CHARLES THE BOLD

LAST DUKE OF BURGUNDY

1433-1477

BY

RUTH PUTNAM

AUTHOR OF "WILLIAM THE SILENT," "A MEDIÆVAL PRINCESS," ETC.

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press
1908

COPYRIGHT 1908,

BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

PREFACE

The admission of Charles, Duke of Burgundy into the series of Heroes of the Nations, is justified by his relation to events rather than by his national or his heroic qualities. "Il n'avait pas assez de sens ni de malice pour conduire ses entreprises," is one phrase of Philip de Commines in regard to the master he had once served. Render sens by genius and malice by diplomacy and the words are not far wrong. Yet in spite of the failure to obtain either a kingly or an imperial crown, the story of those same unaccomplished enterprises contains the germs of much that has happened later in the borderlands of France and Germany where the projected "middle kingdom" might have been erected. A sketch of the duke's character with its traits of ambition and shortcomings may therefore be placed, not unfitly, among the pen portraits of individuals who have attempted to change the map of Europe.

The materials for an exhaustive study of the times, and of the participants in the scenes thereof, are almost overwhelming in quantity. Into this narrative, I have woven the words of contemporaries when these related what they saw and thought, or at least what they said they saw or thought, about events passing within their sight or their ken. The veracity attained is only that of a mosaic of bits, each with its morsel of truth. And the rim in which these bits are set is too slender to contain all the illumination necessary. The narrative is, of necessity, partial and fragmentary, for a complete story would require a series of biographies presented in parallel columns. My own preliminary chapter to this book—a mere explanation of the presence of the dukes of Burgundy in the Netherlands—grew into an account of a sovereign whom they deposed and was published under the title of A Mediæval Princess.

John Foster Kirk gave 1713 pages to his record of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Forty years have elapsed since that publication appeared and a mass of interesting material pertinent to the subject has been given out to the public, while separate phases of it have been minutely discussed by competent critics, so that at every point there is new temptation for the biographer to expand the theme where the scope of his work demands brevity.

In using the later fruit of historical investigation, it is delightful for an American to find that scholars of all nations do justice to Mr. Kirk's accuracy and industry even when they may differ from his conclusions. It has been my privilege to be permitted free access to this scholar's collection of books, and I would here express my deep gratitude to the Kirk family for their generosity and courtesy towards me.

After some preliminary reading at Brussels and Paris and in England, the work for this volume has been completed in America, where the opportunity of securing the latest results of research and criticism is constantly increasing, although these results are still lodged under many roofs. I have had many reasons to thank the librarians of New York, Boston, and Washington, and also those of Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell universities for courtesies and for serviceable aid; and just as many reasons to regret the meagreness of what can be put between two covers as the gleanings from so rich a harvest.

One word further in explanation of the use of Bold. The adjective has been retained simply because it has been so long identified with Charles in English usage. I should have preferred the word Rash as a better equivalent for the contemporary term, applied to the duke in his lifetime,—le téméraire.

R.P.        

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1908.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHARLES THE BOLD

CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD

1433-1440

On St. Andrew's Eve, in the year 1433, the good people of Dijon were abroad, eager to catch what glimpses they might of certain stately functions to be formally celebrated by the Duke of Burgundy. The mere presence of the sovereign in the capital of his duchy was in itself a gala event from its rarity. Various cities of the dominions agglomerated under his sway claimed his attentions successively. His residence was now here and now there, without long tarrying anywhere. His coming was usually very welcome. In times of peaceful submission to his behest, the city of his sojourn reaped many advantages besides the amusement of seeing her streets alive beyond their wont. In the outlay for the necessities and the luxuries of the peripatetic ducal court, the expenditures were lavish, and in the temporary commercial activity enjoyed by the merchants, the fact that the burghers' own contributions to this luxury were heavy, passed into temporary oblivion.¹

This autumn visit of Philip the Good to Dijon was more significant than usual. It had lasted several weeks, and among its notable occasions was an assembly of the Knights of the Golden Fleece for the third anniversary of their Order. On this November 30th, Burgundy was to witness for the first time the pompous ceremonials inaugurated at Bruges in January, 1430. Three years had sufficed to render the new institution almost as well known as its senior English rival, the Order of the Garter, which it was destined to outshine for a brief period at least. Its foundation had formed part of the elaborate festivities accompanying the celebration of the marriage of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, to Isabella of Portugal. As a signal honour to his bride, Philip published his intention of creating a new order of knighthood which would evince "his great and perfect love for the noble state of chivalry."

Rumour, indeed, told various tales about the duke's real motives. It was whispered that a certain lady of Bruges, whom he had distinguished by his attentions, was ridiculed for her red hair by a few merry courtiers, whereupon Philip declared that her tresses should be immortally honoured in the golden emblem of a new society.² But that may be set down as gossip. Philip's own assertion, when he instituted the Order of the Golden Fleece, was that he intended to create a bulwark

"for the reverence of God and the sustenance of our Christian faith, and to honour and enhance the noble order of chivalry, and also for three reasons hereafter declared; first, to honour the ancient knights ...;
second, to the end that these present.... may exercise the deeds of chivalry and constantly improve;
third, that all gentlemen marking the honour paid to the knights will exert themselves to attain the dignity." ³

The special homage to the new duchess was expressed in the device

Aultre n'aray
Dame Isabeau tant que vivray ⁴

This pledge of absolute fidelity to Dame Isabella was, indeed, utterly disregarded by the bridegroom, but in outward and formal honour to her he never failed.

The new institution was, from the beginning, pre-eminently significant of the duke's magnificent state existence, wherein his Portuguese consort proved herself an efficient and able helpmeet. Again and again during a period of thirty years, rich in diplomatic parleying, did Isabella act as confidential ambassador for her husband, and many were the negotiations conducted by her to his satisfaction.⁵

But it must be noted that whatever lay at the exact root of Philip's motives when he conceived the plan of his Order, the actual result of his foundation was not affected. He failed, indeed, to bring back into the world the ancient system of knighthood in its ideal purity and strength. Rather did he make a notable contribution to its decadence and speed its parting. What was brought into existence was a house of peers for the head of the Burgundian family, a body of faithful satellites who did not hamper their chief overmuch with the criticism permitted by the rules of their society, while their own glory added shining rays to the brilliant centre of the Burgundian court.

Twenty-five, inclusive of the duke, was the original number appointed to form the chosen circle of knights. This was speedily increased to thirty-one, and a duty to be performed in the session of 1433, was the election of new members to fill vacancies and to round out the allotted tale.

In their manner of accomplishing the appointed task, the new chevaliers had, from the outset, evinced a readiness to cast their votes to the satisfaction of their chief, even if his pleasure directly conflicted with the regulations they had sworn to obey. No candidate was to be eligible whose birth was not legitimate,⁶ a regulation quite ignored when the duke proposed the names of his sons Cornelius and Anthony. For his obedient knights did not refuse to open their ranks to these great bastards of Burgundy, who carried a bar sinister proudly on their escutcheon. So, too, others of Philip's many illegitimate descendants were not rejected when their father proposed their names.

Again, it was plainly stipulated that the new member should have proven himself a knight of renown. Yet, in this session of 1433, one of the candidates proposed for election, though nominally a knight, had assuredly had no time to show his mettle. The dignity was his only because his spurs had been thrown right royally into his cradle before his tiny hands had sufficient baby strength to grasp a rattle, and before he was even old enough to use the pleasant gold to cut his teeth upon.⁷

Among the eight elected at Dijon in 1433, was Charles of Burgundy, Count of Charolais, son of the sovereign duke, born at Dijon on the previous St. Martin's Eve, November 10th.⁸

"The new chevaliers, with the exception of the Count of Virnenbourg who was absent, took the accustomed oath at the hands of the sovereign in a room of his palace."

So runs the record. Jean le Févre, Seigneur de St. Remy, present on the occasion in his capacity of king-at-arms of the Order, is a trifle more communicative.⁹ According to him, all the gentlemen were very joyous at their election as they received their collars and made their vows as stated. He excepted no member in the phrase about the joy displayed, though, as a matter of inference, the pleasure experienced by the Count of Charolais may be reckoned as somewhat problematical.

The heir of Burgundy had attained the ripe age of just twenty days when thus officially listed among the chevaliers present at the festival. Born on November 10th of this same year, 1433,¹⁰ he had been knighted on the very day of his baptism, when Charles, Count of Nevers, and the Seigneur of Croy were his sponsors. The former gave his name to the infant while the latter's name was destined to be identified with many unpleasant incidents in the career of the future man. This brief span of life is sufficient reason for the further item in the archives of the Golden Fleece:

"As to the Count of Charolais, he was carried into the same room. There the sovereign, his father, and the duchess, his mother, took the oath on his behalf. Afterwards the duke put the collars upon all." ¹¹

Thus was emphasised at birth the parental conviction that Charles of Burgundy was of different metal than the rest of the world. The great duke of the Occident made a distinct epoch in the history of chivalry when he conferred its dignities upon a speechless, unconscious infant. The theory that knighthood was a personal acquisition had been maintained up to this period, the Children of France ¹² alone being excepted from the rule, though in his Lay de Vaillance Eustache Deschamps complains that the degree of knighthood is actually conferred on those who are only ten or twelve years old, and who do not know what to do with the honour.¹³ That plaint was written not later than the first years of the fifteenth century, and the poet's prediction that ruin of the institution was imminent when affected by such disorders seemed justified if, in 1433, even the years of the eligible age had shrunk to days. Philip himself had not received the accolade until he was twenty-five.

How his predecessor in Holland, Count William VI., had acquitted himself valiantly the moment that he was dubbed knight is told by Froissart, and the tales of other accolades of the period are too well known to need reference.

It is said that the baby cavalier was nourished by his own mother. Having lost her first two infants, Isabella was solicitous for the welfare of this third child, who also proved her last. He was, moreover, Philip's sole legal heir, as Michelle of France and Bonne of Artois, his first wives, had left no offspring. The care and devotion expended on the boy were repaid. Charles became a sturdy child who developed into youthful vigour. In person, he strangely resembled his mother and her Portuguese ancestors, rather than the English Lancastrians, from whom she was equally descended.

His dark hair and his features were very different from the fair type of his paternal ancestors, the vigorous branch of the Valois family. Possibly other characteristics suggesting his Portuguese origin were intensified by close association with his mother, who supervised the education directed by the Seigneur d' Auxy. They often lived at The Hague, where Isabella acted as chief and official adviser to the duke's stadtholder in the administration.¹⁴

Charles was a diligent pupil, if we may believe his contemporaries, surprisingly so, considering his early taste for all martial pursuits and his intense interest in military operations.

At two years of age he received his first lesson in horsemanship, on a wooden steed constructed for his especial use by Jean Rampart, a saddler of Brussels.

His biographers repeat from each other statements of his proficiency in Latin. This must be balanced by noting that the only texts which he could have read were probably not classic. In the inventory of the various Burgundian libraries of the period, there are not six Greek and Latin classical texts all told, and excepting Sallust, not a single Roman historian in the original.¹⁵ There was a translation of Livy by the Prior of St. Eloi and late abridgments of Sallust, Suetonius, Lucan, and Cæsar,¹⁶ with a French version of Valerius Maximus, but nothing of Tacitus. Doubtless these versions and a volume called Les faits des Romains were used as text-books to teach the young count about the world's conquerors. The last mentioned book shows what travesties of Roman history were gravely read in the fifteenth century.

There are stories¹⁷ that the bit of history most enjoyed by the pupil was the narrative of Alexander. Books about that hero were easy to come by long before the invention of printing, though Alexander would have had difficulty in recognising his identity under the strange mediæval motley in which his namesake wandered over the land. No single man, with the possible exception of Charlemagne, was so much written about or played so brilliantly the part of a hero to the Middle Ages and after.¹⁸ The simplicity and universality of his success were of a type to appeal to the boy Charles, himself built on simple lines. The fact, too, that Alexander was the son of a Philip stimulated his imagination and instilled in his breast hopes of conquering, not the whole world perhaps, but a good slice of territory which should enable him to hold his own between the emperor and the French king. Tales of definite schemes of early ambition are often fabricated in the later life of a conqueror, but in this case they may be believed, as all threads of testimony lead to the same conclusion.

The air breathed by the boy when he first became conscious of his own individuality was certainly heavy with the aroma of satisfied ambition. The period of his childhood was a time when his father stood at the very zenith of his power. In 1435, was signed the Treaty of Arras, the death-blow to the long coalition existing between Burgundy and England to the continual detriment of France. Philip was reconciled with great solemnity to the king, responsible in his dauphin days for the murder of the late Duke of Burgundy. After ostentatiously parading his filial resentment sixteen long years, Philip forgave Charles VII. his share in the death of John the Fearless, on the bridge at Montereau, and swore to lend his support to keep the French monarch on the throne whither the efforts of Joan of Arc had carried him from Bourges, the forlorn court of his exile.

England's pretensions were repudiated. To be sure, the recent coronation of Henry VI. at Paris was not immediately forgotten, but while the Duke of Bedford had actually administered the government as regent, in behalf of his infant nephew, it was a mere shadow of his office that passed to his successor. Bedford's death, in 1435, was almost coincident with the compact at Arras when the English Henry's realms across the Channel shrank to Normandy and the outlying fortresses of Picardy and Maine. Later events on English soil were to prove how little fitted was the son of Henry V. for sovereignty of any kind.

Out of the negotiations at Arras, Philip of Burgundy rose triumphant with a seal set upon his personal importance.¹⁹ His recognition of Charles VII. as lawful sovereign of France, and his reconciliation did not pass without signal gain to himself.

The king declared his own hands unstained by the blood of John of Burgundy, agreed to punish all those designated by Philip as actually responsible for that treacherous murder, and pledged himself to erect a cross on the bridge at Montereau, the scene of the crime. Further, he relinquished various revenues in Burgundy, hitherto retained by the crown from the moment when the junior branch of the Valois had been invested with the duchy (1364); and he ceded the counties of Boulogne, Artois, and all the seigniories belonging to the French sovereign on both banks of the Somme. To this last cession, however, was appended the condition that the towns included in this clause could be redeemed at the king's pleasure, for the sum of four hundred thousand gold crowns. Further, Charles exempted Philip from acts of homage to himself, promised to demand no aides from the duke's subjects in case of war, and to assist his cousin if he were attacked from England. Lastly, he renounced an alliance lately contracted with the emperor to Philip's disadvantage.²⁰

One clause in the treaty crowned the royal submissiveness towards the powerful vassal. It provided that in case of Charles's failure to observe all the stipulated conditions, his own subjects would be justified in taking arms against him at the duke's orders. A similar clause occurs in certain treaties between an earlier French king and his Flemish vassals, but always to the advantage of the suzerain, not to that of the lesser lords.

The duke was left in a position infinitely superior to that of the king, whose realm was terribly exhausted by the long contest with England, a contest wherein one nation alone had felt the invader's foot. French prosperity had been nibbled off like green foliage before a swarm of locusts, and the whole north-eastern portion of France was in a sorry state of desolation by 1435. On the other hand, the territories covered by Burgundy as an overlord had greatly increased during the sixteen years that Philip had worn the title. An aggregation of duchies, counties, and lordships formed his domain, loosely hung together by reason of their several titles being vested in one person—titles which the bearer had inherited or assumed under various pretexts.

Flanders and Artois, together with the duchy and county of Burgundy, came to him from his father, John the Fearless, in 1419. In 1421, he bought Namur. In 1430, he declared himself heir to his cousins in Brabant and Limbourg when Duke Anthony's second son followed his equally childless brother into a premature grave, and the claims were made good in spite of all opposition. Holland, Zealand, and Hainaut became his through the unwilling abdication of his other cousin, Jacqueline, in 1433. To save the life of her husband, Frank van Borselen, the last representative of the Bavarian House then formally resigned her titles, which she had already divested of all significance five years previously, when Philip of Burgundy had become her ruward, to relieve a "poor feminine person" of a weight of responsibility too heavy for her shoulders.²¹

Divers items in the accounts show what Philip expended in having the titles of Holland, Zealand, and Hainaut added to his other designations. Also there were various places where his predecessor's name had to be effaced to make room for his. (Laborde, i., 345).]

Antwerp and Mechlin were included in Brabant. Luxemburg was a later acquisition obtained through Elizabeth of Görlitz.

There were very shady bits in the chapters about Philip's entry into many of his possessions, but it is interesting to note how cleverly the best colour is given to his actions by Olivier de la Marche and other writers who enjoyed Burgundian patronage. Very gentle are the adjectives employed, and a nice cloak of legality is thrown over the naked facts as they are ushered into history. Contemporary criticism did occasionally make itself heard, especially from the emperor, who declared that the Netherland provinces must come to him as a lapsed imperial fief. For a time Philip denied that any links existed between his domain and the empire, but in 1449 he finally found it convenient to discuss the question with Frederic III. at Besançon; still he never came to the point of paying homage.

All these territories made a goodly realm for a mere duke. But they were individual entities centred around one head with little interconnection.

Philip thought that the one thing needed to bring his possessions into a national life, as coherent as that of France, was a unity of legal existence among the dissimilar parts, and the effort to attain this unity was the one thought dominating the career of his successor, whose pompous introduction to life naturally inspired him with a high idea of his own rank, and led him to dream of greater dignities for himself and his successor than a bundle of titles,—a splendid, vain, fatal dream as it proved.

As a final cement to the new friendship between Burgundy and France, it was also agreed at Arras that the heir of the former should wed a daughter of Charles VII. When the Count of Charolais was five years old, the Seigneur of Crèvecœur,²² "a wise and prudent gentleman" was despatched to the French court on divers missions, among which was the business of negotiating the projected alliance. A very joyous reception was accorded the envoy by the king and the queen, and his proposal was accepted in behalf of the second daughter, Catherine, easily substituted for an older sister, deceased between the first and second stages of negotiation.

A year later, a formal betrothal took place at St Omer, whither the young bride was conducted, most honourably accompanied by the archbishops of Rheims and of Narbonne, by the counts of Vendôme, Tonnerre, and Dunois, the young son of the Duke of Bourbon, named the Lord of Beaujeu, and various other distinguished nobles, besides a train of noble dames and demoiselles in special attendance on the princess, and an escort of three hundred horse.

At the various cities where the party made halt they were graciously received, and all honour was paid to the ten-year-old Daughter of France. At Cambray, she was met by the duke's envoys and as she travelled on towards her destination, all the towns of Philip's obedience contributed their quota of welcome.

At St. Omer, the duke was awaiting her coming. When her approach was announced he rode out in person to greet her, attended by a brilliant escort.