June 30, 1470: Birth of Charles VIII, King of France

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Anne of Brittany, Charles VIII of France, François II of Brittany, Holy Roman Empire, Louis XI of France, Maximilian I

Charles VIII (June 30, 1470 – April 7, 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13. His elder sister Anne acted as regent jointly with her husband Pierre II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Anne’s regency, the great lords rebelled against royalcentralisation efforts in a conflict known as the Mad War (1485–1488), which resulted in a victory for the royal government.

Charles was born at the Château d’Amboise in France, the only surviving son of King Louis XI by his second wife Charlotte of Savoy. His godparents were Charles II, Duke of Bourbon (the godchild’s namesake), Joan of Valois, Duchess of Bourbon, and the teenage Edward of Westminster, the son of Henry VI of England who had been living in France since the deposition of his father by Edward IV.

Charles succeeded to the throne on August 30, 1483 at the age of 13. His health was poor. He was regarded by his contemporaries as possessing a pleasant disposition, but also as foolish and unsuited for the business of the state. In accordance with the wishes of Louis XI, the regency of the kingdom was granted to Charles’ elder sister Anne, a formidably intelligent and shrewd woman described by her father as “the least foolish woman in France.” She ruled as regent, together with her husband Peter of Bourbon, until 1491.

Marriage

Charles was betrothed on July 22, 1483 to the 3-year-old Archduchess Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria (later Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I) and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy. The marriage was arranged by Louis XI, Maximilian, and the Estates of the Low Countries as part of the 1482 Peace of Arras between France and the Duchy of Burgundy. Margaret brought the counties of Artois and Burgundy to France as her dowry, and she was raised in the French court as a prospective queen.

In 1488, however, François II, Duke of Brittany, died in a riding accident, leaving his 11-year-old daughter Anne as his heir. Anne, who feared for the independence of her duchy against the ambitions of France, arranged a marriage in 1490 between herself and the widower Maximilian of Austria.

The regent Anne of France and her husband Pierre refused to countenance such a marriage, however, since it would place Maximilian and his family, the Habsburgs, on two French borders. The French army invaded Brittany, taking advantage of the preoccupation of Maximilian and his father, Emperor Friedrich III, with the disputed succession to Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary.

Anne of Brittany had already been married by proxy to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in a ceremony of questionable validity. Preoccupied by the problematic succession in the Kingdom of Hungary, Maximilian failed to press his claim.

Anne of Brittany was forced to renounce Maximilian (whom she had only married by proxy) and agree to be married to Charles VIII instead.

Upon his marriage, Charles became administrator of Brittany and established a personal union that enabled France to avoid total encirclement by Habsburg territories.

To secure his rights to the Neapolitan throne that René of Anjou had left to his father, Charles made a series of concessions to neighbouring monarchs and conquered the Italian peninsula without much opposition. A coalition formed against the French invasion of 1494–98 attempted to stop Charles’ army at Fornovo, but failed and Charles marched his army back to France.

Charles VIII died in 1498 after accidentally striking his head on the lintel of a door at the Château d’Amboise, his place of birth. Since he had no male heir, he was succeeded by his 2nd cousin once removed, Louis XII from the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois.

June 27, 1462: Birth of Louis XII, King of France

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Charles of Orléans, Charles VIII of France, King of Naples, Louis XII of France, Pope Alexander VI

Louis XII (June 27, 1462 – January 1, 1515) was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the time, Charles VIII, who died without direct heirs in 1498.

Before his accession to the throne of France, he was known as Louis of Orléans and was compelled to be married to his disabled and supposedly sterile cousin Joan by his second cousin, King Louis XI. By doing so, Louis XI hoped to extinguish the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois.

Louis of Orléans was one of the great feudal lords who opposed the French monarchy in the conflict known as the Mad War. At the royal victory in the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488, Louis was captured, but Charles VIII pardoned him and released him. He subsequently took part in the Italian War of 1494–1498 as one of the French commanders.

When Louis XII became king in 1498, he had his marriage with Joan annulled by Pope Alexander VI and instead married Anne of Brittany, the widow of his cousin Charles VIII. This marriage allowed Louis to reinforce the personal Union of Brittany and France.

Louis persevered in the Italian Wars, initiating a second Italian campaign for the control of the Kingdom of Naples. Louis conquered the Duchy of Milan in 1500 and pushed forward to the Kingdom of Naples, which fell to him in 1501. Proclaimed King of Naples, Louis faced a new coalition gathered by Ferdinand II of Aragon and was forced to cede Naples to Spain in 1504.

Louis XII did not encroach on the power of local governments or the privileges of the nobility, in opposition with the long tradition of the French kings to attempt to impose absolute monarchy in France. A popular king, Louis was proclaimed “Father of the People” (French: Le Père du Peuple) in 1506 by the Estates-General of Tours for his reduction of the tax known as taille, legal reforms, and civil peace within France.

Louis, who remained Duke of Milan after the second Italian War, was interested in further expansion in the Italian Peninsula and launched a third Italian War (1508–1516), which was marked by the military prowess of the Chevalier de Bayard.

Louis XII died in 1515 without a male heir. He was succeeded by his cousin and son-in-law Francis from the Angoulême cadet branch of the House of Valois.

From the Emperor’s Desk: Tomorrow I’ll do an indepth look at the three marriages of Louis XII.

October 23, 1516: Birth of Charlotte de Valois of France

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Anne of Brittany, Charles VIII of France, Charlotte de Valois of France, Claude of France, Francis I of France, Louis XII of France, Margaret of Angoulême

Charlotte de Valois of France (October 23, 1516 – September 18, 1524) was the second child and second daughter of King François I and his wife Claude, daughter of the French king Louis XII of France and the Duchess Anne of Brittany.

Charlotte was born in the Château d’Amboise, on October 23, 1516. She had greenish blue eyes and bright red hair. She was one of the six children of the King and Queen that had red hair, a trait inherited from Anne of Brittany, Claude’s mother. She lived a happy life, moving from the Château d’Amboise to the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye before March 1519.

Later life and death

The Princess spent all of her remaining days at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. She had always been a delicate, frail child. At age seven, she contracted measles, the same disease which had killed her half-uncle, Charles Orlando, Dauphin of France, thirty years earlier. Charles Orlando, Dauphin of France was the eldest son and heir of Charles VIII of France and Anne of Brittany.

Anne of Brittany was Duchess of Brittany in her own right from 1488 until her death, and queen consort of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She is the only woman to have been queen consort of France twice, as the spouse of Charles VIII and Louis XII.

The only person who looked after her while she was sick was her aunt, Margaret of Angoulême, as her mother had already died two months earlier, her grandmother Louise of Savoy was very sick, and her father had gone to war. He was later imprisoned, so was nowhere near his daughter at the time of her death. It appears as if Charlotte was very close to her aunt, who was heartbroken and distraught when her “little one” died, on September18, 1524 at the age of seven.