Anne of Brittany: Part II

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Anne of Brittany, Austria, Ferdinand and Isabella, Ferdinand II of Aragon, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire, Isabella I of Castile, King Charles VIII of France, Kingdom of France, Louis XI of France, Maximilian I of Austria, Spain

(Recreation of the Marriage of Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII of France)

Anne was crowned Duchess of Brittany in Rennes on February 10, 1489, five months after the death of her father Francis II, Duke of Brittany. Although the semi-salic law allowed for female succession her marriage was a matter of great state importance because, despite her being a sovereign in her own right, women’s liberation was centuries away therefore any husband would have a hand in ruling the duchy. This made Anne not only a sought after bride, many European states were eager to add Brittany to their domains.

Anne was married three times. Prior to her first marriage to Archduke Maximilian I of Austria (future Holy Roman Emperor) Anne was betrothed numerous times. Here is a list of the Royal suitors to whom she had been promised.

* In 1480 she was officially promised in marriage to Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Edward IV of England; however, (future Edward V) soon after the death of Edward IV in 1483 the boy disappeared, presumed to have been killed – some say on the orders of his regent, Richard III.
* Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria, widower of Mary of Burgundy, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
* Alain I of Albret, son of Catherine of Rohan and Jean I of Albret. Through his mother, he was a great-grandson of Duke Jean V of Brittany, and thus a possible heir. Although he was an ally of Duke Francis II, Anne refused to marry him because she found him repulsive.
* Louis, Duke of Orléans, cousin of King Charles VIII of France and in turn future King, was another aspirant for her hand, despite being already married to the King’s sister Joan.
* John IV of Chalon-Arlay, Prince of Orange. A grandson of Richard, Count of Étampes, and nephew of Francis II, he was in line to the throne after Anne and Isabelle.
* Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. In 1488 Henry VII had suggested a marriage between Buckingham and Anne, but in December 1489 the executors of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, paid the King £4000 for Buckingham’s marriage to Percy’s eldest daughter Eleanor.

At the tender age of thirteen, on December 19, 1490, Anne married Archduke Maximilian I of Austria (future Holy Roman Emperor) at Rennes Cathedral by proxy, which conferred upon her the title Queen of the Romans. The French regarded this union as a serious provocation. First, it was a violation not of the Treaty of Sablé which required any marriage to Duchess Anne to be sanctioned by the King of France who did not personally consent to the marriage. The larger, and more important political issue, was this marriage reintroduced the Habsburgs in general and the Holy Roman Empire specifically, an enemy of the French, as a ruler of Brittany, and this was a position the French had been avoiding during the 14th and 15th centuries.

Things were not to be between Anne and Maximillian as the politics of the day prevented this marriage from going any further than a proxy ceremony. King Louis XI of France had his eyes set on Anne to marry the Dauphin of France, Charles of Valois, and Louis XI had his heart on ruling Brittany. However, the betrothal between Charles of Valois and Archduchess Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria (later Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I) and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy. (Mary was the Duchess of Burgundy in her own right and in a similar situation to Anne of Brittany)had to be addressed before and arrangement could be made between Charles of Valois and Anne of Brittany.

The 13 year old Charles of Valois had been formally betrothed on July 22, 1483 to the 3-year-old Archduchess Margaret of Austria. It would be a difficult betrothal to break. The marriage had been arranged by Louis XI, Maximilian I, and the Estates of the Low Countries as part of the 1482 Peace of Arras between France and the Duchy of Burgundy. Margaret brought a wealthy dowry with her, the Counties of Artois and Burgundy to France and she was raised in the French court as a prospective Queen consort of France. Giving up the Counties of Artois and Burgundy in exchange for the duchy of Brittany seemed to be a worthwhile risk to take.

In 1488, however, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, having died in a riding accident leaving his 11-year-old daughter Anne as the new reigning duchess speeded up the desire to incorporate Brittany into the French crown. Anne, strongly desired that Brittany remained an independent duchy and was against the ambitions of France and King Louis XI. Therefore an arranged marriage was conducted in 1490 between herself and the widower Maximilian, thus making Anne a stepmother to Margaret of Austria, the perspective bride of Charles of Valois. This marriage would place the Habsburg lead Holy Roman Empire, long the enemy of France, as the protectorate of the duchy’s independence.

A month after the betrothal of between Charles of Valois and Archduchess Margaret of Austria in 1483, King louis XI of France died and his 13 year old son, Charles of Valois, succeed to the throne as King Charles VIII of France. The elder sister of Louis XI, Anne of France, had been appointed regent jointly with her husband Peter II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. When learning of the prospective union between Anne of Brittany and Archduke Maximilian I, the regent Anne of France and her husband Peter refused to sanction the marriage (her marriage had to be approved of by the king of France per the treaty of Treaty of Sablé) because it placed the Habsburgs on two French borders.

In response to the marriage the French army invaded Brittany, taking advantage of the preoccupation of Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III and his son (Maximilian) with the disputed succession of Mathias Corvinus to the Kingship of Hungary, another domain which the family ruled. With Brittany now an occupied territory of France, Anne of Brittany was forced to renounce Maximilian (whom she had only married by proxy) and reluctantly agreed to be married to Charles VIII instead.

Marriage to Anne of Brittany at the Château de Langeais.

In December of 1491, Charles VIII of France and Anne of Brittany were married in an elaborate ceremony at the Château de Langeais. The 14-year-old Duchess Anne, entered this marriage under protest and was unhappy about the arrangement. When she arrived for the wedding ceremony with her entourage they were carrying two beds sending the king a clear message this would be a union of political convenience and nothing more. For Charles VIII the marriage brought him freedom and independence from his aunt, Regent Anne of France, Duchess of Bourbon and thereafter was allowed to rule on his own. Anne, Duchess of Brittany was now Queen Anne of France and she lived at the Clos Lucé in Amboise separate from her husband the king.

However, there still remained the matter of Charles’ first betrothed, the young Archduchess Margaret of Austria. Although the cancellation of her betrothal meant that she by rights should have been returned to the Habsburg family, Charles did not initially do so, intending to marry her usefully elsewhere in France. This placed the young Margaret in a difficult situation. Desperate, Margaret informed her father in her letters that she was so determined to escape that she would even flee Paris in her nightgown if it gave her her freedom. Eventually, in 1493, she was returned to her family, together with her dowry – though the Duchy of Burgundy was kept in the Treaty of Senlis.

Upon her return to Austria, Margaret was betrothed to Juan, Prince of the Asturias and heir to the newly united Spanish throne. The Prince of the Asturias was the only son of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Fernando II of Aragon. In order to completely solidify this Spanish alliance Maximilian started negotiating the marriage of his son, Archduke Philipp of Austria, to the Spanish royal couple’s daughter, Infanta Juanna.

Margaret left the Netherlands for Spain late in 1496. The marriage took place in 1497. Juan, Prince of the Asturias died after only six months, on October 4, 1497, widowed Margaret, now Dowager Princess of the Austirias was left pregnant, and sadly on April 2, 1498 she gave birth to a premature stillborn daughter. The Dowager Princess of Asturias then returned to the Netherlands early in 1500, when her brother and sister-in-law (Philipp and Juanna) invited her to be godmother to their newborn son, Charles of Austria, the future powerful Holy Roman Emperor Karl V who was also Carlos I of Spain.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia Part IV

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Conservative, Frankfurt Parliament, Frederick William IV of Prussia, French Revolution, German Empire, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire, Liberal, Nicholas I of Russia, Prussia

When the 1848 revolutions swept Germany many Liberals sought to unify Germany under a liberal constitution. However, King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV of Prussia was not sympathetic toward the revolutionaries. The king initially moved to repress it with the army, but on March 19 the king had a change of heart and recalled the troops and place himself at the head of the revolutionary movement.

The king committed himself fully to the ideal of German unification. The king formed a liberal government, convened a national assembly, and ordered that a constitution be written. It would seem the conservative Prussian king had become a liberal. Or had he? These actions did calm the tensions in the State and once his position was more secure again, however, he quickly had the army reoccupy Berlin and in December dissolved the Liberal assembly.

Although the king’s change from conservatism to liberalism was a ruse to keep order, He did, however, remain dedicated to unification for a limited period of time. In reality his support for German Unification was paper-thin. When the moment came to unify Germany as a Liberal state, the king blinked. On April 3rd, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament offered Freidrich-Wilhelm IV the Imperial Crown of Germany. The King flatly refused saying that he would not accept “a crown from the gutter”.

It is interesting to note that the king did not want to unify Germany under his Hohenzollern dynasty. The King had romantic aspiration were to re-establish the medieval Holy Roman Empire, comprising smaller, semi-sovereign monarchies under the limited authority of a Habsburg emperor. Therefore Friedrich-Wilhelm IV would only accept the imperial crown if he had been elected by the German princes, as per the former empire’s ancient customs. He would not accept the crown from German politicians whom the king did not believe had the authority to create an emperor. He expressed this sentiment in a letter to his sister the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia (wife of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia), in which he said the Frankfurt Parliament had overlooked that “in order to give, you would first of all have to be in possession of something that can be given.” In his eyes, only a reconstituted College of Electors (consisting of princes of the Empire) could possess such authority.

After the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament even King Freiedrich-Wilhelm IV began considering a Prussian-led union where all German states, excluding those ruled by the Habsburgs, would be unified under Hohenzollern authority. However, Friedrich-Wilhelm IV abandoned the idea of German Unity after the Punctuation of Olmütz on November 29, 1850, in the face of renewed Austrian and Russian resistance to the notion of a Hohenzollern controlled German Empire. The German Confederation remained the common government of German Europe.

One of the benefits of these failures was that Friedrich-Wilhelm IV promulgated a new constitution that created a Parliament of Prussia with two chambers, an aristocratic upper house and an elected lower house. The lower house was elected by all taxpayers, but in a three-tiered system based on the amount of taxes paid, so that true liberal principle of universal suffrage was denied. The constitution also reserved to the king the power of appointing all ministers, reestablished the conservative district assemblies and provincial diets, and guaranteed that the civil service and the military remained firmly in the hands of the king. This was a more liberal system than had existed in Prussia before 1848, but it was still a conservative system of government in which the monarch, the aristocracy, and the military retained most of the power. This constitution remained in effect until the dissolution of the Prussian kingdom in 1918.

After 1850, the increasingly depressed king withdrew from the public eye and began surrounding himself with advisers who preached absolute orthodoxy and conservatism in religious and political matters. In 1857 a stroke left the king partially paralyzed and largely mentally incapacitated, and his brother (and heir-presumptive) Prince Wilhelm served as regent from 1858 until the king’s death in 1861, at which point the regent acceded to the throne himself as Wilhelm I of Prussia.

Next week. German unification under Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bismark.

Divided by War: Austro-Prussian War 1866

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Austria, German Unification, Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine, Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Otto von Bismark, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prussia, Queen Victoria of Great Britain

Often when I think of monarchy I envision a family, royal family, or, if you will, a national family. In the context of a national family which represents the nation it leaves out a part of their story and who they are. Throughout history royal families have been large extended families that often transcend national boarders. We can see this played out during the Victorian era when the numerous descendants of Victoria and Prince Albert were scattered about Europe. With centuries of inter-marriage the royal families of Europe, were in truth a grand family with many branches. Although we mere commoners may not have the degrees of consanguinity that the royals have, we too often belong to large extended families that may be scattered about all over the globe. We also, through our ethnic heritage may share kinship with more people than we are aware of. A problem that occurs when large extended families are separated by geography and culture and nationality it can place family members in conflicting positions both socially and politically.

One of the examples of that was during the 1866 War between Prussia and Austria. This war was part of the plan in uniting Germany under Prussian leadership that Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismark had constructed. The origins of the war are complex and worthy of a series of blog posts of its own, so I will only give you a brief synopsis. In 1864 there was a great controversy over the ownership of the thrones of the united Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. When the succession to that throne was contested between Denmark and Prussia war ensued with Denmark being easily trounced by Prussia. At this time both the Hohenzollerns of Prussia and the Habsburgs of Austria were wrestling for supremacy over the German nation and to see who would become the central power within Germany. Bismark desired a Germany with Prussia as its head and he found no room for Austria in this system. After the 1864 war with Denmark both Austria and Prussia took jurisdiction over the twin duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The next step in German unification for Bismark was to remove Austria from German interests and to do this he goaded them into War. With Prussia at war with Austria many of the smaller, or lesser, German states in southern Germany, sided with Austria. Like the US Civil War which happened in that same decade, this conflict divided families, even royal families.

This conflict affected two sisters specifically, Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, and Hereditary Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse and By Rhine. Prior to their marriage they were both princesses of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Victoria, was the Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, and Princess Alice was their second daughter. In 1858 Victoria married the future German Kaiser and King of Prussia, Friedrich III. In 1862 Alice married the future Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine. Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia was commander of one of the three division sof the Prussian Army and he was an essential leader in the Prussian victory at the Battle of Königgrätz on July 3, 1866. Prince Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine found himself on the side with Austria and pitted against Prussia. He was a front line officer in a Hessian Regiment. With Prussia easily winning this war, Vicky was proud of the victories and accomplishments of her husband. However, Ludwig was feared for his life as Prussian troops marched into Darmstadt, the capital of the Hessian Grand Duchy.

Vicky and Alice, despite being on opposite sides of the war did have a strong relationship through the short conflict. Although Crown Prince Friedrich was a succesful leader during the conflict he was personally against the war. That did have some solace in easing family tensions. All of the parties mentioned wanted Great Britain to mediate the conflict but all efforts were squashed by Bismark. during this time Vicky had a tragedy. Days prior to her husband’s triumphant victory at the Battle of Königgrätz their son, Prince Sigismund, died of meningitis at 21 months and was the first grandchild of Queen Victoria to die. Therefore this tragedy also helped to detract Vicky from the war.

Another aspect of their relationship which helped them through the war was the fact that both being intellectual they were brought together over recent developments in both science and philosophy that made them both question their Christian faith. Liberal Biblical scholarship was in its infancy in 1866 but it had left the sisters to question some of the historical accuracy of the faith. They were also interested Darwin’s book, Origin of the Species, published in 1859. Their enlightened attitudes put them in disfavor with their mother, Queen Victoria, who could easily show favoritism or displeasure not only her children but anyone who displeased her and these new attitudes of her daughters did just that. It is interesting to see that royal families have petty squabbles just like the rest of us.