Both parties appear to have relied on alleged declarations, each in his own favor, by the late duke, John of Brittany.
The Bretons it would seem, almost to a man, sided with the Count de Montfort; and this would in these days go very far toward settling the question.
King Philip of France, naturally took part with his niece, the wife of a great feudatory of his crown; Edward the Third of England, as naturally, favored the opposite claimant; expecting doubtless that he should receive the count’s homage as his vassal for Brittany, in case of his recovering his duchy by the aid of British arms.
The Count de Montfort was summoned before the king and peers of France to answer to the charge of having already done homage to the English king, as suzerain of a French province—a charge, by the way, which he absolutely denied—and to prove his title to the duchy before Parliament. To their decision he expressed his willingness to defer, and offered to abide by their judgment, but the same night, suspecting ill faith on the part of his rival and the French king, and fearing treachery, he withdrew secretly into his own duchy, of which he had already gained absolute possession, holding all its strong places with the free consent of the lords, the burgesses, the clergy and the commonalty of the chief towns, and being every where addressed as Duke of Brittany.
After the departure of the count from Paris, the Parliament, almost as a matter of course, decided against him—firstly, par contumace, or as we should now say, by default—secondly, for treason, as having done homage to a foreign liege lord—and thirdly, because the Countess of Blois was the daughter of the next brother of the late duke, while the Count John de Montfort was the youngest of the family.
I may observe here, that it is more than doubtful whether the alleged homage to Edward was at this time rendered; that the fact was positively denied by Montfort himself, and by his other historians; and furthermore, that the descent to the female line is very questionable in any French province or principality, the Salique law, adverse to the succession of females, prevailing in that country.
Be this, however, as it may, the princes and peers of France considering that the dispute between the rival claimants had resolved itself into a question between the rival crowns of France and England, which it virtually had, espoused to a man the party of Charles of Blois.
Thereupon, the dukes of Normandy, of Alençon, of Burgundy, of Bourbon, the Lord Lewis of Spain, the Constable of France, the Count de Blois, and the Viscount de Rohan, with all the princes and barons present, undertook to maintain the rights of Charles; entered Brittany with powerful forces; and, after some sharp fighting, shot the Count of Montfort up in Nantes, where he was shortly after delivered to the enemy, not without suspicion of treachery on the part of Sir Hervè de Léon, his late chief adviser, whom he had blamed severely for retreating too readily into the city, before the troops of Charles de Blois.
John de Montfort hereupon nearly disappears from history; Froissart supposing that he died a prisoner in the tower of the Louvre. But it appears that, after three years’ confinement, he made good his escape to England, and then, not before, did homage to Edward; who aided him with a force under William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, to recover his duchy, which his sudden death after an unsuccessful attempt on Quimperlè, finally prevented. This is, however, in anticipation of the current of history, and more especially of those events which it is my purpose to illustrate in this sketch; for, from the very moment of his capture, the affairs, both civil and military, of the duchy were administered with the most distinguished energy, ability and success by his wife, sister of Lewis Count of Flanders, a race noble and brave by descent and nature, “the Countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man and the heart of a lion.”
“She was in the city of Rennes,” says her historian, “when she heard of the seizure of her lord; and, notwithstanding the great grief she had at heart, she did all she could to reanimate her friends and soldiers. Showing them a young child, called John, after his father, she said, ‘Oh, gentlemen, do not be cast-down for what we have suffered by the loss of my lord; he was but one man. Look at my little child here, if it please God, he shall be his restorer and shall do you much service. I have plenty of wealth, which I will distribute among you, and will seek out for such a leader as may give you a proper confidence.’ When the countess had, by these means, encouraged her friends and soldiers at Rennes, she visited all the other towns and fortresses, taking her young son John with her. She addressed and encouraged them in the same manner as she had done at Rennes. She strengthened her garrisons both with men and provisions, paid handsomely for every thing, and gave largely wherever she thought it would have a good effect. She then went to Hennebon, near the sea, where she and her son remained all that winter, frequently visiting her garrisons, whom she encouraged and paid liberally.”