Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500

by Jeffrey Anderson

  Johanna was not idle, and concluded her agreement with Alfonso V, who launched a counter-invasion of the Regno in 1421. Alfonso was the mature and powerful king of several wealthy kingdoms with an unmatched fleet, whereas Louis III was a boy completely dependent on the condottiere Sforza and the pope. When the pope decided to stop funding Louis, and Sforza switched his support to Alfonso, the matter seemed to be finished, with victory for Johanna and Alfonso.

  Once established in Naples, Alfonso behaved exactly as the other king-consorts and heirs had. In 1423 he arrested Caracciolo and attempted to overthrow Johanna, who was besieged in the Castel Capuano. She appealed to Sforza, who supported her as the rightful queen, and they ransomed Caracciolo. Johanna now went to Aversa to consider her options, and reached a surprising conclusion: she repudiated Alfonso V and adopted Louis III as her heir. Her calculation must have been that as an isolated boy, Louis would present considerably less of a threat than Alfonso. Louis could expect no help from France, which had been virtually conquered by England in the Hundred Years War, and Johanna and Caracciolo could keep him in check.

  With everyone ranged against him, Alfonso was now forced to leave the Regno. He attacked Louis III’s city of Marseilles on his way back to Aragon, and spitefully stole the skull and other bones of Louis of Toulouse, removing them to the cathedral of Valencia, where they – along with the Holy Grail, another gift to the city from Alfonso V – remain. In 1956 some of the bones were returned to Marseilles, but the relics of Louis, the most important Angevin saint, remain in enemy territory, albeit in a kingdom that would also be claimed by the Angevins.52

  Naples desperately needed stability, and Johanna had finally achieved it. Louis III was made Duke of Calabria, and retired to his estates there. With Louis III we can only conclude that the boundless Angevin energy had briefly subsided, as he seemed content to live in southern Italy and wait to succeed Johanna, although there are unverified tales that he joined his brothers René and Charles on their campaigns with Joan of Arc.

  The situation remained stable for around ten years, but Johanna was troubled again near the end of her reign. Her seneschal Sergianni Carraciolo was murdered in 1432, though he achieved a kind of immortality with his spectacular Renaissance tomb, which lies behind that of Ladislas in San Giovanni Carbonara and forms part of the Angevin necropolis.

  Louis III was of little help and did not even succeed Johanna, since he died of malaria in 1434. He had married Margaret of Savoy in 1431, but as she was only eleven, the couple had no children in their brief time before he died. Louis III’s death meant that his brother René was now Duke of Anjou and heir to Naples, along with a truly bewildering array of other claims, not to mention being a key figure in the climactic years of the Hundred Years War. It is fitting that the history of the Angevins should end with him.

  CHAPTER 12 – KING RENÉ AND QUEEN MARGARET

  LIKE HIS BROTHER, FATHER and grandfather, René was titular King of Sicily and Jerusalem, and although he ruled Naples for only around four years, he continued to use his royal titles until his death at an advanced age. He also inherited a claim to the throne of Aragon through his mother, and sent his son to make it good. More important than these nominal titles were René’s real possessions of Anjou, Provence, Lorraine and Bar. Yet René stands out from the other members of the Second House of Anjou for many reasons besides his territorial ambitions. He was at the centre of all the key developments of the 15th century: the conclusion of the Hundred Years War including Joan of Arc’s extraordinary career; Italy’s position as birthplace of the Renaissance as well as being Europe’s main battleground; the final extinction of the Crusading ideal in practical terms; the transformation of chivalry into a formalized, highly decorative form of aristocratic entertainment; and the coalescence of France into something like its modern form.

  King René marks the end of the long Angevin story that began in the 9th century with the first Angevin counts, and saw Angevins rule over large parts of France, England, Sicily and southern Italy, Jerusalem, Hungary and Poland. This story comes to a close almost too neatly, because René’s daughter, Margaret of Anjou, married Henry VI of England, reuniting the Plantagenet and Angevin lines that had diverged in 1204. That the Plantagenets lost their throne in the Wars of the Roses in which Margaret was one of the main participants, leading to her immortality as Shakespeare’s ‘She-Wolf of France’, at almost exactly the same time as René’s line failed and Anjou was finally absorbed by France, is fitting. In England, the end of the Plantagenet dynasty is taken as a convenient dividing line between the medieval and modern, and though there is considerable continuity between 15th- and 16th-century English history, it is undeniable that Tudor government and culture seem to operate in a different world from that of the Plantagenets.

  Many historians writing in English denigrate René as a failure, and it is indisputable that he did fail in his attempts to rule Naples, although in this he was not unlike his father and grandfather. I have argued consistently that failure as perceived by contemporaries is failure, and this is certainly the case with René’s political activities. Yet paradoxically some modern historians use René’s cultural achievements to emphasize his political inadequacy, rather than considering them in their own right. The image of the aesthete writing his chivalric romances, holding his elaborate tournaments and pageants and commissioning glorious works of art while he loses his throne and is utterly ineffective in politics is simply too neat a juxtaposition to overlook. However, Louis I and Louis II are never held to this standard, and they both failed to make good their claim to Naples. It is only because René was such a significant figure in the cultural life of the 15th century that his political and military failings are magnified.

  Margaret would have a similar experience of political struggles followed by desperate military conflict, which saw her husband and son murdered and Margaret herself imprisoned. René failed in his bid for Naples, but seems to have glided through the rest of his life happily enough in a whirl of pageantry and artistic achievement. Margaret’s defeat in a much more bitter conflict was not so lightly forgotten.

  The Hundred Years War: French Resurgence

  First, the Angevins had to weather the English attempt to conquer Anjou. René was born in 1409, and in 1419 assumed the role of heir to the first of his possessions, the duchy of Bar. He inherited this claim through Yolanda of Aragon’s mother Yolande of Bar, since her two brothers had been killed at Agincourt and the current Duke, the Cardinal Louis, was naturally unmarried. In the same year René married Isabella of Lorraine, heiress to the duchy of Lorraine, and the young couple lived at her father’s court at Nancy. At this time, René would have had no thought of inheriting Anjou or a claim to Naples, and defending Anjou fell to Yolanda of Aragon and his older brother Louis III.

  In the aftermath of the Treaty of Troyes, Henry V initiated an invasion of Anjou. Fortunately for Yolanda, the Dauphin’s forces, aided by a Scots detachment, were victorious against Henry’s brother the Duke of Clarence, who was killed at Baugé on 22 March 1421, finally stopping the English advance after Agincourt. Much more importantly, Henry V himself continued campaigning, but contracted a fatal illness and died on 31 August 1422. He left a nine-month-old son, Henry VI, but critically the poor mad Charles VI, whose malady had done so much to injure France, did the one thing that could save his kingdom: he lived two months longer than Henry V and died on 21 October 1422. This was of paramount importance, since although Henry V had been recognized as Charles VI’s heir, he had never been crowned king of France. Although Henry VI would later be crowned – in Paris, not in Reims – it would be argued that Henry V had no right to pass his claim to his son, and Henry VI had no right to be king of France.

  Henry V had appointed his brother John Duke of Bedford as Regent of France for the young Henry VI, and Bedford was a formidable commander. In 1424 Bedford was formally created Duke of Anjou and Maine to encourage him to conquer the counties, and after the English won another crus
hing victory at Verneuil in 1424 they overran Maine. The Earl of Salisbury, one of the greatest English commanders in the war, besieged Le Mans in July 1425 and on 10 August the city fell to English artillery. Anjou itself was now subject to attack.

  Louis III was in Naples and Yolanda had been charged with the defence of Anjou, for which purpose the Dauphin gave her 30,000 francs per year.1 Yolanda turned to diplomacy and repeatedly tried to form an alliance with Brittany to block further English expansion. The treaty of Saumur on 17 October 1425 finally sealed the alliance, and the Duke of Brittany’s brother Arthur of Richemont was drawn out of an alliance with Burgundy to support the Dauphin. Although the Angevins had no way of knowing it, they had seen the high point of English conquests. Just when the English seemed to carry all before them, strife in the council governing on behalf of Henry VI forced Bedford to return to England, and for several years he was unable to concentrate on France. Maine would be held by the English for another twenty years and there would be raids on Anjou, but the situation slowly began to improve for the Dauphin, and Yolanda of Aragon was instrumental in this fightback.

  One key component was the appearance of able commanders after decades of squabbling, incompetent leaders whose antics demoralized their troops. In addition to Yolanda herself are some of the more colourful figures in the war: Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, who was an illegitimate son of Louis Duke of Orleans, murdered by the Burgundians; the mercenary captain Etienne de Vignolles, always known as ‘La Hire’ or ‘The Fury’; the fabulously named Poton de Xaintrailles, whose conduct was so impressive that Sir Thomas Malory mentioned him by name twice in the Morte d’Arthur; and the above-mentioned Arthur de Richemont, the future Duke of Brittany, whose switch from supporting the Burgundian party to the Dauphin was due to the patient diplomacy of Yolanda of Aragon. Despite their presence, the Dauphin’s uninspiring leadership and low morale generally still sapped any resistance to the English, and some kind of inspiration was needed.

  The turning point came, of course, at the siege of Orleans in 1429. After the capture of Maine, the English were still poised for a final push south to drive the Dauphin from Bourges and possibly win the war entirely, and the Dauphin was considering fleeing to Scotland to avoid capture. The English commanders, the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Salisbury, disagreed on the best means of achieving this. Bedford preferred to attack Angers, as the conquest of Anjou and the defeat of Yolanda of Aragon, mainstay of the Dauphin, might have been the knockout blow that the English had hitherto failed to deliver. Salisbury disagreed, and advocated capturing Orleans, which he believed was a more significant city and better sited geographically for the final surge across the Loire. Salisbury won the argument, and in1429 the English began the operation that would change everything.

  Orleans was a large and heavily defended city, with the garrison outnumbering the besiegers, and the English troops were unable to surround the city completely. Nevertheless, with their artillery and their air of invincibility, they made good headway and captured some of the city’s outworks. Here came the first disaster, when a shot fired from the battlements freakishly killed the Earl of Salisbury, despite his sheltering in a tower. If it seemed that God had finally withdrawn his favour from the English, more proof was quickly to come.2

  Joan of Arc

  In the village of Domremy, which was situated between Bar and Lorraine and thus in René’s future domains, a peasant girl called Joan began to hear voices telling her to rescue France. They were very specific about her mission: she should raise the siege of Orleans and have the Dauphin crowned at Reims. Although initially met with scepticism, Joan convinced the garrison commander at Vaucouleurs to send her to Chinon with an escort so that she could make her case to the Dauphin. She was also summoned to meet Duke Charles of Lorraine at Nancy, where she exhorted him to give up his mistress and specifically asked him to send his son-in-law René to escort her to Chinon. It was not yet time for René to join Joan, though this would happen soon.3

  The Dauphin was mockingly called the ‘King of Bourges’ because that was one of his centres of power, but in fact he moved around frequently and it is not coincidental that the iconic Angevin castle of Chinon would now take centre stage. Chinon, although it had been the treasury of Anjou and was the place where Henry II died, is perhaps best known today for the role it plays in Joan’s story. The castle is a ruin, but the room where Joan met the Dauphin is still mostly extant and it is quite moving to stand in the place where she began to fulfil her mission.

  That story is dramatic. Joan was taken to an upper chamber lit by torches, and as a first test for her, the Dauphin stood in the midst of the other courtiers to see if she could identify him. Despite his legendarily unprepossessing appearance, Joan unerringly went to him and hailed him with the epithet she would always use, as the ‘Gentle Dauphin’.4 Either now, or later during her religious examination in Poitiers, Joan was also examined by Yolanda of Aragon to see if she were truly a virgin, which she was.

  Joan now underwent weeks of religious interrogation in Poitiers to prove she wasn’t a witch and that her claim to be on a divine mission was true. There was a diabolical undercurrent associated with the Dauphin’s court (which would reach a spectacularly gruesome climax some years later), so fears about the source of Joan’s inspiration were not unreasonable. Even when John the Fearless had been killed in 1419, his hand had reputedly been cut off before his burial to stop him ‘raising the devil’. This practice had occurred with others close to the Dauphin, who claimed they had sold their right hands to the devil, and only if the offending hands were cut off would they be spared damnation. Joan, whatever we think about the nature of the voices that guided her, had no part in this kind of satanism and quickly proved this to her examiners.

  She also dictated the extraordinary letter to the English commanders that survives in various versions:

  Jhesus Maria. King of England, and you, Duke of Bedford, calling yourself Regent of France; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; John Lord Talbot, and you, Thomas Lord Scales, calling yourselves lieutenants of the said Bedford … deliver the keys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France to the Maid (Pucelle) who has been sent by God the King of Heaven … Go away, for God’s sake, back to your own country; otherwise, await news of the Maid, who will soon visit you to your great detriment.5

  No reply from the English survives, and we can only assume that they found the letter absurd. They were about to discover to their cost that it was not.

  Joan did not simply go to Orleans and raise the siege herself; instead, she was allowed to accompany the relief force that Yolanda of Aragon had organized some time before to rescue the city. Still, the presence of Joan gave the army hope that had been lacking during their years of defeats, and Joan’s genuine piety and insistence that the soldiers attend mass and not swear gave them a sense of mission. Joan was not in any sense in command of the army, and many decisions were being made without consulting her – to which she would respond with considerable anger when she found out – but Joan was most important simply in being herself and inspiring the army.

  When an assault was finally launched on one of the fortifications held by the English, Joan was in the front line, and although she was wounded in the shoulder, she continued to fight and the English were defeated. Joan had dramatically fulfilled the faith put in her, and when the English soon after abandoned the siege and retreated, it seemed that the tide of the war had finally turned. Shortly afterwards, at Joan’s urging the Dauphin’s forces attacked a (considerably smaller) English army at Patay and won their first significant victory in years.

  Many of the commanders now wanted to attack Paris or consolidate territorial gains along the Loire, but Joan was committed to having the Dauphin crowned at Reims. This was an incredibly dangerous mission, since Reims and all the territory around it were under Burgundian control. Yet Joan convinced the Dauphin, and the army advanced through Champagne receiving the surrender of one town after ano
ther through negotiation, showing that the allegiance of many towns to the Burgundians was quite tenuous.6

  On 17 July 1429, the Dauphin was crowned in the cathedral at Reims and formally became Charles VII. Joan played a prominent role in the ceremony, as did Gilles de Rais, a wealthy Cenomannian lord who had been notable at Orleans and formed a close relationship with Joan, and who now became Marshal of France. René is reported to have participated in the coronation, though this is unclear, but after the coronation he definitely joined the group of nobles in Joan’s entourage.7

  Unfortunately, the coronation was the high point of Joan’s career and things began to go wrong for her. She now insisted on attacking Paris, a move opposed by a faction around Charles VII who were assiduously trying to detach the Duke of Burgundy from his alliance with the English and feared antagonizing him. Joan prevailed, and a force that included René as well as the other main commanders – Gilles de Rais, La Hire, the Bastard of Orleans and Poton de Xaintrailles – launched a somewhat foolhardy and underprepared attack on the city. They failed and Joan was wounded again (René took her to his residence in Chapelle Saint-Denis to recover), and now the aura of invincibility that surrounded her finally began to fade.8

  In early 1430 Joan continued to campaign with mixed success, until on 24 May at Compiègne she was dragged from her horse by a Burgundian soldier and captured. The English were ecstatic and bought her from the Burgundians to be taken for trial in Rouen. Charles VII, frequently accused of having abandoned her, did send forces to attack Rouen, but they were unsuccessful and don’t seem to have been very committed to the attack. Certainly Joan caused a great deal of discomfort even among her supporters, who were never quite sure of the basis of her power. She was also detested by some of the other commanders, who could not bear that this young girl – who was seventeen when she raised the siege of Orleans – with her claim of divine inspiration could appear and upset all their plans, and worse, challenge their influence. There is no question that some in Charles’s court were happy at her removal, especially as she had already changed the momentum of the war and they felt no more need for her.9