Much has been made of the fact that neither Charles VI nor his eldest son was present at this historic contest, implying that what was missing from the French performance was an inspiring commander. “There is no doubt that knights and men-at-arms and the whole army would have greater courage in fighting, seeing their lord in his place, ready to live and die with them,” Christine de Pizan would later write. But in reality, the presence or lack thereof of a member of the royal family was irrelevant; the French army was in no need of inspiration. The knights and men-at-arms displayed great courage in fighting and were certainly ready to die for their cause, as is proven by the fact that thousands of them did die. What they lacked was cohesion, the ability to adapt to changing combat conditions, and, above all, discipline.
And they were facing the very definition of cohesion and discipline. This core unit of Henry and his men had been fighting together for months. They knew what they were supposed to do and when they were supposed to do it. They waited for signals, and when those signals were given, they acted.
And they had a technological advantage in the longbow. The French had never taken to archery. No nobleman in France hunted with a bow and arrow. In England, the longbow was akin to the national sport. Henry had only six thousand men, but five thousand of them were expert archers. The king of England was aware from personal experience of the destructive potential of a rain of arrows, and he used this knowledge to devastating effect.
The field at Agincourt was muddy and narrow. The French cavalry was not in formation in time and the English were able to stake out an advantageous position that placed the French knights within range of their archers. When the French finally advanced, the English longbowmen just stood there and let fly. They never had to move. Their superiority was akin to having automatic long-range assault weapons. Thousands of arrows rained down on the French; the horses and knights fell in the mud; the advancing men-at-arms fell down on top of them; the next wave of knights, followed by their men-at-arms, rushed in to help and fell victim themselves to the arrows. This process was repeated for hours. Those French who did not die outright from their wounds perished from loss of blood, or, unable to extricate themselves from the growing pile of corpses, they simply suffocated in the mud. The main theater of operation soon turned into a ghastly morass, reminiscent of a huge open-air communal gravesite. Few battles in history compare with Agincourt for the sickening waste of human life. At the end of the day, a nobleman who fought on the side of France reported that ten thousand of his compatriots lay dead in the field at Agincourt, although it is not at all clear that this number included members of the lower classes. By contrast, the English lost a total of 112 men.
Henry V’s assessment of the opposition—and of his own countrymen—had been correct. After Agincourt, no one in England ever doubted his right to the throne. The only question was, did he now also rule France?
The battle of Agincourt.
* In fairness, Louis II was away in Italy for large portions of the years 1409 to 1411, trying (unsuccessfully of course) to retake Naples, and so did not really have time to concentrate on French affairs until his return.
* For this reason, in her own time, Yolande was often referred to as “Queen of the Four Kingdoms”—Naples, Sicily, Jerusalem, and Aragon.
CHAPTER 5
A
New Dauphin
OLANDE WAS IN ANGERS with the children when she received the news of the annihilation of the French army at Agincourt. Although she must have been relieved to hear that her husband was safe, the number of knights who perished or were taken prisoner that day was stunning. Almost no family of noble French origin was unaffected by this tragedy. The Armagnac ruling faction, in particular, was decimated. The constable had died in the fray, as had the count of Alençon, one of the founding members of the anti-Burgundian league. The dukes of Orléans and Bourbon had survived the fight only to be captured and held for ransom. Yolande herself had two uncles killed in the battle, one of whom was the duke of Bar. Even the duke of Burgundy sacrificed two brothers to the English longbows at Agincourt.
In the aftermath of the defeat, Charles VI and his eldest son, uncertain of Henry’s next move, stayed at Rouen, and Louis II remained with them. It soon became clear that the English king intended to continue on to Calais as he had originally planned, and from there to England. Despite his great victory, his men were too tired and sick to press on toward Paris. On November 16, 1415, Henry V and his army sailed from Calais for home, taking with them hundreds of captive French noblemen, including their most important prisoner, the twenty-year-old duke of Orléans.
Those who remained at Rouen understood that the respite from their English aggressors was only temporary. In the spring, Henry would return, probably with an even larger army, to claim his rights to France. The French crown would have to make deep concessions to prevent the loss of the kingdom altogether. Charles VI, once again on the verge of a psychotic episode, returned to Paris at the end of November, as did the duke of Guyenne, to confer with the surviving members of the royal council. Louis II, still suffering from illness, accompanied them. But before they arrived, a more immediate danger threatened. Messengers reported that the duke of Burgundy was marching toward Paris at the head of a large contingent of men-at-arms.
John the Fearless’s reaction to the French slaughter at Agincourt was mixed. While he grieved for his lost brothers, he could not help but notice that the English had conveniently relieved him of his most obstinate adversaries in the opposing political party. The discomfiture of his rivals and the resulting confusion at the royal court presented the duke of Burgundy with an opportunity to seize power that was too tempting to let slip by. The duke of Guyenne had bade him stay away from the battle, and to his great advantage John the Fearless had acquiesced to that request; now, in a position of strength, he came to take Paris.
Despite falling ill with dysentery on December 6, the eighteen-year-old duke of Guyenne took charge of the government. The count of Armagnac, the only leading member of the anti-Burgundian faction not to have participated at Agincourt, was hastily nominated as the new constable of France, and an embassy sent to his estates in the south urgently summoning him, with as many troops as he could muster, to Paris. The duke of Guyenne also sent emissaries to intercept John the Fearless armed with royal orders commanding the duke of Burgundy to break off his campaign and disband his forces, but the duke of Burgundy simply ignored these edicts and continued his march on the capital. On hearing this news, Louis II, strongly suspecting that John had not yet gotten over that unfortunate Catherine business, and that accordingly he stood a good chance of being singled out as a target of the duke’s ire, felt a pressing need to leave Paris. The king of Sicily slipped out of his hôtel at dawn on December 10 and made a dignified escape to his wife and children at Angers.
The duke of Burgundy and his troops arrived at the outskirts of the city on December 15; the count of Armagnac was reported to be on the road with his forces at about the same time; and three days later, on December 18, just as it seemed that it was impossible for French affairs to become more chaotic, the duke of Guyenne died of his dysentery.
The sudden death of the heir to the throne, followed by the necessary funeral ceremonies, created a temporary hiatus in the political and military frenzy. The duke of Burgundy could not very well march into Paris with an army while the whole kingdom was mourning the loss of the crown prince. Moreover, he had to worry about the position of his daughter, the former duchess of Guyenne, now an unwanted appendage without obvious means of financial support. It wouldn’t do to try to bully the royal family at the same time that he was trying to obtain a substantial widow’s portion for her.
While the duke of Burgundy hesitated, the count of Armagnac arrived and as the lawfully named constable of France ensconced himself in Paris, then used his troops to sever the supply lines servicing John the Fearless’s army. Charles VI’s second son, John, who had married the count of Hai naut’s daughter a
nd was living with his in-laws in Belgium, was recalled to Paris to take his dead brother’s place as heir to the throne. The duke of Burgundy, faced with the problem of an increasingly hungry contingent of men-at-arms and a Parisian population hopefully anticipating the arrival of a new dauphin, was forced to withdraw, leaving the government of the kingdom once again in the hands of his rivals. With the departure of his powerful enemy, the king of Sicily judged the capital once again safe enough to hazard his return. By the middle of January 1416, Louis II was back in Paris, and this time he brought his wife with him.
FOR YOLANDE TO LEAVE the children behind in Angers—she was almost never separated from them—is a measure of how critical was the political situation in which she and her husband found themselves. Louis’s recent illness had weakened him considerably, and he was forced to rely more and more upon his wife’s diplomatic skills. Yolande was especially useful as a conduit to Isabeau of Bavaria, with whom she had established a personal and political relationship. Like Louis II, Queen Isabeau attended the meetings of the royal council. Over the next few months, with his wife’s help, the king of Sicily became the principal power in the government, appointing members of his retinue, including his longtime councillor, Tanneguy du Chastel, as prévôt of the city.
The political alliance between Yolande, Louis II, and the queen of France infuriated the duke of Burgundy. Taking advantage of a short absence by the count of Armagnac from the capital, John the Fearless sent spies into Paris to set in motion a plot to murder Queen Isabeau, Yolande, Louis II, the duke of Berry, Tanneguy du Chastel, and a number of others. The plan was for a group of Parisian middle-class burghers, goaded on by the Burgundian gentlemen who had infiltrated the capital, to steal the keys of the city from the local officials. They were then to arrest and execute the targeted victims, making sure to first humiliate them by making them ride through the streets of Paris on the backs of mules to the derision of the local population. Unfortunately for the duke, this plot was discovered by the royal guard on the evening of April 19, 1416. The captain denounced the conspirators to the royal council; an extraordinary commission was immediately established to investigate; the details of the scheme, including the compromising role played by the duke of Burgundy himself, came to light; and the unhappy intriguers, rather than ruling the city, found themselves hunted down and beheaded.
Ironically, the effect of this treachery was to secure Louis II’s hold on the government, a grasp that became even more pronounced upon the death two months later of the old duke of Berry, who had taken the news of the conspiracy very hard. With the king of Sicily’s steadily increasing authority, he and Yolande must have felt much more confident of their ability to protect themselves, because they brought thirteen-year-old Charles to Paris to stay with them while they awaited the arrival of his elder brother John, the new dauphin.
But the duke of Burgundy also had his eye on the new dauphin. In October, John the Fearless met secretly with Henry V as a first step toward arranging an alliance with the English that separated and protected Burgundian interests from those of the rest of France. To gain leverage over the dauphin, John the Fearless then threatened to have the count of Hainaut overthrown or murdered by these powerful new allies. This gambit yielded the desired result. In November, the count of Hainaut came to an understanding with the duke of Burgundy. The dauphin John would enter into an agreement with the duke to defend and protect the duke’s interests against all who opposed him. John the Fearless further instructed the count of Hainaut to approach the royal council on his behalf and insist that they agree to abide by the terms of this treaty.
Only after this agreement was finalized did the count of Hainaut and the dauphin John finally begin their journey to Paris. The negotiations had taken so long that it was by this time winter, and very cold. In January they reached Compiègne, where they settled to await preparations for the dauphin’s grand entry into the capital. During this stopover, the dauphin came down with an ear infection, so in March the count of Hainaut went to Paris alone to confront the royal council with John the Fearless’s demands. As might be expected, the Armagnac government did not appreciate the ultimatum, and by the end of March the count had returned empty-handed to Compiègne. Only then did he discover that his son-in-law had fallen seriously ill in his absence. There being no effective treatment against the more aggressive strains of bacteria in the fifteenth century, the infection that had begun in John’s ear had spread to his skull.
One week later, on April 5, 1417, to the utter disbelief of the kingdom, the dauphin John died. And just like that, Yolande of Aragon’s future son-in-law Charles, the fourteen-year-old boy who worshipped her, was the new dauphin and heir to the throne of France.
YOLANDE WAS NOT WITH CHARLES when the news of John’s death reached Paris. Louis II’s health had deteriorated significantly with the onset of winter. He had never really recovered from the infection that had prevented him from participating in the battle of Agincourt. By the previous January, he had become so weak that Yolande decided he was better off living quietly at home than in the turmoil of the capital. In fact, the king of Sicily, too, was dying.
Before they had left Paris, Yolande and her husband had made every effort to ensure Charles’s safety and political future. Yolande charged the most capable members of her household, including Tanneguy du Chastel, provost of Paris; Robert Le Maçon, Charles’s chancellor; and Gérard Machet, his confessor, with the care and protection of Charles in her absence. These were Angevin counselors of long standing whose political experience would prove invaluable. Still, this was a painful leave-taking for Yolande and her husband, as well as for Charles. Louis II must have known that his condition was fatal, because a chronicler reported that “he clasped [Charles] many times in his arms, and recommended that he never trust the duke of Burgundy, but to endeavor nevertheless by all means possible to be on good terms with him.” Then Yolande escorted Louis II slowly home to Angers.
He lasted until April 29, 1417, just long enough to learn that the dauphin John had succumbed to illness and that consequently his daughter Marie was now engaged to the heir to the throne of France. Louis II died in bed, surrounded by his wife and children, at the age of forty. In his will, he specifically enjoined his children to obey their mother in all things, and to revere her all their lives, and he added a special clause recommending that the dauphin Charles do the same. Although his eldest son, Louis III, inherited the majority of his estates and titles, Yolande was made executor of his will and regent over all of his fiefs until his son should reach his majority, and she also retained the property associated with her dower, which included the beautiful castle of Saumur and other lands and revenues in Provence.
There is no good time to die, of course, but Louis II picked a particularly unhelpful moment to make his exit. Coming so soon upon the death of the second dauphin, the demise of the king of Sicily provoked a power struggle in Paris between the count of Armagnac and Queen Isabeau, in which Charles, as the new heir to the throne, once again played the pawn. Charles had by chance been visiting his mother and his sister Catherine in Senlis when the news arrived that his older brother had died. Isabeau, taking advantage of Charles’s presence in her castle, was determined to keep him with her as a way of safeguarding her own interests. By exerting influence over Charles, her last remaining son, she could take control of the royal council and keep the reins of government in her own hands. So intent was Isabeau upon capitalizing on this opportunity that she called up a large contingent of soldiers to Senlis, ostensibly to help guard her prize, but really as a preliminary step toward advancing on Paris.
The summoning of this force—a clumsy and obvious contrivance—betrayed her intentions and instigated a showdown with the count of Armagnac, who naturally saw himself as the head of the political faction bearing his name, and who had no intention of ceding authority. He and Tanneguy du Chastel struck back. The king had just emerged from a bout of madness and was once again easily influenced by tho
se who approached him first. Through a representative, the count of Armagnac leveled some scandalous accusations against Queen Isabeau’s court and suggested that the king reprimand his wife. Following the familiar pattern, the king accepted these allegations without investigation, took the count of Armagnac’s advice, and sent an army headed by Tanneguy du Chastel in his guise as provost of Paris (a sort of chief of police) to Senlis to take Charles away from Isabeau and bring him back to his father at the Hôtel Saint-Pol. Also by the king’s order, “the Queen was deprived of everything; she was no longer to be one of the Council and her establishment was reduced,” reported a chronicler and eyewitness. A seething Isabeau, stripped of all her royal powers, was exiled to Tours, there to contemplate her uncertain future in the company of a court by no means as glittering or opulent as that to which she had become accustomed.
None of this would ever have happened if the king and queen of Sicily had been in Paris; they were the glue that had held together the shaky alliance between the count of Armagnac and the queen of France. But Louis II was dead, and Yolande, as executor of his will, was in no position to leave the duchy of Anjou to try to sort out the mess in Paris. Instead, she did the next best thing: she got Charles out of the capital and back to his adopted family by insisting that the boy, in his capacity as dauphin and representative of the crown, preside over an official state meeting in Saumur. Charles, who by this time was afraid of both his father and his mother, leapt at the chance to return to Yolande. Yolande met him with an impressive retinue calculated to underscore his position as heir to the throne, and brought him back with her to the quiet of her castle at Saumur.
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