Historic Bubbles

The imperial diet was so little satisfied with this reformer’s success at the conference, that they passed upon him a sentence of deposition. He appealed from the sentence; and it was agreed that the duke of Burgundy and the French Council of State should arbitrate. Wenceslas sent as his advocate John of Moravia the most learned doctor of laws in Europe, who delivered before the duke and council a speech several hours long in latin of which they understood not one word. The diet on its side, sent Stephen of Bavaria the queen’s father who took with him an adroit pettifogging lawyer who spoke French. It was natural that the arbitrators should lean toward the pleadings they comprehended, and they gave in their adherence to the action of the diet. Rupert, count Palatine was elected emperor in the place of Wenceslas.

The evil genius of France at this time, was the king’s brother Louis of Orleans the husband of Valentina. He was showy, accomplished and for a nobleman learned, but he was unprincipled. While squandering money in every extravagance he was in debt for the necessaries of life; and woe to the tradesman who dared present his bill! One day his horses ran away with him and nearly threw him into the Seine. In the imminent peril he made a vow to the Virgin that he would pay his debts. He called his creditors together, and after a touching address in which he ascribed the glory of his rescue to the Queen of Heaven, he dismissed them without their money.

His uncle of Burgundy had excluded him from the council of State; and he put forth all his resources which were considerable, to embarrass the public business. He protested against the approval of the diet, and raised fifteen hundred soldiers and marched or pretended to march to the aid of the fallen emperor. He threatened to go to deliver the pope who was held in a sort of honorable captivity in his palace at Avignon. During the absence of the duke in Flanders, Louis and his compeer in evil, Queen Isabella, seized the reins of government and filled Paris with their satellites. The duke came back with an armed force and bloodshed was threatened; but the two dukes came to a truce and appeared in the streets, riding side by side, to the relief of well-disposed people.

Duke Philip soon returned to Flanders, and while in apparent health he was attacked by a disease then prevalent and which was probably typhoid fever, and died in his castle of Hal, in April 1404, in his seventy-third year. Philip-the-bold was the first and best of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. If the French people were not happy under his administration, it was that happiness could not be their lot. Their country was desolated by the English wars, and war was uppermost in their minds. Even in intervals of peace they would have no peace; and military games not always bloodless were the amusement of all classes. On one occasion a challenge was received from the English pale, that seven French knights should meet seven English to fight à outrance, which means mortal combat. The challenge was accepted. The most noted of the French seven was Tanneguy du Châtel whom we shall meet again in a scene of bloodshed more important. (See Two Jaquelines.) The English knights had planned that at the onset, two of them at once should attack Du Châtel, and he done for they thought to have an easy bargain of the rest. This would of course leave for a moment one of the French champions without an antagonist, and they arranged that this floating warrior should be one they feared the least. This was an awkward gentleman from Champagne, of no great renown, who had been let into the French seven for his ponderous strength. When the signal was given, this unwieldy knight for want of something better, threw himself upon the stoutest of the English seven, and with a single blow laid him dead at his feet. The English could not overcome this disadvantage and were worsted. It is but just to say that the French chroniclers explain differently the defeat of the English. The French seven, before the fight, had heard mass and received the communion, while the English had neglected that precaution.

The king’s mental disorder grew worse. The worthless queen abandoned him on the plea that she was afraid of him, and he was often shamefully neglected. While the whole court was drinking the choicest wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux, the king was served with such abominable piquette, that he was often doubled up with the colic. It is true he was at times stubborn and violent. On one occasion he refused to wash his face and put on clean linen. Three stout fellows sprang in upon him and by main strength washed him and changed him.

The opinion that he was possessed was nearly universal, and means of casting out the evil spirit were not omitted. Three famous exorcists, a priest, a locksmith and a woman who had had much success in that branch of therapeutics, came to cure him. They took him out into a grove, and seated him in a magic chair. They planted around him twelve stakes to each of which was attached a chain, every seventh link of silver. Then they announced that twelve persons of repute must be fastened to the stakes by the neck. Such was the devotion to the monarch that knights, magistrates, burgesses all pressed to offer themselves. Twelve were chosen and with their faces toward the king were chained not tight enough to choke them but enough to give them a gruesome expression which would now be called weird. The incantation was in full blast when one of the twelve losing either faith or breath crossed himself. This broke the spell, and the king lapsed into a worse frenzy than ever.

In March 1405, Margaret countess of Flanders, double duchess dowager of Burgundy died, having survived her second Philip but eleven months. She seems to have been every way reputable and worthy except that she was imperious and domineering. Philip either from unswerving affection or because he knew what would be his portion at home if he did not behave, was always true to her, a virtue not much in vogue in those days. The contention between him and his nephew of Orleans, was fully shared by their wives; and the lofty airs of the Flemish dame were not put up with submissively by the high-spirited Italian: indeed those two august ladies at times so far forgot their augustness as to call each other names.

John-the-fearless was now duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders. In the French peerage, Burgundy was held to outrank Orleans, and John claimed to be first peer of the realm. His claim did not pass undisputed: Louis of Orleans was the king’s brother and in default of the king’s sons, might become king himself; and bitter as had been the feud between him and his uncle, that between him and his cousin, was so much more so that it was fated to destroy them both.

John and Louis mustered their respective forces and marched to Paris. The old duke of Berri uncle to both and to the king, brought about a truce. Then as troops were ready for any mischief, Louis proposed to lead their joint levies against the English provinces; and John consented in hopes that some honest Cockney or Gascon might knock him on the head.

A girl who was crazy and therefore considered inspired, told Louis that the expedition would succeed provided he kissed the head of Saint Denis before setting out. He was proceeding to the abbey of Saint Denis for that purpose when the canons of Notre Dame informed him that it was they who possessed the true head of the saint, and that the other was a fraud. The monks of the abbey retorted the charge of imposture; the canons answered back; and these two reverend bodies opened upon each other such a fire of abuse and recrimination that the king who happened to be rational, imposed silence on them both. In the uncertainty, Louis must have kissed the wrong head, for the expedition failed. It was now duke John’s turn; he made an attack upon Calais and was repulsed. On his return the quarrel between him and Louis broke out more fiercely than ever. Once more did their uncle of Berri interpose and bring them to partake of the communion together; but it was too late, the feud was mortal.

Louis was intimate with the queen and passed much of his time in her company. One night when he was supping with her, the message came that the king wished to see him. He mounted his mule and escorted by a few servants carrying torches, took his way toward the king’s lodgings. Suddenly he was attacked by armed men. Thinking there was some mistake he cried out I am the duke of Orleans! You are the man we want, was the response, and they struck him down and left him dead.

Even at that time when acts of violence were so common, the murder of the king’s brother in the streets of the capital, gave a shock to the court; and vigorous search was made for the assassins. Suspicion fell at first on the lord of Canny whose wife Louis had misled; but it was soon shown that Canny was many leagues away that night. Evidence at last pressed so close around John of Burgundy that he confessed the deed. He laid the blame to the devil who he said had put him up to it. At the same time he proclaimed the duke of Orleans a public enemy deservedly slain. He employed a Franciscan named John Petit renowned for his eloquence, to justify the act. The monk in an oration which has come down to us, and in which dates, events, personages, customs, creeds, epochs are jumbled together in matchless confusion, demonstrated that the taking off of Louis de Valois was the most righteous taking off since the day when Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.

Felon as he was, John was still popular with the Parisiens. He had a good deal of rough talent and many of the arts of the politician. Moreover he paid his debts, a rare virtue for a prince of the blood of those days. His father had died owing his butcher and his grocer and his tailor, and John had not hesitated to sell the furniture of his town palace the hotel Artois, to pay these tradesmen. They had not forgotten how his rival had served them on that solemn occasion when all the glory was ascribed to Our Lady; and they were not to blame if they preferred the man who paid to the man who did not.

Duke John married Margaret of Bavaria, and her brother William, Count of Hainault, married John’s sister Margaret. It was decreed that no Margaret should marry without bringing increased power to the house of Burgundy; and it was the nuptials of these two Margarets that made possible some years later, the violence and fraud which wrested Holland, Zealand, Hainault and other provinces from John’s niece Jaqueline, sole issue of the last named marriage. (See Two Jaquelines).

John’s wife Margaret had another brother, John of Bavaria, bishop of Liége, called John-the-pitiless, a riotous prelate and a cruel, whose riotings and whose cruelties were to be one more element of strength to the dukes of Burgundy. The town of Liége on the river Meuse, was a fief of the Empire, but was under ecclesiastical government. The chief magistrate was a bishop. The reigning diocesan at this time, was that disreputable brother-in-law of John-the-fearless. The inhabitants of Liége weary of his unclerical behavior, had driven him out of their territory. He besought his brother of Burgundy to reinstate him; and John, with an eye to acquiring that sort of predominance over both diocese and diocesan, which is now-a-days called a protectorate, levied his troops. The Liégeois prepared to receive him. The two armies met at Hasbain. The duke’s force was small but well disciplined. The Liégeois aided by five hundred English archers were the stronger, and so proud a front did they present, that the duke’s lieutenants warned him of the risk of a general engagement. What, cried he, have I come as far as this to quail before a rabble of tinkers and tailors! and he gave the signal for combat.

There is no doubt that John-the-fearless was in his element on the field of battle. He did not, as did his grandfather John-the-good, mount his charger and precipitate himself into the wrong place at the wrong moment; but astride an active little jennet, he flew from rank to rank, directing everything and inspiring everybody. The Liégeois charged in column upon his centre. His pikemen stood firm. He detached a body of cavalry which spurred into the flank of the advancing column, and it gave way.

Just before the battle John had confessed and received absolution and eucharist, so that his conscience was clear for a new score. He ordered that no quarter be given, and the conflict became a massacre. But few of the men of Liége escaped. Their leader a citizen named Pervez was found dead on the field, still holding by the hand, his son dead by his side.

The Liégeois were crushed, and their mitred but unregenerate suzerain was again set to reign over them. What with those who had perished in the massacre and those he threw directly after into the Meuse, it would seem that he had not many subjects left to govern.

In the articles of submission which the surviving few were compelled to sign, it was agreed that if they were again disobedient, they were to be laid under that awful discipline an interdict, provided there existed any authority competent to fulminate interdicts. The Schism comes up again to explain this curious proviso. The Council of Pisa was sitting to restore unity to the Church. They had declared the throne of Saint Peter to be one and indivisible; and they had declared it vacant in spite of the incumbent at Rome and the incumbent at Avignon. They had elected a new pope to that vacancy. The other two refused to abdicate, so there were three popes; and as each was himself under double interdict by the anathemas launched at him by his own rivals, it was doubtful whether a rescript from such maimed authority would be canonical. So paralysed was the Church that even her curses would no longer hold. The degree to which they recovered their validity when the Schism was healed, is a point of history that illustrates the saying that truth is stranger than fiction.

The news of the victory of Hasbain was not good news to the queen and the court who favored the Orleans faction, and were alarmed at the growing power of the duke of Burgundy. A council was held, and the king spirited away to Tours. An accidental delay of the duke, gave them time for this. He had stopped at Lille to settle a quarrel between his brother, Anthony and his brother-in-law William of Hainault, touching 50,000 florins left by the late duchess of Brabant. They were on the point of deciding by mortal combat which should have the money, when the duke came. I regret I cannot inform you which of them got the 50,000 florins.

The escape of the king from under his hand, was a serious loss to the duke who was aiming at supreme control; and on reaching Paris he bent all his diplomacy to recover possession of the monarch. He won over the grand master of the king’s household, a parvenu named Montague; and by his means Charles was brought back to the capital.

Montague by minding his own business, had grown wealthy; and as he was now of no further use to his new friends, they put him to torture, and made him confess a list of crimes he had never committed. They then cut off his head, gibbetted his carcass, and divided his estates among them, duke John getting the castle of Marcoussis for his share.

When the distracted king came slowly and mistily to a sense of the way his faithful steward had been done to death, and his wealth seized by his murderers, he was wroth. He wandered about the palace of Saint Paul muttering vengeance; but the queen who in the meantime had sold herself to the Burgundians, represented to him how unseemly it was for a parvenu like Montague to own castles; and Charles after a vain struggle to master the point, let it drop.

We propose incidentally to resume the history of the dukes of Burgundy in our essay on the Jaquelines.

EPILOGUE.

Madame de Sévigné said that Providence favors the best battalions. It was she who was the author of that remark, and not Frederick-the-great nor Napoleon nor others to whom it is attributed. It has not always proved true. Henry V., ablest of the Plantagenets, at the head of the best armies then existing, tried to wrest the sceptre of France from the palsied hand of Charles VI., and perished in the attempt. From the loins of that crazy monarch and his worse than crazy queen, came forth that House of Tudor which, by the ordeal of battle, displaced the Plantagenet on the throne of England.

Much bad logic and worse history has been put forth in good English, touching the claim of Edward III. to the throne of France. It is often said that Edward denied the validity of the salic law. He did nothing of the kind. His theory was that the salic law, while it excluded females, did not exclude their progeny, and he claimed the crown of France by right of his mother Isabella daughter of Philip-the-fair. But even this theory gave the right to somebody else, as Hume has shown, and as we propose to make visible to the naked eye.

Edward’s theory would have given the crown of France to Charles-the-bad, grandson of Louis X. It went to Philip of Valois, Philip VI. by right of unbroken male descent from Hugh Capet, as it did long afterwards to the House of Bourbon.

Two Jaquelines

John-the-fearless, second of the four Valois dukes of Burgundy married Margaret of Bavaria. Her brother William of Bavaria was count of Hainault, lord of Holland, of Zealand, of Friesland and of nearly all the territory which now goes to make up the kingdom of the Netherlands. Now John having married William’s sister Margaret, William to be even with him, turned round and married John’s sister Margaret, Margaret of Valois, Margaret of Burgundy. These two princes having each married the other’s sister Margaret, were thus double brothers-in-law; and this close relationship did not breed any dissention between them: it was otherwise with their children who were, you perceive, double cousins. John and his Margaret were blest with one son and seven daughters. William and his Margaret had but one child, a daughter whom they christened Jaqueline. This lady is called by so many different names in history, that if you were not on your guard you might imagine there were half a dozen of them: Jaqueline of Bavaria, Jaqueline of Holland, Jaqueline of Hainault, Jaqueline of Brabant. Then the Dutch called her Jacoba; so some English writers affect to call her Jacoba, and ring the changes on it. But in spite of these manifold appellations she was but a sole and only child; and as the salic law did not rule in the low countries, she was a great heiress. Her situation was a repetition of that of her grandmother Margaret of Flanders except that the provinces they inherited respectively were different. (See Second House of Burgundy.)

The great expectations of Jaqueline entitled her to a distinguished husband, and when only five years old she was wedded to John of Touraine second son of Charles VI. The marriage was celebrated with much splendor at Compiegne, at the same time with that of prince John’s cousin the count of Angoulême who espoused Isabella, John’s sister, widow of Richard II. of England who had been murdered at Pomfret. It is said that the joy of these double nuptials was saddened by the tears of Isabella who wept aloud at having to give up the title of queen.

Not long after the marriage, John’s elder brother the dauphin died, and John himself became dauphin. Behold then our little Jaqueline in a fair way to become queen of France! But it was not to be: prince John died suddenly one day, and his death like all sudden death of exalted personages in those days, was attributed to poison. But the probability is that all the poison he took was what the doctors gave him in good faith, to cure him of a cold he had caught playing at tennis; and I may hold the case up to you as a warning either against tennis or the doctors as you prefer.

Jaqueline was eleven years old when her husband died. The same year, 1417, she lost also her father the count William. Thus from a great heiress she became a great potentate. She was of course too young to administer her own affairs; and they fell chiefly into the hand of her powerful uncle John-the-fearless. She was not only a great potentate but a stylish young widow, the best match in the market; and great was the scramble for her hand. Not a single princely fortune hunter in Europe but was dying of love for her.

After some years of widowhood, a family council was held, and it was determined that she should marry her cousin John duke of Brabant, son of Antony of Burgundy and Elizabeth of Luxembourg. Antony who was brother of John-the-fearless, had fallen at Agincourt. Jaqueline and the duke of Brabant being first cousins, a dispensation was of course necessary to their marriage; and they applied for one to the Roman pontiff Martin V. In the family council referred to, an active part had been taken by an uncle of Jaqueline on her father’s side, namely John-the-pitiless, bishop of Liége, whom we have already introduced to you in our paper on the House of Burgundy. He had approved of the betrothal, and had joined in the application to the pope; but he was secretly resolved to leave no stone unturned to seize his dead brother’s estates, the inheritance of Jaqueline; and indeed it is alleged that he was even manoeuvring to espouse her himself. He despatched furtively a messenger to the pope praying him to withhold the dispensation, or to revoke it if already granted, pleading that he had just discovered a flaw in his brother’s marriage with Margaret of Burgundy, that would render Jaqueline illegitimate. The dispensation was already on its way to Flanders; so the pontiff instantly put forth an annulment, and the one document arrived at the heels of the other. But when they came to unroll them they found that there was wanting to the revocation a bit of red tape and a leaden seal. In the great haste some functionary through whose hands it had passed, had neglected to attach those ornaments; and for the want of an ounce of lead, the annulment was of no weight, while the dispensation duly ballasted with that metal, was of force. The wedding party did not give the bishop time to have the error corrected, and the nuptials took place.

The bishop immediately levied ban and arrière ban and invaded the provinces of his niece. It was a favorable moment for him. Holland was convulsed with civil strife between two factions called the Fishhooks and the Codfish. The latter sided with the bishop, and the former with Jaqueline who flew in an undaunted manner to the rescue of her patrimony. The duke of Burgundy sent to the seat of war his son afterwards Philip-the-good; and that prince compelled both parties to lay down their arms. The duke then thought to pacify the bishop by investing him with the revenues of certain of his niece’s estates.

John-the-pitiless was bishop by brevet only. He had taken no orders higher than those of deacon, and therefore was not irrevocably a churchman. His plan to marry Jaqueline having failed, he fixed his eye on another bride. In order to carry out this fresh design upon the peace and tranquillity of the sex, he appealed to the pope for a decree of secularisation unfrocking him. The pope was compliant and the ex-bishop led to the altar, Elizabeth of Luxembourg relict of Anthony of Burgundy, mother of the duke of Brabant and mother-in-law of Jaqueline.

Jaqueline had been so busy fighting her demi-reverend uncle who had just assumed a nearer and dearer relationship to her, that she had given herself no time to see what sort of a husband she had married. She now took a good look at him and found that he was a puny, misshapen invalid, while her looking-glass and her friends told her that she had grown up into a handsome, wholesome, vigorous woman. They went to housekeeping however, and quarrelled like man and wife. One day while she was absent, her husband of Brabant took it upon him to dismiss all her Dutch hand-maidens, and send them back, bag and baggage, to Holland. The reason he gave for it was that they talked Dutch, a dialect he did not understand and did not commend. Jaqueline was not disposed to put up with this affront. She left him and went back to her mother who was residing at Valenciennes. She soon found life too dull there for a spirit as restless as hers, and planned an expedition to England. A retinue suitable to a princess of her rank was furnished her, and she crossed the channel.

England was at that time ruled by Henry V. the second king of the house of Lancaster. His queen was Catharine of France daughter of Charles VI., and sister of Jaqueline’s first husband prince John. Catharine was therefore her sister-in-law and her cousin. Henry was also related to her but more remotely through their common descent from Charles of Valois. Henry and Catharine received Jaqueline with great distinction, and invited her to stand godmother to their infant son afterwards the good and pious but unfortunate Henry VI.

In the family party assembled at the baptism, was the king’s youngest brother Humphrey duke of Gloucester, called by historians and by Shakspeare, the good duke of Gloucester. He looked wistfully across the font at his blooming Dutch cousin; and she, I am sorry to say, looked wistfully back at him. They fell in love and so desperately that they resolved that nothing should prevent their union, not even the crooked little duke of Brabant who was already the husband of Jaqueline. They applied to pope Martin to annul that marriage; and the pontiff usually so compliant, was obstinate in his refusal. We shall see by and by what was the cause of his obstinacy. But he was not the only pope. These were still the days of the Great Schism: a pope at Rome, and a pope at Avignon. To such a degree however, had the Eternal City regained its prestige, that at the epoch of our story, the greater number of the powers of Europe, had renounced the obedience of Avignon and gone over to that of Rome. Among the first that had done so, were the houses of Plantagenet and Bavaria, the houses to which our two lovers belonged. But to them the true pope was the pope who would let them marry. They had failed before Martin V., so they appealed from him to Benedict XIII. who sat in a kind of survival of grandeur on the throne of Avignon. Benedict, flattered that an English prince and a Flemish princess should abjure his rival and come over to him, granted a bull in due form annulling Jaqueline’s marriage with the duke of Brabant, and anathematising Martin V. Gloucester and Jaqueline were immediately united.

Leaving them to enjoy the honey-moon, we will go back and take a rapid survey of the events which gave political importance to their marriage.

One hot day in August 1392, Charles VI. had a sun-stroke and went crazy. The reins of government fell once more into the hands of his uncle Philip. (See House of Burgundy.) At the death of Philip a bitter contest for the supremacy broke out between his son John-the-fearless and Louis of Orleans, the king’s brother. This rivalry led to a desultory civil war interrupted by truces and pacifications during one of which, John-the-fearless thought to settle the dispute once for all, by a touch of his fearlessness. He assassinated his rival in the streets of Paris.

The stroke was to a great degree successful, and John duke of Burgundy was the greatest man in the realm. But the faction of Orleans though disorganised for the moment by the death of its chief, was not extinguished. The young duke son of the murdered man, had taken for his second wife the daughter of the count of Armagnac an energetic leader who put himself at the head of the Orleansists, and even gave them his name; and France was torn by the bloody strife between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs.

It was this state of things that tempted Henry V. of England to revive an absurd claim to the crown of France which had been trumped up as a pretext for plunder, by his great grandfather Edward III. Henry invaded France and won the battle of Agincourt. Both factions courted his alliance, each being more anxious to wreak vengeance on the other than to save their common country. Henry after some coquetting, sided with the Burgundians who were the stronger of the two, and held the north of France including the capital which they put into his hands. In that city he afterwards married Catharine daughter of Charles and Isabella, and was declared heir of the monarchy, in contempt of the rights of Catharine’s young brother the dauphin Charles. The demented king and his disreputable queen deserted the cause of their son and of France, and went over to the English. The dauphin himself was rescued from the clutches of his father and mother, by a bold stroke of Tanneguy du Châtel an Armagnac noble who broke into the boy’s lodging one night, snatched him out of bed, wrapped him up in his cloak, mounted his horse with him, and made good his escape; and Charles lived to recover his inheritance and more besides. The Armagnac faction thus became the party of the dauphin, the party of the nation and of the independence of France.

There were among the Burgundian barons some who remembered they were Frenchmen and who fought reluctantly on the side of England. These projected an interview between the dauphin and duke John, with a view of reconciling their differences, and uniting their arms against the common enemy. The meeting took place on the bridge of Montereau, and John-the-fearless was struck dead at the feet of the young prince. Thus did one foul murder avenge another murder equally foul committed twelve years before.

Some English writers inform you that John-the-fearless was assassinated by orders of the dauphin. Charles at that time was an indolent boy of sixteen; and he probably was not allowed to know that such an act was meditated. Indeed so impolitic was the murder that it is far from certain that there was any premeditation about it. It is much more likely that duke John fell a victim to a sudden outbreak of revenge on the part of nobles he had long pursued.

His son and successor Philip was in his twenty-third year. He is called in history Philip-the-good for reasons perhaps as satisfactory as in the case of his great grandfather king John II. He was good tempered however, and whenever his domestic servitors, his equerries and his chamberlains came to talk with him about household matters he received them affably instead of kicking them on the shins with his jack-boots as his sire had done, and as was indeed the style in those days.

Philip had married Charles’s sister Michelle of France; but he eagerly adopted the theory of his English counsellors, that Charles was the assassin; and he went home and exclaimed O Michelle your brother has murdered my father! The poor princess threw herself into his arms and declared that his enemies were her enemies, and the tragedy worked no breach between them.

But Philip thought of nothing but revenge. He sent an envoy to the English king offering a formal alliance with him for the destruction of the French monarchy. The astonishing treaty as Hume calls it, by which this prince of the blood royal of France declared himself the enemy of his family, of his country and of that throne to which he was so nearly related that in the chapter of chances he might become its heir, is called the treaty of Troyes from Troyes in Champagne where it was signed.[8]

It was about the time of this treaty that the English court was set agog by the flirtation between Jaqueline and the duke of Gloucester, and by the application they were making to both popes to open the way to their marriage. Nothing could be more threatening to the House of Burgundy than that an English prince should acquire Holland and the other provinces that had fallen to Jaqueline; and duke Philip, notwithstanding his alliance with Henry, interfered vigorously and successfully to prevent pope Martin from annulling the previous marriage of Jaqueline. When the annulment was finally obtained from Benedict, Philip appealed to Henry himself to stop the espousals by his royal authority. But Henry was quite willing his brother should win so great a prize. There was to be sure, hazard in it; but he trusted to his own address to keep Philip quiet, and allowed the marriage to take place. Nor did he trust in vain. That gifted monarch had sounded the depths and the shallows of his ally. He knew that Philip was the most pig-headed of mortals; and that he would submit to still greater humiliations rather than give up his schemes of vengeance.

Up to this time the arms of England had been successful; but they now met with a reverse the consequences of which were far-reaching; though English historians affect either to ignore the transaction, or to refer to it as an affair of no importance. Henry had gone back to England, leaving his victorious army under the command of his brother Thomas duke of Clarence. Thomas could not forgive himself for not having been at Agincourt on that day of glory; and he resolved to have an Agincourt of his own. The French under the Marshal de Lafayette—an ancestor of our own Lafayette—were in a strong position at Beaugé. A little way off lay a body of Scotch under the earl of Buchan, ready to second the French; but the English despised the Scotch even more than they did the French, for they had beaten them oftener and at greater odds.[9]

Clarence did not hesitate to attack the French position. He was received with steadiness; and at the critical moment Buchan and his red-headed crew bore down upon the field. Clarence was slain, and his army defeated.

Henry whose opinion of the disaster was different from that of the English historians, flew back to France, and in the most obstinate of all his campaigns, succeeded in winning back the ground that had been lost. But that campaign which the defeat of Beaugé alone had rendered necessary, was fatal to him. Worn out with care, fatigue and exposure he lay dying at Vincennes.

He called to him his next brother John duke of Bedford, appointed him regent of France, and enjoined upon him always to preserve the friendship and alliance of the duke of Burgundy, as essential to the conquest of the kingdom. He constituted his brother Humphrey regent of England, and adjured him never to leave that island while the war lasted. These two injunctions had the same drift, and showed what was weighing upon Henry’s mind. He had been confident of his own power to obviate the mischief threatened by the English marriage of Jaqueline, but he was not sure his brothers would be equal to it; and the apprehension was not ill founded.

The monarch died and was embalmed and sent to England. He was perhaps the greatest of England’s kings. His chief faults were cruelty and arrogance, and they both stood in his way. Assuming to be king of France he regarded as a traitor worthy of death every Frenchman who resisted him. This theory drove the French into that tenacious defence of their towns which checked his progress; and at the same time his haughty airs alienated the Burgundian nobles. Dare you look me in the face when you speak to me? said he to L’isle Adam, Philip’s governor of Paris. Sire, replied the Burgundian, there lives not the man that I look not in the face when I speak to him.

A few weeks after Henry’s death, his poor crazy father-in-law Charles VI. was laid beside his ancestors in the abbey of Saint Denis. Not a single prince of the House of Valois followed him to his grave. Not a single prince of any blood save the duke of Bedford alone who conducted the obsequies. As they turned away from his tomb, the good monks of the abbey who had sung the requiem, fell into a dispute with the servants of the king’s household about the possession of some ornaments that had been used in the funeral. From words they come to blows, and the battle waxed so fierce that Bedford and his suite were fain to turn back and strike right and left to quell the tumult.

Henry instead of naming one of his brothers guardian and governor of his infant son now king, had conferred that office on his uncle the bishop of Winchester.[10] That bishop is the Cardinal Beaufort of Shakspeare; and we shall now call him by that name though pope Martin had not yet sent him the red hat. These Beauforts were the natural children of John of Gaunt and Catharine Swinford. In the reign of Richard II. John’s nephew, they had been legitimated; but when John’s son Henry usurped the throne, he was fearful of the ambition of his half brothers and caused his parliament to modify the legitimation so far as to exclude them from the throne. The exclusion was futile: the line of Beaufort reigns over England at this present moment, while that of Henry is extinct.

Cardinal Beaufort possessed great abilities but an imperious temper. He and his nephew of Gloucester Jaqueline’s husband were rivals, the one being regent of the king, the other of the kingdom; and this rivalry soon lapsed into a hatred so bitter that they sought only to destroy each other.

The cardinal had raised six thousand men to reinforce Bedford, when Gloucester, exercising his prerogative of regent, assumed the command of them. Then in spite of Henry’s dying injunction that he should not leave England, he took Jaqueline with him and at the head of those troops, landed at Calais. Instead of going south to join Bedford as he had promised, he marched east across the territories of the duke of Burgundy without his permission, and entered upon the provinces of Jaqueline. At their coming the war of the Codfish and the Fishhooks broke out afresh. He and Jaqueline sided with the Fishhooks which gave the Hooks a temporary superiority.

Philip behaved with signal imbecility. Instead of withdrawing his contingent from France, and using it to drive Gloucester out, he expostulated with Bedford concerning the invasion, and clamored for the withdrawal of the English troops. Most gladly would Bedford have withdrawn them, for he needed them himself; but Gloucester was not subject to his authority, and would not listen to him. Philip at last woke up to what everybody else saw, that he was in the predicament of fighting for the English in France and against them in the Netherlands. He levied a fresh army, took the command in person, and marched toward Holland.

When Gloucester heard of these preparations, he wrote Philip a wheedling letter saying that he had come to the continent solely in the interest of Philip and of Philip’s dear double cousin Jaqueline; and he called Heaven to witness to the purity of his intentions. Philip told him he was a liar; Gloucester told Philip he was another. Philip immediately challenged him to mortal combat, declaring that by the help of God and of God’s Virgin Mother our Lady, he would convince him of his error by running him through the body. Gloucester accepted the challenge, vowing to put Philip to death in the name of God, of our Lady and of Monseigneur Saint George. The duke of Bedford and cardinal Beaufort interfered and persuaded these two blusterers to leave the matter out to a council of doctors of law and theology at Paris. These philosophers arrived at the verdict that the two challengers had come out so even in the missives they had discharged at each other that further duelling was superfluous; and so it ended.

Philip entered Holland at the head of his army. The Codfish joined him, not that they preferred him to their lawful suzerain Jaqueline, but because those worthless Fishhooks had adhered to the other side.

At this critical moment Gloucester went back to England, leaving Jaqueline to see to her own affairs as best she might. He was called home he said, by the untoward proceedings of his uncle the cardinal. He sent to Jaqueline however, a reënforcement of three thousand men. The two armies met at Browershaven where after a day of carnage in which Englishman and Frenchman, Fleming and Burgundian, Codfish and Fishhook fell indiscriminately, the star of Philip prevailed. He was not a great general; but in the hour of combat he was an active and intrepid soldier.

Not wholly crushed by this defeat, Jaqueline donned her armor and took the field in person, and in more than one bloody conflict behaved with the steadiness of a veteran. But there was no repairing the disaster of Browershaven, and her fortunes sank. She wrote imploringly to Gloucester to come back to her. One of her letters full of affection, still exists. But they never met again. The good Humphrey had fallen in with a handsome English girl named Eleanor Cobham, and had become more intimate with her than comported with his duty to his Dutch wife.

Philip by the success of his arms and by this infidelity of Gloucester, became master of the fate of Jaqueline. He prayed pope Martin to annul her English marriage and to reinstate the one with the duke of Brabant. Martin consented and put forth a bull accordingly; and as the English marriage had been sanctioned and blessed by his Avignon rival, he let fly at him an anathema so comprehensive that it is doubtful whether he has yet been able, even after the lapse of five centuries, to dodge all its provisions.

As there was reason to fear that Jaqueline still loved her truant Humphrey, the bull in question decreed that if she again espoused him, even after the death of Brabant, she would be guilty of adultery. This at first seems illogical; but the Church is never illogical: admit her premises and you are swept to her conclusions. Let us see: According to the Church, if a woman marries again having a previous husband living, she commits adultery. If Jaqueline after the death of Brabant, should marry Gloucester, she would marry again, having a previous husband living. If you should ask who that previous husband would be, I answer the duke of Gloucester.

At all events, this syllogism was so convincing to Gloucester himself, that like a submissive son of the Church, he turned round and married his mistress Eleanor Cobham.

Nemesis followed up that marriage, and Jaqueline was avenged. A few years later, the duchess Eleanor was arraigned for witchcraft and made to do public penance at Saint Pauls. Humphrey was implicated in his wife’s sorceries; but it would not answer to make a prince of the blood do penance at Saint Pauls, so he was found one morning, dead in his bed.

As for his murderer, stop here O reader! turn to your Shakspeare, Henry VI. part II. act III. scene III.; and stand at the bedside of the dying cardinal—that scene of which Doctor Johnson says “the profound can imagine nothing beyond”—that scene of which Schlegel says “it is beyond praise; no other poet has ever drawn aside the curtain of eternity in so awful a manner”—that scene which John Richard Green says “is taken bodily from some older dramatist!”[11]

The annulment of Jaqueline’s English marriage, threw her back into the arms of the duke of Brabant who however, did not long enjoy the wife thus restored to him. He died, and his estates fell to his brother Philip who died soon after, and so suddenly that Philip of Burgundy who was, or rather claimed to be the next heir, was suspected of having poisoned him. But the fifteenth century had fairly set in, and knowledge had revived. Two intelligent surgeons cut open the dead Philip, to see what ailed him, and found in his stomach an ulcer which sufficiently explained his demise, so that Philip-the-good escaped passing into history as a poisoner.

Jaqueline was reduced to extremities. Philip had cornered her up in Zealand, and set to watch over her a lieutenant of his named Philip Borssele who had risen in his service by his business talents. Jaqueline the inheritor of some of the richest provinces in Europe, was so straitened that she had not money enough to defray her housekeeping. One day her mother had sent her a present of a span of horses, and she could not find a single florin in her purse to give as drink-money to the grooms who had brought them. One of her attendants suggested to her to apply to Borssele who always had money to lend. She spurned the thought of being beholden to that low-born myrmidon of her hated cousin. But finally her necessities prevailed. She sent to Borssele to borrow a small sum. He not only lent it to her but told her he had more at her disposal. Jaqueline was mollified: we are all mollified with a little money and the promise of more. She made up her mind he was not a myrmidon after all but an honest fellow. She admitted him to her presence. Borssele was handsome and graceful; and she did not frown upon him. He took a pliant hour, and though he had never read Othello, he told his tale of love as eloquently as the Moor. They were privately married.

When Philip-the-good heard of this fresh escapade of his double cousin, he flew into a towering passion—or at least, pretended to do so. He stamped and stormed. That Jaqueline of Bavaria, duchess of Brabant, daughter of Burgundy and of France, should stoop to the hand of Philip Borssele! So he seized the bridegroom and shut him up in the castle of Rupelmonde; and thus was Jaqueline deprived of her fourth husband.

But there is reason to believe that Philip-the-good was putting on airs, and that he was secretly glad of the advantage which Jaqueline’s imprudence had given him over her. She had never ceded her estates to him by any formal act: he held them as a brigand holds his prey; but now he brought her to surrender to him her whole patrimony as the ransom of her husband. Borssele was set free, and in order to raise him to a rank a little more commensurate with that of his wife, Philip created him count of Ostravant, and conferred upon him the collar of the Golden Fleece, an order of chivalry which Philip himself had established as a rival to the English order of the Garter; and he settled upon the newly married pair a part of the revenues of Ostravant, so that his double cousin and cousin-in-law might not starve.[12]

We know but little of the remaining years of Jaqueline’s life. We hope they were more tranquil than those we have recounted. She died in 1436, at the age of thirty-five, leaving no issue.

The domains which she had inherited formed technically a part of the Empire Holy and Roman; and at her death the emperor Sigismund claimed that they had escheated to him. The claim was in accordance with feudal law, but Philip was already in possession and was too powerful to be dislodged. Thus did the provinces of Jaqueline go to swell the dominion of the House of Burgundy—that house whose fate it was never to decline after the manner of empires, but to grow in power and splendor under each succeeding duke until the day when Charles-the-rash, son of Philip, should stretch forth his hand to a regal diadem; and then the storm came which swept away both duke and dominion.

The same year that Jaqueline of Bavaria married Philip Borssele, Jaqueline of Luxembourg married the duke of Bedford.

But to introduce our second Jaqueline with due ceremony we must go back ten years; and I promise not to be so long as that in fetching up the arrears of my story.

After the death of Henry V. his brother of Bedford was at first desirous to obey the injunction of the dying king, to keep on good terms with the duke of Burgundy. There had been love passages, ardent no doubt, but still diplomatic only between Bedford and Anne of Burgundy Philip’s sister, a comely maiden of eighteen. Bedford pressed his suit and was accepted, and Anne made him a good wife, at least in a political sense, for her kind offices were often required to keep peace between her arrogant husband and her obstinate brother.

Bedford was endowed with all the haughtiness of his brother Henry without his genius; and he affected to treat Philip as his inferior which he certainly was not. The House of Valois descended in direct male line from Hugh Capet, had nothing to yield to the House of Plantagenet whose highest male descent was from the counts of Anjou vassals of the line of Capet. Besides, duke Philip was an hereditary sovereign, while duke John of Bedford was only regent of a kingdom not yet achieved, and not destined to be achieved.

On one occasion, in the presence of both English and Burgundian nobles, Bedford so far forgot himself as to threaten that if his brother Philip did not behave, he would send him to England to drink more beer than he liked. This was a gross affront. Philip had been brought up on the delicious wines of his native Burgundy; and he detested beer. But the good duchess Anne interposed and persuaded her husband not to make her brother drink beer, and peace was maintained.

After nine years of married life Anne died. This event might not have dissolved the alliance between the two powers, had not Bedford conducted himself with a wanton disregard to Philip’s sensibilities. Among the vassals of the House of Burgundy the most illustrious was a branch of that of Luxembourg; and the gentlemen of that house were among the most ardent partisans of the English cause. It was John of Luxembourg into whose hands the maid of Orleans had fallen after her capture at Compiegne. John took her to his castle of Beaurevoir where she was received with kindness by the ladies of his house, especially by his young niece Jaqueline of Saint Pol, or of Luxembourg.

The high rank and eminent services of this family had brought them into social relations with the regent Bedford; and Anne of Burgundy was no sooner in her grave than he offered his hand to Jaqueline. And so promptly did they dispatch the business that it might be said of that as of another occasion well known to you, that the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Jaqueline of Luxembourg was Philip’s vassal, and by feudal law, had no right to marry without his consent, but he was not even consulted. This disrespect to the memory of his dead sister, and contempt of his own authority exhausted his patience. He had long had his head broken at home over his English alliance. His eldest sister had married Arthur of Brittany, count of Richmont, Constable of France. His next sister was the wife of the count of Clermont afterwards duke of Bourbon. Both these gentlemen were partisans of king Charles. Philip who as we have said, was good-tempered, had kept on friendly terms with his sisters, though their husbands would now and then burst into his territories and lay them waste; and he now empowered those fighting brothers-in-law to open negotiations in his name with the king.

Cardinal Beaufort—we have anticipated in referring to his death-bed—Cardinal Beaufort made a strenuous effort to turn aside the peril. He induced Philip and Bedford to agree to a personal interview, and they went to Saint Omer for that purpose. But a question of precedence arose: neither of them would pay the other the first visit. In vain did the cardinal represent to Bedford that it was he who had given the cause of offence, and it was he who had everything to lose by the rupture. The self-willed Plantagenet would concede nothing. The cardinal then tried Philip, calling him his dear nephew.[13] But the Burgundian’s blood was up and he was as intractable as the Englishman. So the two princes left St. Omer without seeing each other.

The envoys of the king of France and of the duke of Burgundy met in the church of Saint Vaast in the town of Arras. Cardinal Beaufort took part in the conference on behalf of England; and the cardinal of Santa Croce on the part of the Roman pontiff. In an eloquent speech Beaufort pleaded in the name of that Church of which he was a prince, that Philip could renounce his alliance with England only at the cost of his salvation. He had taken an oath, and if he broke that oath his soul was lost. On the contrary the cardinal of Santa Croce maintained that Philip’s first and greatest sublunary duty was to his liege lord king Charles, and if he were recreant to that duty he would be damned. And to prove that it was he and not the English cardinal who spoke by the authority of the Church, he wrought a miracle on the spot. They brought to him a consecrated wafer—the BREAD that the hand of the priest had transformed into the very substance of the Omnipotent. He cursed it, and it turned black; he blessed it and it turned white again.

This was beyond gainsaying. Beaufort withdrew; and the treaty of Arras was signed, in which Philip dictated nearly his own terms. Among other concessions Charles agreed to build an expiatory chapel at Montereau where John-the-fearless had been murdered, and to maintain there daily low mass for the repose of his soul. Not a word about John’s victim the equally murdered Louis of Orleans the king’s uncle. His soul was left to shift for itself without diplomatic succor. Time once more vindicated its reputation for putting things to rights. Before the century was out the generation of Charles VII. was extinct; and that of the neglected Louis mounted the throne and sat there till the end.[14]

The defection of the duke of Burgundy resulted as Henry V. had foreseen: it rendered hopeless the Plantagenet cause in France. But indeed the tide had already turned, and the remnant of the kingdom left to Charles VII. had suddenly shown itself a match for its enemies. The superstitious spirit of the age attributed this change to the direct interposition of Providence in the advent and career of Jeanne Darc the famous Maid of Orleans; and the English have seemed willing to leave this coloring upon it in order to throw a mist over some of the most unfortunate passages of their military history. The true explanation like most true explanations, is simple enough. There had sprung up around the falling throne of Charles an array of military talent not equalled elsewhere. Charles VII. was not a great king, but so fortunate was he in making use of the greatness of others that he gained the name of Charles-the-well-served. Foremost among those to whom he owed that title, was his cousin the count Dunois called in the early part of his career and in Shakspeare, the Bastard of Orleans.

So little can be gathered in English histories concerning this great man, that I will say a word more about him. Louis of Orleans, the husband of Valentina, was not true to her. An intrigue with the wife of the lord of Canny, resulted in the birth of a boy. Why the mother did not take charge of her offspring I do not know; but it is certain that Valentina herself adopted this by-blow of her husband, and brought him up with her own little brood. It is even said that he was her favorite among them, from his singular wit and spirit. After having tried many years in vain to bring the lordly assassin of her husband to justice, Valentina lay on her death-bed. She called her children to her side; she called to him who was not her child, but whom she loved as well; and she told him that he above them all was chosen to be the avenger of his father. But Heaven had marked out for him a higher rôle than to avenge an unworthy sire. It was he who was ever at the side of the Maid of Orleans eking out her inspiration with his own, and at times setting aside the mandates she received from above, in favor of the suggestions of his own genius; and then with true magnanimity ascribing to her all the glory of the success.

After the capture of the Maid, the renown of Dunois, no longer obscured by the cloud of superstition in which he himself had been willing to envelop it, shone forth with its proper splendor.

Bedford, after having hacked the spurs off the heels of one of his bravest captains, because he had lost the battle of Patay, took the field himself against Dunois; and at Lagni was forced to abandon to him his cannon and his baggage. Subsequently Dunois was made lieutenant general of France.

The hundred years war ended by the dismemberment not of the French empire but of the English. The vast continental domains of the Plantagenets, the inheritance of Eleanor of Aquitaine, containing nearly one-third of France, which they had held three centuries—as long indeed as they had held the throne of England—were all conquered and annexed to the French crown. Nothing remained but the town of Calais which however was not a part of Eleanor’s patrimony.

This was the severest blow England ever received: it reduced her to a second class power, and left to her kings hardly more territory than they had inherited from their Saxon predecessors. In treating of this great war, English historians with some exceptions, strive to make nothing conspicuous but English victories; and the thoughtful reader is puzzled at the result, if indeed the result is disclosed to him. Well, let him admire the patriotism of the English writers and look elsewhere.

But the Jaquelines! We have tried to explain how they were a cause, albeit a minor one, of this outcome, by the dissention which the love affairs of both fomented between the Plantagenets and the Burgundian Valois. A major cause was the soldiership of Dunois and his companions in arms.[15]

Three years after his marriage with Jaqueline of Luxembourg, the duke of Bedford, worn out like his brother Henry, with care and toil, died at Rouen, leaving his widow childless. Her further history demands that we go back two years.

Near the town of Beauvais there was a dilapidated castle called Gerberoy. In the neighborhood were hovering La Hire and Saintrailles two of the hardest fighters in the service of king Charles. Bedford feared that these gentlemen might seize Gerberoy and make it tenable, so he despatched one of his captains the earl of Arundel to intercept them. Arundel was approaching Gerberoy without having discovered any signs of the enemy; and there was apparently nothing to apprehend from a ruinous old stronghold which could not contain half as many men as he had at his back. Nevertheless like a prudent general he sent forward Sir Ralph Standish with a hundred men to reconnoitre. Sir Ralph arrived under the walls, and observing a soldier on the parapet, summoned him to surrender. The soldier answered with a gibe, and the next moment Sir Ralph and his hundred men were flying for their lives. La Hire and Saintrailles had thrown themselves into the place in the night with a corps of picked men. Not content with putting to flight Sir Ralph, they instantly fell upon the main body of the English which according to Hume, was five times their number. Arundel was slain and his detachment routed.

Among the prisoners taken, was an English knight named Richard Woodville, and it is on this occasion, I believe, that he makes his début on the page of history. He had fought with blind and misdirected valor in the battle, and so had other knights whose names have not come down to us. His name would not have spanned such a distance had it not been his fate to become the father of the long line of kings referred to in the beginning of this essay; nor is that the only royal line that traces descent from him.

He soon recovered his liberty and entered the personal service of the duke of Bedford as a sort of staff officer, and had frequent occasions to admire the charming duchess. After Bedford’s death Sir Richard ventured to lift his eyes to the widowed Jaqueline. Like Borssele he was handsome; and Jaqueline of Luxembourg took a leaf out of the book of Jaqueline of Bavaria, and became the bride of Sir Richard Woodville.

Their daughter was that Elizabeth Woodville, lady Grey who came and knelt before Edward IV. and prayed that he would lift from her and her children the attainder that had fallen upon them because her husband had perished at Saint Albans, fighting for the House of Lancaster. Edward granted her prayer, fell in love with her and married her. Their daughter was Elizabeth Plantagenet who became the queen of Henry VII.

One more love story is needed to complete the mosaic. Catharine of France widow of Henry V., became enamoured of what one English historian calls “an obscure Welch gentleman named Owen Tudor.” This was the gravest misalliance of all. Catharine of Valois, daughter of a king, sister of a king, widow of a king, mother of a king, stooped to be the wife of an obscure country gentleman. Their son Edmund Tudor, married Margaret Beaufort of the Beaufort family already mentioned. The son of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort was Henry earl of Richmond who seized the crown as the prize of his victory at Bosworth, and then strengthened his claim to it by marrying Elizabeth Plantagenet, Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV. and grand daughter of Jaqueline.

Thus did the blood of Beaufort come to the throne; and thus were Jaqueline of Luxembourg and her true knight the progenitors of the line which Macbeth said would stretch out to the crack of doom.

VALOIS, BURGUNDY, HAPSBURG, BOURBON.

(The italics mark the line of descent.)

Charles-le-temeraire, Charles-the-rash, miscalled by the English, Charles-the-bold, was the last Valois duke of Burgundy. He left an only child Mary of Burgundy who married Maximilian of Hapsburg, afterward emperor. Their son was the Archduke Philip who is counted as Philip the first of Spain though he never reigned. Philip married Joanna daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and sister of Catharine of Aragon wife of Henry VIII. The son of Philip and Joanna was the great emperor Charles-the-fifth who was Charles the first of Spain. The crown of Spain then fell from father to son, to Philip II., Philip III., Philip IV. and Charles II. where the male line of the elder branch of Hapsburg ended. The crown then fell to Philip V. (Bourbon), grandson of Louis XIV. and Maria Teresa eldest daughter of Philip IV.

The younger, the Austrian branch of the House of Hapsburg, is descended from the emperor Ferdinand brother of Charles-the-fifth.