The duke of Burgundy was with the king at the time of the seizure, and took prompt advantage of it to recover the authority which he had been compelled to relinquish |Origin of party feuds.| four years before. By so doing he excited the bitter animosity of Louis of Orleans, the king’s younger brother, who clamoured that he was ousted from his proper position by his uncle. From this rivalry arose in the course of time the famous factions of Burgundians and Armagnacs, whose quarrels distracted France and rendered the country an easy prey to the foreign invaders. It would be useless and wearisome to trace in detail the frequent fluctuations of success and failure, but it is important to form a clear idea of the position of the two antagonists, and of the interests which became involved in their disputes.
Philip the Bold or the Rash (le Hardi) was the youngest and favourite son of King John, and had been taken prisoner with his father at Poitiers. To reward his bravery |Philip of Burgundy.| and devotion John gave him the duchy of Burgundy when it fell in to the Crown in 1361 on the death of Philip de Rouvre. But the greatness of the house was mainly due to a lucky marriage. Charles V. procured for his brother the hand of Margaret, the only child of Lewis de Mâle, count of Flanders, Artois, Nevers, Rethel, and Burgundy. When Lewis died, in 1383, these territories came through his wife to Philip, who became at once one of the wealthiest and most powerful princes in Europe. The object of Charles V. in promoting this marriage had been to connect these fiefs, and especially Flanders, more closely with France. The ultimate result was precisely the reverse; the connection of Burgundy with France was weakened. Commercial interests tended to sever Flanders from France and to attach it to England (see p. [71]). These interests proved stronger than feudal and family ties. Instead of Flanders following Burgundy, Burgundy followed Flanders. Thus, although the duke of Burgundy was the first peer of France, and as count of Flanders was doubly a peer, yet he found himself more and more detached from France, and impelled to play the part of a foreign and independent prince. It is important to remember that part of Flanders and Franche Comté, or the county of Burgundy, were imperial fiefs, and had no legal connection with France. As time went on this non-French element in the position of the house of Burgundy was destined to be greatly extended. In 1385 an important double marriage was concluded with the Wittelsbach count of Holland, Hainault, and Zealand, the son of Lewis the Bavarian (see p. [108]). The son of Count Albert, afterwards William VI. (1404-1417), was to marry Philip’s daughter, Margaret; while Philip’s eldest son, John of Nevers, was to marry Albert’s daughter, another Margaret. It was to strengthen this alliance, which two generations later brought these Wittelsbach possessions to the house of Burgundy, that Philip negotiated the marriage of Charles VI. to a princess of another branch of the Wittelsbach house, Isabel of Bavaria—a marriage that was fraught with anything but blessing to France. Another imperial fief, Brabant, which was held by the aunt of Philip’s wife, passed in 1406 to his second son, Antony, and ultimately to the main Burgundian branch. This gradual absorption of adjacent provinces by the Valois dukes gave to what came to be known as the Netherlands, or the Low Countries, their first semblance of political unity.
The young Louis of Orleans was, in territorial power and prospects, quite insignificant by the side of his uncle and rival. His great ambition was to redress this |Louis of Orleans.| obvious inequality. At every opportunity he induced his brother to alienate domain-lands to him in spite of the protests of the Marmousets. By these grants and by purchase he obtained the duchy of Orleans, which Charles V. had promised should never be severed from the Crown, Perigord, a part of Angoumois, and the counties of Valois, Dreux, and Blois. His marriage in 1386 with Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo, which gave to his descendants a claim upon Milan in later times, brought to him a million francs as dowry, but in the way of territory only the town of Asti in Lombardy, and the county of Vertus in Champagne. Louis even competed with his uncle for territories in the Netherlands, and in 1401 he agreed to purchase Luxemburg from Wenzel. But this proved a complete fiasco, and Luxemburg was ultimately absorbed in the Burgundian dominions. One discreditable advantage in the struggle was gained by the duke of Orleans. He became the paramour of the queen, Isabella of Bavaria, and by this means he not only secured her support, but also the influence which she still retained over her unhappy husband.
Early in the fifteenth century changes took place in the personages of the drama, though its action was only slightly changed by them. Philip the Bold died in 1404, leaving three sons. The second son, Antony of Rethel, succeeded his great-aunt in the duchy of Brabant and Limburg, and married Elizabeth of Luxemburg, a grand-daughter of the Emperor Charles IV. The youngest son, Philip, received only the county of Nevers. With the exception of Nevers and Rethel, the whole magnificent inheritance |John the Fearless.| of Philip and Margaret passed to their eldest son, John, who also succeeded to the position of protagonist in the party strife in France. John had been taken prisoner by the Turks at the famous battle of Nicopolis (1396), and the reckless courage which he displayed on that occasion gained for him the name of the Fearless (Jean sans Peur). He displayed the same impulsiveness in politics as in the field, and this led him into criminal blunders, and ultimately to a violent death. Like all politicians of the time, he sought to use marriage as a means of strengthening his position. His eldest daughter was married to the duke of Guienne or dauphin, and the king’s second son, John of Touraine, was betrothed to the daughter of his brother-in-law, William VI. of Holland.
In 1407 Louis of Orleans was assassinated in Paris; and after some hesitation, John the Fearless avowed himself to be the instigator of the murder, and put forward |Murder of Orleans.| arguments to justify it. Instead of putting an end to the quarrel, this act proved the occasion for civil war. The sons of the duke of Orleans deemed it a sacred duty to avenge their father’s death, and they were encouraged by the support of all opponents of Burgundy. As they were young and inexperienced, the practical leadership of the party was undertaken by Bernard of Armagnac, the father-in-law of the young Charles of Orleans, and himself the son-in-law of the duke of Berri, the only surviving uncle of the king. From him the party derived the name by which it is usually known both to contemporaries and to history.
The strife of parties had its origin in a purely personal rivalry for power, but it gradually came to absorb all the elements of social, political, and ecclesiastical conflict in France. Louis of Orleans was the |Burgundians and Armagnacs.| champion of the past, of feudal independence and privileges. His party, especially after his death, included most of the noble families of France. Louis had been the supporter of Richard II. against Henry IV., of Wenzel against his rival the Elector Palatine Rupert, of the Avignon popes against the policy of neutrality in the great schism. The Burgundians were forced to espouse the opposite side in these disputes. They clamoured for financial economy and encouraged the growth of municipal liberties. Flemish interests impelled them to maintain a good understanding with Henry IV. after his successful usurpation. In the matter of the schism they urged the ‘way of cession,’ and thus gained the support of the University of Paris. Orleans had alienated this powerful corporation by encouraging the rival schools of Orleans, Montpellier, and Toulouse. The University of Paris showed such devotion to the Burgundian cause that Jean Petit, one of the leaders of the Sorbonne, marshalled all the hackneyed arguments in favour of tyrannicide in order to justify the murder of Orleans. But this went too far for doctors of more tender conscience, and at Constance Jean Gerson, the chancellor of the University, pressed for the condemnation of Jean Petit’s discourse, and thereby incurred the bitter enmity of John the Fearless (see p. [218]). The great strength of the Burgundians lay in the enthusiastic support of the Parisians; the duke at once rewarded and conciliated their support by restoring in 1409 the municipal institutions which had been abolished in 1383.
The war has also a geographical as well as a social significance. The west and south were Armagnac, while the north and east of France were Burgundian. This opposition was of long standing, and rested upon a substantial difference of race. In the south-west the strongest element of the population was the Romanised Celts; whereas in the north-east the Teutonic or Frankish race preponderated. For a long time, especially since the Albigensian crusades, the south had been reduced to subservience by the north, and in the Armagnac party it strove to shake off some of the fetters that had been imposed upon it.
In thus roughly estimating the significance of the civil strife in France, it is important to avoid being too precise and dogmatic. It was not so much a struggle of principles as a personal quarrel, in which certain principles became involved. It is to some extent misleading to speak of the Armagnacs as an aristocratic, and the Burgundians as a popular or bourgeois party. The parties did not set out with definite character and policy; but circumstances and momentary exigencies forced them to seek allies where they could, and these allies could only be gained by at least a professed devotion to their interests. The age also is full of contradictions, which make it the more difficult to draw definite distinctions. The dukes of Burgundy were the champions of municipal privilege in Paris; in Flanders it was their first business to restrict the independence of the cities. Philip the Bold declaimed against the extravagance of the government when he was excluded from it, and promised the people relief from taxation. But he was personally extravagant, his rule was at least as expensive as that of his opponents, and he died so profoundly in debt that his widow had to undergo a ceremonial proof of bankruptcy in order to secure the inheritance of her children from the disappointed creditors. Again, Louis of Orleans is apparently the champion of a reactionary feudalism; but in another aspect he is a disciple of the Renaissance, and a patron of the new learning that was to overthrow the essential ideas of mediæval feudalism. In this, as in other respects, he may be instructively compared with an Englishman who was almost his contemporary, Humphrey of Gloucester.
It was fortunate for France that in the early stages of the quarrel little danger was to be feared from England. The minority of Richard II. was disturbed at first by the social discontent which led to the rising of |Relations with England.| 1381, and afterwards by party and personal jealousies which almost produced a great civil war. When Richard II. at last took the reins of government into his own hands and effected a temporary pacification, he began to prepare for his dramatic revenge upon his opponents, and for that attempt to establish a despotic power which resulted in his deposition. The result was that during his reign the war with France languished. Truces were frequently made and prolonged, and during the interval of nominal hostility no operations of importance were undertaken on either side. In 1396 Richard II. actually paid a visit to Paris, and was betrothed to Isabella, daughter of Charles VI. The revolution of 1399, which gave the English crown to Henry IV., seemed likely to bring about a resumption of hostilities, especially when Henry married the dowager duchess of Brittany, and thus renewed that connection with the house of Montfort which had in the past given the English an easy entry into France. But for some years Henry IV. sat but insecurely upon his throne, and the struggle against successive rebellions left him little time or inclination for an aggressive foreign policy. It was not until French parties were led by their irreconcilable enmity to each other to invite English intervention that the prolonged suspension of hostilities between the two countries came to an end.
The murder of the duke of Orleans exasperated, but at the same time intimidated the other princes of France, and their terror was increased by the punishment which the duke of Burgundy inflicted in 1408 upon the citizens of Liége for a revolt against their bishop. In spite of the pitiful entreaties of the widowed Valentina, John the Fearless was allowed to retain supreme control of the government through his son-in-law the dauphin, who was now put forward to represent his father; and the young duke of Orleans and his brother had to undergo the shame of a formal reconciliation with their father’s murderer. It was not till 1410 that the first league of princes was formed to overthrow the Burgundian |Civil war breaks out in 1410.| ascendency. It included the dukes of Berri and Bourbon, Louis II. of Anjou, the titular king of Sicily, the sons of Louis of Orleans, and the counts of Clermont, Alençon, and Armagnac. The duke of Brittany, who had previously been the ally of Burgundy, also joined the league because a daughter of John the Fearless had married the count of Penthièvre, on whom the claims of the rival house of Blois had devolved. It would take too long to trace the actual progress of the war or to enumerate the hollow truces and treaties by which it was occasionally interrupted. Neither party could claim any monopoly of patriotism, and both appealed successfully to England for assistance. In 1411 aid was sent to the Burgundians, and in the next year to their opponents. This was not due, as has often been asserted, to a politic desire to prolong the civil war in France, but was the result of a change of parties in England. In 1411, when the Burgundian alliance was concluded, the Prince of Wales and the Beauforts were in power. In January 1412 their influence was undermined by an obscure intrigue, Henry Beaufort resigned the chancellorship, and the Prince of Wales, who had incurred his father’s displeasure, quitted the court. The government fell into the hands of Archbishop Arundel and Thomas of Clarence, Henry IV.’s second son, and they reversed the foreign policy of their predecessors. Clarence in person commanded the expedition, which was despatched to help the Armagnacs, but did little except ravage Normandy and part of Guienne.