’s treason justified this indecency, though his conduct was widely condemned by fellow nobles (7). Events moved from murder to war when the Duke of Brittany, on being ordered to surrender the culprit, denied all knowledge of him and refused to concern himself in any way. Thus defied, the King called for war on the Duke. Barely recovered from an illness contracted at Amiens, Charles appeared often distraught and disconnected in speech. His physicians advised against a campaign, but, encouraged by his brother, he insisted. Bourgogne and Berry, who depended on the Duke of Brittany as their ally in the political struggle, bent every endeavor to prevent it. The heat of family partisanship was added to the conflict by the Duchess de Bourgogne, who was Montfort’s niece and therefore took his side and hated Clisson with venomous intensity. Burgundian influence was certainly behind the asylum given to Craon (8) though the role played by England in the affair is more uncertain. Berry, for his part, was said to have had prior knowledge of Craon’s assault. When it was learned that Clisson’s will, dictated after the attack, left a fortune of 1,700,000 francs, not counting lands, the uncles’ jealous rage at finding themselves outdone in the rewards of avarice knew no bounds. Such a fortune—greater than the King’s, they let it be known—could have come from no honest source. The public was ready enough to believe it, for Rivière and Mercier of the Marmousets, too, had amassed fortunes from government service and were generally disliked as both arrogant and venal. All this strife and rancor festered behind the unstable King as he clamored for war. The Council approved the campaign; the uncles, left out of the decision but bound to join the King, were augmented in their hatred of the ministers. “They dreamed of nothing but how to destroy them.” The King, accompanied by Bourbon and Orléans, left Paris on July 1, moving westward by slow stages as knights and their retinues came up to join the march. Charles’s ill health required protracted stops, and further delay was caused by waiting for the uncles. Hoping to forestall the war, they dallied and procrastinated, putting Charles in a frenzy of impatience. Scarcely eating or drinking, he was in Council every day, harping on the insult to him through his Constable, upset at any contradictions, refusing absolutely to be swerved from punishing the Duke of Brittany. Discord, arriving with Bourgogne and Berry, spread to the army, where knights disputed the rights and wrongs of the enterprise and whispered of renewed war with England. In reply to a second demand for Craon’s surrender, Montfort again denied knowing anything about him. Charles, although declared “feverish and unfit to ride” by his physicians, would wait no longer (9).
In the heat of mid-August the march began from Le Mans on the borders of Brittany. On a sandy road under blazing sun, the King, wearing a black velvet jacket and a hat of scarlet velvet ornamented with pearls, rode apart from the others to avoid the dust. Two pages rode behind, one carrying his helmet, the other his lance. Ahead rode the two uncles in one group, and Louis d’Orléans and Bourbon in another. As the party passed through the forest of Mans, a rough barefoot man in a ragged smock suddenly stepped from behind a tree and seized the King’s bridle, crying in a voice of doom, “Ride no further, noble King! Turn back! You are betrayed!” Charles shrank in alarm. Escorts beat the man’s hand from the bridle but because he appeared no more than a poor madman did not arrest him, not even when he followed the company for half an hour crying betrayal in the King’s ears. Emerging from the forest, the riders came out on an open plain at high noon. Men and horses suffered under the sun’s rays. One of the pages, dozing in the saddle, let fall the King’s lance, which struck the steel helmet carried by his companion with a loud clang. The King shuddered, then, suddenly drawing his sword, spurred his horse to a charge with the cry, “Forward against the traitors! They wish to deliver me to the enemy!” Wheeling and charging, he struck at anyone within reach. “My God,” cried Burgundy, “the King is out of his mind! Hold him, someone!” No one dared try. Warding off the blows but unable to strike back against the King’s person, they milled around in horror while Charles rushed wildly against this one and that until he was exhausted, panting, and drenched in sweat. Then his chamberlain, Guillaume de Martel, whom he much loved, clasped him from behind while others took his sword and, lifting him from his horse, laid him gently on the ground. He lay motionless and speechless, staring with open eyes, recognizing no one. Several of the knights whom he had killed in his frenzy lay near him in the dust. Bold as always, Philip de Bourgogne seized authority. “We must return to Mans,” he decided. “This finishes the march on Brittany.” Laid in a passing oxcart, the King of France was carried back while an appalled company, some already thinking furiously of the future, rode alongside. With scarcely a sign of life but his heartbeat, Charles remained in a coma for four days during which he was thought to be on his deathbed. His physicians could offer no hope, and other doctors who were called—Bourgogne’s, Orléans’, Bourbon’s—agreed after consultation that their science was powerless. The first four days, when Charles had been expected to die, gave the uncles their opportunity against the Marmosets. “Now is the hour,” said Berry, “when I shall pay them back in kind." On the next day while still at Le Mans, Berry and Bourgogne, claiming authority as the King’s eldest relatives, although in fact Louis was closer to the crown, dismissed the entire Council, disbanded the army, and seized the reins of government. Returning to Paris within two weeks, they convened a subservient Council which duly gave the government to Philip the Bold on the ground that Louis d’Orléans was too young, and deposed the Marmosets by judicial process. Rivière and Mercier, who had been unready to abandon power in time, were arrested and imprisoned, and their lands, houses, furnishings, and fortune confiscated. A more prescient colleague, Jean de Montagu, reputed to be a natural son of Charles V, took himself and his fortune to Avignon the moment he heard of the King’s attack (10).
The dismissal of Clisson was to be Bougogne’s triumph. Forcing the issue, Clisson came to see him to inquire as Constable about measures for government of the realm. Philip looked at him malevolently. “Clisson, Clisson,” he said between his teeth, “you need not busy yourself with that; the kingdom will be governed without your office.” Then, unable to conceal the real source of his anger, he demanded “where the Devil” Clisson had amassed so great a fortune, more than his and Berry’s put together. “Get out of my sight,” he exploded, “for were it not for my honor I would put out your other eye!” Clisson rode home reflectively. That night, under cover of darkness, he left his hôtel with two attendants by the back gate and rode to his castle of Montlhéry, just south of Paris, where he could defend himself. Raging at his escape, Burgundy chose Coucy as agent against his own brother-in-arms. Along with Guy de Tremolile, he was named to command a force of 300 lances including many former comrades of the Constable, who were ordered to march by five different roads and not to return without Clisson dead or alive. This does not seem to have been one of Burgundy’s more intelligent moves. Naturally warned by his friends in the party, Clisson escaped to his fortress of Josselin in Brittany, where on his own ground he could withstand attack. But his flight enabled Burgundy to use him as a scapegoat. He was tried in absentia, convicted as a “false and wicked traitor,” deposed as Constable, banished, and fined 100,000 marks. Louis d’Orléans refused to ratify the proceedings, but throughout the overturn he never dared openly challenge his uncles (9). The uncles gave the post of Constable to the young Comte d’Eu, reportedly so that he might become wealthy enough to marry Bourgogne’s daughter Bonne de Bourgogne (10).
The Bal des Ardents
Under the care of Coucy’s physician Harsigny, the King seemed restored to sanity by the end of September. Before leaving his royal patient, Harsigny had advised against burdening him with the responsibilities of state. “I give him back to you in good health,” he had said, “but be careful not to worry or irritate him. His mind is not yet strong; little by little it will improve. Burden him with work as little as you can; pleasure and forgetfulness will be better for him than anything else.” (11) This advice perfectly suited the Dukes. Sovereign in name only, Charles returned to Paris to dally with the ladies in the gardens of St. Pol and enjoy the amusements and festivities organized every night by his wife and brother. In relief from madness, frivolity abounded and the uncles did not interfere, “for so long as the Queen and the Duc d’Orléans danced, they were not dangerous nor even annoying.” Queen Isabeau and her sister-in-law Valentina vied with each other in novelties and opulence; dresses were loaded with jewels, fringes, and fantastical emblems. In the taverns people murmured against the extravagance and license. They loved the crowned youth, who for his affability and openhandedness and easy conversation with all ranks, was called Charles le Bien-Aimé, but they deplored the “foreigners” from Bavaria and Italy and blamed the uncles for allowing dissipations unbecoming to the King of France. Thrust to the head of the court as young boys not yet in their teens, Charles and Louis had none of their father’s care for the dignity of the crown; they had neither discipline nor sense of decorum. Deprived of major responsibility, they made up for it in play, and adults’ play required constant new excesses to be entertaining. On the night when these culminated in horror, Coucy was not present because he was in Savoy, using his negotiating talents to settle a tremendous family quarrel which had split the ruling house and all related noble families and created a crisis of hostility that threatened to block passage for a march on Rome. The issue, involving ducal families, dower rights, and of course property, derived from the fact that the Red Count, Amadeus VII, who had recently died at the age of 31, had left the guardianship of his son to his mother, a sister of the Duc de Bourbon, instead of to his wife, a daughter of the Duc de Berry. It was to take three months before Coucy and Guy de Tremoille succeeded in negotiating a treaty that brought the overblown fracas to an end and left the rival Countesses in “peaceable accord with their subjects.” (12)
On the Tuesday before Candlemas Day, January 28, 1393, four days after Coucy had left Paris, the Queen gave a masquerade to celebrate the wedding of a favorite lady-in-waiting who, twice widowed, was now being married for the third time. A woman’s re-marriage, according to certain traditions, was considered an occasion for mockery and often celebrated by a charivari for the newlyweds with all sorts of license, disguises, disorders, and loud blaring of discordant music and clanging of cymbals outside the bridal chamber. Although this was a usage “contrary to all decency,” King Charles had let himself be persuaded by dissolute friends to join in such a charade. Six young men, including the King, disguised themselves as “wood savages,” in costumes of linen cloth sewn onto their bodies and soaked in resinous wax or pitch to hold a covering of frazzled hemp, “so that they appeared shaggy and hairy from head to foot.” Face masks entirely concealed their identity. Aware of the risk they ran in torch-filled halls, they forbade anyone carrying a torch to enter during the dance. Plainly, an element of Russian roulette was involved, the tempting of death that has repeatedly been the excitement of highborn and decadent youth. Certain ways of behavior vary little across the centuries. Plainly, too, there was an element of cruelty in involving as one of the actors a man thinly separated from madness. The deviser of the affair, “cruelest and most insolent of men,” was one Huguet de Guisay, favored in the royal circle for his outrageous schemes. He was a man of “wicked life” who “corrupted and schooled youth in debaucheries,” and held commoners and the poor in hatred and contempt. He called them dogs, and with blows of sword and whip took pleasure in forcing them to imitate barking. If a servant displeased him, he would force the man to lie on the ground and, standing on his back, would kick him with spurs, crying, “Bark, dog!” in response to his cries of pain. In their Dance of the Savages, the masqueraders capered before the revelers, imitating the howls of wolves and making obscene gestures while the guests tried to discover their identity. Charles was teasing and gesticulating before the fifteen-year-old Duchesse de Berry when Louis d’Orléans and Philippe de Bar, arriving from a party elsewhere, entered the hall accompanied by torches despite the ban. To discover who the dancers were, Louis held up a torch over the capering monsters. A spark fell, a flame flickered up a leg, first one dancer was afire, then another. The Queen, who alone knew that Charles was among the group, shrieked and fainted. The Duchesse de Berry, who had recognized the King, threw her skirt over him to protect him from the sparks, thus saving his life. The room filled with the guests’ sobs and cries of horror and the tortured screams of the burning men. Guests who tried to stifle the flames and tear the costumes from the writhing victims were badly burned. Except for the King, only the Sire de Nantouillet, who flung himself into a large wine-cooler filled with water, escaped. The Count de Joigny and Jean de Berry, second son of the Duc de Berry, were burned to death on the spot, Aimery Poitiers died after two days of painful suffering. Huguet de Guisay lived for three days in agony, cursing and insulting his fellow dancers, the dead and the living, until his last hour. When his coffin was carried through the streets, the common people greeted it with cries of “Bark, dog!” The incident, called the Bal des Ardents, added to the impression of a court steeped in extravagance, with a king in delicate health and unable to rule. Charles's attacks of illness increased in frequency such that by the end of the 1390s his role was merely ceremonial (13).
The negotiations between France and England had been ongoing since the Second Jacquerie and the Great Peasants' Revolt had wracked both nations. Throughout most of this period both sides fought proxy-wars against each other in Scotland and Spain while pursuing other adventures in Ireland, North Africa and Italy. The negotiations had consistently floundered on the unwillingness of either side to concede to any sort of de facto or de jure loss. The eventual conclusion reached by the negotiators after years of attempting to reach agreement was that a perpetual truce or one covering long periods of time could be sufficient to maintain peaceful relations between the two parties if strengthened by marriages while solving the issues of the present might be easier under less contentious circumstances. It was for this reason that negotiations began centering increasingly on marriages between the royal children. The major obstacle for these marriages was the lack of a English princes to marry the Dauphin Charles, the only English Princess having already married King Olaf of the Nordic Union and almost a decade older than the Dauphin in any case. The birth of Princess Catherine of England in 1393 came as a godsend to the frantic negotiators who had begun considering the daughters of the Duke of Carlisle as potential stand-ins for a royal marriage. With the birth of Catherine it therefore became possible to hold a dual marriage which was promptly agreed to in early 1395 as news of the Great Conclave arrived. As a result, on the 13th of March 1395 Edward, Prince of Wales and Isabella of France were married in a lavish ceremony followed soon after by the proxy-wedding of Charles, Dauphin of Viennois to Catherine of England at Rennes in Brittany. At the same time a truce of ten years was signed by Charles VI, during a period of lucidity, and Edward V, with plans to extend the truce in 1405, and both pledged to support or participate in the coming crusade (14).
Richard of Bordeaux, Duke of Carlisle is appointed Regent
In England, while the strains of conflict abroad served as a drain on the Kingdom's finances, peace and plenty abounded. Edward found himself at the center of one of the most magnificent courts of Europe filled with artists, writers and philosophers. Edward at the same time served as patron to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge while he received a Papal Bull from Pope Innocent VII for the establishment of the University of Bordeaux in 1390 (15). England experienced a flowering of literature and painting as masters like Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower and particularly John Lydgate (16), who entered Edward V's entourage at the age of 18 and came to serve as both his personal historian and poet - chronicling Edward's life and times. He would become a tutor of the young princes and helped to educate them. The venerable Richard Suisset (17), known as The Calculator for a series of treatises known as the Liber calculationum in the 1350s and a man considered among the brightest of his age, joined Lydgate at court and served as tutor to both King Edward and his sons. Edward gathered an immense library from across Europe which was made available to the clever minds of his court and served as a starting point for many other writers and thinkers.
The two archbishops of England became central figures in the administration, alongside Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester who provided important support to the regime. Richard, Duke of Carlisle found himself somewhat distanced from government, instead being placed in charge of the Scottish Marches alongside Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. This partnership proved increasingly problematic, as the two proved unable to cooperate in their shared responsibilities. The end result would be that Richard was pulled from the Marches and was instead made Lord Warden of Cinque Ports in Sussex and Kent. This allowed Richard more participation in government and allowed him to enter into his brother's confidences. At around this time Edward of Norwich, Son of the Duke of Cambridge, became an increasingly important figure with his appointment as Constable of the Tower and Keeper of the Channel Islands. These appointments led Edward of Norwich and Richard, Duke of Carlisle to grow increasingly close - soon forming a faction of their own which was joined by John of Beaufort, and later his brother Thomas, who was serving as regent for his father, John II of Castile and Duke of Lancaster, in his English territories (18). Joan of Navarre found herself the popular queen of a popular king (19), having provided numerous children to her husband and having ensured the succession to the realm. The birth of twin daughter in early 1395, both of whom lived to the great surprise of many and were named Isabella and Mary of England, caused Joan to go through a period of sickness with her physicians informing the King that further children would endanger her health significantly. During the same period Philippa de Mowbray gave birth to another son, named Edward de Mowbray, who was widely accepted as being the illegitimate son of Edward V. The relationship between Philippa and Edward had initially caused strain between the king and duke, but by the early 1390s an equilibrium had been reached - with Thomas de Mowbray and his children being richly rewarded with lands and titles for his forbearance.
The motives for peace with France had grown increasingly important with time. Henry le Despenser particularly had become the premier proponent of a crusade against the Turks as a method of improving English prestige and opening a new revenue source. This was due to the practice of providing tithes from church lands to finance crusades (20), which provided another incentive to many for the pious Edward pushing for a crusade. The possibility of tying his line to the increasingly unstable Charles VI also proved an attractive proposition with plenty of potential for future interference in the French realm. For all of these reasons Edward had pushed for peace and crusade, despite the wishes of his brother's faction - who had hoped to gain glory in a war in France now that they were old enough to participate. After the signing of the Truce of Rennes preparations for crusade entered a frenzied period of preparation as those who would participate were chosen and the forces to be sent were determined. Of particular difficulty was determining who would serve as regent. Several candidates were considered among them the Dukes of Norfolk, Gloucester, Cambridge and Carlisle as well as Queen Joan. While Edward initially favored his wife, her health proved fragile following the birth of the twins which disinclined him from putting that level of pressure on her. He next considered his uncles and, while he was initially strongly in favor of the Duke of Gloucester, he found his brother an increasingly incessant voice demanding responsibility. In the end Edward decided to trust his brother as Regent of England (21) supported by a council made up of his royal uncles, several government officials and his wife Joan of Navarre. Further, Edward ordered that his eldest son, Edward of Canterbury, should be present at the council meetings. Finally, he demanded that all of the nobility swear an oath to support his son's ascension to the throne if he should fall in battle. With all of this done, Edward began preparing the force that would join him on crusade.
Footnotes:
(1) John of Gaunt isn't able to marry Kathrine of Swyneford in 1396 because he needs to retain his prestige, he therefore richly rewards his children by her but is unable to legitimize them. John joins the crusade to get away from the conflicts raging in Spain and to build some prestige for himself.
(2) The Barbary Crusade is all OTL. Among the participants were Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, Admiral Jean de Vienne, Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy, John of Nevers, John Beaufort, Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Cortes, Geoffrey Boucicaut, Jean d'Harcourt VII, Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham, Gadifer de la Salle, Jean de Béthencourt.
(3) Clisson comes to the Constableship much later than IOTL due to the intrigues covered in earlier updates. His friendship with the royal brothers are per OTL
(4) This marriage did not occur IOTL and is an effort by the uncles to reconcile with each other. The ten year age difference is going to be a challenge for the couple but not too great of an issue at this point.
(5) Pierre de Craon wasn't involved in swindling Louis d'Anjou out of money ITTL, which he was IOTL. His ties to Phillip de Bourgogne weren't quite clear which is why he makes such a great tool for them.
(6) This is all based on OTL.
(7) Medieval politics, at least late-medieval politics, were for iron bellied monsters willing to murder, poison and kill to get their will. All of this is basically OTL by the way, the major difference is that Coucy isn't present for most of this since he is in Naples working for Louis II.
(8) Pierre de Craon was really very well connected for such a seemingly minor player. He is one of my favorite villains from this period, alongside our loveable Poison King Charles the Bad.
(9) All of this is based on OTL. Charles VI lost almost all power and influence once his madness reared its head, with Louis d'Orleans dominating politics when he was sane, and the uncles taking over in times of madness. The only question is if the Berry-Bourgogne alliance can hold together.
(10) This change in marriage is due to his OTL match being married to Antoine de Bourgogne.
(11) Harsigny is a really interesting person who sadly died soon after this. Harsigny, refusing all pleas and offers of riches to remain, insisted on returning to the quiet of his home at Laon. He was awarded 2,000 gold crowns and the privilege of using four horses from the royal stables free of charge whenever he might wish to revisit the court. He never did. Several months later he died, leaving a historic effigy. There were very few other physicians who proved able to handle Charles' madness, to the detriment of the country.
(12) This is all OTL. The dispute over Savoy is also a really interesting period to read up on if anyone is interested. The Counts of Savoy were really prominent throughout this period and joined in with almost all the major events of their time.
(13) The Bal des Ardents is an insane event which I just had to include. I was considering having Charles' first instance of madness occur in the aftermath, but thought the Craon and Clisson struggle to be too fascinating to leave out of the TL. The only difference from OTL is that Yvain de Foix, bastard son of Gaston III Phoebus isn't present to die at the burning, having died before his father in an earlier update. He is replaced by Jean de Berry, second son of the Duc de Berry who instead burns to death for joining in the madness.
(14) While this would seem like an optimal time for Edward to attack he considers this a better option. He is hoping to participate in the crusade and is therefore supportive of an extended truce. Furthermore, he has been spending quite liberally in the conflicts in Ireland and Scotland while supporting John of Gaunt in Spain so the financial resources of England are quite taxed at the moment.
(15) This happened in the 15th century IOTL, but the loss of Aquitaine to England soon after led to the closing of the university before it got an opportunity to influence the world around it.
(16) John Lydgate was incredibly prolific. Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and established every major Chaucerian genre, except such as were manifestly unsuited to his profession, like the fabliau. In the Troy Book (30,117 lines), an amplified translation of the Trojan history of the thirteenth-century Latin writer Guido delle Colonne, commissioned by Prince Henry (later Henry V) IOTL, he moved deliberately beyond Chaucer's Knight's Tale and his Troilus, to provide a full-scale epic. The Siege of Thebes (4716 lines) is a shorter excursion in the same field of chivalric epic. The Monk's Tale, a brief catalog of the vicissitudes of Fortune, gives a hint of what is to come in Lydgate's massive Fall of Princes (36,365 lines), which is also derived, though not directly, from Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. The Man of Law's Tale, with its rhetorical elaboration of apostrophe, invocation, and digression in what is essentially a saint's legend, is the model for Lydgate's legends of St. Edmund (3693 lines) and St. Alban (4734 lines), both local monastic patrons, as well as for many shorter saints' lives, though not for the richer and more genuinely devout Life of Our Lady (5932 lines). ITTL he becomes court poet and historian with multiple more current tales and histories.
(17) Richard Suisset was also known as Richard Swinehead. All I can find on him is that his writings came out in the 1350s, so I hope you will allow him to still be alive at this time.
(18) John of Beaufort is also Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Cortes, but he serves primarily in England on his father's behalf. He participated in the Barbary crusade, which is why he is going to be joining the coming crusade as well.
(19) Joan of Navarre proved too Breton when she married Henry IV IOTL. ITTL she arrived when she was nine and has lived in England ever since, making her practically native to many. Having a popular husband doesn't hurt either, nor do her various charitable works which help build up Edward's reputation for piety. Edward is truly pious, but he uses that piety for all it is worth when he can.
(20) IOTL things degenerated to the point where kings would say they were going to crusade, collect money from the church for that purpose, and then not leave. That, and failures in several crusading ventures, put an end to the Age of Crusades at least partly in my opinion.
(21) Edward finally gets sick of listening to Richard mutter on about how he isn't trusted to do anything, and with the supporting council of experienced and well-established government officials and supporting royalty what is the worst he could do?
The King's Madness
Charles VI of France, Called the Well-Beloved and the Mad
Charles VI of France, Called the Well-Beloved and the Mad
Genoese ambassadors had approached the French king Charles VI in 1390 to subscribe to a crusade, they eagerly supported, with the plan being to fight Muslim pirates from North Africa. These pirates had their main base at Mahdia on the Barbary coast. Genoa was ready to supply ships, supplies, 12,000 archers and 8,000 foot soldiers, if France would provide the knights. The proposal by the doge Antoniotto Adorno was presented as a crusade. As such it would give prestige to its participants, a moratorium on their debts, immunity from lawsuits, and papal indulgence. The French force also included some English participants, such as John of Beaufort - bastard son of John of Gaunt (1), and consisted of 1,500 knights under the leadership of Louis II, Duc de Bourbon. The total force numbered about 5,000 knights and soldiers plus 1,000 sailors. Two priests representing both popes blessed the departing. An armada of about 60 ships left Genoa on July 1, 1390 and landed at the end of July near the town of Mahdi where the soldiers disembarked unchallenged. The crusaders put up their camp and invested the fortified city for the next two months. They had failed to bring sufficient siege engines to breach the walls. A relief army reportedly 40,000 men strong was brought up by Hafsid Sultan Abu al-Abbas Ahmad II supported by the kings of Bugia and Tlemesan, camped nearby, avoided pitched battle, but started to harass the crusaders. The crusaders had to build a wall around their camp and fortify it. The Berbers sent out a negotiating party asking why the French would attack them, they had only troubled the Genoese, a natural affair among neighbors. In answer they were told that they were unbelievers who had "crucified and put to death the son of God called Jesus Christ." The Berbers laughed saying it was the Jews not they who had done that. Negotiations broke off. In a subsequent encounter with the large relief army the crusaders killed many but eventually had to retreat exhausted and tired. The duration of the siege not only frustrated them, but their logistical systems started to weaken. When a final assault on the city was repelled they were ready to settle for a treaty. On the opposing side the Berbers realized that they could not overcome the heavier armed invaders. Both sides looked for a way to end the hostilities. The siege was lifted with the conclusion of a treaty negotiated through the Genoese party. The treaty stipulated a ten-year armistice, an agreement by Mahdia of payment of taxes to Genoa for 15 years, and to Louis II for his expenses. Thus piracy from the Barbary coast was reduced, and the crusaders withdrew. By mid-October the crusaders had returned to Genoa. Losses due to fighting and disease amounted to 274 knights and squires, about 20 percent of the initial force. Both sides celebrated victory afterwards. The Berbers had repelled the invaders, and the Genoese could conduct trade with less interference. The French knights had no tangible goals but had participated for action and glory. They failed to learn any lessons from a "chivalric adventure with religious overlay" Their mistakes of unfamiliarity with the environment, lack of heavy siege equipment, underestimation of the enemy, and internal quarrels were repeated six years later on a much grander scale (2).
Jean II d'Armagnac's death not only led directly to the Armagnac Inheritance Crisis but also served as the beginning of the political career of Louis of France, Duc d'Orléans from 1392. While the two royal dukes fought over the inheritance Louis was able to convince his brother that Olivier de Clisson, who had long been an ally and friend to both brothers, should be promoted to Constable (3). This coup brought Louis to the attention of his uncles, who swiftly realized that they had been outmaneuvered and one of their implacable enemies had become Constable with the result that they began working together, an alliance solidified by the marriage of Antoine de Bourgogne, son of Phillip, to Marie de Berry, youngest daughter of Jean de Berry (4). As the main prop of the ministerial party, he was the object of the uncles’ political enmity. For as long as he retained the controlling military post with access to its immense financial advantages, and remained in partnership with the Marmosets and the King’s brother, the uncles saw themselves kept at a distance from power. The Duke of Brittany feared him as a rival in Breton affairs and had previously attempted to have him killed. In their common desire to destroy Clisson, the interests of Brittany and the King’s uncles met, and they maintained clandestine contact with each other. Serving as a link between them was a Burgundian protégé, related to both the Duchess de Bourgogne and the Duke of Brittany, the same Pierre de Craon who undermined Clisson's war effort and embarrassed the Duc d'Anjou (5). Since then he had assassinated a knight of Laon but used his influence to secure a pardon. These derelictions had not prevented his finding favor in the royal circle of pleasure seekers. However, he angered Louis d’Orléans by informing his wife—apparently from an irresistible impulse to mischief—of an extra-marital passion which Louis had confided to him. Louis had even taken Craon to visit the beautiful, if too virtuous, lady who had resisted an offer of 1,000 gold crowns for her favors. On discovering Craon’s betrayal, Louis in a rage took the tale to the King, who compliantly banished the troublemaker. Craon claimed he was removed because he had tried to make Louis give up engaging in occult practices and consorting with sorcerers (6).
Burning with resentment, he took refuge with the Duke of Brittany, who was his cousin. In Craon the Duke found the agent for another attempt to ruin Clisson. Because Clisson was married to a niece of the Duchess d’Anjou, he automatically shared that family’s mortal enmity for Craon. On this basis Craon already suspected, and the Duke of Brittany easily persuaded him, that Clisson’s hand was behind his banishment—which may have been true. Clisson discovered secret correspondence between Craon and the Dukes. In any event, Craon now “breathed only for vengeance.” On the night of June 13, 1392, having returned secretly to Paris, Craon waited in ambush at a street crossing where Clisson would pass on the way to his hôtel. With Craon in the darkness was a party of forty armored followers, enough to ensure overwhelming odds against an opponent in civilian circumstances. Escorted by eight attendants with torches but unarmed for combat, Clisson was returning on horseback from a party given by the King at St. Pol. He was discussing with his squires a dinner he was to give next day for Orléans and Vienne when suddenly the torchlight fell upon a dark mass of mounted men and on the faint gleam of helmet and cuirass. The assailants charged, extinguishing Clisson’s torches and crying, “A mort! A mort!” Craon’s men did not know whom they were attacking because the identity of the victim had been kept secret. They were appalled to hear their chief shout in his excitement, as with brandished sword he urged them forward, “Clisson, you must die!” Clisson cried out to his unknown assailant, “Who are you?” “I am Pierre de Craon, your enemy!” replied the leader openly, for he anticipated a corpse and an overturn of government in consequence. His men, stunned to discover themselves engaged in murdering the Constable of France, were hesitant in pressing the attack. Armed only with a dagger, Clisson desperately defended himself until, struck by many blows, he was unhorsed. He fell into the doorway of a baker’s shop, forcing open the door by the weight of his fall, just as the baker, hearing the racket, appeared in time to pull him into the house. Believing they had killed him, Craon and his party hastened away. The survivors among Clisson’s squires found him in the shop, slashed by sword cuts, bathed in blood, and apparently lifeless. By the time the King, aroused from bed and informed of the awful news, reached the baker’s shop, Clisson had recovered consciousness. When Clisson named his assassin, Charles swore that “no deed shall ever be so expiated as this, nor so heavily punished.” He called for surgeons, who, on examining the Constable’s hardened body, survivor of a hundred combats, promised his recovery. Orders for the capture of Craon failed because the gates of Paris, still stripped of their bars since the insurrection, could not be closed. Learning that, unbelievably, Clisson lived, Craon escaped from the city, galloped as far as Chartres and then on to Brittany (6).
King Charles, feeling himself attacked in the person of the state’s chief defender, pursued the assassin with insatiable fury. Two of Craon’s squires and a page were beheaded on capture, as was the steward of his Paris residence for failing to report his return to the capital. A canon of Chartres who had given him shelter was deprived of his benefices and condemned to perpetual abstinence in prison on bread and water. Craon’s properties and revenues were confiscated to the benefit of the Royal Treasury; his residences and castles were ordered razed. The King’s excited state of mind communicated itself, as royal rage will, to his deputies. Admiral de Vienne, charged with making an inventory of Craon’s fortune, reportedly evicted his wife and daughter without possessions or money, in nothing but the clothes they wore—after raping the daughter—and helped himself to the rich furnishings and valuables of their residence. Perhaps he felt that Craon’s treason justified this indecency, though his conduct was widely condemned by fellow nobles (7). Events moved from murder to war when the Duke of Brittany, on being ordered to surrender the culprit, denied all knowledge of him and refused to concern himself in any way. Thus defied, the King called for war on the Duke. Barely recovered from an illness contracted at Amiens, Charles appeared often distraught and disconnected in speech. His physicians advised against a campaign, but, encouraged by his brother, he insisted. Bourgogne and Berry, who depended on the Duke of Brittany as their ally in the political struggle, bent every endeavor to prevent it. The heat of family partisanship was added to the conflict by the Duchess de Bourgogne, who was Montfort’s niece and therefore took his side and hated Clisson with venomous intensity. Burgundian influence was certainly behind the asylum given to Craon (8) though the role played by England in the affair is more uncertain. Berry, for his part, was said to have had prior knowledge of Craon’s assault. When it was learned that Clisson’s will, dictated after the attack, left a fortune of 1,700,000 francs, not counting lands, the uncles’ jealous rage at finding themselves outdone in the rewards of avarice knew no bounds. Such a fortune—greater than the King’s, they let it be known—could have come from no honest source. The public was ready enough to believe it, for Rivière and Mercier of the Marmousets, too, had amassed fortunes from government service and were generally disliked as both arrogant and venal. All this strife and rancor festered behind the unstable King as he clamored for war. The Council approved the campaign; the uncles, left out of the decision but bound to join the King, were augmented in their hatred of the ministers. “They dreamed of nothing but how to destroy them.” The King, accompanied by Bourbon and Orléans, left Paris on July 1, moving westward by slow stages as knights and their retinues came up to join the march. Charles’s ill health required protracted stops, and further delay was caused by waiting for the uncles. Hoping to forestall the war, they dallied and procrastinated, putting Charles in a frenzy of impatience. Scarcely eating or drinking, he was in Council every day, harping on the insult to him through his Constable, upset at any contradictions, refusing absolutely to be swerved from punishing the Duke of Brittany. Discord, arriving with Bourgogne and Berry, spread to the army, where knights disputed the rights and wrongs of the enterprise and whispered of renewed war with England. In reply to a second demand for Craon’s surrender, Montfort again denied knowing anything about him. Charles, although declared “feverish and unfit to ride” by his physicians, would wait no longer (9).
In the heat of mid-August the march began from Le Mans on the borders of Brittany. On a sandy road under blazing sun, the King, wearing a black velvet jacket and a hat of scarlet velvet ornamented with pearls, rode apart from the others to avoid the dust. Two pages rode behind, one carrying his helmet, the other his lance. Ahead rode the two uncles in one group, and Louis d’Orléans and Bourbon in another. As the party passed through the forest of Mans, a rough barefoot man in a ragged smock suddenly stepped from behind a tree and seized the King’s bridle, crying in a voice of doom, “Ride no further, noble King! Turn back! You are betrayed!” Charles shrank in alarm. Escorts beat the man’s hand from the bridle but because he appeared no more than a poor madman did not arrest him, not even when he followed the company for half an hour crying betrayal in the King’s ears. Emerging from the forest, the riders came out on an open plain at high noon. Men and horses suffered under the sun’s rays. One of the pages, dozing in the saddle, let fall the King’s lance, which struck the steel helmet carried by his companion with a loud clang. The King shuddered, then, suddenly drawing his sword, spurred his horse to a charge with the cry, “Forward against the traitors! They wish to deliver me to the enemy!” Wheeling and charging, he struck at anyone within reach. “My God,” cried Burgundy, “the King is out of his mind! Hold him, someone!” No one dared try. Warding off the blows but unable to strike back against the King’s person, they milled around in horror while Charles rushed wildly against this one and that until he was exhausted, panting, and drenched in sweat. Then his chamberlain, Guillaume de Martel, whom he much loved, clasped him from behind while others took his sword and, lifting him from his horse, laid him gently on the ground. He lay motionless and speechless, staring with open eyes, recognizing no one. Several of the knights whom he had killed in his frenzy lay near him in the dust. Bold as always, Philip de Bourgogne seized authority. “We must return to Mans,” he decided. “This finishes the march on Brittany.” Laid in a passing oxcart, the King of France was carried back while an appalled company, some already thinking furiously of the future, rode alongside. With scarcely a sign of life but his heartbeat, Charles remained in a coma for four days during which he was thought to be on his deathbed. His physicians could offer no hope, and other doctors who were called—Bourgogne’s, Orléans’, Bourbon’s—agreed after consultation that their science was powerless. The first four days, when Charles had been expected to die, gave the uncles their opportunity against the Marmosets. “Now is the hour,” said Berry, “when I shall pay them back in kind." On the next day while still at Le Mans, Berry and Bourgogne, claiming authority as the King’s eldest relatives, although in fact Louis was closer to the crown, dismissed the entire Council, disbanded the army, and seized the reins of government. Returning to Paris within two weeks, they convened a subservient Council which duly gave the government to Philip the Bold on the ground that Louis d’Orléans was too young, and deposed the Marmosets by judicial process. Rivière and Mercier, who had been unready to abandon power in time, were arrested and imprisoned, and their lands, houses, furnishings, and fortune confiscated. A more prescient colleague, Jean de Montagu, reputed to be a natural son of Charles V, took himself and his fortune to Avignon the moment he heard of the King’s attack (10).
The dismissal of Clisson was to be Bougogne’s triumph. Forcing the issue, Clisson came to see him to inquire as Constable about measures for government of the realm. Philip looked at him malevolently. “Clisson, Clisson,” he said between his teeth, “you need not busy yourself with that; the kingdom will be governed without your office.” Then, unable to conceal the real source of his anger, he demanded “where the Devil” Clisson had amassed so great a fortune, more than his and Berry’s put together. “Get out of my sight,” he exploded, “for were it not for my honor I would put out your other eye!” Clisson rode home reflectively. That night, under cover of darkness, he left his hôtel with two attendants by the back gate and rode to his castle of Montlhéry, just south of Paris, where he could defend himself. Raging at his escape, Burgundy chose Coucy as agent against his own brother-in-arms. Along with Guy de Tremolile, he was named to command a force of 300 lances including many former comrades of the Constable, who were ordered to march by five different roads and not to return without Clisson dead or alive. This does not seem to have been one of Burgundy’s more intelligent moves. Naturally warned by his friends in the party, Clisson escaped to his fortress of Josselin in Brittany, where on his own ground he could withstand attack. But his flight enabled Burgundy to use him as a scapegoat. He was tried in absentia, convicted as a “false and wicked traitor,” deposed as Constable, banished, and fined 100,000 marks. Louis d’Orléans refused to ratify the proceedings, but throughout the overturn he never dared openly challenge his uncles (9). The uncles gave the post of Constable to the young Comte d’Eu, reportedly so that he might become wealthy enough to marry Bourgogne’s daughter Bonne de Bourgogne (10).
The Bal des Ardents
Under the care of Coucy’s physician Harsigny, the King seemed restored to sanity by the end of September. Before leaving his royal patient, Harsigny had advised against burdening him with the responsibilities of state. “I give him back to you in good health,” he had said, “but be careful not to worry or irritate him. His mind is not yet strong; little by little it will improve. Burden him with work as little as you can; pleasure and forgetfulness will be better for him than anything else.” (11) This advice perfectly suited the Dukes. Sovereign in name only, Charles returned to Paris to dally with the ladies in the gardens of St. Pol and enjoy the amusements and festivities organized every night by his wife and brother. In relief from madness, frivolity abounded and the uncles did not interfere, “for so long as the Queen and the Duc d’Orléans danced, they were not dangerous nor even annoying.” Queen Isabeau and her sister-in-law Valentina vied with each other in novelties and opulence; dresses were loaded with jewels, fringes, and fantastical emblems. In the taverns people murmured against the extravagance and license. They loved the crowned youth, who for his affability and openhandedness and easy conversation with all ranks, was called Charles le Bien-Aimé, but they deplored the “foreigners” from Bavaria and Italy and blamed the uncles for allowing dissipations unbecoming to the King of France. Thrust to the head of the court as young boys not yet in their teens, Charles and Louis had none of their father’s care for the dignity of the crown; they had neither discipline nor sense of decorum. Deprived of major responsibility, they made up for it in play, and adults’ play required constant new excesses to be entertaining. On the night when these culminated in horror, Coucy was not present because he was in Savoy, using his negotiating talents to settle a tremendous family quarrel which had split the ruling house and all related noble families and created a crisis of hostility that threatened to block passage for a march on Rome. The issue, involving ducal families, dower rights, and of course property, derived from the fact that the Red Count, Amadeus VII, who had recently died at the age of 31, had left the guardianship of his son to his mother, a sister of the Duc de Bourbon, instead of to his wife, a daughter of the Duc de Berry. It was to take three months before Coucy and Guy de Tremoille succeeded in negotiating a treaty that brought the overblown fracas to an end and left the rival Countesses in “peaceable accord with their subjects.” (12)
On the Tuesday before Candlemas Day, January 28, 1393, four days after Coucy had left Paris, the Queen gave a masquerade to celebrate the wedding of a favorite lady-in-waiting who, twice widowed, was now being married for the third time. A woman’s re-marriage, according to certain traditions, was considered an occasion for mockery and often celebrated by a charivari for the newlyweds with all sorts of license, disguises, disorders, and loud blaring of discordant music and clanging of cymbals outside the bridal chamber. Although this was a usage “contrary to all decency,” King Charles had let himself be persuaded by dissolute friends to join in such a charade. Six young men, including the King, disguised themselves as “wood savages,” in costumes of linen cloth sewn onto their bodies and soaked in resinous wax or pitch to hold a covering of frazzled hemp, “so that they appeared shaggy and hairy from head to foot.” Face masks entirely concealed their identity. Aware of the risk they ran in torch-filled halls, they forbade anyone carrying a torch to enter during the dance. Plainly, an element of Russian roulette was involved, the tempting of death that has repeatedly been the excitement of highborn and decadent youth. Certain ways of behavior vary little across the centuries. Plainly, too, there was an element of cruelty in involving as one of the actors a man thinly separated from madness. The deviser of the affair, “cruelest and most insolent of men,” was one Huguet de Guisay, favored in the royal circle for his outrageous schemes. He was a man of “wicked life” who “corrupted and schooled youth in debaucheries,” and held commoners and the poor in hatred and contempt. He called them dogs, and with blows of sword and whip took pleasure in forcing them to imitate barking. If a servant displeased him, he would force the man to lie on the ground and, standing on his back, would kick him with spurs, crying, “Bark, dog!” in response to his cries of pain. In their Dance of the Savages, the masqueraders capered before the revelers, imitating the howls of wolves and making obscene gestures while the guests tried to discover their identity. Charles was teasing and gesticulating before the fifteen-year-old Duchesse de Berry when Louis d’Orléans and Philippe de Bar, arriving from a party elsewhere, entered the hall accompanied by torches despite the ban. To discover who the dancers were, Louis held up a torch over the capering monsters. A spark fell, a flame flickered up a leg, first one dancer was afire, then another. The Queen, who alone knew that Charles was among the group, shrieked and fainted. The Duchesse de Berry, who had recognized the King, threw her skirt over him to protect him from the sparks, thus saving his life. The room filled with the guests’ sobs and cries of horror and the tortured screams of the burning men. Guests who tried to stifle the flames and tear the costumes from the writhing victims were badly burned. Except for the King, only the Sire de Nantouillet, who flung himself into a large wine-cooler filled with water, escaped. The Count de Joigny and Jean de Berry, second son of the Duc de Berry, were burned to death on the spot, Aimery Poitiers died after two days of painful suffering. Huguet de Guisay lived for three days in agony, cursing and insulting his fellow dancers, the dead and the living, until his last hour. When his coffin was carried through the streets, the common people greeted it with cries of “Bark, dog!” The incident, called the Bal des Ardents, added to the impression of a court steeped in extravagance, with a king in delicate health and unable to rule. Charles's attacks of illness increased in frequency such that by the end of the 1390s his role was merely ceremonial (13).
The negotiations between France and England had been ongoing since the Second Jacquerie and the Great Peasants' Revolt had wracked both nations. Throughout most of this period both sides fought proxy-wars against each other in Scotland and Spain while pursuing other adventures in Ireland, North Africa and Italy. The negotiations had consistently floundered on the unwillingness of either side to concede to any sort of de facto or de jure loss. The eventual conclusion reached by the negotiators after years of attempting to reach agreement was that a perpetual truce or one covering long periods of time could be sufficient to maintain peaceful relations between the two parties if strengthened by marriages while solving the issues of the present might be easier under less contentious circumstances. It was for this reason that negotiations began centering increasingly on marriages between the royal children. The major obstacle for these marriages was the lack of a English princes to marry the Dauphin Charles, the only English Princess having already married King Olaf of the Nordic Union and almost a decade older than the Dauphin in any case. The birth of Princess Catherine of England in 1393 came as a godsend to the frantic negotiators who had begun considering the daughters of the Duke of Carlisle as potential stand-ins for a royal marriage. With the birth of Catherine it therefore became possible to hold a dual marriage which was promptly agreed to in early 1395 as news of the Great Conclave arrived. As a result, on the 13th of March 1395 Edward, Prince of Wales and Isabella of France were married in a lavish ceremony followed soon after by the proxy-wedding of Charles, Dauphin of Viennois to Catherine of England at Rennes in Brittany. At the same time a truce of ten years was signed by Charles VI, during a period of lucidity, and Edward V, with plans to extend the truce in 1405, and both pledged to support or participate in the coming crusade (14).
Richard of Bordeaux, Duke of Carlisle is appointed Regent
The two archbishops of England became central figures in the administration, alongside Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester who provided important support to the regime. Richard, Duke of Carlisle found himself somewhat distanced from government, instead being placed in charge of the Scottish Marches alongside Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. This partnership proved increasingly problematic, as the two proved unable to cooperate in their shared responsibilities. The end result would be that Richard was pulled from the Marches and was instead made Lord Warden of Cinque Ports in Sussex and Kent. This allowed Richard more participation in government and allowed him to enter into his brother's confidences. At around this time Edward of Norwich, Son of the Duke of Cambridge, became an increasingly important figure with his appointment as Constable of the Tower and Keeper of the Channel Islands. These appointments led Edward of Norwich and Richard, Duke of Carlisle to grow increasingly close - soon forming a faction of their own which was joined by John of Beaufort, and later his brother Thomas, who was serving as regent for his father, John II of Castile and Duke of Lancaster, in his English territories (18). Joan of Navarre found herself the popular queen of a popular king (19), having provided numerous children to her husband and having ensured the succession to the realm. The birth of twin daughter in early 1395, both of whom lived to the great surprise of many and were named Isabella and Mary of England, caused Joan to go through a period of sickness with her physicians informing the King that further children would endanger her health significantly. During the same period Philippa de Mowbray gave birth to another son, named Edward de Mowbray, who was widely accepted as being the illegitimate son of Edward V. The relationship between Philippa and Edward had initially caused strain between the king and duke, but by the early 1390s an equilibrium had been reached - with Thomas de Mowbray and his children being richly rewarded with lands and titles for his forbearance.
The motives for peace with France had grown increasingly important with time. Henry le Despenser particularly had become the premier proponent of a crusade against the Turks as a method of improving English prestige and opening a new revenue source. This was due to the practice of providing tithes from church lands to finance crusades (20), which provided another incentive to many for the pious Edward pushing for a crusade. The possibility of tying his line to the increasingly unstable Charles VI also proved an attractive proposition with plenty of potential for future interference in the French realm. For all of these reasons Edward had pushed for peace and crusade, despite the wishes of his brother's faction - who had hoped to gain glory in a war in France now that they were old enough to participate. After the signing of the Truce of Rennes preparations for crusade entered a frenzied period of preparation as those who would participate were chosen and the forces to be sent were determined. Of particular difficulty was determining who would serve as regent. Several candidates were considered among them the Dukes of Norfolk, Gloucester, Cambridge and Carlisle as well as Queen Joan. While Edward initially favored his wife, her health proved fragile following the birth of the twins which disinclined him from putting that level of pressure on her. He next considered his uncles and, while he was initially strongly in favor of the Duke of Gloucester, he found his brother an increasingly incessant voice demanding responsibility. In the end Edward decided to trust his brother as Regent of England (21) supported by a council made up of his royal uncles, several government officials and his wife Joan of Navarre. Further, Edward ordered that his eldest son, Edward of Canterbury, should be present at the council meetings. Finally, he demanded that all of the nobility swear an oath to support his son's ascension to the throne if he should fall in battle. With all of this done, Edward began preparing the force that would join him on crusade.
Footnotes:
(1) John of Gaunt isn't able to marry Kathrine of Swyneford in 1396 because he needs to retain his prestige, he therefore richly rewards his children by her but is unable to legitimize them. John joins the crusade to get away from the conflicts raging in Spain and to build some prestige for himself.
(2) The Barbary Crusade is all OTL. Among the participants were Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, Admiral Jean de Vienne, Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy, John of Nevers, John Beaufort, Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Cortes, Geoffrey Boucicaut, Jean d'Harcourt VII, Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham, Gadifer de la Salle, Jean de Béthencourt.
(3) Clisson comes to the Constableship much later than IOTL due to the intrigues covered in earlier updates. His friendship with the royal brothers are per OTL
(4) This marriage did not occur IOTL and is an effort by the uncles to reconcile with each other. The ten year age difference is going to be a challenge for the couple but not too great of an issue at this point.
(5) Pierre de Craon wasn't involved in swindling Louis d'Anjou out of money ITTL, which he was IOTL. His ties to Phillip de Bourgogne weren't quite clear which is why he makes such a great tool for them.
(6) This is all based on OTL.
(7) Medieval politics, at least late-medieval politics, were for iron bellied monsters willing to murder, poison and kill to get their will. All of this is basically OTL by the way, the major difference is that Coucy isn't present for most of this since he is in Naples working for Louis II.
(8) Pierre de Craon was really very well connected for such a seemingly minor player. He is one of my favorite villains from this period, alongside our loveable Poison King Charles the Bad.
(9) All of this is based on OTL. Charles VI lost almost all power and influence once his madness reared its head, with Louis d'Orleans dominating politics when he was sane, and the uncles taking over in times of madness. The only question is if the Berry-Bourgogne alliance can hold together.
(10) This change in marriage is due to his OTL match being married to Antoine de Bourgogne.
(11) Harsigny is a really interesting person who sadly died soon after this. Harsigny, refusing all pleas and offers of riches to remain, insisted on returning to the quiet of his home at Laon. He was awarded 2,000 gold crowns and the privilege of using four horses from the royal stables free of charge whenever he might wish to revisit the court. He never did. Several months later he died, leaving a historic effigy. There were very few other physicians who proved able to handle Charles' madness, to the detriment of the country.
(12) This is all OTL. The dispute over Savoy is also a really interesting period to read up on if anyone is interested. The Counts of Savoy were really prominent throughout this period and joined in with almost all the major events of their time.
(13) The Bal des Ardents is an insane event which I just had to include. I was considering having Charles' first instance of madness occur in the aftermath, but thought the Craon and Clisson struggle to be too fascinating to leave out of the TL. The only difference from OTL is that Yvain de Foix, bastard son of Gaston III Phoebus isn't present to die at the burning, having died before his father in an earlier update. He is replaced by Jean de Berry, second son of the Duc de Berry who instead burns to death for joining in the madness.
(14) While this would seem like an optimal time for Edward to attack he considers this a better option. He is hoping to participate in the crusade and is therefore supportive of an extended truce. Furthermore, he has been spending quite liberally in the conflicts in Ireland and Scotland while supporting John of Gaunt in Spain so the financial resources of England are quite taxed at the moment.
(15) This happened in the 15th century IOTL, but the loss of Aquitaine to England soon after led to the closing of the university before it got an opportunity to influence the world around it.
(16) John Lydgate was incredibly prolific. Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and established every major Chaucerian genre, except such as were manifestly unsuited to his profession, like the fabliau. In the Troy Book (30,117 lines), an amplified translation of the Trojan history of the thirteenth-century Latin writer Guido delle Colonne, commissioned by Prince Henry (later Henry V) IOTL, he moved deliberately beyond Chaucer's Knight's Tale and his Troilus, to provide a full-scale epic. The Siege of Thebes (4716 lines) is a shorter excursion in the same field of chivalric epic. The Monk's Tale, a brief catalog of the vicissitudes of Fortune, gives a hint of what is to come in Lydgate's massive Fall of Princes (36,365 lines), which is also derived, though not directly, from Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. The Man of Law's Tale, with its rhetorical elaboration of apostrophe, invocation, and digression in what is essentially a saint's legend, is the model for Lydgate's legends of St. Edmund (3693 lines) and St. Alban (4734 lines), both local monastic patrons, as well as for many shorter saints' lives, though not for the richer and more genuinely devout Life of Our Lady (5932 lines). ITTL he becomes court poet and historian with multiple more current tales and histories.
(17) Richard Suisset was also known as Richard Swinehead. All I can find on him is that his writings came out in the 1350s, so I hope you will allow him to still be alive at this time.
(18) John of Beaufort is also Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Cortes, but he serves primarily in England on his father's behalf. He participated in the Barbary crusade, which is why he is going to be joining the coming crusade as well.
(19) Joan of Navarre proved too Breton when she married Henry IV IOTL. ITTL she arrived when she was nine and has lived in England ever since, making her practically native to many. Having a popular husband doesn't hurt either, nor do her various charitable works which help build up Edward's reputation for piety. Edward is truly pious, but he uses that piety for all it is worth when he can.
(20) IOTL things degenerated to the point where kings would say they were going to crusade, collect money from the church for that purpose, and then not leave. That, and failures in several crusading ventures, put an end to the Age of Crusades at least partly in my opinion.
(21) Edward finally gets sick of listening to Richard mutter on about how he isn't trusted to do anything, and with the supporting council of experienced and well-established government officials and supporting royalty what is the worst he could do?
The Bal des Ardents is the basis for Edgar Allen Poe's story "Hop-Frog", though Poe added a few points.
It looks as if France is going to be in for even worse as time passes, even though as Zulfurium points out most of this is OTL. I suspect that England and Castile are going to be in a very good position to take advantage of the situation.
Congratulations on a fascinating, deeply researched, and well-developed story. I'm looking forward to more.
I didn't know about Hop-Frog, thanks for sharing. I really love learning tidbits like that.
It is going to take quite a while before things go completely insane in France, the focus is largely going to be on the Balkans and associated topics for several updates, but I am laying out plans for the conflict in France at the moment and I think I have a couple interesting ways to change up the way the conflict occurs. The lack of Armagnac's is going to really force a number of changes.
You're welcome. It's tidbits like that which make history interesting.
Oh Boy!
There was mention of a great divorce earlier in the comments, and though I may have failed to notice it or understand it as an important one, I still wonder if that's not the marriage of the future Charles VII we are speaking of, because if politically on the domestic front, things go along more or less the OTL lines, that's not going to be a happy mariage.
The only marriage I can think of like that is the marriage of Enguerrand VII de Coucy to Isabella of England, eldest daughter of Edward III. When Coucy split from England he gave up his lands and titles in the region, left one of his daughters with his wife, and fought exclusively on the French side. They didn't divorce as such, but when Isabella died in 1382 he married again.
I recently discovered some problems with a couple different matches I had set up further back in the TL. Mainly that I matched the Lancaster daughters with the wrong person, Catherine with Richard II and Elizabeth with Pedro, when it was supposed to be the other way around. I went back and edited it to fit, but I thought I should let you know of the changes. Richard of Bordeaux is married to Elizabeth of Lancaster while Pedro of Navarre marries Catherine of Lancaster.
Update Fourteen: Crusade
Now we get to the Crusade Sequence. This is going to be fun. A lot of this update, particularly the attitude of the French crusaders is sadly OTL. I really wish that they came out looking better than this, but I decided to speculate on the possible effects of their arrogance. I had never heard about Stefan Tvertko prior to researching this update, and knew very little about Stefan Dushan prior to it, so this was really quite the learning experience. The Balkans are a really interesting place generally, and that is most certainly the case for this period.
The call for Crusade came with Sigismund of Hungary's official request of support. Honorius V immediately sent out a call to preach the crusade and sent papal legates to the major powers of Europe. Of these France and England were the first to answer and would provide the majority of the crusade (1). First among the foreign allies were the Knights Hospitalers of Rhodes, who, since the decline of Constantinople and Cyprus, held the dominant Christian position in the Levant; secondly, the Venetians, who supplied a fleet; and on land, German princes of the Rhineland, Bavaria, Saxony, and other parts of the Empire who had been recruited by the Hungarians and joined the French and English en route. Adventurers from Navarre and Spain, Bohemia and Poland, where French heralds had proclaimed the crusade, joined individually. John of Gaunt also offered his aid, dispatching his son John of Beaufort, Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Cortes to join the Crusade with a force of 1,000 (2) which many of the individual crusaders would join. However, enthusiasm was not universal. Jean de Nevers’ father-in-law, Albert, Duke of Bavaria and Count of Hainault, was not impressed by the need to expel the Turks or defend the Faith. When his son, William of Ostrevant, with a following of many young knights and squires, expressed a strong desire to go, Duke Albert curtly told him his motive was “Vainglory” and asked what reason he had “to seek arms upon a people and a country that never did us any damage.” He said William would be better employed to use his forces for the recovery of family property unlawfully held by the neighboring lords of Frisia. William defied his father's wishes and led a major German contingent in the conflict numbering several thousand (3). Leadership of the Crusade was unclear due to the difficulties of subordinating the French to the English or vice-versa (4). Without clear leadership the Crusade would experience its difficulties.
William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury died suddenly just before Edward was to leave, with him hurriedly appointing Thomas Arundel, Bishop of Ely to succeed him after Henry le Despenser turned down the responsibility, hoping to join the crusade instead. The crusading army of England would be led by Edward V himself, who was joined by Henry le Despenser, the Archbishop of York who left the handling of his dioceses to several representatives, Edmund of Langley, Duke of Cambridge, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, Roger Mortimer, heir to the Dukedom of Clarence and a whole host of other lesser and greater nobility. David Stewart would also be joining the crusade as Edward's squire and the young John IV de Grailly, Earl of Bedford as his page, while Owain Glyndwr was given command of the 800 Welsh Archers who joined the force and commanded the King's personal archers. The English force would eventually number some 8,000 in total, bringing with them several thousand longbowmen, a hundred ribauldequin and a battery of heavy cannon. John Lydgate would join the army along with Edward's confessor and a host of others to commemorate the crusade. The army set sail for Flanders on March 15 1396, arriving in Ghent a few days later where they were joined by 2,000 Flemish pikemen at Edward's insistence. The now 10,000 strong force began a march down the Rhine, marching to meet the French contingent at Dijon (5).
Jean de Nevers, Count of Nevers and Co-Commander of the Turkish Crusade
Phillip the Bold was still the principal mover of events. Before retrieving national power through the King’s madness, he had been looking for a crusade to go on, with options divided between Prussia—which would serve no purpose except to keep warriors busy—and Hungary. In 1391 he sent Guy de Tremoille to Venice and Hungary to investigate the situation and, persuaded of sufficient grandeur in the cause to suit his requirements, planned a crusade, originally to be led by himself, Louis d’Orléans, and the King of England. Phillip's personal interest in sponsoring the crusade was to magnify himself and his house, and since he was the prince of self-magnification, the result was that opulent display became the dominant theme; plans, logistics, intelligence about the enemy came second, if at all. This was where Edward proved vital to the effort, ensuring the route of travel along the Danube was well supplied while he hired a number of different people who had spent time in the east to gain an understanding of the issue. Although Phillip de Bourgogne and Louis d'Orléans proved unable to participate due to their unwillingness to allow the other total control of King Charles, the house of Burgundy remained in control of the crusade in the person of the Duke’s eldest son, Jean de Nevers, aged 24 and not yet a knight, whom his father proposed to put in nominal command of the French contingent. While Nevers’ royal blood and position gave prestige to the cause, his father recognized the need of more responsible leadership, which he evidently did not expect from either Constable d’Eu or Marshal Boucicaut, who were both under 35. He turned to Coucy and Admiral Jean de Vienne as elder statesmen and the most experienced warriors—since Clisson’s disgrace—in the realm. Knights took the cross with alacrity “to escape idleness and employ themselves in chivalry.” Some 2,000 knights and squires joined, supported by 6,000 archers and foot soldiers drawn from the best available volunteers and mercenary companies. Just as he had set a record for opulence at the double wedding, Phillip the Bold now determined that the equipment for his son’s debut in war should be the most resplendent ever. Nevers’ personal company of 200 were supplied with new livery of a “gay green,” with 24 wagonloads of green satin tents and pavilions, with four huge banners painted with the French crusaders’ emblem—a figure of the Virgin surrounded by the lilies of France and the arms of Burgundy and Nevers. Pennons for lances and tents, tabards for the trumpets, velvet saddle blankets and heraldic costume for twelve trumpeters were all embroidered with the same emblems in gold and silver, many encrusted with jewels and ivory. Kitchen equipment was made especially for the campaign as well as pewter tableware of forty dozen bowls and thirty dozen plates. Four months’ wages in advance had to be paid before departure. The cost of all this outran the money raised from Flanders in a series of taxes. New taxes were levied on all Burgundy’s domains, including the traditional aid for knighting of the eldest son and for overseas voyage. Payment in lieu of participation in the crusade was exacted even from old men, women, and children. For further needs en route, the Duke negotiated loans from municipalities, tax farmers, Lombards, and other bankers (6).
In the fit of 1393 the King’s spirit “was covered by such heavy shadows” that he could not remember who or what he was. He did not know he was King, that he was married, that he had children, or that his name was Charles. He displayed two pronounced aversions: for the fleur-de-lys entwined with his own name or initials in the royal coat-of-arms, which he tried to deface in rage wherever he saw it, and for his wife, from whom he fled in terror. If she approached him, he would cry, “Who is that woman the sight of whom torments me? Find out what she wants and free me from her demands if you can, that she may follow me no more.” When he saw the arms of Bavaria, he danced in front of them, making rude gestures. He failed to recognize his children although he knew his brother, uncles, councilors, and servants, and remembered the names of those long dead. Only his brother’s neglected wife, sad Valentina, for whom he asked constantly, calling her his “dear sister,” could soothe him. This preference naturally gave rise to rumors, fostered by the Burgundian faction, that Valentina had bewitched him by subtle poison. Given credence by the record of Visconti crimes and the Italian reputation for poisoning, the whisperers charged that Valentina was ambitious for greater place, having been told by her notorious father to make herself Queen of France (7).
The departure from Dijon on April 30, 1396, was a superb spectacle which could not fail to lift the hearts of observers. The crusaders’ route took them via Strasbourg across Bavaria to the upper Danube and from there, using the river as transport, to rendezvous with the King of Hungary at Buda. The joint armies would proceed from there against the Turks. Objectives, if vague, were not modest. After expelling the Turks from the Balkans, the crusaders planned to come to the aid of Constantinople, cross the Hellespont, march through Turkey and Syria to liberate Palestine and the Holy Sepulcher, and return after these triumphs by sea. Arrangements had been made for the Venetian fleet and galleys of the Emperor Manuel to blockade the Turks in the Sea of Marmara and for the Venetians to sail up the Danube from the Black Sea to meet the crusaders in Wallachia in July. Coucy did not travel with the main body because he was detached on a mission to the lord of Milan. Angry at the removal of Genoa from his sphere of influence, as part of the complex negotiations surrounding the end of the schism, Gian Galeazzo was maneuvering to prevent its transfer of sovereignty to the King of France. Coucy was sent to warn him that his interference would be regarded as a hostile act.
More than Genoa was behind the quarrel. Gian Galeazzo had turned against France, bitterly if not openly, because his beloved daughter Valentina was being subjected to a campaign of slander charging her with bewitching or poisoning the King. The vicious rumors were the work of Queen Isabeau, who wanted Valentina out of the way, partly from jealousy of her influence with the King, to facilitate her own affair with Orléans, and as part of Isabeau’s perpetual machinations with Florence against Milan. Whispered in the taverns and markets, among a public ready to believe ill of the Italian foreigner, the rumors grew so rampant that mobs shouting threats gathered before Valentina’s residence. Louis d’Orléans made no effort to defend his wife, but rather complied with Isabeau’s objective by removing Valentina from Paris on the excuse of her safety. She was left to live in exile thereafter at her country residence at Asnières on the Seine, while Isabeau reigned supreme, ruling from the beds of the two royal brothers. Valentina’s removal occurred in April, the month of the crusade’s departure, was not taken lightly by her adoring father. He threatened to send knights to defend his daughter’s honor, and possibly betrayed the plans of the crusade to the Sultan Bayezid in revenge. With regard to Genoa, however, Coucy’s intervention was successful; sovereignty was duly transferred to the King of France in the following November, though for how long this state of affairs would remain was questionable. Coucy, accompanied by Henri de Bar and their followers, left Milan in May for Venice, where he requisitioned a ship from the Venetian Senate on May 17 to take him across the Adriatic. He embarked on May 30 for Senj, a small port on the Croatian coast. From Senj he and his party traveled to Buda by the most direct way, a journey of some 300 miles through wild, rugged, and dangerous country (7).
He reached the rendezvous before Nevers, who was in no hurry, and Edward, who was. Stopping along the upper Danube for receptions and festivities offered by German princes, Nevers and his companions in green and gold did not reach even Vienna until June 24, a month behind the vanguard under D’Eu and Boucicaut. A fleet of seventy vessels with cargo of wine, flour, hay, and other provisions was dispatched from Vienna down the Danube while Nevers enjoyed further festivities offered by his sister’s husband, Leopold IV, Duke of Austria. After borrowing from his brother-in-law the huge sum of 100,000 ducats, which took time to arrange, Nevers finally arrived in Buda at some time in July. During this time Edward grew increasingly agitated at the long delays and decided to march onwards without the French. He arrived in early June to the delight of Sigismund, who spent the following weeks getting to know his fellow king (8).
Mary of Hungary, Queen of Hungary and Croatia
In the years since 1386 Mary and Sigismund had ruled together over the Kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia in the face of significant opposition. The nobles who had originally supported Mary's overthrow by Charles of Durazzo were still present in Hungary and had found themselves forced into compliance with Sigismund and Mary's rule. Of particular note were the Horvat brothers, Ivan and Pavao, and their uncle Ivan of Palisna. Ivan of Palisna had been the Ban of Croatia and was the person who invited Charles of Durazzo to claim the kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia. To gain enough military support to crush Mary's supporters, Ivan had turned to the King of Bosnia, Stefan Tvrtko I, who was still nominally a Hungarian vassal and who provided much of the military might that initially deposed Mary. Following Charles' assassination and Sigismund's invasion, Ivan of Palisna had been forced to flee the country and found sanctuary in Bosnia, where he incited his nephews to rebel against the teenage rulers of Hungary (9). The Hortha brothers rose in revolt in response to their uncle's agitations, alongside many other Croat noblemen. They called on Stefan Tvertko to come to their aid which he promptly did, marching into Dalmatia. Dalmatian cities remained loyal to Mary and Sigismund, not least thanks to the couple's alliance with Venice. A notable exception was Klis, which supported the rebellious nobleman Ivan of Palisna. Tvrtko took control of the Klis Fortress in July 1387, which enabled him to launch attacks on Split. Although the Bosnian army laid waste to the areas of Split and Zadar, the cities refused to capitulate. Their officials were willing to honor King Tvrtko but insisted that Queen Mary and King Sigismund were their legitimate sovereigns. Ostrovica Fortress submitted to Tvrtko in November, followed by Trogir. By 1388, the devastation of Dalmatia by the Bosnian army had become so severe that the authorities of the cities pleaded with Sigismund to either help them or to allow them to save themselves by submitting without being labeled as traitors. Neither Sigismund's army, which found itself countered by the Croat nobles, nor an alliance of Dalmatian cities and noblemen were able to counter Tvrtko's advances. Split, Zadar, and Šibenik having lost all hope, Tvrtko called upon them to negotiate their surrender in March 1389. Each of the cities asked to be the last one to submit and even to be allowed to request Sigismund's assistance once more. Tvrtko granted their wish and decided that Split should be the last to submit, by 15 June 1389 (10).
During the entire course of his campaign in Dalmatia and Croatia, Tvrtko was also engaged in skirmishes in the east of his realm, which prevented him from focusing all of his manpower on expansion westwards. The Kingdom of Bosnia was believed to be far from the reach of the Ottomans during Tvrtko I's reign, shielded by a belt of independent Serbian statelets. George II of Zeta, however, purposely enabled the Turks to launch raids against Bosnia, first in 1386 and again in 1388. In the second instance the Ottoman and Zetan invaders, led by Lala Şahin Pasha, penetrated as far as Bileća. The Battle of Bileća, which took place in late August 1388, ended with the victory of the Bosnian army, led by Duke Vlatko Vuković. 15 June 1389, the date by which Tvrtko had intended to complete his conquest of Dalmatia, was also the day when the Ottoman army met the forces of a coalition of Serbian states at the Battle of Kosovo. Tvrtko, feeling it his duty as King of Serbia, ordered his army to leave Dalmatia and assist the lords Lazar Hrebljanović and Vuk Branković. The Bosnians were likely led again by Duke Vlatko. The highest ranking among the casualties, which also included Bosnian noblemen, were Lazar and the Ottoman sultan Murad I. The battle itself was inconclusive, but Tvrtko was convinced that the Christian army came out victorious. He sent letters informing various Christian states of his great triumph; the authorities of the Republic of Florence responded praising both the Kingdom of Bosnia and its king for achieving a "victory so glorious that the memory of it would never fade". The triumph, however, was hollow. Tvrtko's Serbian title lost what little actual significance it had when Lazar's successors accepted Ottoman suzerainty, while Vuk Branković turned to Tvrtko's enemy Sigismund. Since the Battle of Kosovo, the Bosnian claim to the Serbian throne was merely nominal (10).
Tvrtko's engagement in the east allowed Sigismund's forces to reverse some of his gains in Dalmatia. Klis was briefly lost in July, the Dalmatian cities again refused to surrender, and Tvrtko was forced to again launch raids. A series of battles and skirmishes, from November to December, resulted in a decisive Bosnian victory and the retreat of the Hungarian army. In May 1390, the cities and the Dalmatian islands finally surrendered to Tvrtko, who then started calling himself "by the Grace of God King of Rascia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Pomorje". His realm now encompassed much of Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Croatia south of Velebit. Acting as King of Dalmatia and Croatia, Tvrtko appointed his supporters Ivan of Palisna and Ivan Horvat as his bans, and hosted the Archbishop of Split Andrea Gualdo in Sutjeska. In the last months of his reign, Tvrtko devoted himself to solidifying his position in Dalmatia and to plans for the taking of Zadar, the only Dalmatian city that had evaded his rule. He offered an extensive alliance to Venice, but it did not suit the republic's interests. Meanwhile, Tvrtko was also fostering relations with Duke Albert III of Austria. By the late summer of 1390, a marriage was expected to be contracted between the recently widowed King and a member of the Austrian ruling family, the Habsburgs. Hungary remained the focus of Tvrtko's foreign policy, however. Although they did not recognize each other as kings, Tvrtko and Sigismund started negotiating a peace in September. Sigismund was in the weaker position and likely ready to make concessions to Tvrtko when his ambassadors arrived at Tvrtko's court in January 1391. Luckily for Sigismund, the negotiations never concluded, as Tvrtko died on 10 March (10).
Stefan Tvrtko's death led to the collapse of the Kingdom of Bosnia, as Tverko's illegitimate half-brothers Stefan Dabiša and Stefan Ostoja fought over who should follow him onto the throne (11). While the Bosnian brothers quarreled over the succession, Sigismund was able to turn fully against his Croatian enemies. In a series of campaigns, throughout Croatia and in Dalmatia, Sigismund was able to slowly rebuild his realm, confiscating estates and deposing rebels to finance his campaigns. By 1393 Sigismund had emerged victorious with the capture of the Hortha brothers and their uncle and had established a greatly strengthened grip on power in Croatia, where he was able to build up a sizeable personal estate (12). The most important of Sigismund's supporters would prove to be Stibor of Stiboricz who helped craft the pleas for aid that were sent to the Papacy following the decision of Stefan Dabiša to ask for aid from Sultan Bayezid in the civil war with Stefan Ostoja in 1394 (13). With Bayezid's support Stefan Dabiša was pushing towards victory by mid-1396. The first heir to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia would be born in 1395, when Mary of Hungary gave birth to a healthy son named Charles de Luxembourg. A daughter would be born the following year, named Catherine of Hungary as Edward V arrived in Buda (14).
Devastation spread by the Crusader Army
Sigismund welcomed his allies with joy not unmixed with apprehension. Although the Hungarian nobles had taken the cross with enthusiasm, their loyalty to him was not perfect, and he foresaw difficulties in the problem of a combined march and a coordinated strategy with the visitors. The French were not disposed to take advice, and the habits of pillage and brigandage, grown routine in the last fifty years of warfare, had already been exhibited on the march through Germany. The arrival of the English brought relief to Sigismund, who found an ally in Edward who was willing to listen. The two would grow increasingly close, eventually agreeing to the betrothal of Sigismund's son Charles to Edward's daughter Isabella, and spent long hours in conference planning how to coordinate the crusade (15). When Jean de Nevers and the French army arrived on June 24th 1396, they found themselves on the back foot - much of the planning for the campaign having been finalized already. This provoked many of the younger French leaders, particularly Marshal Boucicaut and Constable d'Eu who promptly ignored their allies and demanded that they be given the vanguard (16). The arrival of Philibert de Naillac, Grand Master of the Hospitalers, who proved able to calm them, allowed the plans for the coming crusade to be finalized. The 44 ships of Venice, carrying the Hospitalers from Rhodes, sailed through the Aegean into the Sea of Marmara, and some of them continued into the Black Sea and up the Danube, without meeting hostile action. Inferior at sea, the Turks did not challenge them (17).
Conflict immediately marked the War Council at Buda. Sigismund advised waiting for the Turks to take the offensive and then giving battle when they reached his borders where he exercised control, thus avoiding the difficulties of a long march and the uncertainties to be encountered in the doubtful territory of the schismatics. He had led a campaign against the Turks in Wallachia in the previous year, as a result of which Bayezid had sent heralds to declare war and to announce his intention to be in Hungary before the end of May. The Sultan had boasted that after chasing Sigismund out of Hungary he would continue on to Italy, where he would plant his banners on the hills of Rome and feed his horse oats on the altar of St. Peter’s. Now, by the end of July, he had not appeared. Reconnaissance parties sent out by Sigismund as far as the Hellespont showed no signs of the “Great Turk,” causing the French to declare him a coward who did not dare face them. Sigismund assured them the Sultan would come and it were better to let him extend himself in a long march rather than undertake it themselves. But with his reputation as something of a lightweight, Sigismund had neither the authority nor the prestige to make his advice prevail. Edward found himself forced to work as mediator between the two major contingents, although he himself favoring a more aggressive policy (18).
The French insisted they would chase the Turks out of Europe wherever they were found, and boasted that “if the sky were to fall they would uphold it on the points of their lances.” Chosen as spokesman for the allies, Coucy rejected a defensive strategy. “Though the Sultan’s boasts be lies,” he said, “that should not keep us from doing deeds of arms and pursuing our enemies, for that is the purpose for which we came.” He said the crusaders were determined to seek out the enemy. His words were upheld by all the French and many of the foreign allies present at the Council, although they aroused jealousy in Comte d’Eu, who felt that as Constable he should have taken precedence as spokesman. Sigismund was forced to acquiesce; he could hardly, at this point, hang back (19).
The march went forward, down the left bank of the Danube. Part of the Hungarian army veered out to the north to gather in the reluctant vassal forces of Wallachia and Transylvania under Mircea of Wallachia while Ivan Sratsimir, ruler of the Vidin Tsardom taken from his by Bayezid (20), joined the Hungarian forces early on. The main body of the allies followed the wide, flat, dreary river, where the only life was the flickering of water birds in the brown water and an occasional fisherman’s boat poking out from the reed-grown banks. The remainder of the Hungarians under King Sigismund brought up the rear alongside the English, who had to sail their heavy artillery train down the river. French indiscipline and debaucheries increased the farther they went. Suppers were served of the finest wines and richest foods, transported by boat. Knights and squires indulged themselves with prostitutes they had brought along, and their example encouraged the men in outrages upon the women of the countries through which they passed. The arrogance and frivolity of the French irritated their allies, causing continual conflicts. Pillage and maltreatment of the inhabitants grew unrestrained as they entered the schismatic lands, further alienating peoples already hostile to Hungary. At Orsova, where the Danube narrows through a defile called the Iron Gates, the expedition, numbering 32,000 in all (21), crossed over to the right bank. Vidin, the western Bulgarian capital held under Turkish suzerainty, was the crusaders’ first conquest. The city, facing its native prince and having no great motive to fight for an alien conqueror against an overwhelming force of invaders, promptly surrendered, foiling the French of combat. Although the only bloodshed was the slaughter of Turkish officers of the garrison, the field of Vidin nevertheless served for the knighting of Nevers and 500 French, German and English companions. They felt confirmed in confidence as they moved on; Turkish garrison forces were enough to hold the Bulgarians in vassalage but not enough to challenge the great Christian army (22).
Footnotes:
(1) IOTL England promised to participate at The Truce of Leulinghem which ended the Caroline phase of the war, but never sent any contingents. ITTL they are active participants with Edward V being one of the principle backers of the crusade.
(2) John of Beaufort participated in the Barbary Crusade IOTL and ITTL. This time he has more power and backing to participate in the crusade and is sent to represent his father's interests in the conflict.
(3) IOTL William stayed in Germany and fought against the Frisians, this time there is more pressure to join and more prestige involved in participating which is what pushes him to defy his father.
(4) IOTL the leadership was also incredibly diffuse and uncertain. Jean de Nevers was supposed to be in charge with various more experienced advisors, but it ended up with the young hotheads dominating the show.
(5) Edward is taking one of the most modern and experienced armies in the world with him on this crusade and is bringing one of the biggest artillery trains in western history up to this point.
(6) All of this is OTL.
(7) Now we begin to see the damage that the Visconti feud is causing the French court. All of this is OTL.
(8) Jean de Nevers trip down the Danube was incredibly slow, which finally gets to Edward who can barely wait to fight the Turks.
(9) Most of this is as per OTL, but Sigismund's earlier arrival prevents the Hortha brothers from kidnapping Mary and Elizabeth - forcing them to find another way of undermining their rule.
(10) Stefan Tvertko is an absolute badass, who really made life hell for Sigismund for the first several years of his reign IOTL. All of this is basically based on OTL. The only real divergence is the timing of the invasion and the lack of a candidate to support, making the conflict less about the succession and more about opportunism and dissatisfaction with foreign rulership of Hungary.
(11) IOTL Stefan Dabiša followed his brother onto the throne, although his precise connection to Tvertko is somewhat uncertain, and was followed by the other Stefan. This civil war is another divergence from OTL and really serves in Sigismund's favor.
(12) With the Bosnians fighting themselves, Sigismund is able to focus exclusively on the Croatian rebels and crushes them one after the other. He is incredibly harsh in his punishments after he learns of the old plans to abduct his wife, having become quite close to her ITTL. IOTL Mary though Sigismund might have been behind the murder of her mother and felt he had usurped her power. This time around Mary is focusing mostly on the internal stability of the realm while Sigismund tries to end the civil war.
(13) The Balkan rulers of the time kept on inviting the Ottomans into their civil wars, which played a very important part in the ottoman successes of the period.
(14) I know that with Mary and Sigismund being closer they likely should have had a child earlier, but I decided to push the pregnancy to the OTL period. Mary doesn't fall from her horse this time and is able to give birth to a successor with the Angevin bloodline. The child has claims to Naples, Hungary, Bosnia and Serbia as vassals, Bohemia, Poland, Brandenburg and Luxembourg. He is also a very good candidate for the role as Holy Roman Emperor.
(15) Sigismund is in a much better position than IOTL, but he has still fought a decade-long civil war recently so his prestige isn't too great at the moment. Sigismund finds a person he can look up to in Edward, who in turn finds somewhat of a protégé in Sigismund. The betrothal ties Hungary into Edward's slowly expanding marriage network.
(16) The French contingent is only going to get more arrogant from here on out, this is actually based primarily on their actions in the lead-up to the Battle of Nicopolis IOTL.
(17) These ships and other forces were part of the Turkish Crusade IOTL as well.
(18) Edward is there to fight the Turks, if they aren't coming to him - which doesn't seem to be happening - then he is going to go to them. Other than that, this was Sigismund's pitch IOTL. It went about as well as could be expected, which is to say it went nowhere.
(19) This was the French plan IOTL as well, they really weren't thinking things through too much at the time. Edward is getting more and more tired of listening to them whine about precedence when he should be before all of them.
(20) Bulgaria had been split between two brothers with one based out of Tarnovo and another from Vidin. As a result of the Ottoman success in their 1388 campaign and the resulting changes of the balance of power, Ivan Sratsimir had to become an Ottoman vassal and to accept an Ottoman garrison in Vidin. Ivan Sratsimir remained inactive while the Ottomans destroyed the remains of the Tarnovo Tsardom – Tarnovo fell in 1393 and Ivan Shishman, his brother, was killed in 1395.
(21) The army is significantly larger than IOTL, which causes immense logistical challenges only really solved by Sigismund and Edward's pre-French logistical planning and the closeness of the Danube, which allows them to bring in vast amounts of food for men and horses. The army consists of 8,000 English, 2,000 Flemish, 1,000 Spanish, 15,000 French and German, 1,000 Hospitalers and lesser contingents, 3,000 Wallachians and 2,000 Hungarians. There are a bunch of estimates from OTL on the size of the different forces, but I am working on the assumption that the allied force was around ca. 18,000 - 20,000 strong. Add the English and Flemish, as well as the Spanish and more Germans and you get my numbers, might be a few more French knights joining as well.
(22) This is all OTL. The knighting ceremony on the plains of Vidin are kind of tragic, pride goeth before the fall and all that.
Crusade
Pope Honorius V Sends Out The Call For Crusade Against The Turks
Pope Honorius V Sends Out The Call For Crusade Against The Turks
The call for Crusade came with Sigismund of Hungary's official request of support. Honorius V immediately sent out a call to preach the crusade and sent papal legates to the major powers of Europe. Of these France and England were the first to answer and would provide the majority of the crusade (1). First among the foreign allies were the Knights Hospitalers of Rhodes, who, since the decline of Constantinople and Cyprus, held the dominant Christian position in the Levant; secondly, the Venetians, who supplied a fleet; and on land, German princes of the Rhineland, Bavaria, Saxony, and other parts of the Empire who had been recruited by the Hungarians and joined the French and English en route. Adventurers from Navarre and Spain, Bohemia and Poland, where French heralds had proclaimed the crusade, joined individually. John of Gaunt also offered his aid, dispatching his son John of Beaufort, Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Cortes to join the Crusade with a force of 1,000 (2) which many of the individual crusaders would join. However, enthusiasm was not universal. Jean de Nevers’ father-in-law, Albert, Duke of Bavaria and Count of Hainault, was not impressed by the need to expel the Turks or defend the Faith. When his son, William of Ostrevant, with a following of many young knights and squires, expressed a strong desire to go, Duke Albert curtly told him his motive was “Vainglory” and asked what reason he had “to seek arms upon a people and a country that never did us any damage.” He said William would be better employed to use his forces for the recovery of family property unlawfully held by the neighboring lords of Frisia. William defied his father's wishes and led a major German contingent in the conflict numbering several thousand (3). Leadership of the Crusade was unclear due to the difficulties of subordinating the French to the English or vice-versa (4). Without clear leadership the Crusade would experience its difficulties.
William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury died suddenly just before Edward was to leave, with him hurriedly appointing Thomas Arundel, Bishop of Ely to succeed him after Henry le Despenser turned down the responsibility, hoping to join the crusade instead. The crusading army of England would be led by Edward V himself, who was joined by Henry le Despenser, the Archbishop of York who left the handling of his dioceses to several representatives, Edmund of Langley, Duke of Cambridge, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, Roger Mortimer, heir to the Dukedom of Clarence and a whole host of other lesser and greater nobility. David Stewart would also be joining the crusade as Edward's squire and the young John IV de Grailly, Earl of Bedford as his page, while Owain Glyndwr was given command of the 800 Welsh Archers who joined the force and commanded the King's personal archers. The English force would eventually number some 8,000 in total, bringing with them several thousand longbowmen, a hundred ribauldequin and a battery of heavy cannon. John Lydgate would join the army along with Edward's confessor and a host of others to commemorate the crusade. The army set sail for Flanders on March 15 1396, arriving in Ghent a few days later where they were joined by 2,000 Flemish pikemen at Edward's insistence. The now 10,000 strong force began a march down the Rhine, marching to meet the French contingent at Dijon (5).
Jean de Nevers, Count of Nevers and Co-Commander of the Turkish Crusade
In the fit of 1393 the King’s spirit “was covered by such heavy shadows” that he could not remember who or what he was. He did not know he was King, that he was married, that he had children, or that his name was Charles. He displayed two pronounced aversions: for the fleur-de-lys entwined with his own name or initials in the royal coat-of-arms, which he tried to deface in rage wherever he saw it, and for his wife, from whom he fled in terror. If she approached him, he would cry, “Who is that woman the sight of whom torments me? Find out what she wants and free me from her demands if you can, that she may follow me no more.” When he saw the arms of Bavaria, he danced in front of them, making rude gestures. He failed to recognize his children although he knew his brother, uncles, councilors, and servants, and remembered the names of those long dead. Only his brother’s neglected wife, sad Valentina, for whom he asked constantly, calling her his “dear sister,” could soothe him. This preference naturally gave rise to rumors, fostered by the Burgundian faction, that Valentina had bewitched him by subtle poison. Given credence by the record of Visconti crimes and the Italian reputation for poisoning, the whisperers charged that Valentina was ambitious for greater place, having been told by her notorious father to make herself Queen of France (7).
The departure from Dijon on April 30, 1396, was a superb spectacle which could not fail to lift the hearts of observers. The crusaders’ route took them via Strasbourg across Bavaria to the upper Danube and from there, using the river as transport, to rendezvous with the King of Hungary at Buda. The joint armies would proceed from there against the Turks. Objectives, if vague, were not modest. After expelling the Turks from the Balkans, the crusaders planned to come to the aid of Constantinople, cross the Hellespont, march through Turkey and Syria to liberate Palestine and the Holy Sepulcher, and return after these triumphs by sea. Arrangements had been made for the Venetian fleet and galleys of the Emperor Manuel to blockade the Turks in the Sea of Marmara and for the Venetians to sail up the Danube from the Black Sea to meet the crusaders in Wallachia in July. Coucy did not travel with the main body because he was detached on a mission to the lord of Milan. Angry at the removal of Genoa from his sphere of influence, as part of the complex negotiations surrounding the end of the schism, Gian Galeazzo was maneuvering to prevent its transfer of sovereignty to the King of France. Coucy was sent to warn him that his interference would be regarded as a hostile act.
More than Genoa was behind the quarrel. Gian Galeazzo had turned against France, bitterly if not openly, because his beloved daughter Valentina was being subjected to a campaign of slander charging her with bewitching or poisoning the King. The vicious rumors were the work of Queen Isabeau, who wanted Valentina out of the way, partly from jealousy of her influence with the King, to facilitate her own affair with Orléans, and as part of Isabeau’s perpetual machinations with Florence against Milan. Whispered in the taverns and markets, among a public ready to believe ill of the Italian foreigner, the rumors grew so rampant that mobs shouting threats gathered before Valentina’s residence. Louis d’Orléans made no effort to defend his wife, but rather complied with Isabeau’s objective by removing Valentina from Paris on the excuse of her safety. She was left to live in exile thereafter at her country residence at Asnières on the Seine, while Isabeau reigned supreme, ruling from the beds of the two royal brothers. Valentina’s removal occurred in April, the month of the crusade’s departure, was not taken lightly by her adoring father. He threatened to send knights to defend his daughter’s honor, and possibly betrayed the plans of the crusade to the Sultan Bayezid in revenge. With regard to Genoa, however, Coucy’s intervention was successful; sovereignty was duly transferred to the King of France in the following November, though for how long this state of affairs would remain was questionable. Coucy, accompanied by Henri de Bar and their followers, left Milan in May for Venice, where he requisitioned a ship from the Venetian Senate on May 17 to take him across the Adriatic. He embarked on May 30 for Senj, a small port on the Croatian coast. From Senj he and his party traveled to Buda by the most direct way, a journey of some 300 miles through wild, rugged, and dangerous country (7).
He reached the rendezvous before Nevers, who was in no hurry, and Edward, who was. Stopping along the upper Danube for receptions and festivities offered by German princes, Nevers and his companions in green and gold did not reach even Vienna until June 24, a month behind the vanguard under D’Eu and Boucicaut. A fleet of seventy vessels with cargo of wine, flour, hay, and other provisions was dispatched from Vienna down the Danube while Nevers enjoyed further festivities offered by his sister’s husband, Leopold IV, Duke of Austria. After borrowing from his brother-in-law the huge sum of 100,000 ducats, which took time to arrange, Nevers finally arrived in Buda at some time in July. During this time Edward grew increasingly agitated at the long delays and decided to march onwards without the French. He arrived in early June to the delight of Sigismund, who spent the following weeks getting to know his fellow king (8).
Mary of Hungary, Queen of Hungary and Croatia
During the entire course of his campaign in Dalmatia and Croatia, Tvrtko was also engaged in skirmishes in the east of his realm, which prevented him from focusing all of his manpower on expansion westwards. The Kingdom of Bosnia was believed to be far from the reach of the Ottomans during Tvrtko I's reign, shielded by a belt of independent Serbian statelets. George II of Zeta, however, purposely enabled the Turks to launch raids against Bosnia, first in 1386 and again in 1388. In the second instance the Ottoman and Zetan invaders, led by Lala Şahin Pasha, penetrated as far as Bileća. The Battle of Bileća, which took place in late August 1388, ended with the victory of the Bosnian army, led by Duke Vlatko Vuković. 15 June 1389, the date by which Tvrtko had intended to complete his conquest of Dalmatia, was also the day when the Ottoman army met the forces of a coalition of Serbian states at the Battle of Kosovo. Tvrtko, feeling it his duty as King of Serbia, ordered his army to leave Dalmatia and assist the lords Lazar Hrebljanović and Vuk Branković. The Bosnians were likely led again by Duke Vlatko. The highest ranking among the casualties, which also included Bosnian noblemen, were Lazar and the Ottoman sultan Murad I. The battle itself was inconclusive, but Tvrtko was convinced that the Christian army came out victorious. He sent letters informing various Christian states of his great triumph; the authorities of the Republic of Florence responded praising both the Kingdom of Bosnia and its king for achieving a "victory so glorious that the memory of it would never fade". The triumph, however, was hollow. Tvrtko's Serbian title lost what little actual significance it had when Lazar's successors accepted Ottoman suzerainty, while Vuk Branković turned to Tvrtko's enemy Sigismund. Since the Battle of Kosovo, the Bosnian claim to the Serbian throne was merely nominal (10).
Tvrtko's engagement in the east allowed Sigismund's forces to reverse some of his gains in Dalmatia. Klis was briefly lost in July, the Dalmatian cities again refused to surrender, and Tvrtko was forced to again launch raids. A series of battles and skirmishes, from November to December, resulted in a decisive Bosnian victory and the retreat of the Hungarian army. In May 1390, the cities and the Dalmatian islands finally surrendered to Tvrtko, who then started calling himself "by the Grace of God King of Rascia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Pomorje". His realm now encompassed much of Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Croatia south of Velebit. Acting as King of Dalmatia and Croatia, Tvrtko appointed his supporters Ivan of Palisna and Ivan Horvat as his bans, and hosted the Archbishop of Split Andrea Gualdo in Sutjeska. In the last months of his reign, Tvrtko devoted himself to solidifying his position in Dalmatia and to plans for the taking of Zadar, the only Dalmatian city that had evaded his rule. He offered an extensive alliance to Venice, but it did not suit the republic's interests. Meanwhile, Tvrtko was also fostering relations with Duke Albert III of Austria. By the late summer of 1390, a marriage was expected to be contracted between the recently widowed King and a member of the Austrian ruling family, the Habsburgs. Hungary remained the focus of Tvrtko's foreign policy, however. Although they did not recognize each other as kings, Tvrtko and Sigismund started negotiating a peace in September. Sigismund was in the weaker position and likely ready to make concessions to Tvrtko when his ambassadors arrived at Tvrtko's court in January 1391. Luckily for Sigismund, the negotiations never concluded, as Tvrtko died on 10 March (10).
Stefan Tvrtko's death led to the collapse of the Kingdom of Bosnia, as Tverko's illegitimate half-brothers Stefan Dabiša and Stefan Ostoja fought over who should follow him onto the throne (11). While the Bosnian brothers quarreled over the succession, Sigismund was able to turn fully against his Croatian enemies. In a series of campaigns, throughout Croatia and in Dalmatia, Sigismund was able to slowly rebuild his realm, confiscating estates and deposing rebels to finance his campaigns. By 1393 Sigismund had emerged victorious with the capture of the Hortha brothers and their uncle and had established a greatly strengthened grip on power in Croatia, where he was able to build up a sizeable personal estate (12). The most important of Sigismund's supporters would prove to be Stibor of Stiboricz who helped craft the pleas for aid that were sent to the Papacy following the decision of Stefan Dabiša to ask for aid from Sultan Bayezid in the civil war with Stefan Ostoja in 1394 (13). With Bayezid's support Stefan Dabiša was pushing towards victory by mid-1396. The first heir to the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia would be born in 1395, when Mary of Hungary gave birth to a healthy son named Charles de Luxembourg. A daughter would be born the following year, named Catherine of Hungary as Edward V arrived in Buda (14).
Devastation spread by the Crusader Army
Sigismund welcomed his allies with joy not unmixed with apprehension. Although the Hungarian nobles had taken the cross with enthusiasm, their loyalty to him was not perfect, and he foresaw difficulties in the problem of a combined march and a coordinated strategy with the visitors. The French were not disposed to take advice, and the habits of pillage and brigandage, grown routine in the last fifty years of warfare, had already been exhibited on the march through Germany. The arrival of the English brought relief to Sigismund, who found an ally in Edward who was willing to listen. The two would grow increasingly close, eventually agreeing to the betrothal of Sigismund's son Charles to Edward's daughter Isabella, and spent long hours in conference planning how to coordinate the crusade (15). When Jean de Nevers and the French army arrived on June 24th 1396, they found themselves on the back foot - much of the planning for the campaign having been finalized already. This provoked many of the younger French leaders, particularly Marshal Boucicaut and Constable d'Eu who promptly ignored their allies and demanded that they be given the vanguard (16). The arrival of Philibert de Naillac, Grand Master of the Hospitalers, who proved able to calm them, allowed the plans for the coming crusade to be finalized. The 44 ships of Venice, carrying the Hospitalers from Rhodes, sailed through the Aegean into the Sea of Marmara, and some of them continued into the Black Sea and up the Danube, without meeting hostile action. Inferior at sea, the Turks did not challenge them (17).
Conflict immediately marked the War Council at Buda. Sigismund advised waiting for the Turks to take the offensive and then giving battle when they reached his borders where he exercised control, thus avoiding the difficulties of a long march and the uncertainties to be encountered in the doubtful territory of the schismatics. He had led a campaign against the Turks in Wallachia in the previous year, as a result of which Bayezid had sent heralds to declare war and to announce his intention to be in Hungary before the end of May. The Sultan had boasted that after chasing Sigismund out of Hungary he would continue on to Italy, where he would plant his banners on the hills of Rome and feed his horse oats on the altar of St. Peter’s. Now, by the end of July, he had not appeared. Reconnaissance parties sent out by Sigismund as far as the Hellespont showed no signs of the “Great Turk,” causing the French to declare him a coward who did not dare face them. Sigismund assured them the Sultan would come and it were better to let him extend himself in a long march rather than undertake it themselves. But with his reputation as something of a lightweight, Sigismund had neither the authority nor the prestige to make his advice prevail. Edward found himself forced to work as mediator between the two major contingents, although he himself favoring a more aggressive policy (18).
The French insisted they would chase the Turks out of Europe wherever they were found, and boasted that “if the sky were to fall they would uphold it on the points of their lances.” Chosen as spokesman for the allies, Coucy rejected a defensive strategy. “Though the Sultan’s boasts be lies,” he said, “that should not keep us from doing deeds of arms and pursuing our enemies, for that is the purpose for which we came.” He said the crusaders were determined to seek out the enemy. His words were upheld by all the French and many of the foreign allies present at the Council, although they aroused jealousy in Comte d’Eu, who felt that as Constable he should have taken precedence as spokesman. Sigismund was forced to acquiesce; he could hardly, at this point, hang back (19).
The march went forward, down the left bank of the Danube. Part of the Hungarian army veered out to the north to gather in the reluctant vassal forces of Wallachia and Transylvania under Mircea of Wallachia while Ivan Sratsimir, ruler of the Vidin Tsardom taken from his by Bayezid (20), joined the Hungarian forces early on. The main body of the allies followed the wide, flat, dreary river, where the only life was the flickering of water birds in the brown water and an occasional fisherman’s boat poking out from the reed-grown banks. The remainder of the Hungarians under King Sigismund brought up the rear alongside the English, who had to sail their heavy artillery train down the river. French indiscipline and debaucheries increased the farther they went. Suppers were served of the finest wines and richest foods, transported by boat. Knights and squires indulged themselves with prostitutes they had brought along, and their example encouraged the men in outrages upon the women of the countries through which they passed. The arrogance and frivolity of the French irritated their allies, causing continual conflicts. Pillage and maltreatment of the inhabitants grew unrestrained as they entered the schismatic lands, further alienating peoples already hostile to Hungary. At Orsova, where the Danube narrows through a defile called the Iron Gates, the expedition, numbering 32,000 in all (21), crossed over to the right bank. Vidin, the western Bulgarian capital held under Turkish suzerainty, was the crusaders’ first conquest. The city, facing its native prince and having no great motive to fight for an alien conqueror against an overwhelming force of invaders, promptly surrendered, foiling the French of combat. Although the only bloodshed was the slaughter of Turkish officers of the garrison, the field of Vidin nevertheless served for the knighting of Nevers and 500 French, German and English companions. They felt confirmed in confidence as they moved on; Turkish garrison forces were enough to hold the Bulgarians in vassalage but not enough to challenge the great Christian army (22).
Footnotes:
(1) IOTL England promised to participate at The Truce of Leulinghem which ended the Caroline phase of the war, but never sent any contingents. ITTL they are active participants with Edward V being one of the principle backers of the crusade.
(2) John of Beaufort participated in the Barbary Crusade IOTL and ITTL. This time he has more power and backing to participate in the crusade and is sent to represent his father's interests in the conflict.
(3) IOTL William stayed in Germany and fought against the Frisians, this time there is more pressure to join and more prestige involved in participating which is what pushes him to defy his father.
(4) IOTL the leadership was also incredibly diffuse and uncertain. Jean de Nevers was supposed to be in charge with various more experienced advisors, but it ended up with the young hotheads dominating the show.
(5) Edward is taking one of the most modern and experienced armies in the world with him on this crusade and is bringing one of the biggest artillery trains in western history up to this point.
(6) All of this is OTL.
(7) Now we begin to see the damage that the Visconti feud is causing the French court. All of this is OTL.
(8) Jean de Nevers trip down the Danube was incredibly slow, which finally gets to Edward who can barely wait to fight the Turks.
(9) Most of this is as per OTL, but Sigismund's earlier arrival prevents the Hortha brothers from kidnapping Mary and Elizabeth - forcing them to find another way of undermining their rule.
(10) Stefan Tvertko is an absolute badass, who really made life hell for Sigismund for the first several years of his reign IOTL. All of this is basically based on OTL. The only real divergence is the timing of the invasion and the lack of a candidate to support, making the conflict less about the succession and more about opportunism and dissatisfaction with foreign rulership of Hungary.
(11) IOTL Stefan Dabiša followed his brother onto the throne, although his precise connection to Tvertko is somewhat uncertain, and was followed by the other Stefan. This civil war is another divergence from OTL and really serves in Sigismund's favor.
(12) With the Bosnians fighting themselves, Sigismund is able to focus exclusively on the Croatian rebels and crushes them one after the other. He is incredibly harsh in his punishments after he learns of the old plans to abduct his wife, having become quite close to her ITTL. IOTL Mary though Sigismund might have been behind the murder of her mother and felt he had usurped her power. This time around Mary is focusing mostly on the internal stability of the realm while Sigismund tries to end the civil war.
(13) The Balkan rulers of the time kept on inviting the Ottomans into their civil wars, which played a very important part in the ottoman successes of the period.
(14) I know that with Mary and Sigismund being closer they likely should have had a child earlier, but I decided to push the pregnancy to the OTL period. Mary doesn't fall from her horse this time and is able to give birth to a successor with the Angevin bloodline. The child has claims to Naples, Hungary, Bosnia and Serbia as vassals, Bohemia, Poland, Brandenburg and Luxembourg. He is also a very good candidate for the role as Holy Roman Emperor.
(15) Sigismund is in a much better position than IOTL, but he has still fought a decade-long civil war recently so his prestige isn't too great at the moment. Sigismund finds a person he can look up to in Edward, who in turn finds somewhat of a protégé in Sigismund. The betrothal ties Hungary into Edward's slowly expanding marriage network.
(16) The French contingent is only going to get more arrogant from here on out, this is actually based primarily on their actions in the lead-up to the Battle of Nicopolis IOTL.
(17) These ships and other forces were part of the Turkish Crusade IOTL as well.
(18) Edward is there to fight the Turks, if they aren't coming to him - which doesn't seem to be happening - then he is going to go to them. Other than that, this was Sigismund's pitch IOTL. It went about as well as could be expected, which is to say it went nowhere.
(19) This was the French plan IOTL as well, they really weren't thinking things through too much at the time. Edward is getting more and more tired of listening to them whine about precedence when he should be before all of them.
(20) Bulgaria had been split between two brothers with one based out of Tarnovo and another from Vidin. As a result of the Ottoman success in their 1388 campaign and the resulting changes of the balance of power, Ivan Sratsimir had to become an Ottoman vassal and to accept an Ottoman garrison in Vidin. Ivan Sratsimir remained inactive while the Ottomans destroyed the remains of the Tarnovo Tsardom – Tarnovo fell in 1393 and Ivan Shishman, his brother, was killed in 1395.
(21) The army is significantly larger than IOTL, which causes immense logistical challenges only really solved by Sigismund and Edward's pre-French logistical planning and the closeness of the Danube, which allows them to bring in vast amounts of food for men and horses. The army consists of 8,000 English, 2,000 Flemish, 1,000 Spanish, 15,000 French and German, 1,000 Hospitalers and lesser contingents, 3,000 Wallachians and 2,000 Hungarians. There are a bunch of estimates from OTL on the size of the different forces, but I am working on the assumption that the allied force was around ca. 18,000 - 20,000 strong. Add the English and Flemish, as well as the Spanish and more Germans and you get my numbers, might be a few more French knights joining as well.
(22) This is all OTL. The knighting ceremony on the plains of Vidin are kind of tragic, pride goeth before the fall and all that.
Great!
I hope that Edward's presence would save the Crusaders from the bloodbath Bayazid have given to them...
Not only that the English contingent is more disciplined but also Edward might balance the egos and this time they might lisen Mircea of Wallachia to let him conduct the first charge with the light cavalry. In OTL, the French did not, despite Sigismund pledge them otherwise and the knights exausted themselves fighting azabs and auxiliaries and were crushed by fresh janissaries and sipahis who make apparition after the hills.
The Wallachians and the Hungarians knew how the Turks fight (in layers, with the best troops behind and not in front). And the Serbians (led by Kneaz Lazar) were truly dushbags... they contributed decisively to the Ottoman victory... they kind deserved their fate at the hand of the Ottomans. Lazar was very loyal to Bayazid and even fought alongside him at Ankara. Would he this time be more reserved if the Crusaders are more numerous and more organized?
I hope that Edward's presence would save the Crusaders from the bloodbath Bayazid have given to them...
Not only that the English contingent is more disciplined but also Edward might balance the egos and this time they might lisen Mircea of Wallachia to let him conduct the first charge with the light cavalry. In OTL, the French did not, despite Sigismund pledge them otherwise and the knights exausted themselves fighting azabs and auxiliaries and were crushed by fresh janissaries and sipahis who make apparition after the hills.
The Wallachians and the Hungarians knew how the Turks fight (in layers, with the best troops behind and not in front). And the Serbians (led by Kneaz Lazar) were truly dushbags... they contributed decisively to the Ottoman victory... they kind deserved their fate at the hand of the Ottomans. Lazar was very loyal to Bayazid and even fought alongside him at Ankara. Would he this time be more reserved if the Crusaders are more numerous and more organized?
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Oh sweet summer child, things are going to get interesting for a while. I do look at a lot of the things you mentioned and involve all of the different actors you mentioned. They are going to play important roles throughout the coming conflict. Lazar really is very interesting, he was at Nicopolis and Ankara, but later turned on the Ottomans and eventually became a vassal of Sigismund. He is a really fascinating character.
Thank you so much, it really helps a lot to read your positive comments - keeps me motivated.
Update Fifteen: Nicopolis
I really don't see how the French crusaders could act differently from how I portray them in the following update. They don't come out looking great, but the vast majority is simply what they did IOTL and the rest is conjecture from there. There is a lot of Byzantine history and continued coverage of the rest of the Balkans in this one. I am sorry to be regurgitating so much OTL stuff, but it really is necessary to have those building blocks for later updates and to ensure people know what is going on.
The Battle of Kosovo
Manuel Palaeologos was still in exile on Lemnos when, in the summer of 1389, the Serbs made their attempt to shake off the Ottoman yoke. After the disaster on the Maritsa, where Lala Shahin Pasha led a force of 800 in destroying the 70,000 man strong Serbian Army, it had seemed impossible that they should ever fight as a nation again; and yet, weakened and divided as they now were, with the glorious if short-lived Empire of Stephen Dushan no more than a distant memory, a league of Serbian boyars gathered together under the leadership of a certain Prince Lazar Hrebelianovich, who had seized control of northern Serbia after the death of Stephen Urosh V in 1371, to resist the Turkish advance. It included Vuk Brankovich, ruler of the southern district of Kosovo, and was later also joined by Stefan Tverko, Prince of Bosnia. Between 1386 and 1388, after the Sultan had been obliged to return to Anatolia, this league had proved remarkably successful, defeating the Turks in a number of skirmishes and even in one or two pitched battles. But in 1389 Murad was back in the Balkans, with several new regiments brought with him from Asia; and in the early summer he advanced on the plain of Kosovo, 'the field of blackbirds'. Serbian morale was low. The princes were in disagreement amongst themselves, and treason was widely hinted at: Lazar himself, in a speech on the eve of the battle, openly accused his own son-in-law, Milosh Obravich, of working for the enemy. Murad, on the other hand, though he spent much of the night in prayer, was so confident of victory that he had ordered that all castles, towns and villages in the region should be spared; the castles he would need later, and he had no wish to antagonize his future subjects unnecessarily. The next morning, the Sultan drew up his army in its usual order. He himself commanded the center, with his regiment of Janissaries and his personal guard of cavalry; on the right was his elder son Bayezid with the European troops, on the left his younger son Yakub with the regiments from Asia. To begin with, fortune was against them. Ignoring an initial advance by two thousand Turkish archers, the Serbian cavalry launched a massive charge that broke through the Turkish left flank. But Bayezid immediately swung around and urged his men at full gallop to the rescue, laying about him to left and right with his heavy iron mace. After this counter-attack, the Turks gradually gained the upper hand - though it was only after Vuk Brankovich fled the field towards the end of the day, taking with him twelve thousand of his men, that the surviving Serbs finally broke up in disorder and fled. Whether or not Brankovich's treachery was the result of a secret compact with the Sultan will never be known; if there was one, Murad never lived to reveal it. Murad's death was the work of Milosh Obravich, furious at the aspersions which had been publicly cast upon him by his father-in-law and determined to prove his loyalty. According to the most probable version of the story, he pretended to desert to the enemy and was brought before Murad; he made his formal obeisance and then, before the guard could prevent him, plunged a long dagger twice into the Sultan's breast — with such force that the blade emerged at the back. He was immediately set upon and dispatched in turn, but the deed was done. Murad's last act was to summon Lazar - who had been taken prisoner at an earlier stage in the battle - and condemn him to execution. Bayezid's very first action, after his proclamation as Sultan on the field of Kosovo, was to order the death of his brother and fellow-commander Yakub. The sentence was immediately carried out; the young Prince was garroted with a bowstring. He had shown great courage in the battle and was much loved by his men, but for Bayezid these qualities only increased the likelihood of his one day stirring up sedition (1).
Returning shortly afterwards to the capital, John VII Palaeologos found messengers awaiting him from Bayezid; and on the night of 13 April 1390, with the aid of a small force put at his disposal by the Sultan, he succeeded in overturning John V for the second time, making his triumphal entry into the city the following morning. Once again the Emperor John V - together with Manuel, whom he had summoned back from Lemnos just a fortnight before, and a number of loyal followers - barricaded himself into the fortress of the Golden Gate and settled down to withstand a siege. Manuel, however, slipped away to seek assistance. His first two attempts to rescue his father were unsuccessful, but on 25 August he appeared with two galleys lent by the Knights of St John from their base in Rhodes, one each from Lemnos, Christopolis and Constantinople, and four other smaller vessels of unknown provenance. Fortunately the Golden Gate stronghold was only a few yards from the Marmara, and possessed its own harbor into which the little fleet had no difficulty in forcing its way. Fighting continued for the next three weeks, but on Saturday, 17 September the old Emperor and his men made a sudden sally, taking his grandson completely off his guard and driving him out of the city (1).
Fully reconciled at last, John and Manuel returned triumphantly to the Palace of Blachernae. There was, however, a price to be paid for their success. The Sultan, away in Anatolia, looked upon the failure of his attempt to install John VII on the throne as not so much a political reverse as a personal insult. Furious, he demanded that Manuel should immediately join him on campaign, bringing with him all the tribute that was by now owing. A similar summons was sent to John VII, with whom he was almost as angry. In the circumstances the two men, despite their mutual detestation, could only obey; nor, that same autumn, could they refuse the Sultan's orders to take part in the siege of Philadelphia. And so it was that not one but two Emperors of the Romans found themselves directly instrumental in enforcing the capitulation of the last surviving Eastern Roman stronghold in Asia Minor. Soon afterwards Bayezid sent John V another still more peremptory ultimatum. The fortress of the Golden Gate - which, in the previous year, had saved his crown if not his life - was to be demolished. Failure to obey would result in the immediate imprisonment and blinding of Manuel, who was still being held at the Sultan's camp. Once again the poor Emperor had no choice but to comply; it was, however, the last indignity that he was called upon to suffer. With the coming of winter he retired to his private apartments, where he took to his bed and turned his face to the wall. He died on 16 February 1391, aged fifty-eight. He had reigned as basileus - if dated from his coronation in November 1341 - just a few months short of half a century (1).
Depiction of Bayezid's Army
Within days of his accession, Manuel II showed his mettle. There was, he knew, a serious danger that Bayezid, as Constantinople's suzerain, might appoint his nephew John VII as basileus; and this was a risk that he could not possibly accept. When the news of his father's death reached him he was still a hostage of the Sultan, who had returned to his capital at Brusa. At once he began to make his plans, and on the night of the 7th March 1391 he slipped out of the camp and made his way secretly to the coast, where a ship was waiting to take him across the Marmara to Constantinople. He was welcomed in the capital with enthusiasm. Now in the prime of life - at the time of his accession he was not quite forty-one — in appearance he was every inch an Emperor: Bayezid himself had once observed that his imperial blood was recognizable from his bearing alone, even to those seeing him for the first time. He enjoyed perfect health and possessed apparently boundless energy. He had a deep love of literature and theology. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than the composition of essays and dissertations on matters of Christian doctrine. He remained, however, a man of action. Twice, in 1371 and again in 1390, he had come to the rescue of his increasingly incapable father, on both occasions with complete success. The Emperor was now but a weak and virtually helpless vassal of the Ottoman Sultan; and the Sultan, who would probably have preferred to see the far more amenable John VII on the throne of Constantinople, had been outraged by the quiet deliberation with which Manuel had assumed it without his authority. His reaction was to inflict two more humiliations on the Romans. The first was to set aside a whole area of the city for Turkish merchants, who would be no longer subject to imperial law but whose affairs would be regulated by a qadi, a judge, appointed by himself. The second - in May 1391, only two months after Manuel's accession as sole Emperor - was to summon him once again to Anatolia to take part in yet another of his campaigns, this time to the Black Sea coast - a feudal obligation distasteful enough in itself, but made considerably more so by the company of John VII, to whom he could still hardly bring himself to speak, and by the sadness and devastation of the country through which they marched. The Emperor was back in Constantinople by the middle of January 1392, and on Saturday, the 10th of February he took to himself a bride. She was Helena, daughter of Constantine Dragash, the Serbian Prince of Serres — like himself, a vassal of the Sultan. The marriage was followed the next day by a joint coronation. For Manuel this was not strictly necessary - he had already been crowned nineteen years before - but he believed with good reason that such a ceremony, performed with the full Orthodox ritual and as much pomp and display as could be managed, would provide the best possible tonic to his subjects' morale. It would remind them, too, of what Constantinople stood for: of the continuity with which Emperor had succeeded Emperor without a break - even though occasionally in exile - for thirteen centuries since the days of ancient Rome; of the fact that, whatever dangers he himself might be facing, whatever occasional indignities he might be called upon to suffer, he remained supreme among the princes of Christendom, Equal of the Apostles, God's own anointed Vice-Regent on Earth (1).
For a year and a half after his coronation Manuel was left in comparative peace; but in July 1393 a serious insurrection in Bulgaria against the Sultan brought swift retribution, and the following winter Bayezid called his principal Christian vassals to his camp at Serres. Apart from the Emperor himself, they included his brother Theodore, Despot of the Morea, his father-in-law Constantine Dragash, his nephew John VII and the Serbian Stephen Lazarevic. None of them knew, however, that the others had been summoned also: only when they were all assembled did they realize how completely they had put themselves in the Sultan's power. Manuel himself was convinced that a general massacre had been intended, and that Bayezid had countermanded his own orders only after the eunuch entrusted with the executions had refused or somehow prevaricated. Eventually, after giving his vassals further grim warnings of the consequences of any future disobedience, he let them go — apart from Theodore, who was obliged to accompany him on campaign to Thessaly and was there put under severe pressure to yield Monemvasia, Argos and several other fortresses in the Peloponnese. The luckless Despot undertook to comply; fortunately, however, he escaped soon afterwards to his own territory, where he immediately rescinded his promises. Manuel meanwhile, still shaken by what he believed till the end of his life to have been a narrow escape from death, returned with all speed to Constantinople. Soon afterwards he received yet another summons from Bayezid. This time he flatly refused. His experience at Serres had driven him to an inescapable conclusion: the days of appeasement were over. Such a policy might have succeeded with Murad - who, despite occasional bouts of savagery, had been an essentially reasonable man with whom civilized discussions were possible. Bayezid, on the other hand, had shown himself to be unbalanced and deeply untrustworthy. Manuel's first instincts had been right after all. The sole chance of survival was in resistance. Meanwhile, however, he had no delusions as to the momentousness of the decision he had taken. His refusal of the Sultan's summons would be interpreted as an act of open defiance, a casting-off of his former vassalage - in effect, a declaration of war (1).
One consideration only enabled him to contemplate such a step: however determined Bayezid might be to annihilate him, however great the Turkish army or formidable their siege engines, he still believed in the impregnability of Constantinople. On both occasions that the city had fallen to armed force - in 1203 and again in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade - the attacks had been launched from the sea, against the relatively inferior fortifications which ran along the shore of the Golden Horn. Such an operation would be impossible for Bayezid, who was still without an effective navy. He could attack only by land, from the west, and despite the recent demolition of the fortress by the Golden Gate the Land Walls were as strong as ever they had been. They had stood for almost a thousand years; the Byzantines had long since lost count of the number of would-be conquerors who had turned away from them, furious and frustrated at their own impotence and often without loosing a single arrow. Manuel was soon able to put his theory to the test. In the spring of 1394 an immense Turkish army marched against Constantinople, and by the beginning of autumn the siege had begun in earnest. The Sultan had ordered a complete blockade, and although an occasional vessel managed to run the gauntlet — notably a Venetian merchantman which arrived early in 1395 with a much-needed shipment of grain — for some time essential supplies ran desperately short. All the land outside the walls, inaccessible to the inhabitants anyway, had been laid waste; the only areas available for cultivation were the plots and gardens within the city itself. Fortunately for the citizens, however, the situation gradually eased. The blockade was not lifted - it was to continue in one form or another for the remainder of the siege, during which spasmodic attacks continued to be made on the walls - but gradually, as the ever-unpredictable Bayezid lost interest in the siege and involved himself in other operations that offered more immediate rewards, the pressure in some degree relaxed. At last Manuel was able to devote some of his time to diplomacy — for, he was well aware, without foreign alliances his Empire could have no long-term prospects of survival. This was the moment his voice joined the others calling for a crusade (1).
The next objective of the crusading army, 75 miles farther on, was Rachowa, a strong fortress protected by a moat and a double ring of walls. Determined on deeds of arms, the French hastened by a night march to reach it ahead of their allies and arrived at dawn just as the Turkish defenders came out to destroy the bridge over the moat. In a fierce fight, 500 men-at-arms including Coucy, Constable D’Eu, Marshal Boucicaut, Count Jacque de la Marche, and Philippe de Bar gained the bridge but against vigorous resistance could make no further headway until Sigismund sent up reinforcements. Rather than allow others to share the honor of the fight, Boucicaut would have rejected the aid, but in spite of him the forces combined and reached the walls as night fell. Next morning, before combat could be renewed, the Bulgarian inhabitants arranged to surrender the town to Sigismund on condition that their goods and lives would be spared. Violating the surrender, the French put the town to pillage and massacre, claiming later that the place was taken by assault because their men-at-arms had already scaled the walls. A thousand prisoners, both Turkish and Bulgarian, were seized for ransom and the town left in flames. The Hungarians took the action as an insult to their King; the French charged the Hungarians with trying to rob them of their glory; Sigismund’s apprehensions were confirmed while Edward was dispirited at the discord. Leaving a garrison to hold Rachowa, the divided army moved on to Nicopolis, storming and seizing one or two forts and settlements on the way, but by-passing one citadel from which emissaries escaped to carry news of the Christian army to the Sultan (2). Bayezid was already on the European side, having revisited the Siege of Constantinople, where he learned of the crusaders’ plan of campaign through intercepting correspondence between Sigismund and the Emperor Manuel. Leaving the siege, he marched with the forces he had immediately available, gathering others at garrisons en route to the crusaders.
Siege of Nicopolis as Pictured by a Turkish Painter
As the key to control of the lower Danube and communications with the interior, Nicopolis was essential to the crusaders, who made it their strategic objective. They came within sight of the fortress high on its limestone cliff on the 12th of September. A road ran along the narrow space between the river’s edge and the base of the cliff. On the inland side a ravine split the cliff into two heights dominating the lower town and descending steeply to the plain. The fortress was actually two walled and fortified enclosures or towns, the larger one on the bluff and the smaller below, each containing military, civil, and religious buildings and in the larger one a bazaar or street of shops. The French had no difficulty recognizing an objective as formidable as Mahdia, even without the knowledge that it was well supplied with arms and provisions and commanded by a resolute Turkish governor, Dogan Bey. Convinced that the Sultan must come to the defense of so important a stronghold, the Governor was prepared to fight for time, and resist, if necessary, to the end. The French had brought no catapults or other siege weapons, as they had brought none against Barbary. Funds had been invested in silks and velvet and gold embroidery, cargo space packed with wines and festive provisions. Boucicaut made light of their lack of siege weapons. No matter, said he, ladders were easily made and, when used by men of courage, were worth more than any catapults (3). He therefore launched an initial assault at the walls of Nicopolis in spite of Edward and Sigismund's entreaties to set up proper siege lines. The assault proved a dismal failure, with many of the French participants giving up before even reaching the walls (4).
This was the moment that Edward emerged as to play his part in the siege. In his baggage train he had brought five state-of-the-art heavy bombards, among the largest yet produced in Christendom, with the hope of finding an opportunity to use them (5). He immediately set his soldiers to building positions from which they could target the wall. Over the following days the bombards were put into place while the French knights chafed under Edward's instructions. The siege lines were carefully established by Edward before he ordered his artillery to begin its bombardment. Over the next three days several breaches were created in both upper and lower walls, before the French were unleashed on the city, after negotiations failed. The fighting that followed was incredibly intense, though the defenders stood no chance against their enemies, who outnumbered them and were furious with embarrassment at being outdone by the English. The city was subsequently subjected to a sack by the angry French crusaders who claimed all of the spoils for themselves, including the large number of slaves they had taken. Nicopolis had fallen in just under ten days (6).
Marshal Jean II le Maingre, Called Boucicaut
The crusaders spent the next couple of days celebrating their victory with feasts, games, debaucheries, and the voicing of contempt for the lacking enemy presence. Allies were invited to splendid dinners in tents ornamented with pictures; nobles exchanged visits, appearing every day in new clothes with long sleeves and pointed shoes. Despite hospitality, sarcasm and jokes about the courage of their allies deepened ill-feeling in the army. In drunkenness and carelessness, no sentinels were posted. Natives of the region, alienated by pillage, brought in no information. Foragers, however, moving farther out each day, reported rumors of the Turks’ approach. A reconnaissance party of 500 Hungarian horsemen, sent forward by Sigismund, penetrated to the vicinity of Tarnovo, seventy miles to the south, and brought back word that the “Great Turk” was coming (7).
Sigismund convened a council of war. He proposed that the Wallachian foot soldiers should be sent forward to meet the enemy’s vanguard, which was customarily a rabble of rough conscripts whom the Turks sent ahead of their main force for purposes of pillage. In battle they were exposed to the brunt of opponents’ attack in order to tire them. They were not worthy, Sigismund said, of the combat of knights. When the shock of contact had been absorbed by the common soldiers, French chivalry, forming the crusaders’ front line, could enter battle in full and fresh strength. The Hungarians and allies would follow to support their attack and keep the sipahis, the Turkish cavalry, from dashing in upon their flanks. The honor and glory of battle, as Sigismund concluded, did not lie in the first blows but in the last—in those blows that finished the combat and decided the victory (8). Constable d’Eu furiously objected. French knights had not come so far, he said, to be preceded into battle by a miserable peasant militia more accustomed to flee than to fight. The knight’s custom was not to follow, but to lead and to encourage others by his example. “To take up the rear is to dishonor us and expose us to the contempt of all.” Moreover, as Constable, he claimed the front place; anyone ahead of him would do him a mortal insult. Boucicaut supported him warmly; Nevers, in the belief that Turkish sabers and scimitars could not resist the lances and swords of France, was easily persuaded along with the younger hotheads of his suite (9). Edward finally exploded in rage at the constant French jibes and jokes which the French had uttered constantly against the English. He backed Sigismund's plan, more out of outrage at the French intransigence than anything else, and stated that if anyone should be in the vanguard for their rank, then he would be the obvious choice. The two men, Constable and King, ended up in a screaming match where weapons were almost drawn. In the end Edward told the French to go ahead and fight the Turks themselves, before leaving with Sigismund and the Grand Master of the Hospitalers to plan their own course (10). While many among the young Frenchmen were for immediately leaving, Jean de Nevers found himself pulled aside by Coucy and Admiral de Vienne who strongly advised remaining with the bulk of the crusading force. Nevers eventually was convinced to stay, but proved unable to convince many of the other young knights from Germany and France (11).
It was for this reason that the crusading army split in twain. Remaining at Nicopolis to establish a garrison and to discover Bayezid's location were Sigismund and Edward's forces along with the Spanish contingent under John of Beaufort, Duke of Villahermosa and the Hospitaler contingent under Philibert de Naillac. Around half the German contingent and many of the other smaller contingents remained as well, along with John de Nevers, Enguerrand de Coucy, Henry de Bar (12) and Admiral de Vienne and their contingents. The vast majority of the French and half the Germans left Nicopolis cursing the cowardice of those they left behind. Among those leaving were the Constable d'Eu, Boucicaut, Odard de Chasseron, Jean de Carrouges and a host of other lesser and greater French knights who were joined by many German knights following the young William of Ostrevant (13). This Franco-German crusader army left camp as soon as possible and continued their march eastward, dragging their prisoners from Rachowa and Nicopolis behind them. The remaining crusaders would leave a day later.
Footnotes:
(1) I am sorry about the massive amounts of OTL covered here, but I really felt that I needed to make sure everyone was on the same page regarding the situation in Constantinople. All of this is from OTL. I also find Manuel II a really interesting emperor who could have been so much more under the right circumstances, which kind of explains the glowing description of him - but particularly when contrasted with his father he comes off so much better. Bayezid's murder of Yakub is the first fratricidal succession of many OTL Ottoman successions.
(2) All of this is OTL, except for Edward's presence. The English are too far back to participate at Rachowa, and are becoming increasingly annoyed with the French - who aren't sharing the booty.
(3) All of this is basically OTL, including the complete lack of siege equipment. The crusade that led to the Battle of Nicopolis was probably one of the most boneheaded expeditions of the time.
(4) IOTL the crusaders ended up sitting outside Nicopolis for two weeks before skirmishing started with the Turks. Coucy then defeated a minor contingent, an act which convinced the French that the Turks would be beaten easily. When Bayezid arrived for the battle they charged straight at them and ended up being encircled. It was one of those events where you sit down after reading about it and marvel at the sheer idiocy sometimes exhibited by the chivalric classes during this time period.
(5) God bless King Edward and his guns, as they will say in England. I am not completely sure if the technology was present to accomplish this, but Edward had really been pushing for the further development of gunpowder weaponry, particularly for sieges, which is why I think this is at least a possibility. Cannon like this was present some 20 years later, but I am not sure of how cutting edge it was at that point. With far less instability and the focused support of the English King it should be possible to achieve this.
(6) The French crusaders continue to be generous battle-buddies. I really don't think this is out of character for them, particularly when you consider that they would have to share credit with the English. That isn't going to happen.
(7) The only major difference here is that the siege is successful and they are celebrating after capturing the fortress, rather than before - which they did IOTL. Like I have said, absolute bone-heads…
(8) This was Sigismund's plan IOTL and clearly shows his experience fighting the Turks.
(9) All of this is OTL. Boucicaut really was that arrogant. I am really looking forward to when I can stop writing about him and the Constable, they are just too plain stupid about this sort of stuff.
(10) Edward has finally had enough. I can't see any way of getting most of the younger French or German knights to listen to reason based on what I have read of the OTL Battle of Nicopolis, so Edward just wants them gone. Sigismund eventually gave up on talking to them and left to save what he could. He and the head of the Hospitalers ended up having to flee by boat from the Turks after the French were crushed. Nicopolis was a heavy blow to Sigismund's prestige, which led to immense instability in Hungary.
(11) The older knights really have to use all their persuasive abilities to get Nevers to stay, but most of the others are impossible to get to listen.
(12) Henry and the rest of the Bar contingent are only staying around because Coucy, who is his father-in-law, pulled all his strings to get them to stay.
(13) I can't imagine William of Ostrevant wouldn't join the young knights in leaving when you consider the background for him joining the crusade to begin with. He ends up being the primary leader for the German contingent in the first crusader army.
Nicopolis
The Battle of Kosovo
Manuel Palaeologos was still in exile on Lemnos when, in the summer of 1389, the Serbs made their attempt to shake off the Ottoman yoke. After the disaster on the Maritsa, where Lala Shahin Pasha led a force of 800 in destroying the 70,000 man strong Serbian Army, it had seemed impossible that they should ever fight as a nation again; and yet, weakened and divided as they now were, with the glorious if short-lived Empire of Stephen Dushan no more than a distant memory, a league of Serbian boyars gathered together under the leadership of a certain Prince Lazar Hrebelianovich, who had seized control of northern Serbia after the death of Stephen Urosh V in 1371, to resist the Turkish advance. It included Vuk Brankovich, ruler of the southern district of Kosovo, and was later also joined by Stefan Tverko, Prince of Bosnia. Between 1386 and 1388, after the Sultan had been obliged to return to Anatolia, this league had proved remarkably successful, defeating the Turks in a number of skirmishes and even in one or two pitched battles. But in 1389 Murad was back in the Balkans, with several new regiments brought with him from Asia; and in the early summer he advanced on the plain of Kosovo, 'the field of blackbirds'. Serbian morale was low. The princes were in disagreement amongst themselves, and treason was widely hinted at: Lazar himself, in a speech on the eve of the battle, openly accused his own son-in-law, Milosh Obravich, of working for the enemy. Murad, on the other hand, though he spent much of the night in prayer, was so confident of victory that he had ordered that all castles, towns and villages in the region should be spared; the castles he would need later, and he had no wish to antagonize his future subjects unnecessarily. The next morning, the Sultan drew up his army in its usual order. He himself commanded the center, with his regiment of Janissaries and his personal guard of cavalry; on the right was his elder son Bayezid with the European troops, on the left his younger son Yakub with the regiments from Asia. To begin with, fortune was against them. Ignoring an initial advance by two thousand Turkish archers, the Serbian cavalry launched a massive charge that broke through the Turkish left flank. But Bayezid immediately swung around and urged his men at full gallop to the rescue, laying about him to left and right with his heavy iron mace. After this counter-attack, the Turks gradually gained the upper hand - though it was only after Vuk Brankovich fled the field towards the end of the day, taking with him twelve thousand of his men, that the surviving Serbs finally broke up in disorder and fled. Whether or not Brankovich's treachery was the result of a secret compact with the Sultan will never be known; if there was one, Murad never lived to reveal it. Murad's death was the work of Milosh Obravich, furious at the aspersions which had been publicly cast upon him by his father-in-law and determined to prove his loyalty. According to the most probable version of the story, he pretended to desert to the enemy and was brought before Murad; he made his formal obeisance and then, before the guard could prevent him, plunged a long dagger twice into the Sultan's breast — with such force that the blade emerged at the back. He was immediately set upon and dispatched in turn, but the deed was done. Murad's last act was to summon Lazar - who had been taken prisoner at an earlier stage in the battle - and condemn him to execution. Bayezid's very first action, after his proclamation as Sultan on the field of Kosovo, was to order the death of his brother and fellow-commander Yakub. The sentence was immediately carried out; the young Prince was garroted with a bowstring. He had shown great courage in the battle and was much loved by his men, but for Bayezid these qualities only increased the likelihood of his one day stirring up sedition (1).
Returning shortly afterwards to the capital, John VII Palaeologos found messengers awaiting him from Bayezid; and on the night of 13 April 1390, with the aid of a small force put at his disposal by the Sultan, he succeeded in overturning John V for the second time, making his triumphal entry into the city the following morning. Once again the Emperor John V - together with Manuel, whom he had summoned back from Lemnos just a fortnight before, and a number of loyal followers - barricaded himself into the fortress of the Golden Gate and settled down to withstand a siege. Manuel, however, slipped away to seek assistance. His first two attempts to rescue his father were unsuccessful, but on 25 August he appeared with two galleys lent by the Knights of St John from their base in Rhodes, one each from Lemnos, Christopolis and Constantinople, and four other smaller vessels of unknown provenance. Fortunately the Golden Gate stronghold was only a few yards from the Marmara, and possessed its own harbor into which the little fleet had no difficulty in forcing its way. Fighting continued for the next three weeks, but on Saturday, 17 September the old Emperor and his men made a sudden sally, taking his grandson completely off his guard and driving him out of the city (1).
Fully reconciled at last, John and Manuel returned triumphantly to the Palace of Blachernae. There was, however, a price to be paid for their success. The Sultan, away in Anatolia, looked upon the failure of his attempt to install John VII on the throne as not so much a political reverse as a personal insult. Furious, he demanded that Manuel should immediately join him on campaign, bringing with him all the tribute that was by now owing. A similar summons was sent to John VII, with whom he was almost as angry. In the circumstances the two men, despite their mutual detestation, could only obey; nor, that same autumn, could they refuse the Sultan's orders to take part in the siege of Philadelphia. And so it was that not one but two Emperors of the Romans found themselves directly instrumental in enforcing the capitulation of the last surviving Eastern Roman stronghold in Asia Minor. Soon afterwards Bayezid sent John V another still more peremptory ultimatum. The fortress of the Golden Gate - which, in the previous year, had saved his crown if not his life - was to be demolished. Failure to obey would result in the immediate imprisonment and blinding of Manuel, who was still being held at the Sultan's camp. Once again the poor Emperor had no choice but to comply; it was, however, the last indignity that he was called upon to suffer. With the coming of winter he retired to his private apartments, where he took to his bed and turned his face to the wall. He died on 16 February 1391, aged fifty-eight. He had reigned as basileus - if dated from his coronation in November 1341 - just a few months short of half a century (1).
Depiction of Bayezid's Army
Within days of his accession, Manuel II showed his mettle. There was, he knew, a serious danger that Bayezid, as Constantinople's suzerain, might appoint his nephew John VII as basileus; and this was a risk that he could not possibly accept. When the news of his father's death reached him he was still a hostage of the Sultan, who had returned to his capital at Brusa. At once he began to make his plans, and on the night of the 7th March 1391 he slipped out of the camp and made his way secretly to the coast, where a ship was waiting to take him across the Marmara to Constantinople. He was welcomed in the capital with enthusiasm. Now in the prime of life - at the time of his accession he was not quite forty-one — in appearance he was every inch an Emperor: Bayezid himself had once observed that his imperial blood was recognizable from his bearing alone, even to those seeing him for the first time. He enjoyed perfect health and possessed apparently boundless energy. He had a deep love of literature and theology. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than the composition of essays and dissertations on matters of Christian doctrine. He remained, however, a man of action. Twice, in 1371 and again in 1390, he had come to the rescue of his increasingly incapable father, on both occasions with complete success. The Emperor was now but a weak and virtually helpless vassal of the Ottoman Sultan; and the Sultan, who would probably have preferred to see the far more amenable John VII on the throne of Constantinople, had been outraged by the quiet deliberation with which Manuel had assumed it without his authority. His reaction was to inflict two more humiliations on the Romans. The first was to set aside a whole area of the city for Turkish merchants, who would be no longer subject to imperial law but whose affairs would be regulated by a qadi, a judge, appointed by himself. The second - in May 1391, only two months after Manuel's accession as sole Emperor - was to summon him once again to Anatolia to take part in yet another of his campaigns, this time to the Black Sea coast - a feudal obligation distasteful enough in itself, but made considerably more so by the company of John VII, to whom he could still hardly bring himself to speak, and by the sadness and devastation of the country through which they marched. The Emperor was back in Constantinople by the middle of January 1392, and on Saturday, the 10th of February he took to himself a bride. She was Helena, daughter of Constantine Dragash, the Serbian Prince of Serres — like himself, a vassal of the Sultan. The marriage was followed the next day by a joint coronation. For Manuel this was not strictly necessary - he had already been crowned nineteen years before - but he believed with good reason that such a ceremony, performed with the full Orthodox ritual and as much pomp and display as could be managed, would provide the best possible tonic to his subjects' morale. It would remind them, too, of what Constantinople stood for: of the continuity with which Emperor had succeeded Emperor without a break - even though occasionally in exile - for thirteen centuries since the days of ancient Rome; of the fact that, whatever dangers he himself might be facing, whatever occasional indignities he might be called upon to suffer, he remained supreme among the princes of Christendom, Equal of the Apostles, God's own anointed Vice-Regent on Earth (1).
For a year and a half after his coronation Manuel was left in comparative peace; but in July 1393 a serious insurrection in Bulgaria against the Sultan brought swift retribution, and the following winter Bayezid called his principal Christian vassals to his camp at Serres. Apart from the Emperor himself, they included his brother Theodore, Despot of the Morea, his father-in-law Constantine Dragash, his nephew John VII and the Serbian Stephen Lazarevic. None of them knew, however, that the others had been summoned also: only when they were all assembled did they realize how completely they had put themselves in the Sultan's power. Manuel himself was convinced that a general massacre had been intended, and that Bayezid had countermanded his own orders only after the eunuch entrusted with the executions had refused or somehow prevaricated. Eventually, after giving his vassals further grim warnings of the consequences of any future disobedience, he let them go — apart from Theodore, who was obliged to accompany him on campaign to Thessaly and was there put under severe pressure to yield Monemvasia, Argos and several other fortresses in the Peloponnese. The luckless Despot undertook to comply; fortunately, however, he escaped soon afterwards to his own territory, where he immediately rescinded his promises. Manuel meanwhile, still shaken by what he believed till the end of his life to have been a narrow escape from death, returned with all speed to Constantinople. Soon afterwards he received yet another summons from Bayezid. This time he flatly refused. His experience at Serres had driven him to an inescapable conclusion: the days of appeasement were over. Such a policy might have succeeded with Murad - who, despite occasional bouts of savagery, had been an essentially reasonable man with whom civilized discussions were possible. Bayezid, on the other hand, had shown himself to be unbalanced and deeply untrustworthy. Manuel's first instincts had been right after all. The sole chance of survival was in resistance. Meanwhile, however, he had no delusions as to the momentousness of the decision he had taken. His refusal of the Sultan's summons would be interpreted as an act of open defiance, a casting-off of his former vassalage - in effect, a declaration of war (1).
One consideration only enabled him to contemplate such a step: however determined Bayezid might be to annihilate him, however great the Turkish army or formidable their siege engines, he still believed in the impregnability of Constantinople. On both occasions that the city had fallen to armed force - in 1203 and again in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade - the attacks had been launched from the sea, against the relatively inferior fortifications which ran along the shore of the Golden Horn. Such an operation would be impossible for Bayezid, who was still without an effective navy. He could attack only by land, from the west, and despite the recent demolition of the fortress by the Golden Gate the Land Walls were as strong as ever they had been. They had stood for almost a thousand years; the Byzantines had long since lost count of the number of would-be conquerors who had turned away from them, furious and frustrated at their own impotence and often without loosing a single arrow. Manuel was soon able to put his theory to the test. In the spring of 1394 an immense Turkish army marched against Constantinople, and by the beginning of autumn the siege had begun in earnest. The Sultan had ordered a complete blockade, and although an occasional vessel managed to run the gauntlet — notably a Venetian merchantman which arrived early in 1395 with a much-needed shipment of grain — for some time essential supplies ran desperately short. All the land outside the walls, inaccessible to the inhabitants anyway, had been laid waste; the only areas available for cultivation were the plots and gardens within the city itself. Fortunately for the citizens, however, the situation gradually eased. The blockade was not lifted - it was to continue in one form or another for the remainder of the siege, during which spasmodic attacks continued to be made on the walls - but gradually, as the ever-unpredictable Bayezid lost interest in the siege and involved himself in other operations that offered more immediate rewards, the pressure in some degree relaxed. At last Manuel was able to devote some of his time to diplomacy — for, he was well aware, without foreign alliances his Empire could have no long-term prospects of survival. This was the moment his voice joined the others calling for a crusade (1).
The next objective of the crusading army, 75 miles farther on, was Rachowa, a strong fortress protected by a moat and a double ring of walls. Determined on deeds of arms, the French hastened by a night march to reach it ahead of their allies and arrived at dawn just as the Turkish defenders came out to destroy the bridge over the moat. In a fierce fight, 500 men-at-arms including Coucy, Constable D’Eu, Marshal Boucicaut, Count Jacque de la Marche, and Philippe de Bar gained the bridge but against vigorous resistance could make no further headway until Sigismund sent up reinforcements. Rather than allow others to share the honor of the fight, Boucicaut would have rejected the aid, but in spite of him the forces combined and reached the walls as night fell. Next morning, before combat could be renewed, the Bulgarian inhabitants arranged to surrender the town to Sigismund on condition that their goods and lives would be spared. Violating the surrender, the French put the town to pillage and massacre, claiming later that the place was taken by assault because their men-at-arms had already scaled the walls. A thousand prisoners, both Turkish and Bulgarian, were seized for ransom and the town left in flames. The Hungarians took the action as an insult to their King; the French charged the Hungarians with trying to rob them of their glory; Sigismund’s apprehensions were confirmed while Edward was dispirited at the discord. Leaving a garrison to hold Rachowa, the divided army moved on to Nicopolis, storming and seizing one or two forts and settlements on the way, but by-passing one citadel from which emissaries escaped to carry news of the Christian army to the Sultan (2). Bayezid was already on the European side, having revisited the Siege of Constantinople, where he learned of the crusaders’ plan of campaign through intercepting correspondence between Sigismund and the Emperor Manuel. Leaving the siege, he marched with the forces he had immediately available, gathering others at garrisons en route to the crusaders.
Siege of Nicopolis as Pictured by a Turkish Painter
As the key to control of the lower Danube and communications with the interior, Nicopolis was essential to the crusaders, who made it their strategic objective. They came within sight of the fortress high on its limestone cliff on the 12th of September. A road ran along the narrow space between the river’s edge and the base of the cliff. On the inland side a ravine split the cliff into two heights dominating the lower town and descending steeply to the plain. The fortress was actually two walled and fortified enclosures or towns, the larger one on the bluff and the smaller below, each containing military, civil, and religious buildings and in the larger one a bazaar or street of shops. The French had no difficulty recognizing an objective as formidable as Mahdia, even without the knowledge that it was well supplied with arms and provisions and commanded by a resolute Turkish governor, Dogan Bey. Convinced that the Sultan must come to the defense of so important a stronghold, the Governor was prepared to fight for time, and resist, if necessary, to the end. The French had brought no catapults or other siege weapons, as they had brought none against Barbary. Funds had been invested in silks and velvet and gold embroidery, cargo space packed with wines and festive provisions. Boucicaut made light of their lack of siege weapons. No matter, said he, ladders were easily made and, when used by men of courage, were worth more than any catapults (3). He therefore launched an initial assault at the walls of Nicopolis in spite of Edward and Sigismund's entreaties to set up proper siege lines. The assault proved a dismal failure, with many of the French participants giving up before even reaching the walls (4).
This was the moment that Edward emerged as to play his part in the siege. In his baggage train he had brought five state-of-the-art heavy bombards, among the largest yet produced in Christendom, with the hope of finding an opportunity to use them (5). He immediately set his soldiers to building positions from which they could target the wall. Over the following days the bombards were put into place while the French knights chafed under Edward's instructions. The siege lines were carefully established by Edward before he ordered his artillery to begin its bombardment. Over the next three days several breaches were created in both upper and lower walls, before the French were unleashed on the city, after negotiations failed. The fighting that followed was incredibly intense, though the defenders stood no chance against their enemies, who outnumbered them and were furious with embarrassment at being outdone by the English. The city was subsequently subjected to a sack by the angry French crusaders who claimed all of the spoils for themselves, including the large number of slaves they had taken. Nicopolis had fallen in just under ten days (6).
Marshal Jean II le Maingre, Called Boucicaut
The crusaders spent the next couple of days celebrating their victory with feasts, games, debaucheries, and the voicing of contempt for the lacking enemy presence. Allies were invited to splendid dinners in tents ornamented with pictures; nobles exchanged visits, appearing every day in new clothes with long sleeves and pointed shoes. Despite hospitality, sarcasm and jokes about the courage of their allies deepened ill-feeling in the army. In drunkenness and carelessness, no sentinels were posted. Natives of the region, alienated by pillage, brought in no information. Foragers, however, moving farther out each day, reported rumors of the Turks’ approach. A reconnaissance party of 500 Hungarian horsemen, sent forward by Sigismund, penetrated to the vicinity of Tarnovo, seventy miles to the south, and brought back word that the “Great Turk” was coming (7).
Sigismund convened a council of war. He proposed that the Wallachian foot soldiers should be sent forward to meet the enemy’s vanguard, which was customarily a rabble of rough conscripts whom the Turks sent ahead of their main force for purposes of pillage. In battle they were exposed to the brunt of opponents’ attack in order to tire them. They were not worthy, Sigismund said, of the combat of knights. When the shock of contact had been absorbed by the common soldiers, French chivalry, forming the crusaders’ front line, could enter battle in full and fresh strength. The Hungarians and allies would follow to support their attack and keep the sipahis, the Turkish cavalry, from dashing in upon their flanks. The honor and glory of battle, as Sigismund concluded, did not lie in the first blows but in the last—in those blows that finished the combat and decided the victory (8). Constable d’Eu furiously objected. French knights had not come so far, he said, to be preceded into battle by a miserable peasant militia more accustomed to flee than to fight. The knight’s custom was not to follow, but to lead and to encourage others by his example. “To take up the rear is to dishonor us and expose us to the contempt of all.” Moreover, as Constable, he claimed the front place; anyone ahead of him would do him a mortal insult. Boucicaut supported him warmly; Nevers, in the belief that Turkish sabers and scimitars could not resist the lances and swords of France, was easily persuaded along with the younger hotheads of his suite (9). Edward finally exploded in rage at the constant French jibes and jokes which the French had uttered constantly against the English. He backed Sigismund's plan, more out of outrage at the French intransigence than anything else, and stated that if anyone should be in the vanguard for their rank, then he would be the obvious choice. The two men, Constable and King, ended up in a screaming match where weapons were almost drawn. In the end Edward told the French to go ahead and fight the Turks themselves, before leaving with Sigismund and the Grand Master of the Hospitalers to plan their own course (10). While many among the young Frenchmen were for immediately leaving, Jean de Nevers found himself pulled aside by Coucy and Admiral de Vienne who strongly advised remaining with the bulk of the crusading force. Nevers eventually was convinced to stay, but proved unable to convince many of the other young knights from Germany and France (11).
It was for this reason that the crusading army split in twain. Remaining at Nicopolis to establish a garrison and to discover Bayezid's location were Sigismund and Edward's forces along with the Spanish contingent under John of Beaufort, Duke of Villahermosa and the Hospitaler contingent under Philibert de Naillac. Around half the German contingent and many of the other smaller contingents remained as well, along with John de Nevers, Enguerrand de Coucy, Henry de Bar (12) and Admiral de Vienne and their contingents. The vast majority of the French and half the Germans left Nicopolis cursing the cowardice of those they left behind. Among those leaving were the Constable d'Eu, Boucicaut, Odard de Chasseron, Jean de Carrouges and a host of other lesser and greater French knights who were joined by many German knights following the young William of Ostrevant (13). This Franco-German crusader army left camp as soon as possible and continued their march eastward, dragging their prisoners from Rachowa and Nicopolis behind them. The remaining crusaders would leave a day later.
Footnotes:
(1) I am sorry about the massive amounts of OTL covered here, but I really felt that I needed to make sure everyone was on the same page regarding the situation in Constantinople. All of this is from OTL. I also find Manuel II a really interesting emperor who could have been so much more under the right circumstances, which kind of explains the glowing description of him - but particularly when contrasted with his father he comes off so much better. Bayezid's murder of Yakub is the first fratricidal succession of many OTL Ottoman successions.
(2) All of this is OTL, except for Edward's presence. The English are too far back to participate at Rachowa, and are becoming increasingly annoyed with the French - who aren't sharing the booty.
(3) All of this is basically OTL, including the complete lack of siege equipment. The crusade that led to the Battle of Nicopolis was probably one of the most boneheaded expeditions of the time.
(4) IOTL the crusaders ended up sitting outside Nicopolis for two weeks before skirmishing started with the Turks. Coucy then defeated a minor contingent, an act which convinced the French that the Turks would be beaten easily. When Bayezid arrived for the battle they charged straight at them and ended up being encircled. It was one of those events where you sit down after reading about it and marvel at the sheer idiocy sometimes exhibited by the chivalric classes during this time period.
(5) God bless King Edward and his guns, as they will say in England. I am not completely sure if the technology was present to accomplish this, but Edward had really been pushing for the further development of gunpowder weaponry, particularly for sieges, which is why I think this is at least a possibility. Cannon like this was present some 20 years later, but I am not sure of how cutting edge it was at that point. With far less instability and the focused support of the English King it should be possible to achieve this.
(6) The French crusaders continue to be generous battle-buddies. I really don't think this is out of character for them, particularly when you consider that they would have to share credit with the English. That isn't going to happen.
(7) The only major difference here is that the siege is successful and they are celebrating after capturing the fortress, rather than before - which they did IOTL. Like I have said, absolute bone-heads…
(8) This was Sigismund's plan IOTL and clearly shows his experience fighting the Turks.
(9) All of this is OTL. Boucicaut really was that arrogant. I am really looking forward to when I can stop writing about him and the Constable, they are just too plain stupid about this sort of stuff.
(10) Edward has finally had enough. I can't see any way of getting most of the younger French or German knights to listen to reason based on what I have read of the OTL Battle of Nicopolis, so Edward just wants them gone. Sigismund eventually gave up on talking to them and left to save what he could. He and the head of the Hospitalers ended up having to flee by boat from the Turks after the French were crushed. Nicopolis was a heavy blow to Sigismund's prestige, which led to immense instability in Hungary.
(11) The older knights really have to use all their persuasive abilities to get Nevers to stay, but most of the others are impossible to get to listen.
(12) Henry and the rest of the Bar contingent are only staying around because Coucy, who is his father-in-law, pulled all his strings to get them to stay.
(13) I can't imagine William of Ostrevant wouldn't join the young knights in leaving when you consider the background for him joining the crusade to begin with. He ends up being the primary leader for the German contingent in the first crusader army.
Everything that could go wrong went wrong basically, but worst of all was the fact that the French just denied any and every attempt at talking them into thinking tactically and strategically. Particularly the French had a tendency to ignore that they were part of a larger force and just attack. The French were probably better warriors man-to-man, but rarely worked very well as a military unit.
I was always amazed by the sheer amount of incompetency the French make proof during the HYW... I mean, they freezes the ridicule and everything seems a parody... If it would not have it happened, it would be considered implausible in any timeline.
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