Yolande of Aragon / The Woman That Won the Hundred Years War Part 2

Last time we checked in with Yolande of Aragon, she was celebrating the engagement of her daughter Marie to Prince Charles the youngest son of the King and Queen of France. As tensions with the Duke of Burgundy had reached fever pitch Charles had then been given by his mother into the custody of his future mother-in-law, who had taken him to safety in Angers away from the political violence in Paris. The engagement was effectively an alliance between Yolande and her husband Louis II Duke of Anjou and the Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, and firmly placed Yolande and Louis in #TeamArmagnac. The alliance between Yolande and Isabeau however did not last and within a few years, Isabeau out of desperation in the increasingly volatile political environment of the French court turned to the Duke of Burgundy, her former foe as a new ally. Burgundy if you recall had fallen out spectacularly with the Anjou’s when they’d ended the engagement between their son and his daughter so the new found friendship between Burgundy and Isabeau was a bit problematic (to say the least) for our girl Yolande. She did have one minor trump card in her favour though; she had custody of at least one heir to the French throne. Not only that but the young prince had grown incredibly close to his new in laws, particularly Yolande and the family had lived for a brief time in relative peace in Angers, away from the scheming, volatility and tension of French court.

In the summer of 1415 this peace however was broken when Charles was officially summoned by his mother to court. This was in the wake of news reaching France that the new English king Henry V was preparing to invade. Henry (seen above) like every king since Edward III claimed the French throne as his own. If you know anything about English history, then you know that Henry V is considered a pretty big deal, a conqueror who defeated the French aka his countries centuries-old enemy at Agincourt and cemented his place in the history books. The thing that English history books tend to forget is that a) the French government was an absolute shambles at the time, b) the highest ranking figures in the kingdom were all at war with each other and c) the king himself was so mentally unstable that he didn’t even know he was king. This chaos manifested itself in negotiations between the English and the French; the Armagnac’s and the Burgundian’s aka the two sides of French court both offered different brides to bring about peace but that only reinforced Henry’s belief that the French were in such a disarray that he could easily crush them. To be fair he wasn’t wrong. The French were so badly organised that Henry had entered France and captured Rouen before the French could even get to the city [1]. Then came the Battle of Agincourt which as we all know was CATASTROPHIC for the French and they (spoiler alert) lost. One reason that contributed to the loss was probably the lack of leadership; none of the highest ranking members of the French government were in any position to lead; I mean the king was incapable of leading an army in his state, the heir to the throne the Duke of Guyenne was kept away for his own protection, the Duke of Burgundy was nowhere to be found, the Duke of Orleans following the murder of his father was young and inexperienced, the Duke of Berry was seventy five and not physically fit enough to lead an army and Yolande’s husband Louis the Duke of Anjou/King of Sicily was suffering from a bladder infection. Oh Louis. Now during the battle the Duke of Orleans was captured; this weakened the Armagnac’s hand in the French civil war but strengthened the hand of the Burgundians who proceeded to march towards Paris. Louis at this point, made a pretty solid assumption that the Duke of Burgundy was still upset with him and so quietly slipped out of the city, returning to Angers to be with Yolande and their children. His time at Angers however didn’t last long because just when you thought the French situation couldn’t get any more absurdly complicated, the heir to the throne the Duke of Guyenne died suddenly. The death of the heir to the throne prompted Louis to once again return to Paris however this time he did the intelligent thing and brought Yolande with him. Whilst in Paris Yolande demonstrated her political acumen and managed to once again build an alliance with the Queen Isabeau. Throughout 1416 Louis became the most prominent figure in government with Isabeau appointing members of Louis’ inner circle to high level positions. This infuriated the Duke of Burgundy and he made the ill advised decision to plot the murders of Queen Isabeau, Yolande, Louis, the Duke of Berry and a few others. I say ill advised because the plot was discovered before it really came to anything leaving the Duke of Burgundy in even more of a precarious position than before. He tried to form an alliance with the Count of Hainaut whose daughter was married to the new heir to the throne however that failed to yield the results he wanted. In January of 1417 the new heir to the throne Prince John fell ill with an ear infection. Illness was apparently a trend because around the same time Yolande’s husband Louis too fell ill. Whilst Prince John’s condition was not considered serious, Louis’ was and knowing he did not have long left returned to Angers. Charles was left in Paris surrounded by advisors, protectors and companions specifically chosen by and loyal to Yolande. April of 1417 would turn out to be a disaster of a month for the French; that poxy ear infection that was inflicting the heir to the throne Prince John turned out to be a tad more serious than initially thought and on the 5th April he died, just a year or so after the death of his elder brother. By the end of April Louis too had died with his beloved Yolande by his side. At the time of his death Louis and Yolande had been pretty much the glue holding the French government together just three weeks post the death of the heir. In the words of Nancy Goldstone, “there is no good time to die, of course but Louis picked a particularly unhelpful moment to make his exit” [2]. This left a power vacuum that both the Queen Isabeau and the Count of Armagnac tried to fill leading to a series of tension-filled grabs for power that almost resulted in swords being drawn. The Count of Armagnac managed to get to the king before Isabeau; having just come out of one of his episodes the King was still not in a good place mentally and so was easily manipulated by Armagnac into believing a series of (probably) untrue accusations against Isabeau. She was heavily punished and humiliated, stripped of her position on the royal council and deprived of her previously lavish allowance . In the midst of this chaos, two young boys found themselves in unimaginable positions of power. Prince Charles once considered unimportant due to to being the youngest of five sons was now the heir to the throne of France whilst his cousin Louis (Yolande’s eldest son) was now the Duke of Anjou despite only being 13. In one fell swoop the newly widowed Yolande found herself single-handedly the most important person in French politics; mother in law and guardian of the future King and mother/regent of one of the kingdom’s most powerful dukes. As the Count of Armagnac and the Queen fought amongst themselves, Yolande got Charles the hell out of Paris and had him brought to her in Angers. She then managed to turn the Duke of Brittany against the English securing an important alliance and had Charles the new heir preside over a state meeting in Samur [3].

Samur was firmly under Yolande’s rule and the meeting itself took place under her roof. The new prominence of Yolande and the severe punishment she’d received from her husband, had left the Queen Isabeau of Bavaria in a somewhat bad mood which led to her forming an alliance with none other than our old friend the Duke of Burgundy, you know the one that was plotting to kill her five minutes ago. For those of you keeping score, she’s so far been the ally of the Duke of Burgundy approximately 400 times and his enemy about 600 times. Clearly grudge keeping was difficult in medieval France. They began spreading conspiracy theories and nonsense that the King and Prince Charles were being held hostage and controlled by “evil advisors” (a reference to the Count of Armagnac). Absolutely none of this was true but Burgundy and Isabeau were determined to wage a propaganda war. A propaganda war that the well-intentioned Prince Charles tried to fight with his own letters and edicts in which he tried to turn the public against the Duke of Burgundy. The young inexperienced 15-year-old prince had by this point returned to Paris WITHOUT Yolande who was back in Angers ruling her underage sons’s lands in his name. This left Charles pretty isolated in Paris with some less than politically stellar advisors, a vengeful mother he couldn’t control, a mentally ill father on the brink of another episode and the English practically in his back garden ready to invade. The result was chaos and this is where we arrive at what is clearly the moral of this story; don’t listen to anyone other than Yolande of Aragon; a motto that Charles would have done well to pay attention to. You see in Yolande’s absence he decided to take on the English and ordered the Count of Armagnac to take an army to Senlis except there wasn’t any English in Senlis. There were only Burgundians which led to round 38 of the Armagnac-Burgundy civil war. It didn’t end and after two months of fighting the forces belonging to the prince, king and the Count of Armagnac were forced to retreat. This resulted in the raising of taxes in Paris which to put it mildly pissed off the Parisian’s who were understandably growing increasingly resentful towards their shambles of a government.

Meanwhile the English were getting ever closer, something that Yolande, holed up in Angers was becoming increasingly aware of. The English were at his point in Alencon which if you know anything about French geography is not that far away from Yolande’s provinces of Anjou and Maine. She and her ally the Duke of Brittany were the two nobles whose lands were most in danger from English violence and so they made one last ditch attempt to bring about a ceasefire between the two halves of French court. They got close. Super super close but it all fell apart at the last minute leading to the Duke of Burgundy making yet another attempt to attack Paris on May 29th 1418. He was able to whip up a very angry very violent mob of Parisians who as I previously mentioned were bored of the chaos and furious at the increased taxes. Nowadays the French have a certain reputation for having a penchant for protest; they were obviously fond of the practise all the way back in 1418 because the city then fell into full blown riots. Remember when I mentioned that Isabeau had put a number of Yolande and Louis’ loyal advisors in high ranking positions; well luckily for just about everyone involved, those men including the likes of Tanneguy du Chastel were still in those positions and they managed to sneak the Prince out of the capital before the Duke of Burgundy or the mob could get to him. Although Charles survived, the rest of the Armagnac faction were not so lucky; the Armagnac’s that were found by the Duke and his mob were, “hauled out onto the streets and killed at once without mercy, with heavy axes and other weapons. There was not one of the principal streets in Paris that had not had a killing in it” [4]. Things went from bad to worse when in the days afterwards every Armagnac in the city was arrested including the Count of Armagnac himself and promptly executed. It’s believed between 1,000 and 2,000 members of the Armagnac faction were slaughtered. By July 13th the Queen Isabeau and the Duke of Burgundy entered Paris as the victors of the massacre and were welcomed with open arms by the king who as mentally unwell as ever forget he had even punished his wife. He restored her royal powers making her head of the regency council again. I’ll be honest I’m not sure the King was at this point the best judge of character and I don’t think he was in any position to be making this decision but nevertheless he handed over all government power to Isabeau and Burgundy. And yet they failed to gain custody of the heir to the throne, Charles who in the aftermath of the riots had been smuggled out of Paris and into the safe protection of Yolande aka the new de-facto leader of opposition in the country. Isabeau and Burgundy issued an official summons to Charles demanding he return to Paris. Not going gave his mother and Burgundy justification for war, going on the other hand would almost certainly result in his imprisonment. To deal with this politically complex conundrum he turned to the smartest person he knew and the woman he trusted most; Yolande who according to Jehan de Bourdigne replied with the following; “we have not nurtured and cherished this one for you to make him die like his brothers or go mad like his father or to become English like you. I keep him for my own. Come and take him away if you dare” [5].

DAMN. She then proceeded to help Charles raise a small army, not one large enough to defeat England but large enough to get Isabeau and Burgundy’s attention. And boy did it. This lead to a peace conference headed by Yolande who was trying to salvage what was left of French government. The conference was to put it simply, a bit of mess. At one point it looked like no one could come to terms but then it looked like maybe a peace treaty was possible and then Charles himself threw a spanner in the works by consulting with a series of hardliners including unfortunately Yolande’s old friend Tanneguy du Chastel who was understandably still upset about the Burgundian’s murdering some of his friends. They tried to convince him not to sign the treaty. They were good at the game but Yolande was better and she managed to bring everyone to heel with Burgundy and Charles agreeing to peace and even confirming said peace with a handshake and a hug. Cue the rest of France jumping for joy in sheer relief. This joy/relief I’m sorry to say didn’t last because a) in the 1400’s men didn’t listen to women and b) men like Burgundy just don’t know when to quit. In the quiet peace, Yolande decided to take her children including her eldest Louis III to the South of France so he could be officially installed as the Count of Provence, as her mother in law Marie of Blois had done years before with her own son & Yolande’s late husband. Yolande was determined to do what her husband and Marie had failed to do. Win Naples and Sicily. In order to do that however she needed the support of the Provencal barons so off to Provence she went with her children in tow. When she left Paris everyone including Isabeau, Burgundy and Charles were getting along just fine but like a bunch of children who begin to squabble when their mother turns away, it soon descended into chaos without Yolande’s diplomatic yet heavy hand. Burgundy was accused of aiding the English after the English forces conquered a few French towns, accusations I might add we’re not even 100% sure were accurate. Charles however surrounded by hardliners and not Yolande who was half-way across the country, took matters into his own hands resulting in the rather brutal, rather unexpected and rather problematic murder of the Duke of Burgundy. Some considered it retribution for the slaughter of the Duke of Orleans a decade or so earlier. Other’s such as Isabeau considered it an act of war and that led to the the Treaty of Troyes in May 1420 which married Charles’ sister Catherine to the English king Henry V who was then adopted by the King of France and named the new heir to the throne. Charles was disowned, The English were now within a whisker’s distance of the French throne and English forces were allowed to occupy Paris. All in all a bit of a disaster. The situation was helped somewhat by the fact Yolande was amazing and had taken some precautions before her departure to Provence.

You see four years earlier during the terribly disastrous Battle of Agincourt, Yolande’s uncle the Duke of Bar had tragically died, leaving his brother and her other uncle the new Duke. The problem was that he was also a cardinal and therefore not allowed to marry and have children (not legitimate ones anyway). This meant he needed to choose a successor and Yolande being 100x smarter than everyone else in the room had put forward her second son Rene (see above). The duchy of Bar was strategically important as was the neighbouring duchy of Lorraine which also had no male heir; the Duke at the time had no sons but he did have a daughter Isabelle and so it was decided that Rene would marry Isabelle and they would then inherit both Bar and Lorraine. This was HORRENDOUS news for the Duke of Burgundy due to Lorraine’s strategic position; as Margaret L Kekewich writes, “Bar and Lorraine provided invaluable links between [the Burgundian’s] northern and southern blocks of territories and the sudden appearance of Rene loyal to the dauphin Charles was the worst thing that could have happened to their plans” [6]. The engagement between Isabelle and Rene was also a middle finger to the English who were hoping to arrange a marriage between Isabelle and the Duke of Bedford [7] and was immensely popular with the public who hoped that the long bickering provinces of Bar and Lorraine would now be at peace. The Duke of Burgundy’s reaction to the political scheming is unknown however I’m guessing he was pretty pissed. Four years later following his brutal murder and the Treaty of Troyes, Yolande’s political manoeuvring became the saving grace of her son in law’s claim to the throne and as 19th century historian G du Fresne de Beaucourt wrote, “served the interests of France” [8]. Rene and Isabelle were married in October 1420 thus securing Charles the support of Bar and Lorraine.

The time between Henry V entering Paris in December 1420 and Yolande’s miraculous and much needed return from Provence in 1423 was as eventful as you can imagine with battles consistently being fought between Henry V and Prince Charles. Henry gained the upper hand almost every single time. The attempt to take back the city of Chartres in the summer of 1421 for example ended in retreat after Henry V showed up with an army that dwarfed the army of Charles. The Battle of Bauge in May 1421 was the rare success story and that was partly down to Yolande; the battle took place in her duchy of Anjou and the army was made up of “a thousand knights and mens at arms from Angers in the service of the Queen of Sicily” [9]. They were joined by a fighting delegation sent by the Scots because let’s be honest no Scottish king has ever turned down the opportunity to piss off the English. Things went from bad to worse in December 1421 when Charles’ sister Catherine gave birth to Henry’s son also named Henry meaning that the elder Henry now had an heir. Charles wasn’t even married yet. A fact he rectified when he married his long-time fiancee/Yolande’s daughter Marie not long after the birth of his nephew. 1422 wasn’t that much more successful than 1421 although things turned slightly in the summer when Henry V died of dysentry. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest Charles was probably a little bit chuffed with the news. The fact his own father died just a few months later was probably sadder news however it now meant Charles’ main rival for the throne was a baby. In theory a tad easier to beat than a hardened thirty-five-year warrior and conqueror. Charles did not attend the funeral of his father who was mourned by the public who despite his madness and the chaos it had caused, had held great affection for him. Isabeau demonstrating a degree of self awareness recognised she wasn’t as popular as her late husband (selling France to the English will do that) and so didn’t attend the funeral either. Henry’s V infant son was then named the new King with his uncle the Duke of Bedford as regent. Shouts of “Long Live the King” were yelled. Miles away in the south of the country, the same happened with Charles and his supporters who all shouted “Long Live the King” and began addressing him as your majesty except he wasn’t really the king, not yet anyway. It was all a bit disappointing. As was what happened in the months after; Yolande’s seemingly solid plan to tie Bar to Lorraine and thus muster up support from Charles, began to appear a little less solid when the Duke of Lorraine her son’s new father in law bowed to pressure and accepted the English infant king as the rightful King of France. Really at this point thing were looking pretty terrible for Charles.

Things looked slightly less terrible for Yolande who was in Provence having a merry time getting shit done. After convincing the rowdy barons of Provence to accept her eldest son Louis as their count, she’d then sent him to Rome to become pals with the Pope and get his support. Following that diplomatic coup she’d “convinced the general assembly in Aix to contribute 100,000 florins towards his war effort, used the money to purchase an army and a fleet of Provencal ships and then sent this force to Naples to aid her son in his conquest” [10]. Clearly impressed by Yolande’s political abilities, Italy yielded almost immediately and not only did Joanna II the reigning Queen of Naples accept him as her heir but she promptly invited him to live with her to understand the ins and outs of ruling in Italy. With her work in Italy and Provence done and dealt with, Yolande decided to return to France to deal with the idiots both English and French, tearing the country apart in her absence. Please enjoy the gif below which I imagine is a pretty good representation of Yolande returning to Paris.

Upon her return, she realised Charles’ quest for the throne was even more of a shitshow than she had perhaps thought. Not only was it a shitshow but the English were getting ever close to her home in Angers and Charles, surrounded by bickering, useless advisors was powerless to do anything. The only glimmer of success in the whole sad story was the birth of Charles and Marie’s son and Yolande’s grandson Louis. This gave Charles an heir and somewhat secured the succession. Knowing that the loss of Angers would be catastrophic, Yolande realised that if she needed to get shit done she probably needed to do it herself. She returned to Angers and began preparing for war. The English perhaps not being as in the know as they needed to be, were unaware that Yolande had summoned all peasantry and nobility from Anjou and Maine and had an army of a reported “six thousand armed men” [11] at her disposal. The battle which took place on September 26th was a rare and unifying win for Yolande and Charles’ side and she once again took up her rightful and quite frankly necessary place as his most important advisor. Their previously close relationship resumed; this is evident by the fact that “on numerous occasions, in his official acts, Charles refers to Yolande as ‘his very cherished and well loved mother the Queen of Sicily’ (‘nosier tres cheer et aimee mere la royce de Sicile’) and ‘our said good mother’ (noostre site bonne mere’) [12]. Around this time a bizarre and interesting prophecy began spreading amongst the common people in the Southern parts of the country. The prophecy spoke of a saviour, more specially a virgin girl from Lorraine that would free France from the tyranny of it’s enemies (England I’m looking at you). Most prophecies are spread by word of mouth and never make it to paper however this prophecy was unusually written down and ended up surfacing at Charles court. The prophecy was unique in that it blamed Isabeau of Bavaria, Charles’ mother and Yolande’s once political ally as the true villain who had ruined France. Neither the pesky Duke of Burgundy nor England were mentioned which seems a tad suspicious but you know it was the 1420’s and the country was at chaos. Blaming a woman was practically the done thing. That prophecy would ultimately lead to the rise of someone I’m sure you all know pretty well – Joan of Arc. Yolande it would turn out would end up being one of Joan’s biggest supporters and that dynamic duo would end up being the saving grace of France and the Capet dynasty. This will be explored in part 3 which is already being written so should be up soon!

That’s all for part 2 and I hope you enjoyed it. See you all soon!

Alexandra x

References

[1] Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 55

[2] Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 63.

[3]. Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 64.

[4] Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 67

[5]. Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 71.

[6] Margaret L Kekewich, “The Good King: Rene of Anjou and Fifteenth Century Europe”, (London, Palgrave McMilian, 2008). p. 21.

[7]. Margaret L Kekewich, “The Good King: Rene of Anjou and Fifteenth Century Europe”, (London, Palgrave McMilian, 2008), p. 21.

[8] G du Fresne de Beaucourt, “Histoire de Charles VII Volumes 1-6”, (Paris, 1881-1891), Vol 1, p. 317, qtd in Margaret L Kekewich, “The Good King: Rene of Anjou and Fifteenth Century Europe”, (London, Palgrave McMilian, 2008), p. 18.

[9] Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 84.

[10] Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 89

[11] Nancy Goldstone, “The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc”, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011), p. 91

[12] Zita Eva Rohr, “The Practise of Political Motherhood in the Fifteenth Century”, in The Image and Perception of Monarchy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed by Sean McGlynn and Elena Woodacre, (Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), p. 42.