Count of Anjou

“ On the death of King René, his eldest daughter, Yolande, Countess of Vaudémont, claimed and assumed the title of Queen of Sicily, Jerusalem, Naples, and Aragon, but took no steps to enforce her claim upon that vulture monarch, Louis XI., who at once seized upon the lands of his uncle, and styled himself Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence. Countess Yolande was her father’s child, tender and retiring. She craved the charms of the quiet life, and consequently, at the convocation of the Estates of Anjou and Provence, she renounced her title, and made it over to her son René. ”

“ Following King Charles the Bald in his struggle with the Danes, the woodman won broad lands along Loire, and his son Ingelger, who had swept the northmen from Touraine and the land to the west, which they had burned and wasted into a vast solitude, became the first Count of Anjou. But the tale of Tortulf and Ingelger is a mere creation of some twelfth century jongleur. The earliest Count whom history recognizes is Fulk the Red. Fulk attached himself to the Dukes of France who were now drawing nearer to the throne, and between 909 and 929 he received from them in guerdon the county of Anjou. ”

“ The count of Anjou retired, however, before a threatened attack from Stephen’s cousin Ralf of Vermandois, in conjunction with Waleran of Meulan and William of Ypres. [827] Early in October he made an unsuccessful attempt upon Falaise. [828] In November he marched upon Toucques, then one of the most flourishing seaport towns of Normandy. The burghers were taken captive “seated in their own arm-chairs,” and in their comfortable houses the Angevins, after feasting to their heart’s content, settled themselves carelessly for the night. ”

“ It was bounded on the north by the countship of Maine, on the east by that of Touraine, on the south by that of Poitiers and by the Mauges, on the west by the countship of Nantes.
From the outset of the reign of Charles the Bald, the integrity of Anjou was seriously menaced by a two-fold danger: from Brittany and from Normandy. Lambert, a former count of Nantes, after devastating Anjou in concert with Nominoé, duke of Brittany, had by the end of the year 851 succeeded in occupying all the western part as far as the Mayenne. ”

“ Then the party of the empress thought they would claim the assistance of her husband, the Count of Anjou, for which purpose the Duke of Gloucester was despatched to Normandy. Before leaving England, however, he saw his sister established at the Castle of Oxford, where he felt perfectly certain of her safety.
But Stephen was so bent upon capturing the empress that he laid siege to the fortress she occupied and reduced her to such distress for want of provisions that she escaped one night with only four attendants. ”

“ About Anjou, again—the original patrimony of the heirs of Fulk the Red—there could hardly be any question; and the old dispute whether Maine should count as an independent fief of the Crown or as an underfief of Normandy or of Anjou was not likely to be of any practical consequence when the immediate ruler of all three counties was one and the same. Yet all these had to be treated as separate states; each must have its special mention in the homage done by Henry to Louis; each must be governed according to its own special customs and institutions. ”

“ The reign of the second Count Fulk is the traditional golden age of Anjou. Under him, she is the proverbially happy land which has no history. While the name of the bishop of Soissons is conspicuous in court and camp, that of his brother the count is never once heard; he waged no wars, [252] he took no share in politics; the annalists of the time find nothing to record of him. But if there is no history, there is plenty of tradition and legend to set before us a charming picture of the Good Count’s manner of life. The arts he cultivated were those of peace ”

“ This fascinating story of the loves of Count Dunois d’Orléans and Princess Marie d’Anjou was worked up by fanatics into a culpable liaison of the Queen. It grew in vile misrepresentation, and swelled in garbled facts until it became abhorrent in the ears of all decent-minded people. Some of Charles’s legitimate children were said to have been fathered by the Count. The Queen very wisely refrained from making replies to the evil stories, the only sensible way of dealing with them. ”

“ Ingelger, the legend of, becomes first Count of Anjou. Ingulf of Croyland, his recollections of Queen Edith. Innocent III., Pope, nominates Stephen Langton Abp. of Canterbury, places England under an interdict, annuls Magna Charta, interferes against the crown of England being given to Louis the Lion, his death. Innocent IV., Pope, his exactions on England, contests with Frederick II., his exactions on the clergy, interference with the English Church, quarrel with the English Barons respecting Church patronage, Bp. Grosteste opposes his encroachments, his death. ”

“ But he who reigns must fight. The Duke of Burgundy, ill content to see a prince of the house of Anjou, the brother-in-law of Charles of Valois, established between Burgundy and Flanders, stirred up against René the Count of Vaudémont, who was a claimant of the inheritance of Lorraine. The Angevin policy rendered a reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France difficult. Thus was René of Anjou involved in the quarrels of his father-in-law of Lorraine. It befell that in this year, 1429, he was waging war against the citizens of Metz, the War of the Basketful of Apples. ”

“ The Queen’s father’s predecessor as occupant of the throne of Naples had been his second cousin, Giovanna I., the eldest surviving grandchild of King Robert, “Roberto il Buono e Saggio.” She died childless in 1382, altho [217] ugh twice married, first to Andrew, King of Hungary, and secondly to Lodovico, Prince of Taranto. By her will she purposely passed over the Princes of the Durazzo family, and named as her successor Louis II. d’Anjou, King of Sicily and Jerusalem and Count of Provence. ”

“ Trouble makes all the world akin: the King and Queen bore their people’s, and they humbly shared their rulers’ griefs.
The clouds cleared off that sunny land, and birds once more sang in the meadows, and men and maids were gay. Then it was Tarascon’s turn to celebrate the virtues of the Count and Countess of Provence. A Provençal tournament was a celebration ne plus ultra, and René made that of 1448 famous and unique by his institution of the knightly “Ordre du Croissant.” To be sure, it was established at Angers, whose warrior-patron, St. ”

“ Nothing could be more brutalising or more brutal: but the savage traits of civil war are less revolting than the ghastly revelries of the Court. All the chiefs were alike--neither the King, nor Henry of Navarre, nor Anjou, nor even the strict Catholic Guise, disdained to wallow in debauch." Having quarreled with his brother, the King, "Anjou fled, in the beginning of 1578, to Angers, where, finding that there was a prospect of amusement in the Netherlands, he turned his back on the high Catholics, and renewed friendship with the Huguenot chiefs. ”

“ The stability of the throne and the welfare of its subjects having been secured, the Queen turned her attention to the matrimonial prospect of her eldest son. Some years before King Louis’s death, Jean “sans Peur,” Duke of Burgundy,—in days when the Courts of Angers and Dijon saw eye to eye, and the States were not rivals in the direction of the general policy of the French Sovereigns,—had confided his little daughter Catherine to the charge of the eminent Queen of Sicily-Anjou, to be brought up with her own girls, the Princesses Marie and Yolande. ”

“ We found, however, that our long march to Saumur might have been spared us, for within four days after our arrival, it was announced that, quiet being restored in Anjou, and the Prince de Condé being kept in check by the Count de Harcourt and the Maréchal de Gramont, the King intended to return immediately to Paris, in order to take measures against the combined force of Spaniards and insurgents which was rapidly traversing Champagne, and advancing towards the Nivernois. The next morning the order to march was given ”

“ Angers was the capital par excellence of the dominions of the King of Sicily-Anjou, the ancestral seat of his house, and Anjou was more favourably conditioned than Lorraine or Bar for the completion of the training of the royal children. Queen Yolande was only too delighted to welcome her brave daughter-in-law and to caress her beloved grandchildren. She went off to the Castle of Saumur, her favourite residence, and the walls of the grim Castle of Angers once more resounded to the merry laughter of childish games. ”

“ Upon King René’s succession to the throne of Sicily-Anjou, Queen Yolande continued to act as his Lieutenant-General for Anjou and Provence, and left negotiations for his release to the young Queen-Duchess Isabelle, who was very much more favourably placed, and near at hand to serve the royal prisoner’s interests. She spent most of her time in Anjou, but paid many visits to Marseilles, her favourite residence in Provence. ”

“ This was the time in which Anjou was engaged in that strange courtship of Elizabeth which caused so much amusement and excited so much anger and alarm. While the United Provinces were discussing the terms of his sovereignty, he was in England. While he was absent, Parma besieged and reduced Tournay, the Prince of Orange, being most inadequately supported by those whose liberties he was doing his best to protect. The fact is, the disunion of the Provinces led to their being attacked and reduced in detail. Anjou returned to Flushing on February 10, 1582, and was inaugurated at Antwerp. ”

“ High-souled and condescending, she brought her enemies to her feet, only to raise them her warmest friends. Talented beyond the average of Princesses, she had also the charm of winsome gaiety, and proved herself a worthy spouse and companion for her gallant and clever consort René. Tall, slim, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a skin of satin softness, the “Pride of Lorraine” won all hearts and turned many a head.
To Louis, Cardinal de Bar, was due the accomplishment of an idea suggested by Queen Yolande with respect to the future of her second son, René d’Anjou. ”

“ The year that Louis XI., by his greed and treachery, drove his noble uncle, “le Bon Roy René,” out of Anjou was one of trial and embarrassment for the King of Sicily. At first his feelings, outraged by the infamous behaviour of the son of his best-loved sister, Queen Marie, got the better of his equanimity, and he gave way to indignant protests; but when a man is in his sixties he learns to put up with base affronts. René learned by sad experience to measure hypocrites by their professions, but to leave their castigation to posterity. ”

“ A consultation was held at Angers by the Barons and nobles of Anjou, Maine, Lorraine, Barrois, and Provence, with respect to their beloved Sovereign’s prostration, and a unanimous decision was reached—a second marriage with a young consort, comely, cultivated, and of good fame. A petition was presented to the King praying him to yield to the advice of his “right loyal lieges,” that he should look out for some noble and virtuous “pucelle qui fust à son gré.” ”

“ Charles and Marie should be betrothed, and Mary should be Queen of France! Yolande broached the subject to King Charles, and at once gained his cordial consent, but tactfully she left to him the furthering of the project. Upon December 18, 1415, Charles of France and Marie of Sicily-Anjou were privately affianced in the Royal Chapel of the Castle of Bourges. France was in the throes of revolution and dissolution; the terrible defeat at Azincourt, on October 24 that same year, had paralyzed the military power of the French States, and was the ultimate cause of King Charles’s insanity. ”

“ Renatus, that the new deliverance might presage a new birth of hope for France, and that the holy one,—the patron of child-bearing mothers who sought male heirs,—might supplicate at the throne of heaven for a baby-boy.
Baptized in the Cathedral of St. Maurice eight days after birth, the little Prince had for sponsors no foreign potentates, but men of good renown [60] and substance in Anjou: Pierre, Abbé de St. Aubin; Jean, Seigneur de l’Aigle; Guillaume, Chevalier des Roches; and Mathilde, Abbée de Nôtre Dame d’Angers. The Queen by proxy named her child “René—reconnaissance à Messire St. ”

“ A beautiful girl and a brave is unmatchable! Fortune of war favoured the French-Anjou colours, and Charles became master of Normandy and all English-held North France. Guienne, too, was yielded to the valiant young Duke of Calabria. Moreover, the war-galleys of “Le Petit Roy de Bourges” scoured the Channel, and gained prizes and renown for Charles and René off the English coast.
Somerset’s defeat was a loss of credit, however, to Queen Margaret, and York of course made the most of it. ”

“ I resolved to die, and rushed upon the Swiss—vowing, if I escaped with life, never again to draw sword for that unjust prince. Grievously wounded, thrown from my horse, one of the Duke of Anjou's gentlemen, Béville—the mad fellow whom we dined with to-day—saved my life, and presented me to the duke. He treated me well. I was eager for vengeance. They urged me to take service under my benefactor, the Duke of Anjou; they quoted the line—
Omne solum forti patria est, ut piscibus æquor. ”