Henry IV of England
Henry IV known as Henry Bolingbroke, was King of England from 1399 to 1413, asserted the claim of his grandfather, Edward III, to the Kingdom of France. Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, his father, John of Gaunt, was the fourth son of King Edward III and enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of his nephew King Richard II whom Henry deposed. Henry's mother was Blanche of Lancaster, heiress to the great Lancashire estates of her father Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster. Henry, having succeeded his father as 2nd Duke of Lancaster, when he became king thus founded the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenet English monarchy, he was the first King of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English rather than French. One of Henry's elder sisters, Philippa of Lancaster, married King John I of Portugal, the other, Elizabeth of Lancaster, was the mother of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, his younger half-sister Katherine of Lancaster, the daughter of his father's second wife, Constance of Castile, was queen consort of the King of Castile.
He had four natural half-siblings born of Katherine Swynford his sisters' governess his father's longstanding mistress and third wife. These four illegitimate children were given the surname Beaufort from their birthplace at the Château de Beaufort in Champagne, France. Henry's relationship with his stepmother, Katherine Swynford, was a positive one, but his relationship with the Beauforts varied. In youth he seems to have been close to all of them, but rivalries with Henry and Thomas Beaufort proved problematic after 1406. Ralph Neville, who had married Henry's half-sister Joan Beaufort, remained one of his strongest supporters, so did his eldest half-brother John Beaufort though Henry revoked Richard II's grant to John of a marquessate. Thomas Swynford, a son from Katherine's first marriage to Sir Hugh Swynford, was another loyal companion. Thomas was Constable of Pontefract Castle. Henry's half-sister Joan Beaufort was the grandmother of Edward IV and Richard III. Joan's daughter Cecily married Richard, Duke of York and had several offspring, including Edward IV and Richard III, making Joan the grandmother of two Yorkist kings of England.
Henry experienced a rather more inconsistent relationship with King Richard II. First cousins and childhood playmates, they were admitted together to the Order of the Garter in 1377, but Henry participated in the Lords Appellants' rebellion against the king in 1387. After regaining power, Richard did not punish Henry, although he did execute or exile many of the other rebellious barons. In fact, Richard elevated Henry from Earl of Derby to Duke of Hereford. Henry spent the full year of 1390 supporting the unsuccessful siege of Vilnius by Teutonic Knights with 70 to 80 household knights. During this campaign he bought captured Lithuanian women and children and took them back to Königsberg to be converted. Henry's second expedition to Lithuania in 1392 illustrates the financial benefits to the Order of these guest crusaders, his small army consisted of over 100 men, including longbow archers and six minstrels, at a total cost to the Lancastrian purse of £4,360. Despite the efforts of Henry and his English crusaders, two years of attacks on Vilnius proved fruitless.
In 1392–93 Henry undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he made offerings at the Holy Sepulchre and at the Mount of Olives. He vowed to lead a crusade to'free Jerusalem from the infidel,' but he died before this could be accomplished; the relationship between Henry Bolingbroke and the king met with a second crisis. In 1398, a remark by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk regarding Richard II's rule was interpreted as treason by Henry and Henry reported it to the king; the two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honour at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbray's home in Coventry. Yet before the duel could take place, Richard II decided to banish Henry from the kingdom to avoid further bloodshed. Mowbray himself was exiled for life. John of Gaunt died in February 1399. Without explanation, Richard cancelled the legal documents that would have allowed Henry to inherit Gaunt's land automatically. Instead, Henry would be required to ask for the lands from Richard. After some hesitation, Henry met with the exiled Thomas Arundel, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who had lost his position because of his involvement with the Lords Appellant.
Henry and Arundel returned to England. With Arundel as his advisor, Henry began a military campaign, confiscating land from those who opposed him and ordering his soldiers to destroy much of Cheshire. Henry announced that his intention was to reclaim his rights as Duke of Lancaster, though he gained enough power and support to have himself declared King Henry IV, imprison King Richard and bypass Richard's 7-year-old heir-presumptive, Edmund de Mortimer. Henry's coronation, on 13 October 1399 at Westminster Abbey, may have marked the first time since the Norman Conquest when the monarch made an address in English. Henry consulted with Parliament but was sometimes at odds with the members over ecclesiastical matters. On Arundel's advice, Henry obtained from Parliament the enactment of De heretico comburendo in 1401, w
Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury is a town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook, it gives its name to the Borough of Tewkesbury. It lies in the far north of the county; the name Tewkesbury comes from Theoc, the name of a Saxon who founded a hermitage there in the 7th century, in the Old English language was called Theocsbury. An erroneous derivation from Theotokos enjoyed currency in the monastic period of the town's history; the Battle of Tewkesbury, which took place on 4 May 1471, was one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses. Bredon Bishop's Cleeve Cheltenham Evesham Gloucester Pershore Malvern Upton upon Severn Cotswolds Forest of Dean Malvern Hills Winchcombe Gretton At the 2011 UK census the Tewkesbury parish had a population of 10,704. If the neighbouring parishes of Wheatpieces and Ashchurch Rural are added, the figure rises to 20,318; the Tewkesbury urban area is divided in two by the north-south running M5 motorway, opened in February 1971.
However, the town is considered as the built-up area to the immediate east and west of the M5 at junction 9, with the town centre and old town situated to the west. The close proximity of large areas of land that are prone to flooding, as evidenced by the severe floods that struck the region in July 2007, would make further expansion difficult. However, the present Borough of Tewkesbury, created on 1 April 1974 contains a large portion of rural north Gloucestershire, extending as far as the edges of Gloucester itself and Cheltenham, has a present population of 81,943; the town features many notable Medieval, Tudor buildings, but its major claim to fame is Tewkesbury Abbey, a fine Norman abbey church part of a monastery, saved from the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII after being bought by the townspeople for the price of the lead on the roof to use as their parish church. Most of the monastery buildings, as well as the vineyards, were destroyed during this time; the Abbey Mill however still remains, resting upon the Mill Avon, a channel built by the monks.
This channel represents one of the biggest projects in Tewkesbury's history, though the present weir dates only from the 1990s, replacing two sluice gates installed in the 1930s. The Abbey Mill is sometimes known as "Abel Fletcher's Mill", but this is the name given to it in Dinah Craik's novel John Halifax, whose setting Norton Bury is based on Tewkesbury; the abbey is thought to be the site of the place. The great Romanesque arch on the west front is striking, the stained glass window at that end has been restored; the monastery was founded by the Despensers as a family mausoleum, the Despenser and Neville tombs are fine examples of small-scale late medieval stonework. The tower is believed to be the largest Norman tower still in existence; the tower once had a wooden spire which may have taken the total height of the building to as much as 260 feet, but this was blown off in a heavy storm on Easter Monday 1559. The height to the top of the pinnacles is 148 feet; the abbey is thought to be the third largest church in Britain, not a cathedral.
From end to end it measures 331 feet, though prior to the destruction of the original Lady Chapel, the total length was 375 feet. The abbey is a parish church, still used for daily services, is believed to be the second-largest parish church in England, after Beverley Minster. Tewkesbury claims Gloucestershire's oldest public house, the Black Bear, dating from 1308, although this is closed and for sale with its future as a pub in doubt. Other notable buildings are the Royal Hop Pole Hotel in Church Street, mentioned in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, the Bell Hotel, a large half-timbered structure opposite the Abbey gateway, the House of the Nodding Gables in the High Street; the Abbey Cottages, adjacent to Tewkesbury Abbey, were built between 1410 and 1412. They were restored 1967 to 1972 by a building preservation charity, they house residential homes and commercial offices. The John Moore Museum was established in 1980 in memory of John Moore; the museum consists of three buildings: the main John Moore Museum, home to an extensive Natural History collection.
The Old Baptist Chapel, located off Church Street, is a timber-framed building, formally a medieval hall house dating to the 1480s. Sometime in the 17th century, it was converted for use as a Nonconformist meeting house. Including the original baptistery and pastor's room, the building is of significant historic interest; the building was restored to its 1720 appearance in the 1970s by Tewkesbury Borough Council. It was further renovated and interpreted in 2015 by the Abbey Lawn Trust and is used as a venue for a variety of cultural events. Behind the chapel is a small cemetery for those who were members of the congregation; this includes the grave of
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, 6th Earl of Salisbury, 8th & 5th Baron Montagu, 7th Baron Monthermer, known as Warwick the Kingmaker, was an English nobleman and military commander. The eldest son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, Warwick was the wealthiest and most powerful English peer of his age, with political connections that went beyond the country's borders. One of the leaders in the Wars of the Roses on the Yorkist side but switching to the Lancastrian side, he was instrumental in the deposition of two kings, which led to his epithet of "Kingmaker". Through fortunes of marriage and inheritance, Warwick emerged in the 1450s at the centre of English politics, he was a supporter of King Henry VI. From this conflict, he gained the strategically valuable post of Captain of Calais, a position that benefited him in the years to come; the political conflict turned into full-scale rebellion, where in battle York was slain, as was Warwick's father Salisbury. York's son, however triumphed with Warwick's assistance, was crowned King Edward IV.
Edward ruled with Warwick's support, but the two fell out over foreign policy and the king's choice of Elizabeth Woodville as his wife. After a failed plot to crown Edward's brother, Duke of Clarence, Warwick instead restored Henry VI to the throne; the triumph was short-lived, however: on 14 April 1471, Warwick was defeated by Edward at the Battle of Barnet, killed. Warwick had no sons; the elder of his two daughters, married George, Duke of Clarence. His younger daughter Anne had a short-lived marriage to King Henry's son Edward of Westminster, who died in battle at the age of 17, she married King Edward's younger brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who became King Richard III. Warwick's historical legacy has been a matter of much dispute. Historical opinion has alternated between seeing him as self-centred and rash, regarding him as a victim of the whims of an ungrateful king, it is agreed, that in his own time he enjoyed great popularity in all layers of society, that he was skilled at appealing to popular sentiments for political support.
The Neville family, an ancient Durham family, came to prominence in England's fourteenth-century wars against the Scots. In 1397, King Richard II granted Ralph Neville the title of Earl of Westmorland. Ralph's son Richard, the Earl of Warwick's father, was a younger son by a second marriage, not heir to the earldom, he received a favourable settlement and became jure uxoris Earl of Salisbury through his marriage to Alice and heiress of Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury. Salisbury's son Richard, the Earl of Warwick, was born on 22 November 1428. At the age of six, Richard was betrothed to Lady Anne Beauchamp, daughter of Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, of his wife Isabel Despenser; this made him heir not only to the earldom of Salisbury, but to a substantial part of the Montague and Despenser inheritance. Circumstances would, increase his fortune further. Beauchamp's son Henry, who had married the younger Richard's sister Cecily, died in 1446; when Henry's daughter Anne died in 1449, Richard found himself jure uxoris Earl of Warwick.
Richard's succession to the estates did not go undisputed, however. A protracted battle over parts of the inheritance ensued with Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, who had married a daughter from Richard Beauchamp's first marriage; the dispute centred on land, not on the Warwick title, as Henry's half-sisters were excluded from the succession. By 1445 Richard had become a knight at Margaret of Anjou's coronation on 22 April that year, he is visible in the historical record of service of King Henry VI in 1449, which makes mention of his services in a grant. He performed military service in the north with his father, might have taken part in the war against Scotland in 1448–1449; when Richard, Duke of York, unsuccessfully rose up against the king in 1452, both Warwick and his father rallied to the side of King Henry VI. In June 1453, Somerset was granted custody of the lordship of Glamorgan – part of the Despenser heritage held by Warwick until – and open conflict broke out between the two men.
In the summer of that year, King Henry fell ill. Somerset was a favourite of the king and Queen Margaret, with the king incapacitated he was in complete control of government; this put Warwick at a disadvantage in his dispute with Somerset, drove him into collaboration with York. The political climate, influenced by the military defeat in France started turning against Somerset. On 27 March 1454, a group of royal councillors appointed the Duke of York protector of the realm. York could now count on the support not only of Warwick, but of Warwick's father Salisbury, who had become more involved in disputes with the House of Percy in the north of England. York's first protectorate did not last long. Early in 1455 the king rallied sufficiently to return to power, at least nominally, with Somerset again wielding real power. Warwick returned to his estates, as did York and Salisbury, the three started raising troops. Marching towards London, they encountered the king at St Albans; the battle was brief and not bloody, but it was the first instance of armed hostilities between the forces of the Houses of York and Lancaster in the conflict known as the Wars of the Roses.
It was significant be
Cheshire
Cheshire is a county in North West England, bordering Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east and Shropshire to the south and Flintshire and Wrexham county borough to the west. Cheshire's county town is the City of Chester. Other major towns include Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Northwich, Runcorn and Winsford The county covers 905 square miles and has a population of around 1 million, it is rural, with a number of small towns and villages supporting the agricultural and other industries which produce Cheshire cheese, salt and silk. Cheshire's name was derived from an early name for Chester, was first recorded as Legeceasterscir in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, meaning "the shire of the city of legions". Although the name first appears in 980, it is thought that the county was created by Edward the Elder around 920. In the Domesday Book, Chester was recorded as having the name Cestrescir, derived from the name for Chester at the time. A series of changes that occurred as English itself changed, together with some simplifications and elision, resulted in the name Cheshire, as it occurs today.
Because of the close links with the land bordering Cheshire to the west, which became modern Wales, there is a history of interaction between Cheshire and North Wales. The Domesday Book records Cheshire as having two complete Hundreds that became the principal part of Flintshire. Additionally, another large portion of the Duddestan Hundred became known as Maelor Saesneg when it was transferred to North Wales. For this and other reasons, the Welsh language name for Cheshire is sometimes used. After the Norman conquest of 1066 by William I, dissent and resistance continued for many years after the invasion. In 1069 local resistance in Cheshire was put down using draconian measures as part of the Harrying of the North; the ferocity of the campaign against the English populace was enough to end all future resistance. Examples were made of major landowners such as Earl Edwin of Mercia, their properties confiscated and redistributed amongst Norman barons. William I made Cheshire a county palatine and gave Gerbod the Fleming the new title of Earl of Chester.
When Gerbod returned to Normandy in about 1070, the king used his absence to declare the earldom forfeit and gave the title to Hugh d'Avranches. Because of Cheshire's strategic location on Welsh Marches, the Earl had complete autonomous powers to rule on behalf of the king in the county palatine; the earldom was sufficiently independent from the kingdom of England that the 13th-century Magna Carta did not apply to the shire of Chester, so the earl wrote up his own Chester Charter at the petition of his barons. Cheshire in the Domesday Book is recorded as a much larger county, it included two hundreds and Exestan, that became part of North Wales. At the time of the Domesday Book, it included as part of Duddestan Hundred the area of land known as English Maelor in Wales; the area between the Mersey and Ribble formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Although this has been interpreted to mean that at that time south Lancashire was part of Cheshire, more exhaustive research indicates that the boundary between Cheshire and what was to become Lancashire remained the River Mersey.
With minor variations in spelling across sources, the complete list of hundreds of Cheshire at this time are: Atiscross, Chester, Exestan, Middlewich, Roelau, Tunendune and Wilaveston. Feudal baronies or baronies by tenure were granted by the Earl as forms of feudal land tenure within the palatinate in a similar way to which the king granted English feudal baronies within England proper. An example is the barony of Halton. One of Hugh d'Avranche's barons has been identified as Robert Nicholls, Baron of Halton and Montebourg. In 1182 the land north of the Mersey became administered as part of the new county of Lancashire, thus resolving any uncertainty about the county in which the land "Inter Ripam et Mersam" was. Over the years, the ten hundreds consolidated and changed names to leave just seven—Broxton, Eddisbury, Nantwich and Wirral. In 1397 the county had lands in the march of Wales added to its territory, was promoted to the rank of principality; this was because of the support the men of the county had given to King Richard II, in particular by his standing armed force of about 500 men called the "Cheshire Guard".
As a result, the King's title was changed to "King of England and France, Lord of Ireland, Prince of Chester". No other English county has been honoured in this way, although it lost the distinction on Richard's fall in 1399. Through the Local Government Act 1972, which came into effect on 1 April 1974, some areas in the north became part of the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Stockport, Hyde and Stalybridge in the north-east became part of Greater Manchester. Much of the Wirral Peninsula in the north-west, including the county boroughs of Birkenhead and Wallasey, joined Merseyside as the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. At the same time the Tintwistle Rural District was transferred to Derbyshire; the area of south Lancashire not included within either the Merseyside or Greater Manchester counties, including Widnes and the county b
Tower of London
The Tower of London Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle located on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill, it was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new ruling elite; the castle was used as a prison from 1100 until 1952, although, not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence; as a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion under Kings Richard I, Henry III, Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries; the general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite activity on the site.
The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times, controlling it has been important to controlling the country; the Tower has served variously as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the home of the Royal Mint, a public record office, the home of the Crown Jewels of England. From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II, a procession would be led from the Tower to Westminster Abbey on the coronation of a monarch. In the absence of the monarch, the Constable of the Tower is in charge of the castle; this was a trusted position in the medieval period. In the late 15th century, the castle was the prison of the Princes in the Tower. Under the Tudors, the Tower became used less as a royal residence, despite attempts to refortify and repair the castle, its defences lagged behind developments to deal with artillery; the peak period of the castle's use as a prison was the 16th and 17th centuries, when many figures who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen, Sir Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth Throckmorton, were held within its walls.
This use has led to the phrase "sent to the Tower". Despite its enduring reputation as a place of torture and death, popularised by 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century writers, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the World Wars of the 20th century. Executions were more held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period. In the latter half of the 19th century, institutions such as the Royal Mint moved out of the castle to other locations, leaving many buildings empty. Anthony Salvin and John Taylor took the opportunity to restore the Tower to what was felt to be its medieval appearance, clearing out many of the vacant post-medieval structures. In the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage. After the Second World War, damage caused during the Blitz was repaired, the castle reopened to the public. Today, the Tower of London is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions.
Under the ceremonial charge of the Constable of the Tower, operated by the Resident Governor of the Tower of London and Keeper of the Jewel House, the property is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces and is protected as a World Heritage Site. The Tower was orientated with its strongest and most impressive defences overlooking Saxon London, which archaeologist Alan Vince suggests was deliberate, it stood out to traffic on the River Thames. The castle enclosures; the innermost ward is the earliest phase of the castle. Encircling it to the north and west is the inner ward, built during the reign of Richard I. There is the outer ward which encompasses the castle and was built under Edward I. Although there were several phases of expansion after William the Conqueror founded the Tower of London, the general layout has remained the same since Edward I completed his rebuild in 1285; the castle encloses an area of 12 acres with a further 6 acres around the Tower of London constituting the Tower Liberties – land under the direct influence of the castle and cleared for military reasons.
The precursor of the Liberties was laid out in the 13th century when Henry III ordered that a strip of land adjacent to the castle be kept clear. Despite popular fiction, the Tower of London never had a permanent torture chamber, although the basement of the White Tower housed a rack in periods. Tower Wharf was built on the bank of the Thames under Edward I and was expanded to its current size during the reign of Richard II; the White Tower is a keep, the strongest structure in a medieval castle, contained lodgings suitable for the lord – in this case, the king or his representative. According to military historian Allen Brown, "The great tower was by virtue of its strength and lordly accommodation, the donjon par excellence"; as one of the largest keeps in the Christian world, the White Tower has been described as "the most complete eleventh-century palace in Europe". The White Tower, not including its projecting corner towers, measures 36 by 32 metres at the base, is 27 m high at the southern battlements.
The structure was three storeys high, comprising a basement floor, an entrance level, an upper floor. The entrance, as is usual in Norman keeps, was above ground
Charles V of France
Charles V, called "the Wise", was King of France from 1364 to his death, the third from the House of Valois. His reign marked a high point for France during the Hundred Years' War, with his armies recovering much of the territory held by the English, reversed the military losses of his predecessors. In 1349, as a young prince, Charles received from his grandfather King Philip VI the province of Dauphiné to rule; this allowed him to bear the title "Dauphin" until his coronation, which led to the integration of the Dauphiné into the crown lands of France. After 1350, all heirs apparent of France bore the title of Dauphin until their accession. Charles became regent of France when his father John II was captured by the English at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. To pay for the defense of the kingdom, Charles raised taxes; as a result, he faced hostility from the nobility, led by Charles the Bad, King of Navarre. Charles overcame all of these rebellions, but in order to liberate his father, he had to conclude the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, in which he abandoned large portions of south-western France to Edward III of England and agreed to pay a huge ransom.
Charles became king in 1364. With the help of talented advisers, his skillful management of the kingdom allowed him to replenish the royal treasury and to restore the prestige of the House of Valois, he established the first permanent army paid with regular wages, which liberated the French populace from the companies of routiers who plundered the country when not employed. Led by Bertrand du Guesclin, the French Army was able to turn the tide of the Hundred Years' War to Charles' advantage, by the end of Charles' reign, they had reconquered all the territories ceded to the English in 1360. Furthermore, the French Navy, led by Jean de Vienne, managed to attack the English coast for the first time since the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. Charles V died in 1380, he was succeeded by his son Charles VI, whose disastrous reign allowed the English to regain control of large parts of France. Charles was born at the Château de Vincennes outside of Paris, the son of Prince John and Princess Bonne of France.
He was educated at court with other boys of his age with whom he would remain close throughout his life: his uncle Philip, Duke of Orléans, his three brothers Louis and Philip, Louis of Bourbon and Robert of Bar, Godfrey of Brabant, Louis I, Count of Étampes, Louis of Évreux, brother of Charles the Bad and Charles of Artois, Charles of Alençon, Philip of Rouvres. The future king was intelligent but physically weak, with pale skin and a thin, ill-proportioned body; this made a sharp contrast to his father, tall and sandy-haired. Humbert II, Dauphin of Viennois, ruined due to his inability to raise taxes after a crusade in the middle east, childless after the death of his only son, decided to sell the Dauphiné, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. Neither the pope nor the emperor wanted to buy and the transaction was concluded with Charles’ grandfather, the reigning King Philip VI. Under the Treaty of Romans, the Dauphiné of Viennois was to be held by a son of the future king John the Good. So it was the eldest son of the latter, who became the first Dauphin.
At the age of twelve, he was vested power while in Grenoble. A few days after his arrival, the people of Grenoble were invited to the Place Notre-Dame, where a platform was erected. Young Charles took his place next to Bishop John of Chissé and received the oath of allegiance of the people. In exchange, he publicly promised to respect the community charter and confirmed the liberties and franchises of Humbert II, which were summed up in a solemn statute before he signed his abdication and granted a last amnesty to all prisoners, except those facing the penalty of death. On April 8, 1350 at Tain-l'Hermitage, the Dauphin married his cousin Joanna of Bourbon at the age of 12; the prior approval of the pope was obtained for this consanguineous marriage. The marriage was delayed by the death of his mother Bonne of Luxembourg and his grandmother Joan the Lame, swept away by the plague; the dauphin himself had been ill from August to December 1349. Gatherings were limited to slow the spread of the plague raging in Europe, so the marriage took place in private.
The control of Dauphiné was valuable to the Kingdom of France, because it occupied the Rhône Valley, a major trade route between the Mediterranean and northern Europe since ancient times, putting them in direct contact with Avignon, a papal territory and diplomatic center of medieval Europe. Despite his young age, the dauphin applied to be recognized by his subjects, interceding to stop a war raging between two vassal families, gaining experience, useful to him. Charles was recalled to Paris at the death of his grandfather Philip VI and participated in the coronation of his father John the Good on 26 September 1350 in Reims; the legitimacy of John the Good, that of the Valois in general, was not unanimous. His father, Philip VI, had lost all credibility with the disasters of Crécy, the ravages of the plague, the monetary changes needed to support the royal finances; the royal clan had to cope with opposition from all sides in the kingdom. The first of these was led by Charles II of Navarre, called "the Bad", whose mother Joan II of Navarre had renounced the crown of France for that
Louis XI of France
Louis XI, called "Louis the Prudent", was King of France from 1461 to 1483, the sixth from the House of Valois. He succeeded his father Charles VII. Louis entered into open rebellion against his father in a short-lived revolt known as the Praguerie in 1440; the king forgave his rebellious vassals, including Louis, to whom he entrusted the management of the Dauphiné a province in southeastern France. Louis's ceaseless intrigues, led his father to banish him from court. From the Dauphiné, Louis led his own political establishment and married Charlotte of Savoy, daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy, against the will of his father. Charles VII sent an army to compel his son to his will, but Louis fled to Burgundy, where he was hosted by Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, Charles' greatest enemy; when Charles VII died in 1461, Louis left the Burgundian court to take possession of his kingdom. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity earned him the nicknames "the Cunning" and "the Universal Spider", as his enemies accused him of spinning webs of plots and conspiracies.
In 1472, the subsequent Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, took up arms against his rival Louis. However, Louis was able to isolate Charles from his English allies by signing the Treaty of Picquigny with Edward IV of England; the treaty formally ended the Hundred Years' War. With the death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, the dynasty of the dukes of Burgundy died out. Louis took advantage of the situation to seize numerous Burgundian territories, including Burgundy proper and Picardy. Without direct foreign threats, Louis was able to eliminate his rebellious vassals, expand royal power, strengthen the economic development of his country, he died on 30 August 1483, was succeeded by his minor son Charles VIII. Louis was born in the son of King Charles VII of France. At the time of the Hundred Years War, the English held northern France, including the city of Paris, Charles VII was restricted to the centre and south of the country. Louis was the grandson of Yolande of Aragon, a force in the royal family for driving the English out of France, at a low point in its struggles.
Just a few weeks after Louis's christening at the Cathedral of St. Étienne on 4 July 1423, the French army suffered a crushing defeat by the English at Cravant. Shortly thereafter, a combined Anglo-Burgundian army threatened Bourges itself. During the reign of Louis's grandfather Charles VI, the Duchy of Burgundy was much connected with the French throne, but because the central government lacked any real power, all the duchies of France tended to act independently. Duke Philip II was the reigning Duke of Burgundy. Philip was an uncle of King Charles VI, he served on a council of regents for King Charles; the Dukes of Anjou and Bourbon, all uncles of Charles VI served on this council of regents. All effective power in France lay with this council of dukes. In its position of independence from the French throne, Burgundy had grown in power. By the reign of Louis's father Charles VII, Philip III was reigning as Duke of Burgundy, the duchy had expanded its borders to include all the territory in France from the North Sea in the north to the Jura Mountains in the south and from the Somme River in the west to the Moselle River in the east.
During the Hundred Years War, the Burgundians allied themselves with England against the French crown. Indeed, the Burgundians were responsible for the capture of Joan of Arc and her execution on 31 May 1431. In 1429, young Louis found himself at Loches in the presence of Joan of Arc, fresh from her first victory over the English at the Siege of Orléans, which initiated a turning point for the French in the Hundred Years War. Joan led troops in other victories at the Battle of Jargeau and the Battle of Patay. Although Joan was unable to liberate Paris during her lifetime, the city was liberated after her death, Louis and his father Charles VII were able to ride in triumph into the city on 12 November 1437. Louis grew up aware of the continuing weakness of the French nation, he regarded his father as a weakling, despised him for this. On 24 June 1436, Louis met Margaret of Scotland, daughter of King James I of Scotland, the bride his father had chosen for diplomatic reasons. There are no direct accounts from Louis or his young bride of their first impressions of each other, it is mere speculation whether they had negative feelings for each other.
Several historians think. But it is universally agreed that Louis entered the ceremony and the marriage itself dutifully, as evidenced by his formal embrace of Margaret upon their first meeting. Louis's marriage with Margaret resulted from the nature of medieval royal diplomacy and the precarious position of the French monarchy at the time; the wedding ceremony—very plain by the standards of the time—took place in the chapel of the castle of Tours on the afternoon of 25 June 1436, was presided over by Renaud of Chartres, the Archbishop of Reims. The 13-year-old Louis looked more mature than his 11-year-old bride, said to resemble a beautiful doll, was treated as such by her in-laws. Charles wore "grey riding pants" and "did not bother to remove his spurs"; the Scottish guests were hustled out after the wedding reception, as the French royal court was quite impoverished at this time. They could not afford an extravagant ceremony or to host their Scottish guests for any longer than they did; the Scots, saw this b
