Charles the Bold Part 30

[Footnote 16: "Cette paix jura le Due de Bourgogne et y estois present."]

[Footnote 17: The king's envoys who had spent the winter in the Burgundian court. _See_ letter to them in December.]

[Footnote 18: _See_ Kervyn, _Bulletin de l'Academie royale de Belgique_, p. 256. _Also_ Kirk, ii., 160; Commynes-Mandrot, i., 234.]

[Footnote 19: Louis to the Vicomte de la Belliere, _Lettres_, etc., iv., 319.]

[Footnote 20: Louis to Dammartin, _Ibid_., 325. _Mars_ was written first and then replaced by _Mai_.]

[Footnote 21: Odet d'Aydie, younger brother of the Seigneur de Lescun.]

[Footnote 22: _Lettres, XI_., iv., 328. Louis to Dammartin, 1472.]

[Footnote 23: _Lettres_, iv., 331. Louis to the Duke of Milan.]

[Footnote 24: _Lettres_, etc., v., 4. Louis to Dammartin. _See also_ Duclos, v., 331. There are slight discrepancies between the two texts, but the differences do not affect the narrative.]

[Footnote 25: Odet d'Aydie, whom Louis had hoped to have converted to his cause, was the man to spread the charge against Louis broadcast over the land. The truth of the death is not proven. Frequent mentions of Guienne's condition occur through the letters of the winter '71-72.

The story was that the poison, administered subtly by the king's orders, caused the illness of both the prince and his mistress, Mme.

de Thouan. She died after two months of suffering, December 14th, while he resisted the poison longer, though his health was completely shattered and his months of longer life were unutterably wretched and painful, a constant torture until death mercifully released him in May. Accusations of poisoning are often repeated in history. In this case, there was certainly a wide-spread belief in Louis's guilt. In his manifestos, (Lenglet, ii., 198) Charles declares that the king's tools in compa.s.sing his brother's death were a friar, Jourdain Favre, and Henri de la Roche, esquire of his kitchen.

The story told by Brantome _(OEuvres Completes_ de Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantome, ii., 329. "Grands Capitaines Francois." There is nothing too severe for Brantome to say about Louis XI.) is very detailed. A fool pa.s.sed to Louis's service from that of the dead prince. While this man was attending his new master in the church of Notre Dame de Clery, he heard him make this prayer to the Virgin: "Ah! my good Lady, my little mistress, my great friend in whom I have always put my trust, I pray thee be a suppliant to G.o.d in my behalf, be my advocate with Him so that He may pardon me for the death of my brother whom I had poisoned by this wicked Abbe of St. John. I confess it to thee as to my good patron and mistress. But what was to be done? He was a torment to my realm. Get me pardoned and I know well what I will give thee."

Brantome tells further that the fool, using the privilege of free speech accorded to his cla.s.s, talked about Guienne's death at dinner in public and after that day was never seen again. On the other hand, the young duke's will was all to his brother's favour. Louis was made executor and legatee, "and if we have ever offended our beloved brother," dictated the dying man, "we implore him to pardon us as we with _debonnaire_ affection pardon him." Mandrot, editor of Commynes (1901), i., 230, considers the whole story a malicious fabrication of Odet d'Aydie, and other authorities refer the cause to disease. The very date of the death varies from May 12th to May 24th.]

[Footnote 26: Commines, iii., ch. ix.]

[Footnote 27: There is a curious doc.u.ment in existence (see _Bulletins de L'Hist. de France_, 1833-34) dated fifty years after the event. It is the deposition of several old people who had been just old enough to remember that awful experience of their youth. Fifty years of repet.i.tion gave time for the growth of the story.]

[Footnote 28: Commines, iii., ch. x.]

[Footnote 29: Legend makes it that Jeanne Laisne, called _Fouquet_, chopped off the hands of the standard-bearer with a hatchet. Hence her name was changed to _La Hachette_, and she is represented with a hatchet.]

[Footnote 30: Barante, vii., 333.]

[Footnote 31: _See_ Lavisse, iv^{ii.}, 368.]

[Footnote 32:

"Berri est mort, Bretagne dort, Bourgogne hongne, Le Roy besogne."

Le Roux de Lincy, _Chants historiques et populaires du temps de Louis XI_.]

[Footnote 33: Commines also mentions here "the confessor of the Duke of Guienne and a knight to whom is imputed the death of the Duke of Guienne." (iii., ch. xi.)]

[Footnote 34: Kirk (ii., 156) thinks that this confiscation was only Louis's way of prodding him up to act.]

[Footnote 35: Dupont (Commynes, iii., x.x.xvi). The fugitive did not enter immediately into his new possessions. The king's gift of the princ.i.p.ality of Talmont, dated October, 1472, was not registered in _Parlement_ until December 13, 1473, and in the court of records May 2, 1474. Prince of Talmont did Commines become at last, and as such he married Helen de Chambes, January 27, 1473.]

[Footnote 36: It is strange that La Marche does not mention this defection.]

[Footnote 37: See doc.u.ment quoted by Gachard, _etudes et Notices_, etc. ii., 344. The original is in the Croy family archives preserved in the chateau of Beaumont.]

[Footnote 38: _See also_ Comines-Lenglet, i., xcj., for discussion of this event. He a.s.serts that the court of Burgundy was too corrupt for honest men to endure it.]

[Footnote 39: _See_ Stein. _etude_, etc., _sur Olivier de la _Marche_.

(Mem. Couronnes) xlix.]

[Footnote 40: Letter of Louis XI. in Bibl. Nat.: _Ibid._, p. 179.]

CHAPTER XVI

GUELDERS

1473

The affairs of the little duchy of Guelders were among the matters urgently demanding the attention of the Duke of Burgundy at the close of his campaign in France. The circ.u.mstances of the long-standing quarrel between Duke Arnold and his unscrupulous son Adolf were a scandal throughout Europe. In 1463, a seeming reconciliation of the parties had not only been effected but celebrated in the town of Grave by a pleasant family festival, from whose gaieties the elder duke, fatigued, retired at an early hour. Scarcely was he in bed, when he was aroused rudely, and carried off half clad to a dungeon in the castle of Buren, by the order of his son, who superintended the abduction in person and then became duke regnant. For over six years the old man languished in prison, actually taunted, from time to time, it is said, by Duke Adolf himself.

Indignant remonstrances against this conduct were heard from various quarters, and were all alike unheeded by the young duke until Charles of Burgundy interfered and ordered him to bring his father to his presence, and to submit the dispute to his arbitration. Charles was too near and too powerful a neighbour to be disregarded, and his peremptory invitation was accepted. Pending the decision, the two dukes were forced to be guests in his court, under a strict surveillance which amounted to an arrest.

The first suggestion made by Charles was for a compromise between father and son. "Let Duke Arnold retain the nominal sovereignty in Guelders, actual possession of one town, and a fair income, while to Adolf be ceded the full power of administration." The latter was emphatic in his refusal to consider the proposition. "Rather would I prefer to see my father thrown into a well and to follow him thither than to agree to such terms. He has been sovereign duke for forty-four years; it is my turn now to reign." Arnold thought it would be a simple feat to fight out the dispute. "I saw them both several times in the duke's apartment and in the council chamber when they pleaded, each his own cause. I saw the old man offer a gage of battle to his son."[1] The senior belonged to the disappearing age of chivalry. A trial of arms seemed to him an easy and knightly fas.h.i.+on of ending his differences with his importunate heir.

No settlement was effected before the French expedition, but Charles was not disposed to let the matter slip from his control, and when he proceeded to Amiens, the two dukes, still under restraint, were obliged to follow in his train. At a leisure moment Charles intended to force them to accept his arbitration as final. Before that moment arrived, the more agile of the two plaintiffs, Adolf, succeeded in eluding surveillance and escaping from the camp at Wailly. He made his way successfully to Namur disguised as a Franciscan monk. Then, at the ferry, he gave a florin when a penny would have sufficed. The liberality, inconsistent with his a.s.sumed role, aroused suspicion and led to the detection of his rank and ident.i.ty. He was stayed in his flight and imprisoned in the castle of Namur to await a decision on his case by his self-const.i.tuted judge. This was not p.r.o.nounced until the summer of 1473.

By that time, Charles was resolved on another course of action than that of adjusting a family dispute in the capacity of puissant, impartial, and friendly neighbour. Adolf's behaviour towards his father had been extraordinarily brutal and outrageous. Public comment had been excited to a wide degree. It was not an affair to be dealt with lightly by Duke Charles. The young d.u.c.h.ess of Guelders was Catharine of Bourbon, sister to the late d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy, and Adolf himself was chevalier of the Golden Fleece. In consideration of these links of family and knightly brotherhood, Charles desired that the case should be tried with all formality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARNOLD, DUKE OF GUELDERS (FROM THE ENGRAVING BY PINSSIO, AFTER THE DRAWING BY J. ROBERT)]

On May 3, 1473, an a.s.sembly of the Order was held at Valenciennes,[2]

and the knights were asked to pa.s.s upon the conduct of their delinquent fellow, who was permitted to present his own brief through an attorney, but was detained in his own person at Namur. The innocence or guilt of his prisoner was no longer the chief point of interest as far as the Duke of Burgundy was concerned. The latter had made an excellent bargain on his own behalf with the moribund Duke of Guelders, who had signed (December, 1472) a doc.u.ment wherein he sold to Charles all his administrative rights in Guelders and Zutphen for ninety-two thousand florins,[3] in consideration of Arnold's enjoying a life interest in half of the revenue of his ancient duchy. That clause soon lost its significance. The old man's life ceased in March, 1473, and, by virtue of the contract, Charles proposed to enter into full possession of his estates, setting aside not only Adolf, whom he was ready to p.r.o.nounce an outlawed criminal, quite beyond the pale of society, but that Adolf's innocent eight-year-old heir, Charles, whose hereditary claims had also been ignored by his grandfather.

Before the knights of the Order as a final court, were rehea.r.s.ed all the circ.u.mstances of the old family quarrel and of the late commercial transaction. Their verdict was the one desired by their chief. It was proven to their entire satisfaction that Arnold's sale of the duchy of Guelders and Zutphen was a legitimate proceeding, and that the deed executed by him was a perfect and valid instrument, whereby Charles of Burgundy was duly empowered to enjoy all the revenues of, and to exert authority in, his new duchy at his pleasure. As to Duke Adolf, he was condemned by this tribunal of his peers to life imprisonment as punishment for his unfilial and unjustifiable cruelty towards Arnold, late Duke of Guelders.

Adolf's protests were stifled by his prison bars, but the people of Guelders were by no means disposed to accept unquestioned this deed of transfer, made when the two parties to the conveyance were in very unequal conditions of freedom. In order to convince them of the justice of his pretensions, Charles levied a force almost as efficient as his army of the preceding summer, and fell upon Guelders. A truce, a triple compact with France and England, had recently been renewed, so that for the moment his hands were free from complications, an event commented upon by Sir John Paston, as follows:

"April 16, 1473, CANTERBURY.

"As for tydings ther was a truce taken at Brusslys about the xxvi day off March last, betwyn the Duke of Burgoyn and the Frense Kings inba.s.sators and Master William Atclyff ffor the king heer, whiche is a pese be londe and be water tyll the ffyrst daye off Apryll nowe next comyng betweyn Fraunce and Ingeland, and also the Dukys londes. G.o.d holde it ffor ever."

The writer had recently been in Charles's court. Writing from Calais in February, he says:

"As ffor tydyngs heer ther bee but few saff that the Duke of Burgoyen and my Lady hys wyffe fareth well. I was with them on Thorysdaye last past at Gaunt."[4]