Francis the First of France: Le Roi Chevalier | History Today - 0 views
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This was the reputation acquired by Francis the First in his own time and reverently preserved by subsequent generations. His mother, Louise of Savoy, laid its foundation even before it was certain that he would inherit the throne of his second cousin, Louis XII. In 1504 she had a medallion engraved in honour of the ten-year-old Duke of Valois
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While Francis I has been remembered as the chivalrous leader who sustained a long and unequal struggle against the Hapsburg Emperor, Charles V, he has also been described as the King of the Renaissance
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There are, however, other aspects of Francis I that are less consistent with the popular impression. He was the autocrat who built upon the work of Louis XI in creating the despotism of the new monarchy.
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He was the “most Christian King” who entered into an alliance with the enemy of Christendom. He was the destroyer of the integrity and tradition of the Gallican Church. He was the voluptuary who allowed his court to be divided into factions
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His father, Charles of Angouleme, resembled his namesake and uncle, the graceful lyric poet, Charles of Orleans
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The group accepted the easy guardianship at Amboise of Louis, Duke of Orléans, who two years later became King as Louis XII.
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The adulation of his mother and sister shielded him from the hatred of Anne of Brittany. The Queen had borne Louise XII an only child, the Princess Claude, who was heiress of Brittany in her mother’s right
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Francis was heir-presumptive to the French Crown. A marriage between Francis and Claude seemed a natural arrangement, which would prevent the alienation of the Duchy of Brittany from the French royal house. But the Queen was firmly opposed to it, and the marriage took place only after her death in 1514
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Bonnivet was made Admiral of France, and the long-vacant title of Constable was bestowed upon his cousin, Charles of Bourbon
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In February 1516, the grandson of the Emperor, Charles of Austria, inherited the thrones of Aragon and Castile. Six months later, he recognized the French conquest of Milan. At this time there was no hostility between him and Francis I.
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The election of Charles V marked the beginning of a two-hundred-year conflict between the French monarchy and the Hapsburgs
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opposed to a rival whose encircling dominions included Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and southern Italy, and whose strength was augmented by the wealth of the New World
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The contrast between the ebullient King of the Renaissance and the melancholic Emperor has always attracted the attention of historians
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The one reliving the ancient myths of the universal monarchy and the crusade against the infidel: the other replacing the symbolic attitudes of the past with the realistic values of the nation state
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The two Kings were too much alike in age and temperament to allow common interests to still the spirit of mutual competition
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Henry VIII, reading through the terms of a declaration, obligingly omitted his title of King of France
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When hostilities began in the following year, the Tudor King, after making some show of mediation, aligned himself with the Emperor. The war went badly
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For a year Francis I remained the captive of the Emperor in Madrid, while Louise of Savoy rallied national sentiment for the continuation of the war
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The great-grandfather of the Emperor was Charles the Bold of Burgundy. It was as a Burgundian that Charles V claimed the lands that had been seized by Louis XI. The release of the King was not secured until a pledge had been given for the cession of Burgundy
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The King had never intended to observe the terms of the Treaty of Madrid. Fresh allies were found in Italy, notably Pope Clement VII
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In the course of the war, Bourbon was killed during the ferocious assault of his mutinous forces on Rome in May 1527
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In the sack of Rome Henry VIII saw an opportunity to win the favour of Clement VII and obtain the annulment of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. For several years he remained the ally of France
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Even after the revelation of the marriage with Anne Boleyn, Francis pleaded the English case during his meeting with the Pope at Marseilles in October 1533
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The subsequent death of Catherine of Aragon removed the cause of English disagreement with the Emperor. In the last two wars of the reign Henry VIII reverted to the imperial alliance
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Turkish armies were threatening the eastern imperial marches. In his league with the Sultan Sulaiman he inaugurated one of the most enduring of French policies
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The Ottoman alliance appalled the conscience of Europe; but the King found it difficult to resist the temptation offered by the expeditions of Charles V to North Africa and the campaigns of his brother, Ferdinand, upon the Bohemian border
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Although the King’s diplomacy with the Papacy, the Turk, England and the Princes of the Empire, contained many failures and much duplicity, it was pursued with a realism and a flexibility that offset his lack of strategic ability in war
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By June 1538, when Paul III personally negotiated the truce of Nice, it appeared possible to achieve a genuine reconciliation
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The significant campaigns of the future were not to be fought in Italy, but on the frontiers of France
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The altered texture of French society in the first half of the sixteenth century was, in part, a response to the demands of the monarchy
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In July 1527, in the presence of the King, the Parlement heard from the lips of secretary Robertet a statement so imperious and unequivocal that it represented an unprecedented declaration of monarchical absolutism. The King, like Louis XII before him, was called the father of his people; but, whereas Louis earned his patriarchal status through his benevolence, Francis claimed it as his right
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Factions long concealed within the court became more apparent after the death of the Dauphin in 1536
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The plain and modest Queen Eleonore, sister of Charles V, whom the King had married five years after the death of Claude in 1525, became the centre of the pro-Hapsburg party at the court
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He held the office once occupied by de Boisy and, finally, that which the traitor Bourbon had forfeited