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Portrait of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1433-1477)

CHARLES THE BOLD, Duke of Burgundy, son of Philip the Good of Burgundy and Isabella of Portugal, was born at Dijon on the 10th of November 1433. In his father's lifetime he bore the title of Count of Charolais. He was brought up under the direction of the seigneur d'Auxy, and early showed great application to studyand also to warlike exercises.

Although he was on familiar terms with the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XI), when the latter was a refugee at the court of Burgundy, he could not but view with chagrin the repurchase by the King of France of the towns on the Somme, which had been temporarily ceded to Philip the Good by the treaty of Arras; and when his father's failing health enabled him to take into his hands the reins of government (which Philip abandoned to him completely by an act of the 12th of April 1465), he entered upon his lifelong struggle against Louis XI, and became one of the principal leaders of the League of the Public Weal. His brilliant bravery at the battle of Montlhery (16th of July 1465), where he was wounded and was left master of the field, neither prevented the king from re-entering Paris nor assured Charles a decisive victory. He succeeded, however, in forcing upon Louis the treaty of Conflans (1466), by which the king restored to him the towns on the Somme, and promised him the hand of his infant daughter Catherine, with Champagne as dowry. In the meanwhile the Count of Charolais obtained the surrender of Ponthieu. The revolt of Liege and Dinant intervened to divert his attention from the affairs of France. On the 25th of August 1466 Charles took possession of Dinant, which he pillaged and sacked, and succeeded in treating at the same time with the Liegeois. After the death of Philip the Good (15th June 1467), the Liegeois renewed hostilities, but Charles defeated them at St Trond, and made a victorious entry into Liege, which he dismantled and deprived of some of its privileges.

Alarmed by these early successes of the Duke of Burgundy, and anxious to settle various questions relating to the execution of the treaty of Conflans, Louis requested a meeting with Charles and placed himself in his hands at Peronne. In the course of the negotiations the duke was informed of a fresh revolt of the Liegeois secretly fomented by Louis. After deliberating for four days how to deal with his adversary, who had thus maladroitly placed himself at his mercy, Charles decided to respect the parole he had given and to treat with Louis (October 1468), at the same time forcing him to assist in quelling the revolt. The town was carried by assault and the inhabitants were massacred, Louis not having the courage to intervene on behalf of his ancient allies. At the expiry of the one year's truce which followed the treaty of Peronne, the King accused Charles of treason, cited him to appear before the parlement, and seized some of the towns on the Somme (1471). The duke retaliated by invading France with a large army, taking possession of Nesle and massacring its inhabitants. He failed, however, in an attack on Beauvais, and had to content himself with ravaging the country as far as Rouen, eventually retiring without having attained any useful result.

Other matters, moreover, engaged his attention. Relinquishing, if not the stately magnificence, at least the gay and wasteful profusion which had characterized the court of Burgundy under the preceding duke, he had bent all his efforts towards the development of his military and political power. Since the beginning of his reign he had employed himself in reorganizing his army and the administration of his territories. While retaining the principles of feudal recruiting, he had endeavoured to establish a system of rigid discipline among his troops, which he had strengthened by taking into his pay foreign mercenaries, particularly Englishmen and Italians, and by developing his artillery. Furthermore, he had lost no opportunity of extending his power. In 1469 the Archduke of Austria, Sigismund, had sold him the county of Ferrette, and the landgraviate of Alsace and some other towns, reserving to himself the right to repurchase. In 1472-1473 Charles bought the reversion of the duchy of Gelderland from its old duke, Arnold, whom he had supported against the rebellion of his son.

Not content with being "the grand duke of the West," he conceived the project of forming a kingdom of Burgundy or Arles with himself as independent sovereign, and even persuaded the emperor Frederick to assent to crown him king at Trier. The ceremony, however, did not take place owing to the emperor's precipitate flight by night (September 1473), occasioned by his displeasure at the duke's attitude. In the following year Charles involved himself in a series of difficulties and struggles which ultimately brought about his downfall. He embroiled himself successively with Sigismund of Austria, to whom he refused to restore his possessions in Alsace for the stipulated sum; with the Swiss, who supported the free towns of Alsace in their revolt against the tyranny of the ducal governor, Peter von Hagenbach (who was condemned and executed by the rebels in May 1474); and finally, with Rene of Lorraine, with whom he disputed the succession of Lorraine, the possession of which had united the two principal portions of Charles's territories — Flanders and the duchy and county of Burgundy. All these enemies, incited and supported as they were by Louis, were not long in joining forces against their common adversary.

Charles suffered a first rebuff in endeavouring to protect his kinsman, the archbishop of Cologne, against his rebel subjects. He spent ten months (July 1474-June 1475) in besieging the little town of Neuss on the Rhine, but was compelled by the approach of a powerful imperial army to raise the siege. Moreover, the expedition he had persuaded his brother-in-law, Edward IV of England, to undertake against Louis was stopped by the treaty of Picquigny (29th of August 1475). He was more successful in Lorraine, where he seized Nancy (Both of November 1475). From Nancy he marched against the Swiss, hanging and drowning the garrison of Granson in spite of the capitulation. Some days later, however, he was attacked before Granson by the confederate army and suffered a shamful defeat, being compelled to fly with a handful of attendants, and leaving his artillery and an immense booty in the hands of the allies (February 1476). He succeeded in raising a fresh army of 30,000 men, with which he attacked Morat, but he was again defeated by the Swiss army, assisted by the cavalry of Rene of Lorraine (22nd of June 1476). On the 6th of October Charles lost Nancy, which was re-entered by Rene. Making a last effort, Charles formed a new army and arrived in the depth of winter before the walls of Nancy. Having lost many of his troops through the severe cold, it was with only a few thousand men that he met the joint forces of the Lorrainers and the Swiss, who had come to the relief of the town (6th of January 1477). He himself perished in the fight, his mutilated body being discovered some days afterwards.

Charles the Bold has often been regarded as the last representative of the feudal spirit — a man who possessed no other quality than a blind bravery — and accordingly has often been contrasted with his rival Louis XI as representing modern politics. In reality, he was a prince of wide knowledge and culture, knowing several languages and austere in morals; and although he cannot be acquitted of occasional harshness, he had the secret of winning the hearts of his subjects, who never refused him their support in times of difficulty. He was thrice married — to Catherine (d. 1446), daughter of Charles VII of France; to Isabella (d.1465), daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon; and to Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV of England, whom he married in 1468, and by whom he had one daughter, Mary, afterwards the wife of the emperor Maximilian I.

(R. Poupardin)





      Excerpted from:

      Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed. Vol IX.
      Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910.




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Edward II
Isabella of France, Queen of England
Piers Gaveston
Thomas of Brotherton, E. of Norfolk
Edmund of Woodstock, E. of Kent
Thomas, Earl of Lancaster
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Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England
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Richard Fitzalan, 4. Earl of Arundel
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Owen Glendower
The Battle of Shrewsbury, 1403
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Henry V
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Catherine of Valois
Owen Tudor
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John, Lord Tiptoft

Charles VII, King of France
Joan of Arc
Louis XI, King of France
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy
The Battle of Agincourt, 1415
The Battle of Castillon, 1453



The Wars of the Roses 1455-1485
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The Battle of Towton, 1461
The Battle of Hedgeley Moor, 1464
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The Battle of Edgecote, 1469
The Battle of Losecoat Field, 1470
The Battle of Barnet, 1471
The Battle of Tewkesbury, 1471
The Treaty of Pecquigny, 1475
The Battle of Bosworth Field, 1485
The Battle of Stoke Field, 1487

Henry VI
Margaret of Anjou
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Jane Shore
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Jack Cade's Rebellion, 1450


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John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford
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Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio
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Thomas Linacre
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Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester
Edward Fox, Bishop of Hereford

Pope Julius II
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Pope Pius V

Pico della Mirandola
Desiderius Erasmus
Martin Bucer
Richard Pace
Christopher Saint-German
Thomas Tallis
Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent
Hans Holbein, the Younger
The Sweating Sickness

Dissolution of the Monasteries
Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
Robert Aske
Anne Askew
Lord Thomas Darcy
Sir Robert Constable

Oath of Supremacy
The Act of Supremacy, 1534
The First Act of Succession, 1534
The Third Act of Succession, 1544
The Ten Articles, 1536
The Six Articles, 1539
The Second Statute of Repeal, 1555
The Act of Supremacy, 1559
Articles Touching Preachers, 1583

Queen Elizabeth I
William Cecil, Lord Burghley
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
Sir Francis Walsingham
Sir Nicholas Bacon
Sir Thomas Bromley

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick
Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon
Sir Thomas Egerton, Viscount Brackley
Sir Francis Knollys
Katherine "Kat" Ashley
Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester
George Talbot, 6. E. of Shrewsbury
Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury
Gilbert Talbot, 7. E. of Shrewsbury
Sir Henry Sidney
Sir Robert Sidney
Archbishop Matthew Parker
Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich
Sir Christopher Hatton
Edward Courtenay, E. Devonshire
Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland
Thomas Radcliffe, 3. Earl of Sussex
Henry Radcliffe, 4. Earl of Sussex
Robert Radcliffe, 5. Earl of Sussex
William Parr, Marquis of Northampton
Henry Wriothesley, 2. Southampton
Henry Wriothesley, 3. Southampton
Charles Neville, 6. E. Westmorland
Thomas Percy, 7. E. Northumberland
Henry Percy, 8. E. Northumberland
Henry Percy, 9. E. Nothumberland
William Herbert, 1. Earl of Pembroke
Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Henry Howard, 1. Earl of Northampton
Thomas Howard, 1. Earl of Suffolk
Henry Hastings, 3. E. of Huntingdon
Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland
Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland
Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland
Henry FitzAlan, 12. Earl of Arundel
Thomas, Earl Arundell of Wardour
Edward Somerset, E. of Worcester
William Davison
Sir Walter Mildmay
Sir Ralph Sadler
Sir Amyas Paulet
Gilbert Gifford
Anthony Browne, Viscount Montague
François, Duke of Alençon & Anjou

Mary, Queen of Scots
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell
Anthony Babington and the Babington Plot
John Knox

Philip II of Spain
The Spanish Armada, 1588
Sir Francis Drake
Sir John Hawkins

William Camden
Archbishop Whitgift
Martin Marprelate Controversy
John Penry (Martin Marprelate)
Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury
John Dee, Alchemist

Philip Henslowe
Edward Alleyn
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The Isle of Dogs, 1597

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The Stuarts

King James I of England
Anne of Denmark
Henry, Prince of Wales
The Gunpowder Plot, 1605
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset
Arabella Stuart, Lady Lennox

William Alabaster
Bishop Hall
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John Selden
Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford
Henry Lawes

King Charles I
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Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
John Digby, Earl of Bristol
George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax
Robert Devereux, 3rd E. of Essex
Robert Sidney, 2. E. of Leicester
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Henry Montagu, Earl of Manchester
Edward Montagu, 2. Earl of Manchester

The Restoration

King Charles II
King James II
Test Acts

Greenwich Palace
Hatfield House
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Woodstock Manor

The Cinque Ports
Mermaid Tavern
Malmsey Wine
Great Fire of London, 1666
Merchant Taylors' School
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The Sanctuary at Westminster
"Sanctuary"


Images:

Chart of the English Succession from William I through Henry VII

Medieval English Drama

London c1480, MS Royal 16
London, 1510, the earliest view in print
Map of England from Saxton's Descriptio Angliae, 1579
London in late 16th century
Location Map of Elizabethan London
Plan of the Bankside, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time
Detail of Norden's Map of the Bankside, 1593
Bull and Bear Baiting Rings from the Agas Map (1569-1590, pub. 1631)
Sketch of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596
Westminster in the Seventeenth Century, by Hollar
Visscher's View of London, 1616
Larger Visscher's View in Sections
c. 1690. View of London Churches, after the Great Fire
The Yard of the Tabard Inn from Thornbury, Old and New London




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