The English army at Agincourt was arranged very much as at Crécy, protected by woods on either side and facing the French across a ploughed field that after days of rain was a sea of mud. The French remained in good order and refused to charge into the muddy field, so Henry had his archers advance within bowshot and began firing at the French army. Under the hail of arrows the dismounted French knights did finally advance and actually reached the English line, killing a few of the English knights before being overwhelmed.
Now began the catastrophe. The remaining French knights continued to advance, creating irresistible pressure from the back although the front line were losing their footing and being crushed down into the liquid mud. The English were now standing on piled French bodies, continuing to cut down the French knights as they pressed forward and died by their thousands. What stands out is not that the French were unable to learn new tactics, as they had tried different approaches since Crécy, but that without any form of artillery to counter the English longbows, once battle was joined the French were always sucked into a death zone of close-packed bodies where the pressure from advancing troops drove them into disaster, and only after the new gunpowder-based artillery became more important would the French advantage in this arena help turn the tide in their favour.
Despite the massive loss of life on the French side, many nobles were also captured. At one moment in the battle there was a panic among the English when they thought they were being attacked from the rear, and Henry ordered most of the captives killed, including by setting alight a tent where many nobles were held, and this slaughter of knights who had surrendered would remain a stain on Henry’s reputation. Some captives survived and were taken back to England, including Charles of Orleans, heir to the murdered Louis of Orleans. Charles languished in the Tower of London for twenty-five years, time he spent writing poetry that made him a noted literary figure. It also meant that the party opposed to the Burgundians would be led not by the house of Orleans, but by Louis of Orleans’s father-in-law, the Count of Armagnac, meaning that the two sides in the approaching French civil war are referred to as Burgundians and Armagnacs.
Henry V returned to England to be met with wild rejoicing and various forms of celebration, including the specially composed ‘Agincourt Carol’. He wasted no time on celebrations though, and instead used the popularity for the war generated by this great victory to raise new funds and equip another force, this time one bent on conquest. Henry returned to France in the summer of 1417 and swept through Normandy, conquering most of the duchy by the middle of 1418, though he only took Rouen after an incredibly bitter siege that ended early in 1419.42
English Supremacy in France
France was now in a terrible state. The Armagnac party had been decimated at Agincourt, and the Dauphin Louis of Guyenne, although he hadn’t participated in the battle, had died shortly after. The future Charles VII was now the Dauphin, and although Louis of Guyenne seems to have been an unappealing figure, at the time Charles was even less well regarded. It would have taken an enormously strong character to bring the two sides together or somehow rise above the factional politics, and Charles was not such a character. Unfortunately for France, rather than attempt to reconcile the parties, each side thought only of how it might destroy its rivals.
Sigismund of Luxembourg, still King of Hungary and now King of the Romans (though he wouldn’t be crowned Emperor until 1433), returns to our attention, because he had taken it upon himself to end the Western Great Schism. Various attempts to end the rival papacies in Rome and Avignon had done nothing to resolve the conflict, and instead had only produced a third pope. Sigismund, committed to fighting the Ottomans and thus hoping to secure solid papal backing and a new Crusade after the disgrace of Nicopolis, tried to broker peace between England and France, and travelled to England in 1416 to meet Henry V. He was unsuccessful in securing peace, although Sigismund did form an alliance with Henry, and was made a knight of the Garter. Ultimately his support for the Council of Constance resulted in the election of pope Martin V in 1417 and the retirement or deposition of his rivals, ending the schism.43
John the Fearless of Burgundy also began overtures to Henry at this time, and seemed to be contemplating a full alliance with the English against the hated Armagnacs. The struggle between the two sides continued, with the Burgundians driving the Armagnacs from Paris in 1418, but Henry’s complete conquest of Normandy by 1419 seems to have given John pause, and he opened discussions with the Armagnacs to consider the possibility of joining forces against the English.44
On 10 September 1419, the Dauphin and the Armagnacs invited John the Fearless to a meeting at Montereau, ostensibly to make peace and form a united resistance to the English. Instead, when the party met on a bridge to begin the negotiations, and reputedly at a signal from the Dauphin himself, John the Fearless was murdered. This transformed the factional strife into open civil war, and the prospect of a Burgundian alliance with Henry V made a complete English victory in the Hundred Years War a real possibility. This was well known at the time, and remembered subsequently:
A century later a Carthusian monk, who was showing François I the mausoleum of the Dukes at Dijon, picked up John’s broken skull and commented, ‘This is the hole through which the English entered France.’45
The new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, now cast his lot entirely with the English. The Burgundians and English went to Troyes, where Charles VI was based in opposition to his own son, and the terms of the agreement were finalized in the Treaty of Troyes. Henry would marry Charles VI’s daughter Catherine, and was proclaimed Charles VI’s heir, after Isabeau of Bavaria declared that the Dauphin was a bastard and unable to inherit.46
This was particularly threatening to the current Angevin dukes, as Henry V had appointed English agents to control Normandy, and he began granting French titles – including Duke of Anjou – to his followers in anticipation of the lands they would conquer. With English control of Normandy, Anjou was directly in the firing line. However, the Angevins had other concerns, as after Louis II’s death in 1417 Yolanda of Aragon went to Provence from 1419–1423 to undertake the negotiations that led to Louis III becoming heir to Sicily.
The Dauphin had been engaged to Marie, the daughter of Louis II and Yolanda, in 1413, and the marriage was concluded in April 1422 at Bourges, sealing the unity of the Angevins and the crown. It is notable that when Yolanda was in Provence and unable to influence Charles, his fortunes remained at a low ebb, and only began to improve in the 1420s when Yolanda returned to Anjou and acted as his counsellor. It was Yolanda who essentially provided the backbone of French opposition to the English and support for the Dauphin, at least until Joan of Arc galvanized French resistance. Yet although Joan was unquestionably important, her meteoric rise in some ways obscures the patient work of Yolanda of Aragon to restore the kingdom, and Joan gets the credit for a French resurgence that owed at least as much to Yolanda.
King Ladislas and Queen Johanna II of Naples
Yolanda was free to return to Anjou because the situation in Naples, after considerable turmoil, had turned to her favour. After the Second House had been driven from Naples, King Ladislas went considerably further towards uniting Italy under his own rule than anyone since Charles of Anjou. He occupied Rome and captured almost all the papal states in central Italy, given him control of more than half the peninsula. By 1409 the (short-lived) pope Alexander V was so concerned that he formed an alliance with Florence and Siena. They now invited Louis II to join them and their condottiere Muzio Attendolo Sforza, ancestor of the Sforza dukes of Milan, to drive Ladislas from Rome, then conquer Naples. Unable as ever to resist the lure of Naples, Louis II raised an army and went to Italy.
The plan succeeded and the allies captured Rome, but once the papal and Tuscan objectives had been satisfied, they were indifferent to Louis’s goal of capturing Naples, and Louis was forced to return to Provence to seek help. Charles VI continued the Valois tradition of supporting t
he Second House, and gave him 200,000 francs. This allowed Louis to retain Muzio Attendolo Sforza, and together they invaded the Regno and defeated Ladislas at Roccasecca in May 1411, although they were unable to take Naples. This was Louis’s last attempt on the Regno, and by August he was back in Provence after developing the illness that would ultimately kill him in 1417. This was particularly unfortunate for the Second House, because Ladislas had died suddenly of illness in 1414 and there might have been an opportunity for them in Naples, but Louis II was too ill and the future Louis III was only eleven.47
Although he certainly had ambition, Ladislas struggles to make an impression in the midst of the other Angevin kings of Naples, except in one respect in which he outshines them all: his tomb. In the church of San Giovanni Carbonara in Naples, Ladislas has a chapel dedicated to his stupendous tomb, which unlike the tombs in Santa Chiara wasn’t badly damaged in the Second World War. The tomb is also a monument to his sister and successor, Johanna II, since she commissioned it, and although buried elsewhere she appears seated in majesty next to Ladislas. The design was inspired by the tomb of Robert the Wise in Santa Chiara, and it has the form of a triumphal arch of several registers, with Ladislas and Johanna portrayed seated on a throne at the central level, and an equestrian portrait of Ladislas at the top. The church as a whole is a treasure trove of 14th- and 15th-century sculpture and painting, with Ladislas’s tomb the highlight. It is only a few minutes’ walk from the cathedral, yet it is somewhat overlooked, which is a shame because it gives a much better sense of the craftsmanship that went into the Angevin tombs than the somewhat battered examples in the better-known Santa Chiara.
After Ladislas’s death, Johanna II assumed the throne as the last of the Neapolitan Angevin line. Johanna had been born in 1373, and was thus forty-one at the time of her succession and without children. Fascinatingly, she had been married to none other than William Duke of Austria, the rejected fiancé (or husband) of her cousin Jadwiga, the Angevin ruler of Poland. As we know, William had insisted that his marriage to Jadwiga was valid, and he only married Johanna in 1401 after Jadwiga’s death. Given what we know about the history of Hungary, Poland and Naples, this move by William to become king-consort of Naples must also have been an attempt to renew his claim to the throne of Poland. It was only his purported marriage to Jadwiga that gave William any claim to Poland, but the death of Jadwiga and her infant daughter in 1399 meant that Jagiello, reigning as King Władysław II, was without heirs and his own hold on power looked tenuous. William must have believed that the throne of Naples would be an excellent position from which to meddle in Poland – or Hungary – if the opportunity arose. However, William had little time to make good his plans. In 1404 he was drawn into a succession dispute in Austria, where he died in 1406.48
Her brief marriage to William had not produced any children, and as heir apparent and then queen, Johanna II needed to build support in the kingdom, especially given Ladislas’s penchant for military campaigns that might cause his death at any time. Here is where Johanna’s reputation suffers, since legend now credits her with a succession of lovers and ‘favourites’, incidentally linking her to – and confusing her with – Johanna I as a ‘harlot queen’. Johanna II certainly did appoint various officials who were, inevitably, male. Yet as we saw with Queen Melisende, a female ruler’s trusted advisers tend to be called ‘favourites’, and are also frequently assumed to be lovers. We remember Louis of Taranto’s dependence on Niccolo Acciaiuoli, yet Niccolo is never described as Louis’s ‘favourite’ (or indeed lover) by modern historians, whereas of course Niccolo was assumed to be the lover of Catherine of Courtenay when she entrusted him with the management of Morea. The fact that Johanna was a widow and had close male advisers was considered sufficient evidence that she had many lovers.
The ‘Black Legend’ then runs riot, and Johanna II is accused of behaviour more appropriate to a fairy tale or – not coincidentally – Roman Empresses such as Messalina or Agrippina. A brief internet search quickly shows the common opinions, and searching for ‘Giovanna II Napoli’ brings up the most lurid details: Giovanna the dissolute, the hunter of men, the insatiable, Giovanna of the hundred lovers, mad queen Giovanna the eater of men – the list goes on. Perhaps the most notorious stories tell of the ‘baths of Queen Giovanna’: when tired of her lovers, Johanna had a trap door through which she would drop them into the sea, where they would be devoured by crocodiles.49
It is impossible to evaluate these stories, other than to dismiss most as obviously fanciful, and to consider again the ways in which female rulers are judged. Most male rulers had mistresses and illegitimate children, and although certainly some are called ‘dissolute’, I cannot think of a male ruler described as ‘insatiable’ much less ‘the devourer of women’. The fact that there is a double standard is no surprise. Yet the larger point is that criticism of female rulers is usually not limited to the facts of their rule, and instead other, usually sexual, slurs are immediately applied. To put it another way, Ladislas had no more peaceful or successful a reign than either Johanna I or Johanna II, yet he is always evaluated, somewhat boringly, solely on the meagre evidence of his political and military actions.
Muzio Attendolo Sforza was not the only famous condottiere active in the Regno, as Bartolomeo Colleoni also began his career fighting in Naples. Colleoni went on to become the captain-general of Venice and one of the greatest commanders of the 15th century, and he modestly left money in his will to commission the equestrian statue of himself by Andrea del Verrocchio that stands outside San Zanipolo in Venice, one of the great Renaissance statues (along with Donatello’s statue of the condottiere Gattamelata outside the Basilica of San Antonio in Padua). This is of interest for a particular reason: on the marble base of Colleoni’s statue are plaques with the Colleoni coat of arms, which includes the Angevin arms. Johanna II is said to have given the young Colleoni the right to carry her arms, and naturally he was also said to be one of her lovers. However, it was King René who in a letter sent from Angers on 14 May 1467 granted Colleoni and his legitimate issue the right to bear the Angevin arms and add ‘d’Anjou’ to his name. This shows again how the existence of the Angevin arms on Colleoni’s statue and the knowledge that he worked for Johanna II are spun into another slanderous story.50
Once Johanna had actually taken the throne, the succession was a critical concern, as was her widowed state. As with Johanna I, even when a reigning queen was probably too old to have children, it was necessary for her to marry. Johanna II considered the traditional alliances with Aragon or France, and in 1415 married Jacques de Bourbon, the Count of La Marche. He had participated in the ill-fated Nicopolis Crusade in 1396 and would have been known to Sigismund of Luxembourg, but otherwise had little to recommend him. Johanna attempted to preempt the problems Johanna I had faced with her husbands, and Jacques was explicitly barred from becoming king, though he would be given the title Prince of Taranto.
Yet Jacques behaved exactly as Louis of Taranto and James of Majorca had towards Johanna I. He executed Johanna II’s chief minister (and reputed lover) Pandolfello Piscopo and imprisoned Muzio Attendolo Sforza. He then imprisoned Johanna too and tried to seize the kingdom. Fortunately for Johanna, her patient work establishing her power before Ladislas’s death had given her substantial support among the Neapolitan nobles, and they rose up against Jacques and freed Johanna.
Johanna found a new adviser (naturally always described as her ‘favourite’ and lover) in Sergianni Caracciolo, and together they excluded Jacques from the rule of the kingdom. Johanna remained uncrowned in this period, since no doubt Jacques had prevented this in the years of his dominance if he could not be crowned with her, and Johanna herself probably avoided the ceremony when Jacques was still in the Regno since it would effectively have given him a better claim on the throne. Despite this, Jacques claimed to be king and quartered his arms with those of Naples, but was finally expelled from the Regno in 1419 and never troubled Johanna again (he became
a Franciscan monk and died in 1438). However, their marriage was never dissolved, and neither would marry again. It may well have been a relief to Johanna to be prevented from finding yet another husband, but this would mean that every male adviser in her subsequent reign would be considered to be her lover.
Johanna was finally crowned on 28 October 1419, but this still left the problem of the succession, which was of particular concern to the pope as overlord of the kingdom. It is notable that now we can say ‘the pope’, rather than ‘one of the popes’, because the Council of Constance had finally resolved the Western Schism and confirmed Martin V as undisputed pope in 1417. Johanna’s story now becomes very confusing. Martin V officially recognized Louis III of Anjou as Johanna’s heir on 4 December 1419, but this seems to have been without the consent of Johanna herself. The choice of a representative of the Second House, given the recent history of Ladislas and Louis II, can only have been meant to threaten Johanna. She retaliated by looking to the most obvious ally: if the papacy and France supported Louis, then she would turn to the house of Aragon, in the person of Alfonso V, king of Aragon and Sicily.51
Things became even more complicated, since Louis III was only sixteen and Yolanda of Aragon was highly sceptical about the papal plan, given that Louis I and II had both died as a consequence of fighting for Naples. Nevertheless, Yolanda went to Provence in 1419 and began negotiations to ensure Louis III’s safety should he go to Naples. In particular, she required an exchange of Neapolitan hostages who would stay in Provence until Louis had taken the crown. This was arranged to Yolanda’s satisfaction, and in 1420 Louis III joined Muzio Attendolo Sforza in an invasion of the Regno.
Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500 Page 47
