Charles VI of France

“ PHILIP IV
wise government quickly won esteem and affection from his subjects. He encouraged arts, manufactures and commerce, and his territory was one of the best governed in Europe. During the minority and imbecility of Charles VI of France, his nephew, he acted as regent of that kingdom, and displayed great wisdom and ability both in preventing insurrection within the state and in defending it against the attacks of the English. ”

“ A reconciliation of the king with his Parliament was an indispensable step towards freeing Charles from his dependence on France, and it was such a reconciliation that William at first strove to bring about; but he was for a long time foiled by the steadiness with which Charles clung to the power whose aid was needful to carry out the schemes which he was contemplating. The change of policy, however, which followed on the fall of the Cabal and the entry of Danby into power raised new hopes in William's mind, and his marriage with Mary dealt Lewis what proved to be a fatal blow. ”

“ The alliance of England, Scotland, and France was a combination which Charles could not afford to attack, more particularly when the league between Henry II, Maurice of Saxony, and the reviving Protestant Princes in Germany gave him more than enough to do to defend himself. France, the persecutor of heresy at home, lent her support to the English government while it pursued its campaign against Roman doctrine, just as she had countenanced Henry VIII while he was uprooting the Roman jurisdiction. ”

“ HENRY VI. (1421–1471) , king of England, son of Henry V. and Catherine of Valois, was born at Windsor on the 6th of December 1421. He became king of England on the 1st of September 1422, and a few weeks later, on the death of his grandfather Charles VI., was proclaimed king of France also. Henry V. had directed that Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (q.v.) , should be his son’s preceptor; Warwick took up his charge in 1428; he trained his pupil to be a good man and refined gentleman, but he could not teach him kingship. ”

“ Do not attempt to remain, for you have no rights in France from God, the King of Heaven, and the Son of the Virgin Mary. It is Charles, the rightful heir, to whom God has given France, who will shortly enter Paris in a grand company. If you do not believe the news written of God and the Maid, then in whatever place we may find you, we will soon see who has the better right, God or you. ”

“ Touraine, Berry, Nivernois, the Isle of France, Champagne, and part of Normandy, were soon over-run by the French troops; Charles found his army was increased to near two hundred thousand men, in high spirits at his late victory, and what greatly increased his reputation, was the possession of Paris. Flushed at the fair appearance his affairs wore, he thought of giving battle to the Duke of Devonshire, before George was well enough to command in Person. ”

“ In the fifteenth century, feudalism, represented by the great proprietors, was about to expire, as it had already perished in the decay of its armed and mailed representatives in the field of battle. By no lower hand than its own could the nobility be overthrown either in France or England. The accident of a feeble king in both countries was the occasion of an internecine struggle,—not, as it would have been in the tenth century, for the possession of the crown, but for the custody of the wearer of it. The insanity of Charles VI. almost exterminated the lords of France ”

“ Modern editors substitute the present spelling in all cases except this, where the pun requires retention of the older form. It should be remarked that the Dauphin of the play was from the legitimist French point of view King of France (Charles VII) through the entire course of the action, since the death of his father, Charles VI, occurred only two months after that of Henry V. The English, however, ignored Charles VII's pretensions to the throne and continued to employ his old title.
I. v. 6. Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch. ”

“ Immediately after the Sack of Rome one of his agents had warned him of the danger lest England and France should establish patriarchates of their own; and a Pope of the universal Church under the control of Charles as master of Italy was too useful an instrument to be lightly abandoned, if for no other reason than that an insular Pope in England would grant the divorce of Henry VIII from Catharine of Aragon. The Emperor also wanted Catholic help to restore his brother-in-law, Christian II of Denmark, deposed by his Lutheran subjects; he desired papal recognition for Ferdinand's new kingdoms ”

“ Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, the king’s uncle, had certain advantages over his rival Louis of Orleans, Charles VI.’s brother: superiority in age, relations with the Lancastrians and with Germany, and territorial wealth and power. The two adversaries had each the same scheme of government: each wanted to take charge of Charles VI., who was intermittently insane, and to exclude his rival from the pillage of the royal exchequer; but this rivalry of desires brought them into opposition on all the great questions of the day—the war with England, the Great Schism and the imperial election. ”

“ Before setting out for Flanders, in 1382, Charles VI dreamed that his falcon had flown away. "Thē apered sodenly before hym a great hart with wynges whereof he had great joye." And the hart bore him to his lost bird. Froissart, Bk. II, ch. clxiv. [The Chronycle of Syr John Froissart translated by Lord Berners, vol. iii, p. 339, Tudor Translation, 1901.] (W.S.) According to Juvénal des Ursins, Charles VI, in 1380, met in the Forest of Senlis a stag with a golden collar bearing this inscription: Hoc me Cæsar donavit (Paillot, Parfaite science des armoiries, Paris, 1660, in fo., p. 595) . ”

“ Close upon the election of Charles V as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire came the first of a series of wars between that sovereign and Francis I, King of France, who had been Charles's rival for the imperial crown. The Emperor was at this time, 1521, favored by Henry VIII of England, and a secret treaty with Charles was finally concluded by Pope Leo X, who from the first had hesitated between the two young rivals, and who had already treated with Francis. The papal support proved the foundation of future power for Charles in Italy. ”

“ Since the King was bent on emancipating himself from the control of Parliament, and since, in such an enterprise, he could not hope for effectual aid at home, it followed that he must look for aid abroad. The power and wealth of the King of France might be equal to the arduous task of establishing absolute monarchy in England. Such an ally would undoubtedly expect substantial proofs of gratitude for such a service. Charles must descend to the rank of a great vassal, and must make peace and war according to the directions of the government which protected him. ”

“ Charles was born in 1433, and became Duke of Burgundy in 1467. He "held the rank of one of the first princes in Europe without being a king, and without possessing an inch of ground for which he did not owe service to some superior lord." Some of his territories were held of the Holy Roman Empire, and some of the French crown, and he was at once a vassal of France and of the Emperor. His dominions contained many prosperous and wealthy cities. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII. THE HOUSE OF BOURBON.
“The king is dead; long live the king!” Before Charles II passed away, weak and vacillating as he was, he bequeathed to his subjects a legacy of woe in the unfruitful “Wars of the Succession.” Finally, on his deathbed, through the influence of his confessor, and at the recommendation of Pope Innocent II, Charles made a will in favour of Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France. When he received the news of this triumph, for which he had long been scheming, the French king joyfully exclaimed, “The Pyrenees no longer exist!” ”

“ By the march to Reims the French party, those Armagnacs reviled for their cruelty and felony, that little King of Bourges compromised in an infamous ambuscade, may have won advantages greater and more solid than the conquest of the county of Maine and the duchy of Normandy and than a victorious assault on the first city of the realm. By retaking his towns of Champagne and of France without bloodshed, King Charles appeared to advantage as a good and pacific lord, as a prince wise and debonair, as the friend of the townsfolk, as the true king of cities. ”

“ Their wars were almost perpetual, their peaces never honestly carried out. Their powers were very equally balanced; if Charles owned broader lands than Francis, they were more scattered and in some cases less loyal. The solid and wealthy realm of France proved able to make head against Spain and the Netherlands, even when they were backed by the emperor’s German vassals. Charles was also distracted by many stabs in the back from the Ottoman Turks, who were just beginning their attack on Christendom along the line of the Danube. ”

“ The father of Charles found himself stronger than his king, possessor not only of Burgundy, but of many other fiefs from Germany as well as France, and lord of the Netherlands as well. [8]
Charles was thus the last of those great, overgrown vassals so characteristic of feudal times. Like Hugh Capet in France, like William the Conqueror in England, he hoped to establish himself as an independent king. He opened negotiations for this purpose with the Emperor Frederick, Maximilian's father. He made himself practically independent of France. ”

“ A Truly benevolent disposition, knows no bounds to the desire of diffusing happiness: George VI. longed to see France in possession of that ease and plenty, which were now the distinguishing characteristics of Great-Britain. The Duke of Devonshire it is true, had governed in that kingdom with abilities and integrity, but it was not in his power to execute the designs of the King, nor was his genius adapted to the business: his Majesty determined therefore to make a trip thither; and to increase the splendour of his court, he took with him great part of the nobility of the kingdom. ”

“ In 1377, on its expiring, Charles, who in two years had sedulously improved the state of France, renewed the war. By sea and land the English were utterly overmatched, and by 1378 Charles was master of the situation on all hands. Now, however, he pushed his advantages too far; and the cold skill which had overthrown the English, was used in vain against the Bretons, whose duchy he desired to absorb. Languedoc and Flanders also revolted against him. France was heavily burdened with taxes, and the future was dark and threatening. ”

“ Oh, nothingness! Oh, mortals ignorant of their destinies!" It is not enough that contending dynasties dispute each other's crowns; their covetousness and rivalry must extend to their tombs. Not enough that sovereigns have been exiled from their country; they must be exiled from their graves. Disappointments in life and in death. This is the last word of divine anger, the last of the lessons of Providence.
V THE KING
Born at Versailles, the 9th of October, 1757, Charles X., King of France and Navarre, was entering his sixty-eighth year at the time of his accession to the throne. ”

“ If he understood that his kingdom was treated as a mere dependence by France, he also thought it due to his “face” to make believe that he was a powerful monarch. Royalty never wore a more silly aspect than in the person of Charles IV., and it is highly credible that he never knew what his wife was, or what was the position of his kingdom. When he was told that his son Ferdinand was appealing to the emperor Napoleon against Godoy, he took the side of the favourite. ”

“ It is not strange that Charles VII should have doubted his own paternity with a mother as unnatural and depraved as Isabel of Bavaria, and that with a kingdom chiefly in the hands of the English he should have seriously questioned his right and title to the throne, being himself of a weak and doubting nature. It is said, that in an hour of great despondency, Charles prayed to God from the depths of his heart that if he were the true heir of the house of France, and the kingdom justly his, God would be pleased to help him and defend it for him. ”

“ Such claims became doubly formidable through the marriage of Mary Stuart with the heir of the French Crown, and the virtual union of both Scotland and France in this claimant's hands. It was only to Charles that the Queen could look for aid against such a pressure as this, and Charles was forced to give her aid. His old dreams of a mastery of the world had faded away before the stern realities of the Peace of Passau and his repulse from the walls of Metz. His hold over the Empire was broken. France was more formidable than ever. ”

“ A striking mixture of races entered into the formation of this people, and the beginnings of the great modern nations into which the Frankish empire was divided brought to them varied elements of strength and a diversity of constituents that were to be commingled in new national characters and careers.
In 840 Charles the Bald became King of France, and his reign, both as king and afterward as emperor, continued for thirty-seven years, during which he proved himself to be lacking in those qualities which his responsibilities and the wants of his people demanded. ”

“ You will keep your lives and your goods, as we have done. For otherwise we should all be lost. We do not regret our submission. Our only grief is that we delayed so long. You will be right glad to follow our example; for King Charles is a prince of greater discretion, understanding and valour than any who for many a long year have arisen in the noble house of France." [1456]
Friar Richard went to find the Maid. ”