Second government of the uncles
The
regency government of the kingdom of France of 1382 to 1388 managed the affairs of state during the later minority of King Charles VI of France. It is known as the
second government of the uncles, as the kingdom was governed in Charles's name by three of his four uncles following the departure of Louis I, duke of Anjou, for
Anjou's Crusade, which ended the
first government of the uncles.
The second government of the uncles was dominated by Philippe II, duke of Burgundy, who became the wealthiest man in France following his wife's inheritance of the county of Flanders. As regent of France, Burgundy deployed the crown's resources to further his own position in Flanders and the Low Countries. This was accepted by the political establishment for a time, but was the duke's undoing after the war with England began to turn against the French.
Background
Philippe II, duke of Burgundy, loyally served his brother, King Charles V of France, throughout his life. He provided advice and led campaigns when called upon to do so. He was a skilled diplomat and his kingly brother's favorite envoy to the English. The war was not the great project of the duke's life, though, as his wife, Marguerite of Flanders, was the greatest heiress of her generation. Burgundy would dedicate his life to acquiring Flanders and other lands that were set to come to her in time.
The county of Flanders sat uneasily between England and France in the fourteenth century. On paper, it was a part of France, but it was highly autonomous and its people tended to view the kings of France more as hostile neighbors than as overlords. Flanders was one of the most densely urbanized parts of Europe, despite its lands being mostly infertile. Its large urban population had made it a commercial powerhouse, driven by a fantastically profitable cloth industry. It was dependent on England for wool to produce the cloth and on France for food to feed its people. Flemish noble and rebel leaders alike had aligned themselves with the English as a result of their economic ties, but Flanders was culturally, linguistically and politically distinct from both England and France.
Marguerite's father, Louis II, count of Flanders, was a cunning man, despite his quick temper and tendency to hold grudges. He adhered to a strict policy of neutrality after the outbreak of the Caroline War in 1369. This kept Flanders peaceful and prosperous while England and France devastated each other, but it politically isolated the count. By the early 1380s, his only allies were his cousin, the duke of Brittany, and his son-in-law, Burgundy, who was his heir
jure uxoris.
The commercial power of Flanders generated extraordinary wealth, but it was highly concentrated in a small class of merchants and greater artisans, notably the weavers. These oligarchs monopolized power in the towns and worked closely with the local nobility. The oligarchs were constantly at odds with the lesser artisans, notably the fullers, and workers. The three great towns of Flanders—Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres—had seen riots break out at least eight times between 1359 and 1377 as a result of the class struggles. Economic anxiety made the situation even more volatile, as cloth prices plunged when new competition from Brabant, which had developed its own cloth industry, began to flood the market just as fashion trends among the elite began to shift toward Italian silk and velvet in the 1370s.
Revolt of Ghent
In 1379, the construction of a new canal between the Lys and Zwyn rivers would be the match that lit the powder keg of anxieties and resentments. The canal would allow river trade to bypass Ghent, which would hurt the town economically. Protests against its construction ran through the spring and into summer. In July, they turned violent when a group called the White Chaperons, who were named after the color and style of hoods they wore, attacked and killed several canal workers, then destroyed the work that had been done.
Popular support for the Chaperons in Ghent was so great after the attack that the town's councilors were forced from power by an angry mob and the Chaperons were elected in their place. The count of Flanders sent a bailiff to Ghent in September to restore order, but the bailiff was lynched and the count's magnificent manor house was looted and burned. Comital officers were run out of town. Then, the Chaperons led the mob against the city's oligarchs.
The revolt spread like wildfire. The town of Courtrai declared its support for the Chaperons before the end of the month. The lesser artisans of Ypres conspired with the Chaperons to overthrow their own oligarchs. All the smaller towns between Ghent and Ypres rose up once Ypres joined the revolt. Only Bruges remained loyal, though more out of its long-standing rivalry with Ghent than anything else. Towns in the Bruges orbit, like Damme and Sluys, were taken by force after the Chaperons organized a makeshift army. The oligarchs of Bruges then threw their lot in with Ghent, fearing they would be massacred if they held out any longer. Comital government had fallen. All of Flanders was under the control of the Chaperons.
Burgundy mediated talks between the Chaperons and the count in late 1379. The count was forced to agree to abandon the canal project, devolve judicial power to the towns, lower taxes, and reconfirm town charters. It was a humiliating treaty that the count had no intention of honoring. In the new year, he sought aid from Charles V, but the king had no interest in a Flemish civil war or in supporting a man who had not supported him against England. The count waged his own war and retook control of much of Flanders, but Ghent itself held out.
First government of the uncles
Charles V died on 16 September 1380. His eldest brother, Louis I, duke of Anjou, became
regent for the young King Charles VI of France, who was months shy of his twelfth birthday. The count of Flanders went back to Paris in hopes of gaining royal support for another campaign against Ghent in 1381, but Anjou was no more interested in supporting the count than his kingly brother had been. Over the course of the next year, Anjou steered France into a major financial crisis, northern France was left dangerously exposed, southern France was gripped by revolt, and the English conquered Saintonge. France was in crisis.
On 7 January 1382, Anjou resigned the regency to launch
his crusade for the kingdom of Naples. Jean, duke of Berry, was the next-most senior member of the royal family, but he possessed neither the skill nor the gravitas to lead the country. The regency thus fell to Burgundy, who immediately signaled his support for French intervention in Flanders. First, though, he had to confront the financial crisis left in Anjou's wake.
Languedoïl
Burgundy adopted a much more aggressive stance toward the Estates-General than Anjou had done. The administrators that the estates had appointed to collect taxes were dismissed and Burgundian officials were brought in to oversee tax collection. Towns and provincial assemblies, which had secured the right to assess their own taxes during Anjou's short time in office, were now informed by the crown as to what they were to collect and informed that royal officials would oversee the process. Local leaders had no time to react, as the collection was to begin on 1 March.
On 24 February, orders for the reimposition of the
aides reached Rouen. The reaction was immediate and extreme. Textile workers stormed the local administrative building and rang the tower bells to signal that the city was under threat. Two hundred armed men turned out to defend the town, chasing off local authorities in a demonstration of support for the workers. A meeting was called in the old market square, where the crowd grew drunk on wine stolen from local officials. The drunken mob elected the draper Jean le Gras "king." He declared an end to taxes, then reimposed them and abolished them again, over and over, drawing laughs from the crowd. The mood turned hostile as the farce continued, though. Anger toward the city's artisan leaders, who had grown enormously wealthy from shipbuilding in recent decades, exploded.
The mob looted the homes of the bourgeoisie, breaking windows, carrying off gold and silver, destroying furniture and tapestries, and setting hotels ablaze. Their anger was not sated, though, and the mob turned next to royal officials. Administrators were killed and account books burned. Saint-Ouen Abbey was violated and those seeking its sanctuary were dragged onto the street and executed. The Jewish population was massacred in the county's latest pogrom.
On 1 March, Burgundy led an army out of Paris toward Rouen. Just hours later, a Paris protest against the new regime grew heated and tax collectors were assaulted as they went to work. Hundreds of locals began pouring into the central marketplace, where the protests had begun, swelling the mob. The mass of people marched on the armory, which was only lightly guarded, and distributed mallets amongst themselves. The city had been denuded of defenders to support Burgundy's army, allowing the now-armed mob to go forth effectively unchallenged. A dispatch was sent recalling the duke to the city.
Burgundy was already a half-day's ride from Paris when word reached him. By then, the registrar's office had been breached and its records destroyed, tax collectors had been cut down in the streets, and wealthy homes had been plundered. The Hôtel de Soissons, the duke of Anjou's personal residence, was turned into the headquarters of the most radical members of the mob. From there they planned a complete takeover of the city. The captain of Paris rallied the few men that remained under his command in hopes of holding off the mob until Burgundy could return, but he was overwhelmed. Other royal and local officials abandoned their posts.
Burgundy camped his army outside Paris and heard the rebels' demands, which included the abolition of all taxes and a royal pardon for the city. He conceded nothing, the news of which led to further violence in the city. As the days passed, word of the uprising inspired revolts in Amiens, Caen, Orléans, and many more cities and towns. The movement, known as the Revolt of the Towns, did not budge Burgundy.
On 29 March, Burgundy had the gates of Rouen battered down. A royal army entered the city with the young king himself at its head. Rebel leaders were rounded up and executed. Further bloodshed was averted only when the people of Rouen threw themselves at Charles's feet, accepting a gigantic fine of 100,000
francs and the revocation of the city's charter. Burgundy's demonstration of force brought smaller towns back into line. Cities and larger towns that held out were subjected to the same treatment, including Paris. On 1 June, Charles led his army into the capital. Rebel leaders who were told they did not need to fear punishment were arrested and executed on Burgundy's orders in a shocking double-cross. Charles V's administrative system was then rebuilt under Burgundian auspices.
Tax revenue began to trickle in again over the summer, but it was slow. Burgundy needed to expand the tax base by reestablishing control over Languedoc, which had been in the grip of a larger and horribly violent uprising known as the Tuchin Revolt since the fall of 1381. The duke of Berry, who was the governor of Languedoc, had failed to restore order. Burgundy made plans to send Charles VI south, hoping the young king's presence at the head of the royal army would have the same effect that it had in Paris and Rouen. An army was assembled at Orléans, from where the king was supposed to lead it south to Languedoc. In September, though, the campaign was hastily called off, leaving Berry to his own devices.
Flanders
Burgundy may have hoped that his brutal repression of the revolts in northern France would cow Ghent into submission, but he would have badly misjudged the rebels of Flanders if he did. In early 1382, Ghent had elected Filips van Artevelde, son of the famed rebel of the 1330s and 40s, as its new leader. It signaled radical new aims for the revolt, as van Artevelde advocated for Ghent's full independence, hoping to establish Ghent as a city-state in northern Europe. In September, news arrived that van Artevelde had dispatched an embassy to Westminster. Alarmed, Burgundy abruptly canceled Charles VI's campaign to Languedoc and called the army that had been gathering at Orléans north.
By 5 October, about 6,500 fighting men were gathered around Château de Vincennes, a royal fortress east of Paris. Charles led them north, arriving at Arras on 1 November. Another 3,500 men joined the army there over the next two weeks, more than half brought by Burgundy himself, bringing the army's total size to about 10,000. The count of Flanders raised his own army at Lille.
The stakes of the campaign were enormously high, as the kingdom still simmered with popular anger. Both the highest-born nobility and the most lowly commoners followed news of the campaign closely, as it was widely believed that northern France would descend into chaos once more if the king failed in Flanders. Such expectations drove a high turnout from members of the nobility, who were eager to crush the lower classes. Most forewent raising levies, fearing that they would be betrayed by the common men in the field. This may have been a wise decision given that, in some areas, bands of peasants and townsmen worked to obstruct the movement of men and materials to Flanders. Most made it through, though, and the result was that that royal army was overwhelmingly made up of cavalry and professional soldiers.
Ghent had the support of a number of towns, but that support was shaky. Still, the class divisions and popular anger that drove recruitment for the royal army worked for the rebels as well. Van Artevelde had about 35,000 men under his command, but his talks with England had come to little. Drowning in debt and led by a dysfunctional regency council as a result of
Lancaster's Crusade, the English allowed van Artevelde to recruit volunteers in England but gave him no other support. As a result, his army was made up of raw, lowborn recruits who had no experience in war. Perhaps not understanding the disadvantage, as van Artevelde himself was no soldier, the rebels formed a field army and prepared for battle.
Bertrand du Guesclin, constable of France, was advising Castile as it fought against Lancaster's Crusade. In his absence, another Breton lord, Olivier V de Clisson, had emerged as the crown's top military advisor. He sought a quick confrontation with the rebels, but discovered they had destroyed the bridge over the Lys at Comines. A small French force forded the river, dispersed the rebels on the other side, and repaired the bridge. The whole French army was across by 20 November.
Rebel support evaporated once the royal army crossed the Lys. The townsmen of Ypres feared a sack and turned against the Chaperons, who were rounded up and arrested. The gates were thrown open to the royal army and the Chaperons, clapped in chains, were handed over to the king. He ordered their immediate executions.
Ypres was spared for its quick return to royal authority. Other towns in the area were not so lucky. The royal army washed over the surrounding land, burning and looting as they went. Whole towns were razed to the ground and their people slaughtered for harboring the rebels of Ghent.
On 27 November, van Artevelde made a desperate last stand near the village of Roosebeke. He had only about 60 English men-at-arms with him as volunteers, but he took their advice seriously. As a result, he took a defensive position atop a hill despite his huge numerical advantage over the French. It did not matter.
Charles had the Oriflamme, France's holy war banner, unfurled. Clisson ordered a French infantry attack on the enemy center. The slow attack uphill gave van Artevelde false hope, but cavalry divisions outflanked the rebel army and surrounded it. A massacre followed, as the well-armed and armored French killed at least 28,000 of the 35,000 poorly-equipped rebels on the field that day. Van Artevelde was among them.
The rebellion in Flanders collapsed overnight. Townsmen threw out any rebel leaders who had survived the battle. In just the first two days following the battle, 240 rebels were delivered to the king and the count of Flanders as symbols of towns' submissions. They were all executed, and more followed. Ghent was all alone by December, as the royal army surrounded the town. A sack was widely expected, but cold winter weather arrived early and forced the French to withdraw before taking the town. It would continue to resist until 1385, but it would never again draw significant Flemish support from beyond its own walls. As news of the massacre at Roosebeke spread, organized opposition to the crown disappeared from the towns of northern France. Burgundy had secured both his wife's inheritance and his grip on power in Paris.
Languedoc
The Battle of Roosebeke may have extinguished the last embers of the Revolt of the Towns in the north, but the south continued to resist royal authority. The duke of Berry failed to take any significant action against the Tuchins after the king's southern campaign was canceled in 1382. Lacking reinforcements from the crown and unable to draw on the resources of the south as a result of the revolt, Berry agreed to pursue talks with the Tuchins.
Tuchin Revolt
In early 1383, Simon de Cramaud, bishop of Agen, who was one of Berry's closest advisors, took the first steps toward opening a dialogue with key rebel leaders. In February and March, Cramaud convinced many Tuchins to lay down their arms and began reintegrating their communities into the natural order of society as it was seen at the time. He made two key concessions to buy peace with the Tuchins. First, the rebels were given freedom of movement for a time, allowing peasants and townsmen to choose where they wanted to settle before returning to medieval life. Second, the Tuchins were allowed to testify as to the state of the realm in the south and the reasons for their revolt.
In May, the ducal court began hearings on some of the abuses that had driven the Tuchins to rebel in the first place. The former rebels testified that their local lords and crown officials had often acted no differently than the
routiers, rustling cattle and shaking down peasants and townsmen for all their movable wealth. The duke of Berry was serious about punishing wrongdoers and the greatest offenders, like Gantonnet d'Abzac, lord of Montastruc, were to be stripped of their offices. This effort was mostly successful, but in the case of Abzac and some others, local lords rejected Berry's appeasement of the Tuchins and continued a private war against the former rebels for years.
Lords like Abzac were not alone in rejecting the truce that Berry was working out. Some of the more radical members of the Tuchins elected Pierre de Brugère, a disaffected knight from Auvergne, as their leader. He organized country squires, peasants, and townsmen into a makeshift army and seized three royal castles in Languedoc and looted four more. Berry gave no response until he himself was attacked by Brugère's men in December 1383. The attackers made off with the duke's treasure and killed several men in his entourage. It was a sign of the impotency of Berry's governorship that not even he could safely travel through the region. A sparsely-attended assembly of the Estates-General of Languedoc was overseen by Gaston III, count of Foix, as a result of the attack and plans were made to crack down on those who did not abide by Berry's truce.
Brugère was captured by ducal forces and executed in Auvergne on 27 May 1384. Radicals within the Tuchinate continued to fight on, but failed to learn from Filips van Artevelde's mistakes in Flanders. They organized an army of 4,000 local levies and met one of Berry's lieutenants, Armand V, viscount of Randon, in battle near the town of Mentières. Though Tuchins outnumbered Randon's forces by about three to one, the result was the same as it was at Roosebeke. Randon took no prisoners in the ensuing slaughter. The Tuchin Revolt was at an end, as its last leaders made peace with Berry's government.
Armagnac and Foix
In 1382, Jean II, count of Armagnac, watched his brother-in-law, Berry's, feckless rule with growing horror. The two men had become estranged after the Battle of Rabastens a year prior, at which the count of Foix's forces had ambushed and destroyed an Armagnac army. Effectively neutered, Armagnac was outraged that Berry did nothing to punish Foix for his surprise attack. Now the most powerful figure in southern France, Foix broke his truce with Armagnac.
In June, Foix ended his son and heir's betrothal to Armagnac's daughter, then launched a guerilla war against his rival. Foix did not fear reprisal from Berry, who needed Foix to maintain order around Toulouse while royal forces fought the
routiers and negotiated with the Tuchins in Auvergne. Armagnac's position grew desperate and, in 1383, the count called on his bastard half-brother, Bernard d'Armagnac, a
routier captain and member of the Confederation of Carlat, for support.
The Bastard of Armagnac's forces were battle-hardened professionals and they soon retook Saint-Antonin, an Armagnac town in Rouergue that had been captured by Foix's forces. The setback led Foix to alert the duke of Berry of the Bastard's arrival in the area. Royal forces were working to dislodge members of the Confederation of Carlat from Auvergne, so the count of Armagnac's employment of one of their members drew serious scorn. Berry ordered Armagnac to make peace with Foix, who agreed to a truce in June 1383, before any more of his gains could be reversed. Armagnac was so outraged by Berry's mistreatment that he quietly opened a channel to the English to discuss a switch of allegiance. Armagnac died on 26 May 1384, though, before such negotiations could proceed very far. Once a regional powerhouse, he spent the last year of his life nursing personal grudges in political isolation. His death was not widely mourned. The count's eldest son succeeded him as Jean III, count of Armagnac.
The new count of Armagnac set about rebuilding the dynasty that his father had nearly destroyed. He sought peace with Foix, agreeing to cede a number of key positions in Comminges, and put himself at the disposal of his uncle, Berry, eager to help pacify the region. The young count quickly became his uncle's new favorite. In 1385, Berry was recalled to Paris ahead of a renewal of the war with England. He left young Armagnac as his lieutenant governor, a sign of the family's rebounding fortunes.
Dominance
On 20 January 1383, Burgundy restored all taxes that had been abolished by the Estates-General. He did so by royal fiat, disregarding his brother Anjou's concession to seek the estates' approval for new taxes. Burgundy simultaneously declared organized opposition to taxation to be a treasonable offense. The execution of a handful of protesters in Paris quickly established that he was not bluffing. By summer, the crown had significant revenues coming in for the first time in three years. The same summer, ambassadors from England began pressing for a truce. Burgundy welcomed talks, needing time to pay off the enormous debts that the crown had racked up since 1379 before he could turn his attention to the war with England.
England's interest in a ceasefire came as a result of its political paralysis. The duke of Lancaster had served as regent of England since 1377, but he had effectively vacated the position to pursue the crown of Castile in 1382. A regency council was formed to manage royal government in his absence, but it lacked a clear leader and quickly broke down into petty personal conflicts. Burgundy sought a five-year truce, but settled for six months. This was extended twice, ultimately pausing hostilities until summer 1385. Burgundy, in total control of the French government, used this time much more effectively than his squabbling English counterparts.
Diplomacy
In spring 1383, Burgundy sought to reconcile the French crown with King Charles II of Navarre. This came to little, as Charles would not break from his English allies when Lancaster's Crusade was off to a strong start. Charles's eldest son and heir, also named Charles, was open to Burgundy's diplomatic overtures, though. Charles II's younger children had been prisoners of the French crown
since 1378. One of the children, Blanche, had died in French custody during an outbreak of the plague in 1382. Another, Bonne, died in 1383. In a shocking move, Charles the Younger procured the release of his surviving siblings by handing himself over to the French.
Burgundy gladly welcomed the prince. He had not quite managed to break the Anglo-Navarrese alliance, but he had massively confused the political situation in Pamplona and strained relations between the two allies. Charles the Younger lived in luxury as a "prisoner" in Paris. He was even given a stipend from the French crown and encouraged to surround himself with friends from Navarre, as Burgundy attempted to build up a rival Navarrese court around the prince in France. This proved all too easy. Trading his own freedom for that of his siblings was celebrated as a great chivalric act and earned the prince many admirers, including the young French king. It also earned him the nickname "Charles the Noble."
Flemish inheritance
On 30 January 1384, Louis II, count of Flanders, died. Burgundy's wife, Marguerite, inherited the French counties of Artois, Flanders, Nevers, and Rethel and the imperial county of Burgundy. The late count was honored with a lavish funeral. Burgundy and Marguerite then embarked on a grand tour of their new lands, which cost an estimated 100,000
francs (£16,667). The French royal treasury bore the cost of Burgundy's procession. A similar misappropriation of royal funds had created major scandal for the duke of Anjou in 1381, but Burgundy was indisputably the master of France by 1384, and no one dared to question him. French funds would continue to flow freely into Burgundian pockets as royal policy became increasingly intertwined with the duke's interests in the Low Countries moving forward.
Burgundy began exploring ways to extend his influence further into the Low Countries almost as soon as his wife had succeeded to the county of Flanders. To the east of Flanders was the wealthy duchy of Brabant. It was held by Marguerite's childless aunt, but its line of inheritance was being disputed by King Václav IV of Bohemia. To the north and south of Flanders were the counties of Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland. The three counties were controlled by Albrecht I, duke of Bavaria-Straubing, who was heir to and regent of these lands as a result of his childless brother's madness. Albrecht was a member of the house of Wittelsbach, the main rival to the house of Luxembourg, from which Václav hailed, and was thus a potential ally for Burgundy. The two men traded embassies through 1384 and, on 12 April 1385, a double wedding was celebrated in which Burgundy's eldest son and heir, Jean, and one of his daughters, Marguerite, were married to Margarete of Bavaria and Wilhelm of Bavaria, one of Albrecht's daughters and his eldest son and heir. On 17 July, just three months after the double wedding, the Burgundian-Wittelsbach alliance was drawn even closer, as Charles VI married one of Albrecht's nieces, Isabeau of Bavaria, the daughter of Stephan III, duke of Bavaria-Ingolstadt, who hailed from a more senior branch of the family.
As the Wittelsbach alliance was coming together, Burgundy pressed his wife's claim to Brabant. He sent two of his closest advisors to Brussels ahead of his own visit. He was escorted there by 89 knights and squires. His wife's aunt, Jeanne,
suo jure duchess of Brabant, recognized Marguerite as heiress to the duchy and repudiated Václav's claims. Burgundy received the homage of 17 leading Brabantine nobles. Burgundy showered his new liege men with gifts and pensions, many of which were paid from the French treasury.
Preparations for war
The Flemish inheritance led to a rather dramatic reversal of French war policy. The English colony of Calais was a clear and present danger to Burgundy's holdings in the Low Countries and northern France. Calais itself was a part of the county of Artois, or so the French argued, and therefore one of Burgundy's many holdings. The English garrison of Calais had impoverished Artois with constant raids in the 1370s and 80s. Repeated attempts to conquer the town had failed, though Burgundy had come close
in 1377. England still held eight outlying fortresses in the Pale of Calais, as well as a tower that guarded the harbor, and a field of brush and marshland further protected the English position. Mounting another attack on Calais seemed to be a fool's errand. A diplomatic transfer was impossible, as the English had flatly refused to surrender it through countless rounds of talks. In 1384, French ministers suggested that an invasion of the English mainland might force England to put Calais on the negotiating table. The idea immediately captured Burgundy's imagination. He soon emerged as its chief proponent and France's leading war hawk.
In June 1384, Burgundy dispatched an embassy to Scotland. French ambassadors found the aged Scottish king's eldest son and heir, John Stewart, earl of Carrick, to be the dominant political figure in the realm and soon talked him into plans for a joint invasion of England. As Burgundy had set his mind to making war on England in the coming year, he skipped a major diplomatic conference with the English that summer.
Burgundy turned next to Brittany. Jean IV, duke of Brittany, was an on-again, off-again English ally. The duke of Anjou had successfully cleaved the most recent Anglo-Breton alliance in 1380, but Burgundy wanted to pull the duke even closer into the Francosphere. Burgundy had reluctantly appointed one of the duke's fiercest rivals, Olivier de Clisson, as constable of France after Bertrand du Guesclin died of illness while in Castile in 1383. Burgundy hated Clisson almost as much as Jean, but Clisson had amassed a colossal cash fortune and was one of the French crown's chief lenders during the early-80s debt crisis. Burgundy thus felt compelled to name Clisson to the position despite his personal opinion of the man. Now, he had to ensure that the appointment did not push Jean back toward the English.
Jean's wife, Joan Holland, who was a half-sister of the young king of England, died in October 1384. Their childless marriage left Jean without a direct heir. In just a couple of months, Burgundy connected his new protégé, Charles the Noble, with the newly-widowed Jean in hopes of building an alliance between them while drawing them both closer to the French crown and Burgundy himself.
On 12 April 1385, representatives of the king of Navarre arrived at Nantes to formally offer Jean the hand of a Navarrese princess in marriage. By this time, Lancaster's Crusade was nearing an inglorious end and Charles II of Navarre was open to a rapprochement with France. His ambassadors picked up where Burgundy and Charles the Noble had left off, but talks were hung up on the size of the girl's dowry. After more than a year of talks, Burgundy made a naked attempt to buy Jean's loyalty, as the French crown paid part of the dowry to finalize the marriage arrangement. The bribe worked, leading Jean to lay siege to English-occupied Saint-Malo in 1386.
Decline
In 1385, plans for a joint Franco-Scottish invasion of England foundered. King Edward V of England turned back the northern arm of the invasion, defeating the Scots at the
Battle of Arkinholm and taking the heir to the Scottish throne prisoner. The southern arm never materialized, as Ghent breathed its last gasp of revolt. In July, as the French celebrated their young king's marriage, rebels launched a surprise attack on Damme, disrupting the movement of supplies to the army gathering at Sluys. The invasion was postponed until the following year, and Burgundy finally agreed to negotiate a settlement with Ghent. He conceded to grant the town new rights and privileges, and even offered the rebels a royal pardon to demonstrate his goodwill. It was an embarrassing climbdown for Burgundy, who had refused talks since inheriting the county.
The French were undeterred by the failure to launch the 1385 invasion. They believed that it took no great skill for the king of England to defeat the Scots, who they derided as simple brutes and brigands, and Ghent's submission had removed the only threat to launching an invasion from the south. Plans for the invasion were moved to 1386, but on a much larger scale. Charles himself insisted on leading the attack, with his uncles at his side. An army of 30,000 was gathered. Turnout was so high that it caused delays, as more ships were needed to ferry the army across the sea. The duke of Berry's concerns that the king would be exposed to attack in the long time needed to disembark such a force created even more delays, exposing the French armada to attack. On 19 September 1386, Edward V led a much smaller English fleet in a daring attack on Sluys, capturing hundreds of ships, destroying dozens more, and leaving some 6,000 Frenchmen dead. The invasion was called off and the king's enormous army disbanded. The
Battle of Écluse was an enormous blow to French prestige, as all the crowned heads of Europe had been following the massive French military buildup through the course of the year.
The second invasion's failure loosened Burgundy's grip on power. The costs of back-to-back campaigns in 1385 and 1386—neither of which had actually made it to England—had been staggering. Royal revenues could not keep up with expenses, as Burgundy had massively expanded the size of government to grant jobs and pensions to his and Berry's supporters. Debts began to pile up. Loans were forced upon cash-rich nobles and the church while the coinage was devalued to repay lenders, which was overwhelmingly unpopular. These moves brought Burgundy serious criticism for the first time since the duke of Anjou's departure. Charles himself was cold toward Burgundy and Berry. As the king was in his late teens by this time, his opinions carried greater weight and his seeming disregard for his uncles began to turn much of the court against them.
Burgundy's position toward England began to soften after the failure of the 1386 campaign. This was partly a response to the criticism of his leadership in 1386 and 1387, but it was mostly as a result of the economic pain he had inflicted on himself by instituting a Flemish embargo on English goods in 1385. Burgundy expected that the financial hit to England would be greater than the one he took himself, but the English arranged a trade deal with the burghers of Middelburg, a port city in Zeeland, to keep English wool flowing into Brabant's rival cloth industry. Burgundy had succeeded only in hurting cloth producers in Flanders. Near the end of 1386, he approved a diplomatic mission led by King Levon V of Armenia to secure a truce while also dropping the embargo. The talks went nowhere and the English fought a war of piracy through 1387, capturing dozens of French and Flemish trade vessels.
Crisis in Brittany
As peace talks failed, the French prepared for another year of war in 1387. Plans for an invasion of England were drawn up yet again, this time on a much smaller scale, but were again canceled, this time because the campaign's leader, Clisson, was
arrested by the duke of Brittany in June.
Burgundy had bribed Jean IV into attacking English positions in Brittany by having the French crown cover part of Jean's new wife's dowry in 1386. After England's triumph over the French armada at Sluys, though, the English retaliated against the duke for his failed siege of Saint-Malo by finally releasing Jean de Blois after more than 30 years of captivity.
Jean de Blois was the eldest son and heir of Jeanne de Penthièvre, Jean IV's niece and dynastic rival in the long-running War of the Breton Succession. Jeanne had died in 1384 and Clisson, a die-hard supporter of the Blois-Penthièvre faction, had been trying to ransom Jean de Blois since early 1385. The English had refused only to avoid direct confrontation with Jean IV, but his half-hearted siege of English-controlled Saint-Malo had forced the issue for them. Clisson paid the English 60,000
francs (£10,000) for Jean de Blois's release in early 1387 and then arranged for Blois to wed his (Clisson's) daughter, Marguerite. The duke of Brittany saw these actions as a prelude to rebellion and arrested Clisson after a meeting of the Breton nobility.
The arrest of a royal official by a peer of the realm sent shockwaves through France. Clisson was one of the young king's favorites and Charles VI took a strong interest in the situation. Burgundy, who was in Flanders at the time, rushed to be at the king's side, but found the royal court filled with Clisson supporters upon his arrival.
The Breton crisis was the first time since 1382 that Burgundy was not in total control of events. Charles was threatening to invade Brittany to secure Clisson's release. Burgundy eventually talked the king down, but was forced to take a much harder line against the duke of Brittany than he wanted. Jean released the constable and agreed to appear before the king in six months' time or pay a fine of 100,000
francs. Burgundy's efforts to draw Brittany closer to the French crown were entirely undone and Jean IV was dangerously isolated, having angered both the kings of England and France.
War in the Low Countries
In 1385, Willem I, duke of Guelders, a scion of the house of Jülich, agreed to an alliance with the English. Its terms were vague, but it was enough to bring the young, warlike, and intensely anti-French duke into a war with Brabant, which neighbored Guelders and was allied with Burgundy and France. Willem waited until 1386 to make his move, timing his attack to exploit France's preparations for an invasion of England. After the French invasion failed to launch, Guelders negotiated a one-year truce with Brabant, and Willem moved to England to make plans for a joint 1388 campaign. The king of Bohemia joined England and Guelders in an alliance to press his claim to Brabant, which had been set aside in favor of the Burgundian claim.
In May 1388, the king's council met in Paris. The small council of 12 that the uncles had established in 1380 and whose membership they had fiercely guarded against outsiders for nearly eight years was now greatly expanded in size to include outside nobles and prelates, as criticism of the uncles had become much too intense for them to continue monopolizing power. Burgundy's diminished influence was immediately clear. The new three-way alliance between England, Guelders, and Luxembourg was a real threat to Burgundy's inheritance of Brabant, but he could no longer dictate royal priorities and the council was more interested in bringing the duke of Brittany before the king than in securing Burgundy's claim to Brabant. In a twist, though, Burgundy won the support of the king with an assist from the duke of Guelders himself. Willem penned an insulting letter to Charles VI, whom he addressed as the "so-called king of France," endorsing Edward's claim to the French throne. Charles declared that he would challenge Willem's dishonor, endorsing a
campaign to Guelders.
Even with the king's support, the royal army that Burgundy wanted to fight his war for him was delayed until the fall so that the Breton crisis could be resolved. Once Jean had formally apologized and been pardoned, an army was summoned. By fall, though, the threat to Brabant had already passed. Václav, upon learning the size of the army that the French were gathering, lost his nerve and broke his alliance with England and Guelders. At the same time, the English invasion was delayed by a renewal of hostilities with Scotland. The duke of Guelders, completely on his own, held out long enough for the French to fall to an unseasonably wet and chilly autumn. As thousands of men grew sick from the damp cold and soaked food stores began to rot, Charles was forced to withdraw. The anticlimactic end to such a large and expensive campaign drew many comparisons to the failed invasions of England and criticism of Burgundy's leadership became too loud to ignore. Charles disbanded the army and called his lords to a great council at Reims.
War with the routiers
Jean III, count of Armagnac, was appointed lieutenant governor of Languedoc in 1385, as the duke of Berry was called north ahead of the renewal of hostilities with England. The 1385 invasion of England failed to launch, but Berry remained in the north, as he was expected to take part in the 1386 invasion. It never materialized either, but still Berry remained in the north as the country was gripped first by the arrest of Clisson in 1387 and then the invasion of Guelders in 1388. As a result, he never returned to Languedoc before Charles VI reached his majority.
Armagnac's top priority as lieutenant governor was the war with the
routiers, but it seemed futile. Campaigns against the
routiers only drove them from one area to another. Instead of fighting a never-ending war against the brigands, the young count decided to buy them all out. He embarked on a tour of provincial assemblies to raise funds for the plan, but raising taxes to commission the
routiers was controversial to say the least. Still, the energetic young count won enough people over to begin doing just that. Through late 1385 and early 1386, he signed contracts with companies large and small.
Armagnac's activity quickly aroused suspicions in Milan. Gian Galeazzo Visconti had only usurped his uncle, Bernbabò Visconti, and installed himself as lord of Milan months before Armagnac started buying up
routier contracts. Considering that Armagnac's sister, Béatrix, was married to one of Bernabò's sons, Carlo, Gian Galeazzo feared that Armagnac may be planning an invasion to restore Bernbabò or to install Carlo as lord. Milanese embassies were dispatched to London and Paris, the beginning of a years-long diplomatic policy in which Gian Galeazzo would play the two sides off one another to protect his own interests in northern Italy. As part of this, he would arrange for his cousin, Lucia, to wed Edward V's half-brother, John Holland, in 1386, then for his daughter, Valentina, to wed Charles VI's brother, Louis, in 1387.
The target of Armagnac's scheme was not Milan, though. It was Foix. Just two years after signing a peace, Armagnac was preparing to reopen the war and retake the positions he had ceded in Comminges. This was a matter of honor for Armagnac, as his wife was
suo jure countess of Comminges. He had a surprising ally in this: Foix's only legitimate son and heir, Gaston.
Gaston's treachery was exposed when Armagnac's
routier scheme collapsed and he fled Foix. The
routiers would continue to plague southern France into Charles VI's majority. Armagnac would again try to buy out their positions in the early 1390s, leading to the Roussillon War with Aragon.
Downfall
On 3 November 1388, Charles VI presided over a great council at the archbishop's palace in Reims. It was a hastily-arranged meeting, but attendance was high, given that a large number of lords had turned out for the Guelders campaign and then followed the king straight to Reims. In his opening remarks, Charles declared an end to the regency.
The news seemed to surprise the uncles, as the duke of Berry asked the king to discuss the matter further when they returned to Paris. It seemed much less of a surprise to others present, as the event was quite well choreographed. The location was highly symbolic, as the king had been crowned there eight years earlier, and a number of lawyers had come from Paris to join the king at Reims on his return from the Guelders campaign. Pierre Aycelin de Montaigut, cardinal-bishop of Laon, who was a close ally of Pope Clement VII of Avignon, was on hand. Richard Picque, archbishop of Reims, endorsed the king's decision with a speech too well composed to have been impromptu. The king offered Burgundy and Berry platitudes for their years of service. The uncles had been outmaneuvered. Their government was over.
The loss of the regency was a major blow to Burgundy, whose collections from the royal treasury in the 1380s was equal to the combined revenues of all his southern territories—the two Burgundies and Nevers—over that same period. After his downfall, he left Paris for Dijon. Berry finally returned south to resume his post as governor of Languedoc. Charles sought their advice on occasion, but they became just two voices among the many gathered in great councils.
King Charles VI
Charles acted quickly to turn the page on the government of the uncles. Royal offices were immediately downsized, as scores of positions created to provide salaries for Burgundy and Berry's followers were eliminated. Runaway expenditures were reined in, as hundreds of pensions awarded to the dukes' supporters were canceled. Corrupt staff unaffiliated with the dukes, but who had used their rule as an opportunity to line their own pockets, were put on trial. Incompetent administrators of the royal demesne, who had allowed collection of fees and rents to fall behind, were removed from office.
Favorites
The purge of ducal supporters brought the leading lights of King Charles V's government back to power. The late king's close friend and long-serving chamberlain, Bureau de La Rivière, came to be at Charles VI's side almost constantly. Jean le Mercier, a lowborn notary ennobled by Charles V, became head of Charles VI's household. Jean de Montagu, rumored to have been a bastard son of Charles V, was made treasurer. One of Charles V's most talented tax officials, Nicolas du Bosc, bishop of Bayeux, returned to oversee the reform of government finances. These men and others close to the king were mockingly referred to as "the little people" or the "marmousets" by the members of the upper nobility.
The leading figure in royal government was now Olivier V de Clisson, constable of France, who had likely organized the uncles' downfall in the first place. Burgundy and Berry had hated Clisson for years, but their support for the duke of Brittany during the crisis of 1387 had put Clisson's life in jeopardy. Clisson was one of Charles's favorites and likely the only man close enough to the king with the political skill to so quietly orchestrate the counter-coup at Reims.
Unlike Burgundy and Berry, Charles's maternal uncle, Louis II, duke of Bourbon, did not fall from grace when the government of the uncles was dissolved. Bourbon had been a part of the regency under both Anjou and Burgundy, but had avoided getting caught up in their ambitions. He had instead focused on military matters and the education of the young king. Bourbon was one of the finest knights in France and he ensured that Charles had a strong martial upbringing. He spent more time with the king than Anjou, Berry or Burgundy and was the king's favorite uncle. After Charles declared his majority, his councilors called Bourbon "the good duke."
A new generation of French nobles surrounded Charles VI. Among them were Jean, count of Nevers, one of the king's cousins and the eldest son and heir of the duke of Burgundy. Two of Burgundy's former protégés, Charles the Noble, who had succeeded
his father as King Charles III of Navarre in 1387, and Waleran III, count of Saint-Pol, were as well. Their presence did not help Burgundy's interests, though. Charles VI was rarely involved in government business, which he left to the marmousets. Instead, he and his young friends busied themselves drinking, feasting, jousting, and whoring. His cousins Henri of Bar, eldest son and heir of the duke of Bar, and Pierre of Navarre, younger brother of Charles III, were among the most debaucherous members of the king's court. The king's brother, Louis, was its second star, though. Charles and Louis had been raised in the same household for their whole lives until Charles's majority and were extremely close.
The young French court also included a number of noble women. Charles's queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, set an extravagant standard by which all others were measured. Charles III's wife, the lively and whimsical Elizabeth of Lancaster, quickly became one of the French king's favorite women at court. When Elizabeth bore a son, named Charles, in 1387, there were whispers that Charles VI was the child's true father, not Charles III. Another Englishwoman, Maud Holland, countess of Saint-Pol, was honored by Charles as the most beautiful woman at a tournament in 1389, when his own wife was pregnant and away from court.
Charles was enormously generous toward his friends. One of his first acts after assuming his majority was to raise his beloved brother, Louis, from the relatively poor dukedom of Touraine to the wealthier dukedom of Orléans. In 1389, the king allowed Charles III to return to Pamplona without ransom, despite his having technically been a prisoner of the French crown since 1383.
Policy
Charles VI's declaration of his majority may have seen the return of his father's advisors, but he was his own man and a very different sort of king. He was athletic and strong, where his father was sickly throughout his life. He was an impressive horseman who rode in tournaments and dreamed about winning glory in battle, where his father was more comfortable planning campaigns in council meetings. Charles VI looked like the ideal medieval king in most every way, but what his father had lacked in physical prowess he had more than made up for in extraordinary drive, focus, and intelligence. On these measures, Charles VI fell far short. He was careless and lazy, often sleeping to midday after long, raucous nights. He lost interest in things easily and struggled to understand complex issues. Charles V worked directly with his council on almost every issue, but the marmousets were largely left to their own devices under Charles VI.
Charles V and Charles VI differed most strikingly when it came to matters of war with England. Charles V had reopened the war in 1369 with the goal of throwing the English off the continent, but he was pragmatic enough to consider compromise when it suited him. He had dedicated practically his whole reign to this war, but Charles VI had little interest in it. Charles VI was thirsting for war, but had dreamt only of crusade since King Levon V of Armenia had appeared at the French court in 1385. Levon, who lost his kingdom to the Mamluk conquests of the mid 1370s, had dazzled Charles with stories from the east and impressed upon Charles a sense of the divine responsibilities he had a Christian king. Charles imagined himself ending the schism in the church, restoring Levon to his throne, freeing the emperor in Constantinople from the constant harassment of the Turks, and even restoring the kingdom of Jerusalem. As Charles VI came into his own in 1388 and 1389, though, the only war he had to fight was with England. In this conflict, he was on the back foot, as his distant cousin across the Channel was already on the move. The two sides would have their greatest direct confrontation in more than three decades just a year after Charles declared his majority.
