Group items tagged

It might fairly be asked why the Emperor Charles V did not dispose of the Valois challenge more quickly.

In 1519 he was elected Holy Roman Emperor, ruler of Germany

Francis, in turn, harboured a deep-seated resentment against Charles

The kingdom had recently been consolidated by the incorporation of great provinces like Burgundy and Brittany

This explains why the history of the Habsburg-Valois rivalry is one where intensive periods of bloody fighting were followed so often by stalemate and financial exhaustion

The two kings [Henry II and Philip II] realised that if they attempted to mount another campaign in 1559, they might stretch their finances and the loyalty of their subjects to breaking point

In waging war he could only really rely on the financial support of the Netherlands and Castile, and as the Habsburg-Valois wars persisted he, and his successor Philip II, found himself plundering both territories to their absolute limits

In the mind of the young Charles V, no family ambition loomed larger than that of recovering his ancestral lands of Burgundy from the French

Much of the Habsburg-Valois rivalry revolved around rival ambitions in Italy

Habsburg-Valois conflict to an end was that the conflict was essentially a dynastic one; the rivalry was between two proud ruling families who were determined to protect the achievements of their forbears and to enhance the reputation and power of their family, or dynasty

This helps to explain why the House of Habsburg and the House of Valois persisted for so long in their conflict with such a disregard for the damaging consequences to their lands and peoples

Francis's successor, Henry II, had spent three years as a hostage of the Habsburgs in Spain, after the Treaty of Madrid, and as King of France from 1547 he exhibited an animosity to the Habsburgs that perhaps exceeded even that of his father

The continuation of the Habsburg-Valois conflict was also a tremendous boon to the Ottoman Sultan. He aimed to extend Muslim Ottoman power into Europe. The major obstacle to expansion were, firstly, the Austrian Habsburg lands in central Europe, ruled by Charles V's brother Ferdinand, and, secondly, the military and naval presence of the Habsburgs in the Mediterranean

The impression is often given that Charles abandoned his claim to Burgundy in the Peace of Cambrai in 1529

Thus for Charles V his personal rivalry with Francis I was overlaid by a sense of injustice at what he perceived to be the theft of his family's Burgundian inheritance by the Valois kings

It was also here that the deeply felt dynastic rivalry between the Houses of Habsburg and Valois was at its most acute. Throughout the long conflict the French chafed at Habsburg control of the kingdom of Naples

Charles V consequently acquired Naples when he inherited the kingdom of Aragon in1516

Francis and his successor Henry II continued to press French claims to Naples

The House of Valois did periodically renounce its claim when peace with the Habsburgs was expedient or unavoidable

Francis I's successor, Henry II, continued to uphold the Valois claim and in 1557 launched a final and unavailing assault on the kingdom.

The House of Valois felt strongly that they had the strongest dynastic claim to the Duchy of Milan

When Charles V had acquired his extensive empire by 1519 he regarded Milan not only as a satellite of the Empire

The Habsburg-Valois wars were, then, to a very significant extent, an unremitting struggle for mastery over Milan

The conflict between the Habsburgs and the Valois appeared at times to escalate into something approaching a general European war. The German Protestants, the lesser powers of Europe and even the superpower of the Ottoman empire were all drawn into the fray at various times

Henry VIII of England took a distinctly opportunistic view of the conflict. When he was anxious to undermine Habsburg predominance in Europe he sided with the French

Charles believed that he had triumphantly achieved his great dynastic dream in 1526, when the defeated and captive Francis I agreed to surrender the territory in the Treaty of Madrid

the Sultan was brought into an anti- Habsburg alliance by the French firstly in 1536 and, later, in 1542

The house subsequently had three lines

(1) the direct line, beginning with Philip VI, which reigned from 1328 to 1498; (2) the Valois-Orléans branch

begun under their predecessors, the Capetian dynasty

and was succeeded by the Bourbon dynasty, another branch of the Capetians

The early kings of the Valois dynasty were occupied primarily with fighting the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453)

The Valois kings gradually increased their authority at the expense of the privileges of the feudal lords. The crown’s exclusive right to levy taxes and to wage war was established

the ultimately unsuccessful Italian wars of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. These wars marked the start of Valois rivalry with the Habsburgs (ruling house of the Holy Roman Empire)

The Wars of Religion (1562–98) weakened the power of the last Valois kings

When Philip died, he left France divided by war and plague, although by purchase he had made some important additions to the territory of the kingdom.

Henry was the sixth child and fourth son of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici

France had been embroiled in a civil war between the crown and its Protestant or Huguenot subjects since 1562. In 1567 Henry took command of the royal army

He travelled to Poland with an entourage, but during the summer of 1574 he was informed of the death of his brother, Charles IX. He thus became king of both France and Poland

Without so much as bidding adieu to his Polish subjects, Henry made haste to  return to France by way of Austria and northern Italy

In February 1575 he married Louise de Vaudémont, a princess of the House of Lorraine, whose beauty had dazzled him on the eve of his departure for Poland

The situation had been aggravated by the accidental death of Henry II in 1559, which had left the kingdom in the hands of his widow, Catherine de’ Medici, and her young sons. As queen mother under Francis II, then as regent under Charles IX

In the absence of Henry begetting a son, the heir to the throne was his brother-in-law Henry of Navarre (1553-1610), who, as a Huguenot, was unacceptable to the Catholic majority in France. In 1576, a group of cities headed by Paris had formed an armed association, called the Catholic League, aimed at excluding Navarre from the throne. It chose Charles, cardinal of Bourbon,

As king, Henry III was apparently well-intentioned towards his subjects regardless of their faith. As he returned to Lyon from Poland in 1574, he declared a wish to be at peace with them all, and he seemed better equipped than his recent predecessors to succeed. He was probably the most intellectually gifted of the later Valois kings

The task of ruling France that the king faced in 1574 was far from easy, as so much hatred had arisen between Catholics and Huguenots

The court’s extravagance at a time of severe economic crisis incurred much criticism

He believed that his authority would be enhanced by distancing himself from his subjects

Although Henry III valued privacy, he liked to surround himself with a select group of intimate friends, mostly men of his own generation who came to be known as mignons

Whereas Charles IX had taken part in 109 civic entries during his ‘Grand Tour of France’ in 1564-66, Henry had only four in his entire reign

The king of France is so familiar with his subjects that he treats them all as his companions and no one is ever excluded from his presence, so that even lackeys of the lower sort are bold enough to wish to enter his privy chamber in order to see all that is going on there and to hear all that is being said… This familiarity, if it makes the nation insolent and arrogant, nevertheless inspires love, devotion and loyalty to its prince.

The supreme irony of Henry III’s reign was his failure to win over the capital by his presence

aloofness, extravagance and eccentricity

Believing Guise to be plotting a coup d’etat, Henry decided to exterminate him. Having lured the duke to his antechamber at Blois, the king stood by as his guards hacked Guise to death

This cold-blooded murder was by far Henry’s biggest blunder

Henry III’s only hope of regaining control of the capital was to join forces with  his appointed heir, the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre

Henry III on his deathbed appointing Navarre as his successor

Neither intellect nor good intentions had been sufficient to gain Henry III the love of his subjects. His life had been a tragedy

As complaisant royal consort and then as Regent of France, Marie de Médicis was called upon to play a role resembling that of her distant cousin

Ferdinando, who renounced his cardinalate to assume the ducal dignity, reversed his brother’s policies, and invested his ducats in the struggle of Henry IV, the Bourbon King of France, against the Spanish-supported Catholic League

Negotiations for marriage with a number of Italian and German suitors of princely rank were inconclusive, and, as the financial obligations of the French monarchy to Florentine creditors increased, so, too, did the probability of a French husband for Marie de Médicis

A more promising expedient to recover or reduce a bad debt seemed to be the marriage of his niece with the French King

Papal authority was needed to annul Henry IV’s marriage with Marguerite de Valois, the wayward daughter of Catherine de Médicis

the marriage contract was signed in Tuscany

The kingdom that received Marie de Médicis as its Queen had been torn by four decades of civil war.

The imposition of peace in itself had created the conditions for economic recovery, but the monarchy appreciated that it had a positive task to heal and to restore.

Sully had served his master when he had been no more than a petty King of Navarre, had fought beside him in a score of engagements, and, though a Huguenot

Some of the weaknesses shown by Marie de Médicis may be condoned in the light of her husband’s conduct. The King treated her with courtesy and, intermittently, with a familiar affection

Henry IV’s domestic life was likened to that of the Grand Turk. He expected his Queen and his mistresses to live in harmony

Her half-brother, Charles d’Auvergne, the natural son of the Valois King, Charles IX, and her father, Francois de Balzac d’Entragues

Her marriage with Henry IV, the prelude to the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, had been as farcical in later years as it had been tragic in its origin

Henry IV allied himself with Savoy against Spain, and proposed to intervene against the Catholic Emperor

Regency by declaring the tearful Queen-Mother sole Regent in the minority of Louis XIII

France turned towards alliance with Henry IV’s Spanish enemies

Marie de Médicis, lacking the authority of Henry IV, had now to contend with the ambitions he had held in check. She could no longer afford the peevish indolence she had affected as Queen: she had to devote all her energy to conciliating and balancing the forces that threatened to curtail her power

A proposal to affirm the Spanish alliance by the dual marriage of the King and his sister, Elizabeth, with the Spanish Haps-burgs provoked this response

Conflicts between the three orders enabled Marie de Médicis and her Ministers to survive these challenges

In the following year a desultory campaign against Nevers was complicated by a war between Spain and Savoy, in which, despite the insistence of the government upon the sincerity of the Spanish alliance, a French army under the command of Henry IV’s old general, Lesdiguieres, marched into Italy against the Hapsburgs

The Queen Mother was placed under arrest and exiled to Blois. Her confidante, Leonora Galigaï, was put on trial for peculation and sorcery, and condemned to death on both counts

the princess Elizabeth crossed the Bidassoa and, in exchange, Anne of Austria became the bride of Louis XIII

If her roles as Queen and Regent had resembled those of Catherine de Médicis, her actions after her fall seemed bent upon the destruction of all that her predecessor had represented

It was her tragedy that she failed to identify her personal ambitions with the symbolic meaning of the crown she wore

On the accession of his cousin Louis XII in 1498, Francis became heir presumptive and was given the Duchy of Valois.

Louis XII, distrustful of Francis, did not allow him to dabble in affairs of state but sent him off at the age of 18 to the frontiers

The pomp of the Reims coronation, the sumptuous cortege of the solemn entry into Paris, and the lavish feasts revealed his love of ceremony and also pleased the people of Paris, who had been disheartened by a long succession of morose and sickly sovereigns.

Ambitious for glory and urged on by turbulent young nobles, he made sure of peace with his neighbours, entrusted the regency to his mother, and galloped off to Italy.

He also signed a perpetual peace treaty with the Swiss and bought back Tournai from Henry VIII of England.

Princess Louise, was affianced to the Habsburg prince Charles, heir to the Netherlands and, at 16, the new king of Spain.

Everything forecast a great reign. Francis I formed a brilliant and scholarly court at which poets, musicians, and learned men mingled

he was the most powerful sovereign in all Christendom when, in 1519, the German emperor Maximilian died. The election as emperor of Maximilian’s grandson Charles spelled ruin for Francis I, for Charles, who was already king of Spain, now encircled France with his possessions.

the Emperor had his mind set on a universal monarchy. His chief obstacle was the King of France. A mortal hatred emerged from this rivalry

In 1520, on the Field of Cloth of Gold near Calais, where both displayed unprecedented magnificence, Francis vainly sought an alliance with Henry VIII.

The King, unconcerned, arose late, paid little attention to his council, and gave orders without seeing that they were carried out. Money disappeared into thin air. A few paymasters were hanged, though in vain.

In 1523 the King demanded the return to the French state, according to law, of the vast provinces that the great feudal duke Charles de Bourbon thought he had inherited from his wife.

the French, weary of the prodigality of their sovereign, would rise up on an appeal from him.

At the Battle of Pavia in 1525, defeated and wounded, he was taken prisoner.

As the price for the King’s freedom, the Emperor demanded one-third of France, the renunciation of France’s claim to Italy, and restitution to Bourbon of his fiefs

Although Francis finally recovered, he did not cease to suffer.

Their raging hatred impelled Charles and Francis to challenge each other to a duel, which was, however, prevented. During one of the King’s relapses, his mother reached an agreement with Margaret of Austria, the Emperor’s aunt, to stop this deadly struggle.

His foolish expenditures had emptied the treasury, and the ransom was collected only with difficulty.

In 1531 the King’s mother succumbed to the plague. Marguerite, having married the King of Navarre, lived at some distance.

The war with Charles V was resumed in 1536.

Henry resumed the war against the Huguenots, but the Estates-General, meeting at Blois in 1576, was weary of Henry’s extravagance and refused to grant him the necessary subsidies

In 1584, however, the Roman Catholics were alarmed when the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV), became heir to the throne on the death of Henry III’s brother François, and the League was revived under the leadership of Henri, 3e duc de Guise

caused the king to flee to Chartres

tried to depose him

Henry III was compelled to ally himself with Henry of Navarre

Jacques Clément, a fanatical Jacobin friar, gained admission to the king’s presence and stabbed him. Before he died, Henry, who left no issue, acknowledged Henry of Navarre as his heir

could not save France from civil war

he was so extravagant as virtually to bankrupt his kingdom

The Roman Catholics, however, condemned the Augsburg Confession—the basic confession of the Lutheran doctrine faith presented to Charles at the Diet of Augsburg—and responded with the Confutation, which met with Charles’s approval.

In 1526 Charles married Isabella, the daughter of the late king Manuel I of Portugal.

In 1522 his teacher Adrian of Utrecht became pope, as Adrian VI. His efforts to reconcile Francis I and the emperor failed, and three years later Charles’s army defeated Francis I at the Battle of Pavia, taking prisoner the king himself.

Although Ferdinand, having lost his Hungarian capital in August 1541, pleaded for a land campaign against Süleyman I, Charles again decided on a naval venture, which failed dismally after an unsuccessful attack on Algiers.

North Germany was now on the brink of revolt. The new king of France, Henry II, was eagerly awaiting an opportunity to renew the old rivalry between the houses of Valois and Burgundy, while the German princes believed that the moment was at hand to repay Charles for Mühlberg.

In order to save what he could of that hegemony, Charles, already severely racked by gout, tried new paths by preparing the ground for his widowed son’s marriage with Mary I of England.

There he laid the groundwork for the eventual bequest of Portugal to the Habsburgs after the eventual death of King Sebastian (who was then still a child) with the help of his sister Catherine, grandmother of Sebastian and regent of Portugal. He aided his son in procuring funds in Spain for the continuation of the war against France, and he helped his daughter Joan, regent of Spain during Philip’s absence in the Netherlands, in persecuting Spanish heretics.

An arranged marriage to Margaret of Valois, daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici, brought Parisian Catholics and visiting Huguenots together

Upon the death of François, Duke of Anjou, in 1584, Henry of Navarre became heir to the throne of France

Henry of Navarre became King Henry IV, but it would take a nine-year siege of Paris to secure his crown from the influence of the Holy League and Spanish interference

The situation brought about the War of the Three Henrys, pitting Henry of Navarre against King Henry III of France and the staunchly Catholic Henry, Duke of Guise. Henry of Navarre acted boldly, defeating the army of Henry III

He was opposed by the Holy League

Henry III was stabbed on August 1, 1589, and died the next day after declaring Henry of Navarre his successor

Spanish interference with French succession prompted Henry III to join forces with Henry of Navarre to take control of Paris and the French countryside

Paris finally capitulated on March 22, 1594. Pope Clement reversed Henry's excommunication, and Henry brokered the Peace of Vervins between France and Spain on May 2, 1598

Having united the kingdom and attained peace at home and abroad, Henry IV proceeded to bring prosperity back to France. He lowered taxes on French citizens, made peace with the Ottoman Empire and opened up trade routes to East Asia

Despite his accomplishments, Henry IV endured multiple assassination attempts

He was stabbed to death by a Catholic fanatic on May 14, 1610

Henry is now seen as a highly intelligent and conscientious monarch who tried to bring peace to his troubled kingdom

Henry was also seriously interested in reform, as Greengrass has indicated in a fine study of the Estates-General

Parisians also became deeply suspicious of Henry’s attempts to persuade his heir under Salic law, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, to become a Catholic. Preachers denounced him as a hypocrite and a tyrant

While Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was an indispensable agent of his interests in England, Jasper was his political mentor in the years spent in exile

Henry VI bestowed the English honour of Richmond on Edmund, while the younger brother, Jasper, was endowed with a title and estates in Wales

After the death of Gloucester, and after several mishaps, they recovered favour under the indulgent protection of the young Henry VI

His Welshness was thus of crucial importance in easing Henry's path to the throne, for quite literally no other route was feasible than that which took him through Wales. It was also to be an essential ingredient in the success of Tudor policy in Wales

As a landless exile, Jasper's most common point of con- tact continued to be Wales: most of his incursions during the reign of Edward IV

In the reign of Richard III, as events were to show, Wales and the Marches were the most vulnerable parts of his dominions

Edward IV himself, as a descendant through the Mortimer connection of Llywelyn Fawr (the Great), could be regarded by Guto'r Glyn and Lewis Glyn Cothi as the potential deliverer of the Welsh and the heir to the kings of Britain

He had been a patron of the bards since the 1450s, and was praised as a faithful supporter of Henry VI and as the man who would unite Wales under the Lancastrians.

He predicted a victory for Henry as the last of the triumphant line of Brutus and Cadwalader, kings of the Britons

The route of the march from Milford Haven avoided the south eastern Marches, which were dominated by the lords loyal to Richard III

How Welsh was Henry Tudor? In blood he was a quarter Welsh, a quarter French and half English (or at least Platagenet). In so far as place of birth and residence could determine his nationality, he was certainly Welsh

Nothing daunted, the resourceful author dedicated it instead to King James and his son Prince Henry, whom he addressed as the future Prince of Wales. The adaptation was plausible enough, in all senses of that word, for James, after all, was descended from Henry VII and his forebears, the Welsh Tudors; and with this reminder Holland's readers in Wales could the more readily transfer their loyalty to the Scottish Stuarts

Unless he had been presented at Henry VI's court in his youth (and there is no evidence for this), Henry was a stranger to England before his ar6val at Shrewsbury on August 17th, 1485

In his first proclamation, on August 25th, 1485, Henry announced his titles to be, besides King of England and of France, 'Prince of Wales and lord of Ireland'. This was the first time any King who had not himself been invested with the principality as heir apparent to a reigning monarch had appropriated the title to himself

Whereas letters of denizenship conferred English status upon individuals, charters of privileges were granted between 1504 and 1508 to the ancient principality and five marcher lordships in North Wales, dispensing the inhabitants from various civic disabilities imposed by the penal laws of Henry IV and Henry V

The inhabitants of North Wales were released not only from the prohibitions of Lancastrian penal laws but from those of the Edwardian settlement of 1284, which had excluded the Welsh from the plantation boroughs.

Edward IV had used motifs from the British Legend in his court rituals and had fostered an Arthurian cult in celebration of his own descent from British kings and the princes of Gwynedd

By marrying Elizabeth, Henry thus enhanced his connection with British as well as English kingship, and their son and heir personified both traditions

Richard III had referred disparagingly in two proclamations to the rebel 'Henry Tydder'; this may well have stung, so that the new King was all the more concerned to establish an honourable lineage for his family. A commission of Welsh genealogists was therefore set up to trace his pedigree. Only the report has survived, to show Henry's descent from medieval Welsh and British rulers. However fantastic its remoter claims, there is no sound reason to doubt its authenticity as an official document. Even Sir Edward Coke in his Fourth Institutes of the Laws of England (1644) accepted its validity and gave as his source for the original commission the patent rolls for Henry VII, though no-one else has found any trace of it there. (The great champion of the common law who set such store by precedents was notoriously careless in his scholarship.) Henry did not draw on this pedigree to confirm the legitimacy of his monarchy, only to embellish it. What was important for him was the historical associations with British, rather than Welsh, royalty. That these also proved to be flattering to the Welsh nation was an incidental and inexpensive form of propaganda.

His beneficence was a distinct policy that culminated in Henry VIII's measure of incorporation of 1536-43

This consolidated and elaborated upon a form of administration that had existed in its essentials in the principality of North Wales since Edward I's Statute of Wales of 1284

Owen spoke for his own class of prosperous Protestant gentry, but the very fact that Welsh commentators thought of the extension of English law as a boon and an act of grace ensured the success of Tudor rule in Wales

There was no tacit acknowledgement of their Welsh identity by Henry VII's son and grandchildren – it was something claimed for them by the Welsh

In 1603 Hugh Holland published the first (and only) book of his Pancharis, which related the love between Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois

Henry VI had commissioned both his half-brothers to represent and defend the crown's interests in Wales against the Yorkist enemies, the Vaughans, the Herberts and the Earl of March, later Edward IV.

The family of monarchs who ruled England and Wales from 1485 to 1603 did indeed form a dynasty, but they do not seem to have called themselves the 'Tudor' dynasty: the only con- temporaries who regarded them as such were the Welsh

Philip’s failures were proving costly in money and political support.

Edward III renounced his homage and again laid claim to the crown of France, starting the period of conflict that would come to be known as the Hundred Years’ War.

But that prospect, like the war itself, evaporated when the Black Death struck Europe late in 1347, destroying life, fiscal resources, and resolve for several years thereafter.

John found himself involved in French affairs and was in part responsible for provoking a civil war in France with a rival house, headed by his first cousin, the King’s younger brother, Louis, duc d’Orléans. Each man sought control of the mad king Charles VI and his queen and of the capital Paris.

the notorious murder by Duke John of his cousin by hired assassins in 1407 enabled John to subdue Paris and the crown

During the five years between 1413 and 1418, in which the Armagnacs succeeded in driving the Burgundians out of Paris, the internal situation in France was further complicated by a new English invasion led by the ambitious king, Henry V.

John turned instead to the Armagnacs, in the hopes of arranging a truce or even making a firm peace settlement with their youthful leader, the dauphin Charles (the future Charles VII), in an alliance against the English.

John the Fearless was struck down and killed during a dispute started by the Armagnacs, a political assassination that contemporary evidence shows was almost certainly carefully premeditated.

with the son of Charles VII, the monarchy was to be tested yet again

The fiscal reorganization facilitated equally significant military reforms. The Peace of Arras, rather than pacifying France

the monarchy recovered much of the authority it had lost during the early stages of the Hundred Years’ War. Although its influence in Burgundy and Flanders (now united in a formidable dynastic association) had declined, its definitive recovery of Aquitaine consolidated a direct domain, again extensive enough to free the Valois royalty from anxiety about landed resources.

Louis XI (reigned 1461–83) was shamelessly impatient for his father’s death.

No French king had ever imposed himself so totally and so tyrannically as did Louis XI.

The growth of a large royal army, however, was only one effect of the increased level of military activity. The financial administration of the country also underwent a drastic reorganization

By the reign of Francis I, the king, even in times of peace, was unable to make do with his ordinary revenue from rents and seigneurial dues. In 1523 Francis established a new central treasury, the Trésor de l’Épargne, into which all his revenues, ordinary and extraordinary, were to be deposited.

Successive monarchs were forced, therefore, to seek additional revenue. This was no simple matter, because French kings traditionally could not tax their subjects without their consent.

The early Valois kings had negotiated with the Estates-General or with the provincial Estates for their extra money; but in the middle of the 15th century, when the Hundred Years’ War with England was reaching a successful conclusion, Charles VII was able to strike a bargain with the Estates. In return for a reduction in overall taxation, he began to raise money to support the army without having to seek the Estates’ approval.

The war with England soon broke out again. Two new factors worked in favour of France. First, Charles’s alliance with Henry II of Trastámara, king of Castile, cost the English their naval supremacy; a Castilian fleet destroyed English reinforcements off La Rochelle in 1372, which effectively secured the success of French operations in the west. Second, Charles abandoned the defective policy of massive engagement with the enemy.

Although he had reestablished the political unity of France, Charles V left an uncertain future.

his first priority was political security. This is the first respect in which his reign parallels that of Henry VII. The first Tudor had also rebelled against his sovereign, ultimately seizing the crown itself from Richard III in 1485

Within six months of his accession Louis had his first marriage, to Louis XI's daughter, Jeanne, annulled. He then married Charles's widow, Anne of Brittany, the daughter of duke Francis. Louis thereby retained the French crown's hold on Brittany. Like Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York, Louis's marriage to Anne also enabled him to extend his domestic power base beyond his immediate family and those favoured by the previous monarch.

Henry did besiege Boulogne in October 1492, ostensibly to assert his claim to the crown of France following Anne of Brittany's marriage to Charles VIII in 1491. To buy him off, Charles offered Henry a pension of 745 000 crowns under the treaty of Etaples.

Like Henry VII, Louis was expected to ‘live off his own’. He was reasonably successful at this task. He did not make the monarchy profitable in the way Henry was able to, but neither did he impoverish it. Louis inherited a deficit of about 1.4 million livres and left Francis I a deficit of about the same amount – and this despite several very expensive military campaigns of the kind which Henry VII studiously avoided and Louis’s reduction of the taille

There was nothing in France to parallel the renowned English system of 'Chamber' finance begun by Edward IV and adopted by Henry VII to increase control over the collection and disbursement of domainal revenues.

This suggests that the system worked well enough until the end of his reign, but it was overhauled substantially by Francis I.

Louis was less innovative than Henry VII in developing legal machinery and institutions with which to control the nobility. Bonds and recognizances or institutions such as the Council Learned at Law were once seen as evidence that Henry VII was a 'new' monarch whose regime was dominated by lawyers and financial officials upon whom he depended to marginalise the unreliable nobility, the traditional royal servants

Louis continued Henry's pension conducted relatively warm relations with him, although he worried about England's ties with the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. He had good cause to after Henry VIII's accession in April 1509

Louis's fortunes began to fade in 1510. The new pope, Julius II, was determined to recover the papal lands which Borgia predecessor, Alexander VI, had with French help, alienated to his son Cesare

Then in August the Swiss invaded Burgundy and besieged the city of Dijon. They only withdrew on Louis's promise to relinquish his claim to Milan and to pay then a sizeable indemnity. On top of all of this, Queen Anne died in January 1514 leaving Louis no surviving male heir

Maximilian and Ferdinand of Spain followed suit, deserting their erstwhile ally Henry VIII, who was furious. Under pressure from Leo X, Henry dramatically reversed his isolation by becoming Louis's ally. His young and very beautiful sister Mary married Louis in October 1514.

Compared with that of his successor, Louis' artistic and intellectual patronage was not exceptional. He did not influence Henry VII in the direct way that Francis I did Henry VIII

Louis XII died on New Year's Day 1515. Despite his apparently fatal vigour with which he took to his third marriage, it provided him with no son. He was succeeded by Francis of Angouleme, during whose reign Louis's was oevrshadowed on every count except. perhaps, popularity among commoners. His various campaigns against Milan were disparaged by the new regime. However, Francis's campaigns may have been more glamorous but ultimately they were no more successful. It would be idle to claim Louis as one of France's great military commanders, but for 12 of his 16 years as king he did practise successful warfare, outdoing the deeds of Maximilian, Ferdinand and Henry VII

Louis's ambitions were to secure his kingdom politically and to enhance the glory of his dynasty. For him, as for Henry VII, increased financial or judicial controls over the kingdom were means to these ends, not ends in themselves, As the founder of a new dynasty Henry's task was undoubtedly more difficult than Louis's and he showed greater ingenuity in developing methods of making his subjects accountable to him

Having begun uncertainly, both quickly projected a strong sense of their authority, but the efforts of some historians to characterise Louis as a 'proto-absolutist', anticipating the supposed ambitions of Francis I or even Louis XIV to centralise the state, were wide of the mark. Louis's 'good government' was essentially traditional

elected king of Poland

one of early modern Europe’s most notorious and intriguing monarchs

to check the drift to war, but her success was uncertain

The peace of Saint-Germain in August 1570 held some prospect of permanence, since the house of Orange, leading resistance to Spain in the Netherlands

Although the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, had conferred in 1565 with Philip II’s lieutenant, the Duke of Alba, the close association of the French Crown with Spain had been broken by the death of her daughter, Philip’s Queen, in 1568

crossed the frontier to assist the rebels, and by mid-summer the French government was on the brink of open war with Spain

a majority opposed Coligny’s policy of foreign war to ensure domestic peace, but the decision lay with the King, and the ascendancy Coligny had established over Charles IX suggested he would opt for war

Catherine initiated the train of events that led to the massacre. Elizabeth of England, who had no wish to see France in control of the Netherlands, informed Alba that she did not regard the Anglo-French treaty as committing her to war, and Alba passed this information to Catherine. The Huguenot armies sustained severe setbacks, and the Queen Mother persuaded herself that war at this time would end in disaster

Associated with these conscious motives was her bitter resentment at being replaced in her son’s confidence by Admiral Coligny

This plan seems to have remained in Catherine de Medicis’ mind as an alternative for use in an emergency. In all the frantic discussions of August 23rd it involved no more than the killing of the inner circle of Protestant nobles, the young Bourbon princes, Navarre and Condé, excepted

Saint Bartholomew’s day had been prepared two whole years in advance. It was a day when one section of the nation slaughtered another; when the assassins pursued their victims under the very beds and even into the arms of princesses who vainly tried to intercede [a reference to the memoirs of Marguerite de Valois]; when Charles IX himself fired from a window of the Louvre upon those of his subjects who had escaped the butchers

The massacre became a general slaughter because the Crown needed a military force strong enough to ensure success.

When Henry of Guise, who had pursued a group of escaping Huguenots, returned to the city, the King was obliged to accept public responsibility for the counter-blow to the alleged Protestant plot

Belief in a diabolical and long-standing deception on the part of Charles IX and his mother became widespread soon after the massacre

The joy with which Philip II and Pope Gregory XIII welcomed the news confirmed Protestant suspicion of the complicity of Madrid and Rome

The age of Louis XIV, into which Voltaire was born, witnessed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the persecution of Catholic Jansenists and Quietists as well as of Huguenots

During the Regency that followed the death of Louis XIV in 1715 there was a need for another kind of hero to replace the Sun King’s tarnished military glory and record of religious persecution. Voltaire chose Louis’ grandfather, Henry of Navarre, who had accepted Catholicism after the massacre, reverted to Protestantism on his escape from court in 1576, and found Paris worth the price of a mass seventeen years later. The King who had healed French divisions after the religious wars, and granted the edict of toleration that Louis XIV had revoked, seemed the perfect candidate

asserted that the Queen Mother planned the massacre at the time of the peace of Saint-Germain in 1570

the cynical bad faith of Catherine de Medici, the turbulence of the aristocracy, and the cruelty of popular fanaticism. The lesson was reiterated with little variation

Catherine de Medici ordered the massacres in the midst of the wedding celebrations, in circumstances of profound peace, and after the most solemn oaths. Frightful as they were - and wholly destructive to the good name of France-their memory must be perpetuated, so that those who are always ready to begin unhappy religious disputes may see to what excess a partisan spirit ultimately leads

The slaughter of the Huguenots was not the outcome of a skilfully contrived and long premeditated plan, but the passions of the time, the enormity of the act, and the assertions of those who claimed, or seemed to claim, foreknowledge of the event

Saint Bartholomew had accounted for about 90,000 martyrs

in terms comparable with the later self-promoting propaganda arranged for his grandson, Louis XIV

It was, however, to the legendary hero that all sides appealed after his death in the troubles of the regencies of his second wife, Marie de Médicis, and then of Anne of Austria, the widow of his son, Louis XIII

In the 1660 Parisian entry ceremony for Louis XIV, it was the twenty-two year-old king who replaced his ancestor as Hercules on a triumphal arch

His attitude to the legend of Henri IV was more a matter of personal judgement than of any desire to flatter Louis XIV. His Histoire de France began to be published soon after the death of Louis XIII in 1643, and reached the year 1598 in 1651

Navarre’s great-grandson, the regent Philippe d’Orléans, who promoted his ancestor’s memory in the belief that he closely resembled him in appearance and character.

Navarre, as it had been for Louis XIV after the latter’s death.

Hence Henry of Navarre could appear an exemplary figure of a king of proto-Enlightenment.

Henri IV could be understood both as the product of his experience and of his inherent qualities of courage and sensibility.

in assessing Henry of Navarre he felt obliged to say: ‘Here the legend is nothing more than history; here fiction can add nothing to truth’.