Philip VI of France

“ Philip died at the end of July 1108.
His reign is chiefly remarkable for the steady growth of the royal domain. In addition to the gains mentioned, he bought in 1101 a large slice of territory, including Bourges and Dun-le-Roi, from Eudes Arpin, viscount of Bourges, who was going on the crusade; and toward the end of his reign took Montlhéry, whose lord beset the southern approach to Paris. By his first queen he had four children: Louis VI., who succeeded him; Henry, who died young; Charles; and Constance, who married Hugh I., count of Champagne, and later Bohemund I., prince of Antioch. ”

“ Edward III. had won over most of Philip’s German and Flemish allies, and the English naval victory at Sluys (June 24, 1340) , in which the French fleet was annihilated, effectually restored English preponderance in Flanders. A truce followed, but this was disturbed after a short duration by the disputed succession to the duchy of Brittany. Edward III. supported John of Montfort; Philip IV. his own nephew, Charles of Blois. A truce made at Malestroit in 1343 at the invitation of the pope, was rudely broken by Philip’s violence. ”

“ He found the Duke of Devonshire drawing his troops out of their winter quarters, and collecting them near Nevers; this business the King hastened with all expedition, for he designed to take the field before the Spanish army under the Duke de Lerma had joined Philip; it consisted of fifty thousand men, and was in full march for France. Philip himself had spared no pains to augment his troops: he had thrown strong garrisons into all his fortresses, and his army designed for the field, amounted to seventy thousand men ”

“ Europe would let him alone, because he would persuade the sovereigns that he was acting with a view to stifling the revolution in its old cradle, while leaving the liberties, independence and honour of France as a pledge in the hands of the foreigners. Philip is a policeman: Europe can spit in his face; he wipes himself, gives thanks and shows his patent as a king. Moreover, he is the only Prince whom the French would, at present, be capable of supporting. The degradation of the elected Head constitutes his strength ”

“ Vast in fact as Philip's resources were, they were drained by the yet vaster schemes of ambition into which his religion and his greed of power, as well as the wide distribution of his dominions, perpetually drew him. To coerce the weaker States of Italy, to command the Mediterranean, to keep a hold on the African coast, to preserve his influence in Germany, to support Catholicism in France, to crush heresy in Flanders, to despatch one Armada against the Turk and another against England, were aims mighty enough to exhaust even the power of the Spanish monarchy. ”

“ House of Austria threw her weight into the wavering balance of Philip's fortunes. The death of Parma had already lightened the peril of the United Provinces, but though their struggle in the Low Countries was to last for years, from the moment of Henry the Fourth's conversion their independence was secure. Nor was the restoration of the French monarchy to its old greatness of less moment to England. Philip was yet to send an armada against her coasts; he was again to stir up a fierce revolt in northern Ireland. But all danger from Spain was over with the revival of France. ”

“ Seeing that the cities were capable of being made to balance the power of the nobles, he granted them privileges which caused him to be esteemed their best friend, and he promoted all improvements. Though once laid under an interdict by Pope Innocent III. for an unlawful marriage, Philip usually followed the policy which gained for the Kings of France the title of "Most Christian King." The real meaning of this was that he should always support the Pope against the Emperor, and in return be allowed more than ordinary power over his clergy. ”

“ In 1214 came the great crisis of Philip's life. All the forces against which he had been struggling united to overwhelm him. Paris was to be attacked from Flanders and Guienne at the same time. A league including his rebel vassals, Renaud of Dammartin, count of Boulogne and Ferdinand, count of Flanders, with the emperor Otto IV. and a number of German princes of the Rhine region, had been formed in the north-east, while John of England made one more attempt to recover his heritage at the head of an army of mercenaries aided by the fickle baronage of Poitou. ”

“ What has Philip done for the country after all? Would there have been more blood shed by his refusing the sceptre than flowed because of the acceptance of that same sceptre in Paris, Lyons, Antwerp, the Vendée, without reckoning those streams of blood spilt, as a consequence of our Elective Monarchy, in Poland, Italy, Portugal, Spain? Has Philip, in compensation for these misfortunes, given us liberty? Has he given us glory? He has spent his time [Pg 150] in begging for his legitimation among the potentates, in degrading France by making her the handmaid of England, by giving her as a hostage ”

“ When at last her chronic maladies had assumed the memorable form which caused Philip and Mary to unite in a letter to Cardinal Pole, announcing not the expected but the actual birth of a prince, but judiciously leaving the date in blank, the momentary satisfaction and delusion of the queen was unbounded. The false intelligence was transmitted everywhere. When the futility of the royal hopes could no longer be concealed, Philip left the country, never to return till his war with France made him require troops, subsidies, and a declaration of hostilities from England. ”

“ Men were led to expect this the more, from the mortification which the king had lately experienced from a decision of the pontiff on a question of precedence between the Castilian and French ambassadors at his court. This delicate matter, long pending, had been finally determined in favor of France by Pius the Fifth, who may have thought it more politic to secure a fickle ally than to reward a firm one. The decision touched Philip to the quick. He at once withdrew his ambassador from Rome, and refused to receive an envoy from his holiness. ”

“ Despite his endeavors, the French crown was now on the head of one of his enemies, who, if something of a renegade Protestant himself, had nevertheless granted qualified toleration to heretics. Nor were these failures of Philip's political and religious policies mere negative results to France. The unsuccessful interference of the Spanish king contributed to the assurance of French independence, patriotism, and solidarity. France, not Spain, was to be the center of European politics during the succeeding century. ”

“ Philip was not a man of violent initiative, the planner of daring and fateful operations, otherwise there would have been some signs of it. His personality was that of a well-instructed, outwardly cold, because cool and calculating man, essentially receptive, afire for only one idea: the highest possible development of the French monarchy, internally and externally, as against both the secular powers and the Church. ”

“ He wanted to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, then a prisoner of Elizabeth, to marry her to his half-brother, Don John, and to marry his sister to Charles IX. The court, in 1570, agreed to the Peace of St. Germain, which, for the security of the Huguenots, placed four fortified towns in their possession. Thus France became a kingdom divided against itself. England, as well as France, looked with alarm upon the ambitious projects of Philip II., who was now in union with Venice and with the Pope, and had beaten the Turks at Lepanto. ”

“ The King of France at that time was Philip the Handsome, the most unprincipled and obstinate of men, who stuck at no baseness or atrocity to gain his ends,—who debased the Crown, pillaged the Church, oppressed the people, tortured the Jews, and impoverished the nobility,—a self-willed, strong-handed, evil-hearted despot, and glowing with an intense desire to humble and spoil the Holy Father himself. ”

“ Any admission, however guarded, of the right of women to transmit claims to their sons opened out a vista of the foreign offspring of French princesses, married abroad, ruling France as strangers, and it might be as enemies. They chose Philip of Valois because he was a Frenchman born and bred, and because he had no interests or possessions outside the French realm. They could not endure the idea of being ruled by the English king. He was not only a stranger, but the hereditary enemy. The Capetian monarchy must at all costs be kept French. ”

“ Could Philip II have devoted all his energies to one thing at a time, he might conceivably have had greater success, but as it was, he must divide his attention between supervising the complex administration of his already wide dominions and annexing in addition the monarchy and empire of Portugal, between promoting a vigorous commercial and colonial policy and suppressing a stubborn revolt in the Netherlands, between championing Catholicism in both England and France and protecting Christendom against the victorious Mohammedans. ”

“ As, however, the country was not in a position to enforce the claim of their young king by arms, Philip became firmly seated as King of France, and having shown great energy in at once marching against and repressing the people of Flanders, who were in a state of rebellion against their count, one of the feudatories of the French crown, the nobles were well satisfied with their choice, and no question as to his right was ever henceforth raised in France. ”

“ In consenting to this treaty Philip acknowledged that his schemes for the establishment of his influence over France had failed. Thus, when the 16th century closed, England’s independence was assured, the Dutch republic was established, the French monarchy was rapidly recovering from the effects of the religious wars and the decadence of the Spanish monarchy had set in. But the religious question was still unsettled, religious passions ran high, and no satisfactory agreement between Catholicism and Protestantism had been, or seemed likely to be arrived at. ”

“ On the very day of Pole’s arrival it was officially announced that the queen was with child, and the new legate and the rest of the churchmen fell into what would now be looked upon as blasphemous comparisons,{40} the people at large being suddenly caught up by the wave of rejoicing at the promise of an heir to the throne. The opportunity was discreetly taken by Philip to cause his instruments to propose in Parliament the sending by England of armed aid to the emperor against France, and the nomination of himself as Regent of England in the event of the looked-for heir outliving his mother. ”

“ But the death of Mary of England on the 17th of November 1558 had deprived Philip of English support. The establishment of Elizabeth on the English throne put on the flank of his scattered dominions another power, forced no less than France by unavoidable political necessities to be his enemy. The early difficulties of Elizabeth's reign secured him a deceitful peace on that side for a time. His marriage with Elizabeth of Valois on the 22nd of June 15 59, and the approach of the wars of religion, gave him a temporary security from France. ”

“ Yet the bereavement seems to have had little power to soften his nature, or incline him to charity for the misconduct, or compassion for the misfortunes of others. It was but a few months after the death of his wife, that, on occasion of the insurrection of Ghent, he sought a passage through the territory of his ancient enemy of France, descended on the offending city, and took such vengeance on its wretched inhabitants as made all Europe ring with his cruelty. [21]
Philip was too young at this time to take part in the administration of the kingdom during his father's absence. ”

“ They seem to have been really a fierce, arrogant, and oppressive set of men, or else there must have been some endeavour to save them, belonging, as most of them did, to noble French families. The "Pest of France," as Dante calls Philip the Fair, was now the most formidable prince in Europe. He contrived to annex to his dominions the city of Lyons, hitherto an imperial city under its archbishop. Philip died in 1314; and his three sons—Louis X.,Pg 24 Philip V., and Charles IV.,—were as cruel and harsh as himself, but without his talent, and brought the crown and people to disgrace and misery. ”

“ Accordingly the man "of his word, of faith, and truth," whom even the astute Farnese had at times half believed in, and who had received millions of Philip's money, now thought it time to break with Philip. He issued a manifesto, in which he observed that the States-General of France had desired that Philip should be elected King of France, and carry out his design of a universal monarchy, as the only-means of ensuring the safety of the Catholic religion and the pacification of the world. ”

“ No noble as yet among us has openly declared himself. Should any one do so, God only could save the country from the fate of France." [536]
Acting on these hints, and conformably to his own views, Philip sent orders to the regent to raise two thousand men, and send them across the borders to support the French Catholics. The orders met with decided resistance in the council of state. The great Flemish lords, at this time, must have affected, if they did not feel, devotion to the established religion. ”

“ Besides the sums drawn from Castile, the king obtained also no less than a million and a half of ducats, as an extraordinary grant from the states of the Netherlands. [244] Yet these sums, large as they were, were soon absorbed by the expense of keeping armies on foot in France and in Italy. Philip's correspondence with his ministers teems with representations of the low state of his finances, of the arrears due to his troops, and the necessity of immediate supplies to save him from bankruptcy. The prospects the ministers hold out to him in return are anything but encouraging. ”