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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES FRACTURED POLITICS: DIPLOMACY, MARRIAGE, AND THE LAST PHASE OF THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR ARIEL WEBER SPRING 2014 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Medieval Studies with honors in Medieval Studies Reviewed and approved* by the following: Benjamin T. Hudson Professor of History and Medieval Studies Thesis Supervisor/Honors Adviser Robert Edwards Professor of English and Comparative Literature Thesis Reader * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT The beginning of the Hundred Years War came about from relentless conflict between France and England, with roots that can be traced the whole way to the 11th century, following the Norman invasion of England. These periods of engagement were the result of English nobles both living in and possessing land in northwest France. In their efforts to prevent further bloodshed, the monarchs began to engage in marriage diplomacy; by sending a young princess to a rival country, the hope would be that her native people would be unwilling to wage war on a royal family that carried their own blood. While this method temporarily succeeded, the tradition would create serious issues of inheritance, and the beginning of the last phase of the Hundred Years War, and the last act of success on the part of the English, the Treaty of Troyes, is the culmination of the efforts of the French kings of the early 14th century to pacify their English neighbors, cousins, and nephews. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Plantagenet Claim to France.................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 The Lancastrian Dynasty ......................................................................................... 10 Chapter 3 Domestic Crises ....................................................................................................... 15 Chapter 4 Charles ‘The Mad,’ Queen Isabeau, Burgundy, and Orléans ................................. 25 Chapter 5 Henry V in France and Queen Katherine of England .............................................. 35 Chapter 6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 50 Appendix A Family Trees ............................................................................................... 52 Appendix B Maps ........................................................................................................ 55 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 59 1 Chapter 1 Plantagenet Claim to France In the Late Middle Ages, England and France met in a conflict which had the potential to change the face of Europe, known as the Hundred Years War. Edward III had taken up the title King of France and was determined to claim his inheritance of the French throne. Over decades, the two countries manipulated one another through means such as subversive military tactics and creating alliances to block trade routes. The tension between the two had been growing since the Norman Conquest in the eleventh century. For many years, dispute over English possession of French territory had plagued the English people living in France. The duchy of Normandy was the initial source of conflict, when Duke William of Normandy became the king of England; which resulted in the English king’s status as submissive to another king.1 Normandy was in and out of English possession until 1204, when it was declared forfeit under King John (though the duchy of Normandy was still a main point of contention as many English kings – including Henry V, via his mother Mary de Bohun – could trace their lineage back to Normandy, and to the English mentality, the duchy was rightfully the English inheritance.) When Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine, England took possession of the duchy of Aquitaine, and it is this territory which became the area of dispute in the late Medieval period. The union of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, in 1152, also initiated a near-continuous tradition between the English and French of marriage as the main form of international diplomacy. From Henry II to Henry VI of England, eight of the eleven monarchs’ wives were 1 A. Curry, “France and the Hundred Years War, 1337-1453,” France in the Later Middle Ages, 1200-1500, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003, p. 91(the Treaty of Albeville in 1295 confirmed the English kings as vassals to the French kings, further validated when Henry III performed homage to Louis IX.) 2 members of the French nobility. 2 Marriage diplomacy was used as one of the primary methods to seal a treaty, and was utilized not only by the English, but by the Scottish as well, who confirmed alliances by espousing French heiresses. Sending princesses and noblewomen to England created a particularly complicated foreign policy; the heiresses had been sent under the impression that their presence would ensure peace, and any heirs produced from the union of a French princess and an English king would be notably half-French. It is this method which created the circumstances which led England and France to the entanglement which became the last phase of the Hundred Years War. The period between King John of England and Edward I included a series of attempts by both governments to protect their perceived rights and inheritance. King John of England was responsible for the loss of Normandy in 1204, after his marriage to Isabella of Angoulême – her territory in Aquitaine gave John far too much influence on the Northwest coast of France. At the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, Philip Augustus of France managed to thwart an alliance between England, Flanders and the Holy Roman Empire to prevent the French from moving into the Low Countries.3 John’s son, Henry III made an attempt to reclaim his own ancestral lands in 1242, including Poitou, Normandy, Aquitaine and Anjou, by creating an alliance with the Emperor but abandoned these intentions in 1259 when he subjugated the kingdom of England to Louis IX out of admiration and a desire to protect his territory of Aquitaine.4 Edward I called upon his feudal relationship with France frequently, and Louis aided his vassal by acting as arbiter between Edward and the rebels of Wales; and in 1386, Edward aided in the French in brokering a treaty with Aragon. 5 The amicable relationship between the two countries disintegrated when Philip IV 2 A. Crawford, “The King’s Burden? The Consequences of Royal Marriage in Fifteenth-Century England,” Patronage, The Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England, ed. R.A. Griffiths, Gloucester, Alan Sutton, 1981, p.33-34 3 M.Vale, The Origins of the Hundred Years War, The Angevin Legacy, 1250-1340, p. 12 4 Ibid, p. 14 5 M. Prestwich, Plantagenet England: 1225-1360, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007, p. 323-5 3 of France declared English Gascony forfeit, and Edward I commenced an attack against France with the Low Countries and Burgundy by his side. This conflict was remedied, however, by Edward’s marriage to Margaret of France, Philip’s sister.6 The marriage of Edward II of England to Isabelle of France, the sister of King Charles IV and, more importantly, the daughter of the previous King Philip IV, produced devastating results. Edward II, like other kings before him, had experienced abuse at the hands of the French with regards to the English living in Aquitaine; with the French king as the feudal lord over his English vassal, he had the right to interfere with the English held French land, or if the politics took a turn for the worst, he could confiscate the land, but unlike other feudal relationships, the interference by the French king could cause ripples in politics on an international scale. Twice, the French king confiscated land, in 1294 and in 1324, and Edward’s reign marked one of the many low points for the English territorial possession in France.7 After Edward III dismissed his regency government in 1337, the young king set his sights on what he believed was his right; the French throne. With the death of King Charles IV of France, in February 1328, came the end of the male Capetian line. Edward was forbidden from assuming the crown, as his inheritance and claim to the throne came through his mother, Isabelle. “Edward III had preferred Gaunt’s right of succession [through the female line]...England acknowledged no ‘Salic Law’ debarring women from the Crown.”8 Part of the exclusion of women from the line of succession was due to a somewhat nationalistic attitude and by adopting the policy outlined in the Lex Salica, it was guaranteed that the king of France would remain French; as they had yet to experience governance under a foreign leader.9 It was this outlook that caused Edward and his descendants to call strongly upon their relationship to Isabelle of France 6 M. Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance under Edward I, Faber and Faber, London, 1972, p. 172 7 Curry, “France and the Hundred Years War,” p. 91 8 G.L. Harriss, Shaping the Nation, England, 1360-1461, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 492 9 T. Adams Adams, “Christine de Pizan, Isabeau of Bavaria and Female Regency,” French Historical Studies, Society for French Historical Studies, Auckland, 2009, p. 18 4 and to depict themselves as French. The Valois dynasty came to the throne through the exclusion of female heirs, though “had Philip VI’s claim come through