Pierre II (1418–1457), Duke of Brittany, Count of Montfort

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Arthur III of Brittany, Duchy of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, Henry IV of England, John IV of Brittany, Kingdom of England, Peter II of Brittany

Pierre II (1418–1457), was Duke of Brittany, Count of Montfort and titularEarl of Richmond, from 1450 to his death. He was son of Duke Jean VI and Jeanne of France, a daughter of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria. Pierre II was a younger brother of François I, Duke of Brittany.

While Pierre II was Count of Guingamp, he fought against the English in Normandy in 1449 and in 1450 with his brother, François I, Duke of Brittany, and his uncle the Constable de Richemont.

They took several cities, including Coutances, Saint-Lô and Ferns. Upon the death of his brother in 1450, Peter became Duke. Since François did not have a son, according to the provisions of the first Treaty of Guerande (1365) that did not allow the succession of girls, he appointed Pierre in preference to his own daughters, Margaret and Marie, to succeed him.

Pierre II then pursued the murderers of his other brother, Gilles.

By 1455, Pierre II and his wife, Françoise d’Amboise, had failed to produce offspring. Given the health problems of Pierre II, this raised the question of succession. To prevent the throne of Brittany from falling into foreign hands, the Duke decided to marry his niece, Margaret, the eldest daughter of his deceased brother François, to his cousin, François, Count of Étampes.

To seal the marriage, the Duke summoned the Estates of Brittany, a sovereign court, at Vannes to meet on November 13, 1455, in the upper room of la Cohue. The court, composed of the main Breton lords bishops, abbots and representatives of cities approved the marriage.

The wedding started on November 16 with a grand mass in Saint Peter’s cathedral in Vannes, presided over by the Bishop of Nantes, Guillaume de Malestroit. Further celebrations subsequently took place including banquets, dances and jousts.

During dinner, the Duke led the newly espoused lady to a room in the Hermine, where she sat in the middle of the canopy … The Duke dined in the room with the main Lords … The Duke had the groom near him, under his canopy … After dinner, at about four hours, the dance began with the high minstrels.

The Duke led the Lady Malestroit, Monsieur de Laval led the duchess, other Lords led other Ladies, and continued to dance to the night … The next day the games began, which lasted four days; and after the Lords had passed the time in great joy and feasts they left Vennes.

The relatively short reign of the Duke did not make a mark on history. His contemporaries described Pierre II as simple, well advised by his wife, but little suited to the ducal function, heavy mind as body, prone to mood swings.

He participated in the Battle of Castillon in 1453. While he was still only Count of Guingamp, he had a tomb carved from himself in the Notre-Dame de Nantes which was lost during the French Revolution.

It is said that, in 1803, when the church was being destroyed, the engineer Pierre Fournier opened the tomb but found only a mannequin. It is unknown whether the Duke was actually buried in the tomb.

Family

In June 1442 Pierre married Françoise d’Amboise (1427–1485), daughter of Louis d’Amboise, Viscount of Thouars and Prince of Talmond, Françoise was later beatified by the Catholic Church. The marriage never produced any children.

Succession

Pierre II died in 1457 with no known issue. He was succeeded by his uncle Arthur who became Arthur III, Duke of Brittany.

Arthur III, Duke of Brittany, was more commonly known as Arthur de Richemont. The name Richemont reflects the fact that he inherited the English title of Earl of Richmond, which was held by previous dukes of Brittany, but his tenure was never recognized by the English crown.

Arthur III was a younger son of Duke Jean IV of Brittany and his third wife Joanna of Navarre. Joanna was a daughter of King Charles II of Navarre and Jeanne of France (the daughter of Jean II of France [called The Good], and his first wife, Bonne of Luxembourg).

Joanna of Navarre was later Queen of England by marriage to King Henry IV. She served as regent of Brittany from 1399 until 1403 during the minority of her son. She also served as regent of England during the absence of her stepson, Henry V, in 1415.

After the death of Arthur’s father, the English Crown refused to recognize his heirs as earls. Nevertheless, they continued to style themselves “Count of Richmond”, while the English title was given to John Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford (1389–1435) in 1414.

François II, Duke of Brittany, and the English Royal Family.

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Duchy of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, Francis II of Brittany, House of Lancaster, House of York, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, King Henry VII of England, Kingdom of England, Wars of the Roses

On June 30th I did a post on King Charles VIII of France who married Anne of Brittany. In my research I discovered that her father, François II, Duke of Brittany, had a strong connection to the English Royal Family.

François II of Brittany

François II of Brittany (June 23, 1433 – September 9, 1488) was Duke of Brittany from 1458 to his death. He was the grandson of Jean IV, Duke of Brittany.

François II was born to Richard of Brittany, Count of Étampes (1395–1438) and his wife, Margaret of Orléans, Countess of Vertus (1406–1466), the daughter of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, and Valentina Visconti. Richard of Brittany was the youngest son of Duke Jean IV of Brittany. Richard’s older brothers, Jean V and Arthur III, both succeeded their father as duke, but upon Arthur’s death in 1458 (Jean V’s sons François I and Peter II died in 1450 and 1457 respectively, without sons), the only legitimate male heir was his nephew François II.

Relationship with English royalty

Coat of Arms of King Henry VI of England

Protector of the House of Lancaster

Duke François II unexpectedly became the protector of England’s House of Lancaster in exile from 1471–1484.

During the latter half of the 15th century, civil war existed in England (Known as the Wars of the Roses) as the House of York and House of Lancaster fought each other for the English throne. In 1471, the Yorkists defeated their rivals in the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. The Lancastrian king, Henry VI of England and his only son, Edward of Westminster, died in the aftermath of the Battle of Tewkesbury.

Their deaths left the House of Lancaster with no direct claimants to the throne. Subsequently, the Yorkist king, Edward IV of England, was in complete control of England. He attainted those who refused to submit to his rule, such as Jasper Tudor and his nephew Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (later King Henry VII of England), naming them as traitors and confiscating their lands.

The Tudors tried to flee to France but strong winds in the English Channel forced them to land at Le Conquet in Brittany, where they were taken into the custody of Duke François II. Henry Tudor, the only remaining Lancastrian noble with a trace of royal bloodline, had a weak claim to the throne, and King Edward IV regarded him as “a nobody”. However, François II viewed Henry as a valuable tool to bargain for England’s aid, when in conflicts with France, and therefore kept the Tudors under his protection.

François II housed Jasper Tudor, Henry Tudor, and the core of their group of exiled Lancastrians at the Château de Suscinio in Sarzeau, where they remained for 11 years. There, François II generously supported this group of exiled Englishmen against all the Plantagenet demands that he should surrender them.
In October 1483, Henry Tudor launched a failed invasion of England from Brittany. Duke François II supported this invasion by providing 40,000 gold crowns, 15,000 soldiers, and a fleet of transport ships. Henry’s fleet of 15 chartered vessels was scattered by a storm, and his ship reached the coast of England in company with only one other vessel.

Arms of Duke François II of Brittany

Henry realized that the soldiers on shore were the men of the new Yorkist king, Richard III of England, and so he decided to abandon the invasion and return to Brittany. As for Henry’s main conspirator in England, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, he was convicted of treason and beheaded on November 2, 1483, way before Henry’s ships landed in England. For Henry’s conspiracy against King Richard III had been unravelled, and without the Duke of Buckingham or Henry Tudor, the rebellion was easily crushed.

Survivors of the failed uprising then fled to Brittany, where they openly supported Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne. On Christmas Day in 1483 at the Rennes Cathedral, Henry swore an oath to marry King Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, and thus unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster. Henry’s rising prominence made him a great threat to King Richard III, and the Yorkist king made several overtures to Duke Francis II to surrender the young Lancastrian.

François II refused, holding out for the possibility of better terms from the King. In mid-1484, François was incapacitated by one of his periods of illness, and while recuperating, his treasurer, Pierre Landais, took over the reins of government. Landais reached an agreement with King Richard III to send Henry and his uncle Jasper back to England in exchange for a pledge of 3,000 English archers to defend Brittany against a threatened French attack.

John Morton, a bishop of Flanders, learned of the scheme and warned the Tudors in time. The Tudors then managed to separately escape, hours ahead of Landais’ soldiers, across the nearby border into France. They were received at the court of King Charles VIII of France, who allowed them to stay and provided them with resources. Shortly afterwards, when François II had recovered, he offered the 400 remaining Lancastrians, still at and around the Château de Suscinio, safe-conduct into France and even paid for their expenses. For the French, the Tudors were useful pawns to ensure that King Richard III did not interfere with French plans to acquire Brittany. Thus, the loss of the Lancastrians seriously played against the interests of Francis II.

Titular Earl of Richmond

Circa 1136, King Stephen of England named Alan of Penthièvre of Brittany (also known as Alan the Black) the 1st Earl of Richmond. After Alan, the title and its possessions (the Honour of Richmond) were typically bestowed upon the Dukes of Brittany, with a few interruptions, through the ducal reign of Jean IV, which ended in 1399. After Jean IV, the English kings would bestow the title Earl of Richmond on nobles other than the Dukes of Brittany, including Edmund Tudor, Henry Tudor’s father. However the dukes of Brittany from Jean V through François II would continue to use the titulary Earl of Richmond.

It is possible that François willed whatever remained of his claims to the earldom and the Honour of Richmond to Henry Tudor. On successfully gaining the English crown after the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, Henry VII merged the earldom and its possessions into the crown.

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

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Anne of Brittany, Duchy of Brittany, King Charles VIII of France, King Louis XI of France, King Louis XII of France, Kings of france, Pope Alexander VI, Pope Innocent VIII

Charles VIII, called the Affable (June 30, 1470 – April 7, 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He was the eldest son of King Louis XI of France and his second wife Charlotte of Savoy daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy and Anne of Cyprus. Her maternal grandparents were Janus of Cyprus and Charlotte de Bourbon-La Marche. Her maternal grandmother, for whom she was probably named, was a daughter of Jean I, Count of La Marche, and Catherine de Vendôme. She was one of 19 children, 14 of whom survived infancy.

Charles VIII, King of France

Prince Charles succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13. His elder sister Anne acted as regent jointly with her husband Peter II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Anne’s regency, the great lords rebelled against royal centralisation efforts in a conflict known as the Mad War (1485–1488), which resulted in a victory for the royal government.

Charles was betrothed on July 22, 1483 (a month before he succeeded to the throne) 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. Archduchess 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 his daughter by his second wife Margaret of Foix, Infanta of Navarre, 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 Archduke Maximilian.

Anne of Brittany, Queen Consort of France

The regent Anne of France and her husband Peter 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 was forced to renounce Maximilian, whom she had only married by proxy in a ceremony of questionable validity and agreed to be married to Charles VIII instead.

Preoccupied by the problematic succession in the Kingdom of Hungary, Maximilian failed to press his claim. Upon his marriage, Charles became administrator of Brittany and established a personal union that enabled France to avoid total encirclement by Habsburg territories.

The official marriage between Anne and King Charles VIII of France was celebrated in the Great Hall of the Château de Langeais on December 6, 1491 at dawn. The ceremony was concluded discreetly and urgently because it was technically illegal until Pope Innocent VIII, in exchange for substantial concessions, validated the union on February 15, 1492, by granting the annulment of the marriage by proxy with Maximilian, and also giving a dispensation for the marriage with Charles VIII, needed because the King and Anne were related in the forbidden fourth degree of consanguinity.

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 finally drove out Charles’ army, but Italian Wars would dominate Western European politics for over 50 years.

Charles died on April 4, 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 cousin Louis XII from the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois. Louis XII the son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, and cousin Charles VIII.

Louis XII, King of France

When Charles VIII, Anne of Brittany was 21 years old and without surviving children. Three days after her husband’s death, the terms of her marriage contract came into force; however, the new King, Louis XII, was already married, to his cousin Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI and sister to Charles VIII. On August 19, 1498, at Étampes, Anne agreed to marry Louis XII if he obtained an annulment from Joan within a year. Days later, the process for the annulment of the marriage between Louis XII and Joan of France began. In the interim, Anne returned to Brittany in October 1498.

The initial marriage contract with Charles VIII provided that the spouse who outlived the other would retain possession of Brittany; however, it also stipulated that if Charles VIII died without male heirs, Anne would marry his successor, thus ensuring the French kings a second chance to annex Brittany permanently.

If Anne was gambling that the annulment would be denied, she lost: Louis’s first marriage was dissolved by Pope Alexander VI before the end of the year. Anne’s third marriage contract, signed the day of her marriage (Nantes, January 7, 1499), was concluded.

Louis XII and Anne of Brittany left only two daughters, the eldest Claude of France (1499-1524), who succeeded her mother as Duchess of Brittany and later also became Queen consort of France as wife of François I, who was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. François I was first cousin once removed from Louis XIII who was also his and father-in-law.

Anne of Brittany: Part III

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Anne of Brittany, Charles V of France, Charles VI of France, Duchy of Brittany, King Charles VIII of France, Kingdom of France, Kingdom of Naples, Louis of Orleans, Louis XI of France, Pope Innocent VIII

Continuing our examination of Anne of Brittany, here is more information on her marriage to King Charles VIII of France.

At sunrise on December 6, 1491 the 14 year old Anne, Duchess of Brittany, married the 21 year old King Charles VIII of France. The marriage was solemnized in the Great Hall of the Château de Langeais. The wedding was concluded discreetly and in a near clandestine fashion because technically the marriage was illegal because the proxy marriage between Anne and Maximilian of Austria was still valid.

To resolves this dilemma Pope Innocent VIII annulled the by-proxy marriage between Anne and Maximilian in February 1492. A dispensation for the marriage with Charles VIII was also obtained because Charles VIII and Anne were related within the fourth degree of consanguinity and this was forbidden under Church law.

Anne and Charles VIII were paternal third cousins both direct descendants of Charles V of France. Charles VIII was a direct male line descendant of Charles V via the eldest son of son of Charles V, Charles VI. Anne was a direct descendant of Louis, Duke of Orleans, younger brother of Charles VI. The Duke of Orleans daughter, Margaret, was the mother of Francis II, Duke of Brittany, the father of Anne of Brittany.

The marriage between Anne and Charles stipulated in a contract that if one of them died, the surviving spouse would retain possession of Brittany. The contract further stated that if Charles VIII died without male heirs, Anne would marry his successor. These conditions were proposed to insure the French kings would eventually, and permanently, annex Brittany.

Anne’s marriage contract, which heavily favored France, mentioned that these lopsided provisions were to ensure peace between the Duchy of Brittany and the Kingdom of France. Anne granted Charles VIII the right to be her her representative. Anne was crowned Queen of France at St. Denis Basilica on February 8, 1492 and she was the first Queen crowned and consecrated there. One slight to her dignity was that Charles VIII forbade her to use her title of Duchess of Brittany. This issue became a bone of contention between the two.

Anne of Brittany had a limited role in both France and Brittany. However, her role did mean she was frequently separated from her children in infancy. Her primary residences were in the royal castles of Amboise, Loches and Plessis or in the towns of Lyon. In 1494 She became Queen Consort of Naples and Jerusalem during the conquest of Naples by Charles VIII when he became king of Naples Italy. As Queen of Naples, Anne lived in the palaces of Grenoble or Moulins when the king was in Italy. At Amboise, when Charles VIII had work, she mainly resided in the nearby Clos Lucé, the future home of Leonardo da Vinci.

Charles VIII died as the result of a unfortunate accident on April 4, 1498. While on his way to watch a game of jeu de paume (real tennis) in Amboise he struck his head on the lintel of a door. At around 2pm, while returning from the game, he fell into a sudden coma, and died nine hours later, perhaps of a subdural hematoma. Charles VIII had reigned for 15 years and was only 27 years old. He left no heir and the throne was passed to Louis of Orleans who became King Louis XII of France. Louis XII was the son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, and a great-grandson of King Charles V of France.

Queen Anne was 21 years old and without surviving children. She now reassumed her position as reigning Duchess of Brittany and personally took charge of the administration of the Duchy. She restored the faithful Philippe de Montauban to the chancellery of Brittany, named Jean de Châlon, the Prince of Orange, as Hereditary Lieutenant General of Brittany. Anne convened the Estates of Brittany, and ordered production of a new gold coin bearing her name and likeness.

Issue

Her marriage with Charles VIII of France produced seven pregnancies:

Tomb of Charles Orland and Charles, two sons of Anne and Charles VIII at Tours Cathedral.

* Charles Orland, Dauphin of France (11 October 1492 – 16 December 1495). Her only healthy son, he died of the measles when three years old. Buried at Tours Cathedral.

* Francis (August 1493). Anne had become pregnant in late 1492/early 1493, but travelled with her husband from castle to castle; she went into labour during a drive in the forest of Courcelles, and the child was premature and stillborn. Buried at Notre-Dame de Cléry.

* Stillborn daughter (March 1494). In her third pregnancy, Anne avoided travel (instead residing in Amboise near the Dauphin). However, in February 1494 she accompanied the king to Lyon, where he was preparing to depart for the Italian Wars. After arriving on 15 March, she attended all of the ceremonies; the stress of the occasion caused her to go into premature labour, and the child was stillborn.

* Stillborn daughter (March 1495). She had become pregnant again in late 1494, but lost the child soon after.

* Charles, Dauphin of France (8 September 1496 – 2 October 1496). His death prompted Anne to withdraw temporarily to Moulins in despair. Buried at Tours Cathedral.

* Francis, Dauphin of France (July 1497). He died several hours after his birth. Buried at Tours Cathedral.

* Anne of France (20 March 1498). She died on the day of her birth at Château de Plessis-lez-Tours. Buried at Tours Cathedral.

Anne of Brittany: Part I

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Anne of Brittany, Brittany, Duchy of Brittany, Francis II of Brittany, Henri II of France, King Charles VIII of France, Kingdom of Brittany, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of France, Milan, Queen of France

On the 504 anniversary of the death of Anne of Brittany I would like to begin this short series on her life and the marriages that shaped her destiny.

First some historical background of the Duchy of Brittany itself. The Duchy of Brittany was a independent medieval feudal state that existed between approximately 939 and 1547. Its territory covered the northwestern peninsula of Europe in what is now modern day France, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the English Channel to the north, and less definitively by the Loire River to the south, and Normandy and other French provinces to the east. The Duchy was established after the expulsion of raiding Viking armies from the region around 939. The Duchy had a rich history and because of its strategic location was a sought after jewel for the crowns of the Kingdoms of France and England and the Duchy of Normandy. This would lead to great conflicts as Brittany struggled to maintain its independence.

Anne of Brittany (January 25/26 1477 – January 9 1514) was Duchess of Brittany in her own right from 1488 until her death, and twice queen consort of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death in 1514. From 1501-1504 Anne was also queen consort of Naples when her husband Charles VIII of France became King of Naples. Anne was also duchess consort of Milan, in 1499–1500 and from 1500 to 1512 as the spouse of Charles VIII of France.

Anne was born on 25 or 26 January 1477 in the Castle of the Dukes of Brittany in the city of Nantes in what is now the Loire-Atlantique region of France, as the eldest child of Duke Francis II of Brittany and his second wife Margaret of Foix, Infanta of Navarre (herself the daughter of Queen Eleanor of Navarre [1425–1479] and of Gaston IV, Count of Foix [1425–1472]).

Heiress of Brittany

During this time period, the laws of succession were unclear and guided by a vague tradition rather than a strict coded law of succession. Before the Breton War of Succession the Duchy mainly adhered to the Franco-Germanic semi-Salic Law; i.e., women could inherit, but only if the male line had died out. The Treaty of Guérande in 1365, however, stated that in the absence of a male heir from the House of Montfort, the heirs of Joanna of Penthièvre would succeed. At the time of Anne’s birth, her father was the only male representative from the House of Montfort, and the Blois-Penthièvre heir was a female, Nicole of Blois, and she had sold her rights to Brittany to King Louis XI of France for the amount of 50,000 écus in 1480, leaving Anne the only viable heiress to the Duchy of Brittany.

This lack of a male heir gave rise to the threat of not only a dynastic crisis within the Duchy, but the direct possibility of the Duchy passing directly into the royal domain to be incorporated into the Kingdom of France. To avoid this, Francis II had Anne officially recognised as his heiress by the Estates of Brittany on February 10, 1486. However, the question of her marriage remained a diplomatic issue.

In 1488, the armies of Francis II were defeated at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, ending the Mad War (la Guerre Folle) between Brittany and France. In the subsequent Treaty of Sablé signed on August 9, 1488 Duke Francis II was forced to accept clauses stipulating that his daughters were not to marry without the approval of the King of France. For whomever married Anne would also have a hand in governing the Duchy of Brittany and for that reason the French king wanted a say in whom she married.

The death of Francis II shortly a month after signing the treaty (September 9, 1488) as a result of a fall from his horse, Brittany was plunged into a new crisis, which lead to the final Franco-Breton war. On his deathbed, the Duke extracted a promise from Anne to never to consent to the subjugation of the Duchy to the Kingdom of France. His final act as Duke, Francis II appointed the Marshal of Rieux guardian of his daughter who was only 11 years old at the time.

The independent sovereign nature of the Duchy began to crumble upon the death of Francis II in 1488. The Duchy was inherited by his daughter, Anne, but King Charles VIII of France had his eye on the Duchy for himself.