Charles the Bold Part 1

Charles the Bold.

by Ruth Putnam.

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 a.s.sez 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 partic.i.p.ants in the scenes thereof, are almost overwhelming in quant.i.ty. 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 pa.s.sing 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 t.i.tle of _A Mediaeval 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 ma.s.s 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 grat.i.tude 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 temeraire_.

R.P.

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1908.

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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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, pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sembly 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 inst.i.tution 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sertion, when he inst.i.tuted the Order of the Golden Fleece, was that he intended to create a bulwark

"for the reverence of G.o.d and the sustenance of our Christian faith, and to honour and enhance the n.o.ble 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." [2]

The special homage to the new d.u.c.h.ess 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 inst.i.tution 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 amba.s.sador 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHILIP THE GOOD AS FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE]

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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 a.s.suredly 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 Fevre, 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 inst.i.tution 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 Mich.e.l.le 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 st.u.r.dy 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 a.s.sociation 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 cla.s.sic. In the inventory of the various Burgundian libraries of the period, there are not six Greek and Latin cla.s.sical texts all told, and excepting Sall.u.s.t, 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 Sall.u.s.t, Suetonius, Lucan, and Caesar,[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 stories[17] 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 ident.i.ty under the strange mediaeval 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sist his cousin if he were attacked from England. Lastly, he renounced an alliance lately contracted with the emperor to Philip's disadvantage.[20]