February 1, 1328: Death of King Charles IV of France and Navarre

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Blanche of Burgundy, Charles IV of France, Charles of Valois, Edward II of England, Jeanne d'Évreux, King of France and Navarre, Marie of Luxembourg, Philippe VI of France, Pope John XXII, Tour de Nesle Affair

Charles IV (June 18/19, 1294 – February 1, 1328), called the Fair in France and the Bald in Navarre, was King of France and King of Navarre (as Charles I) from 1322 to 1328. Charles IV was the last king of the direct line of the House of Capét,

Charles was the third son of Philippe IV and Joan I, Queen of Navarre and Countess of Champagne from 1274 until 1305; the daughter of King Henri I of Navarre and Blanche of Artois.

Charles IV-I, King of France and Navarre

By virtue of the birthright of his mother, Joan I of Navarre, Charles claimed the title Charles I, King of Navarre. From 1314 to his accession to the throne, he held the title of Count of La Marche and was crowned King of France in 1322 at the cathedral in Reims.

Unlike Philippe IV and Philippe V, Charles IV is reputed to have been a relatively conservative, “strait-laced” king – he was “inclined to forms and stiff-necked in defence of his prerogatives”, while disinclined either to manipulate them to his own ends or achieve wider reform.

Beginning in 1323 Charles was confronted with a peasant revolt in Flanders, and in 1324 he made an unsuccessful bid to be elected Holy Roman Emperor.

As Duke of Guyenne, King Edward II of England was a vassal of Charles, but he was reluctant to pay homage to another king. In retaliation, Charles conquered the Duchy of Guyenne in a conflict known as the War of Saint-Sardos (1324). In a peace agreement, Edward II accepted to swear allegiance to Charles and to pay a fine. In exchange, Guyenne was returned to Edward but with a much-reduced territory.

Marriages

In 1308 Charles married his first wife, Blanche of Burgundy, the daughter of Count Otto IV of Burgundy and Countess Mahaut of Artois, she was led to a disastrous marriage by her mother’s ambition.

Eight years before her husband’s accession to the thrones, early in 1314, Blanche and her sisters-in-law Margaret of Burgundy, and her own sister, Joan of Burgundy were allegedly caught in an act of adultery in the Tour de Nesle Affair. Charles IV’s sister, and their sister-in-law, Isabella of France was a witness against them.

As were their cousin Blanche of Burgundy, Margaret and Joan of Burgundy were members of the ducal House of Burgundy, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Margaret and Joan were the daughters of Robért II, Duke of Burgundy (1248–1306) and Agnes of France (1260–1327), the youngest daughter of Louis IX of France and Margaret of Provence.

Margaret of Burgundy had married her first cousin once removed, Louis X, King of France and Navarre. Joan of Burgundy had married Philippe of Valois, Louis X’s cousin, in July 1313. From 1314 to 1328, they were count and countess of Maine; Philippe of Valois became Philippe VI of France in 1328.

Blanche was arrested and found guilty of adultery with a Norman knight. Margaret was imprisoned at Château Gaillard along with her sister-in-law Blanche of Burgundy. Joan of Burgundy was acquitted of the charge of adultery.

Blanche was imprisoned and not released even after becoming queen, until her marriage was annulled when she was moved to the coast of Normandy. After Charles assumed the throne he refused to release Blanche, their marriage was annulled, and Blanche retreated to a nunnery.

The date and place of her death are unknown; the mere fact that she died was simply mentioned on the occasion of her husband’s third marriage in April 1326.

Blanche had given birth to two children, Philippe and Joan, but both of them died young and Charles IV needed a son and heir to carry on the House of Capet.

On September 21, 1322 in either Paris or Provins Charles IV married Marie of Luxembourg, the daughter Heinrich VII, Holy Roman Emperor and Margaret of Brabant.

On May 15, 1323 Marie was consecrated Queen of France at Sainte-Chapelle by Guillaume de Melum, Archbishop of Sens. In the same year she became pregnant but she later miscarried a girl.

Whilst pregnant again in March 1324, Marie and Charles IV were travelling to Avignon to visit the pope when Marie fell out of the bottom of the coach. As a result, she went into labour and her child, a boy (Louis), was born prematurely, and died several hours later; Queen Marie died on March 26, 1324 and was buried at Montargis in the Dominican church.

Charles IV married again in 1325, this time to Jeanne d’Évreux: she was his first cousin, the daughter of Louis, Count of Évreux and Margaret of Artois. Since Jeanne was Charles’s first cousin, the couple required papal permission to marry, which they obtained from Pope John XXII.

They had three daughters, Jeanne, Marie and Blanche, who were unable to inherit the throne under principles of the Salic Law. The royal couple’s lack of sons caused the end of the direct line of the Capetian dynasty.

During half of his reign Charles IV relied heavily on his uncle, Charles of Valois, for advice and to undertake key military tasks.

Charles of Valois was a powerful magnate in his own right, a key advisor to Louis X, and he had made a bid for the regency in 1316, initially championing Louis X’s daughter Joan, before finally switching sides and backing Philippe V. Charles of Valois would have been aware that if Charles died without male heirs, he and his male heirs would have a good claim to the crown.

After the death of Charles of Valois, Charles became increasingly interested in a French intervention in Byzantium, taking the cross in 1326. Andronicus II responded by sending an envoy to Paris in 1327, proposing peace and discussions on ecclesiastical union.

A French envoy sent in return with Pope John XXII’s blessing later in the year, however, found Byzantium beset with civil war, and negotiations floundered. The death of Charles the next year prevented any French intervention in Byzantium.

Charles IV died on February 1, 1328 at the Château de Vincennes, Val-de-Marne, and is interred with his third wife, Jeanne d’Évreux, in Saint Denis Basilica, with his heart buried at the now-demolished church of the Couvent des Jacobins in Paris.

When Charles IV died without a male heir, the senior line of the House of Capet, descended from Philippe IV, became extinct. He was succeeded in Navarre by his niece Joan II and in France by his paternal first cousin Philippe of Valois.

However, the dispute on the succession to the French throne between the Valois monarchs descended in male line from Charles’s grandfather Philippe III of France, and the English monarchs descended from Charles’s sister Isabella, was a factor of the Hundred Years’ War.

September 5, 1638: Birth of Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre

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Anne of Austria, Henry IV of France and Navarre, House of Bourbon, Infanta of Spain, King of France and Navarre, Louis VII, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Marie de' Medici, Philip IV of Spain and Portugal

Louis XIV was born on September 5, 1638 in the Château deSaint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given) and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent: Dauphin. At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631. Leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God.

Here is some background information on his parents and his birth.

Louis XIII (September 27, 1601 – May 14, 1643) was King of France from 1610 to 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown.

Born at the Palace of Fontainebleau, Louis XIII was the eldest child of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and his second wife Marie de’ Medici. As son of the king, he was a Fils de France (“son of France”), and as the ⁷eldest son, Dauphin of France. His father Henri IV was the first French king of the House of Bourbon, having succeeded his second cousin, Henri III (1574–1589), in application of Salic law.

Louis XIII’s paternal grandparents were Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, and Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre. His maternal grandparents were Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Joanna of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Eleonora de’ Medici, his maternal aunt, was his godmother. As a child, he was raised under the supervision of the royal governess Françoise de Montglat.

Shortly before his ninth birthday, Louis became king of France and Navarre after his father Henri IV was assassinated. His mother, Marie de’ Medici, acted as regent during his minority. Mismanagement of the kingdom and ceaseless political intrigues by Marie and her Italian favourites led the young king to take power in 1617 by exiling his mother and executing her followers, including Concino Concini, the most influential Italian at the French court.

Louis XIII, taciturn and suspicious, relied heavily on his chief ministers, first Charles d’Albert, duc de Luynes and then Cardinal Richelieu, to govern the Kingdom of France. The King and the Cardinal are remembered for establishing the Académie française, and ending the revolt of the French nobility.

Anne of Austria (September 22, 1601 – January 20, 1666), a Spanish princess and an Austrian archduchess of the House of Habsburg, Anne was queen of France as the wife of Louis XIII, and regent of France during the minority of her son, Louis XIV, from 1643 to 1651. During her regency, Cardinal Mazarin served as France’s chief minister. Accounts of French court life of her era emphasize her difficult marital relations with her husband, her closeness to her son Louis XIV, and her disapproval of her son’s marital infidelity to her niece and daughter-in-law Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain.

Born at the Palace of the Counts of Benavente in Valladolid, Spain, and baptised Ana María Mauricia, she was the eldest daughter of King Felipe III of Spain and his wife Margaret of Austria, the daughter of Archduke Charles II of Austria and Maria Anna of Bavaria and thus the paternal granddaughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I.

Anne of Austria held the titles of Infanta of Spain and of Portugal (since her father was king of Portugal as well as Spain) and Archduchess of Austria. Despite her Spanish birth, she was referred to as Anne of Austria because the rulers of Spain belonged to the senior branch of the House of Austria, known later as the House of Habsburg, a designation relatively uncommon before the 19th century.

Anne was raised mainly at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid. Unusual for a royal princess, Anne grew up close to her parents, who were very religious. She was raised to be religious too, and was often taken to visit monasteries during her childhood. In 1611, she lost her mother, who died in childbirth. Despite her grief, Anne did her best to take care of her younger siblings, who referred to her with affection as their mother.

At age eleven, Anne was betrothed to King Louis XIII of France. Her father gave her a dowry of 500,000 crowns and many beautiful jewels. For fear that Louis XIII would die early, the Spanish court stipulated that she would return to Spain with her dowry, jewels, and wardrobe if he did die. Prior to the marriage, Anne renounced all succession rights she had for herself and her descendants by Louis, with a provision that she would resume her rights should she be left a childless widow.

On October 18, 1615, Louis and Anne were married by proxy in Burgos while Louis’s sister, Elisabeth of France, and Anne’s brother, Felipe IV of Spain, were married by proxy in Bordeaux. These marriages followed the tradition of cementing military and political alliances between France and Spain that began with the marriage of Felipe II of Spain to Elisabeth of Valois in 1559 as part of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis.

The couple were second cousins, by mutual descent from Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. This marriage followed a tradition of cementing military and political alliances between the Catholic powers of France and Spain with royal marriages. The tradition went back to the marriage of Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile. The marriage was only briefly happy, and the King’s duties often kept them apart.

Anne and Louis, both fourteen years old, were pressured to consummate their marriage in order to forestall any possibility of future annulment, but Louis ignored his bride. Louis’s mother, Marie de’ Medici, continued to conduct herself as queen of France, without showing any deference to her daughter-in-law. Anne, surrounded by her entourage of high-born Spanish ladies-in-waiting headed by Inés de la Torre, continued to live according to Spanish etiquette and failed to improve her French.

Anne began to dress in the French manner, and in 1619 Luynes pressed the king to bed his queen. Some affection developed, to the point where it was noted that Louis was distracted during a serious illness of the queen. A series of stillbirths disenchanted the king and served to chill their relations.

On March 14, 1622, while playing with her ladies, Anne fell on a staircase and suffered her second stillbirth. Louis blamed her for the incident and was angry with the Duchess of Luynes for having encouraged the queen in what was seen as negligence. Henceforth, the king had less tolerance for the influence that the duchess had over Anne, and the situation deteriorated after the death of her husband Luynes in December 1621.

Despite a climate of distrust, the queen became pregnant once more, a circumstance that contemporary gossip attributed to a single stormy night that prevented Louis from travelling to Saint-Maur and obliged him to spend the night with the queen. Louis XIV was born on September 5, 1638, an event that secured the Bourbon line. At this time, Anne was 37. The official newspaper Gazette de France called the birth “a marvel when it was least expected”.

The birth of a living son failed to re-establish confidence between the royal couple. However, she conceived again fifteen months later. At Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 21, 1640, Anne gave birth to her second son, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, who later founded the modern House of Orléans. Both of her children were placed under the supervision of the royal governess Françoise de Lansac, who was disliked by Anne and loyal to the king and the cardinal.