KING CHARLES V OF FRANCE

Charles V (1338-1380)

Charles V, born in 1338, king of France from 1364 to 1380, was the eldest son of John II the Good, who reigned from 1350 to 1364. A descendant of the royal Capetian dynasty (named for its founder, Hugh Capet), Charles was the third sovereign to issue from the Capetian branch of the Valois, successors to the direct-line Capetians who died out with Charles IV the Fair in 1328. (The problem of succession that arose on that occasion was a principal cause of the long conflict between France and England known as the Hundred Years' War). As duke of Normandy and dauphin of Viennois from 1350 to 1364, the young prince lived through the particularly trying and politically troubled period that marked the onset of the Hundred Years' War. In its first phase, French troops suffered two very serious setbacks : at Crécy (1346) and more especially at Poitiers (1356), where King John the Good was taken captive by the English . Save for a brief interval on the Continent from 1361 to 1364, the French king spent his final years in England and died while still the hostage of King Edward III in 1364. Though young and inexperienced, Charles as dauphin had to deal with the consequences of France's defeat and the ensuing crisis of the monarchy in particularly daunting circumstances, including a rebellion in Paris led by Etienne Marcel , provost of merchants ; peasant uprisings (" Jacqueries " ) in the countryside ; and the endless plotting of his cousin, Charles the Bad, king of Navarre . Thus when he ascended the throne in 1364 , Charles V was already a precociously mature ruler. He managed the conflict with Edward III prudently, preferring to temporize and to alternate legal proceedings with a war of attrition which he waged quite successfully. He entrusted his armies to the Breton nobleman Bertrand du Guesclin, victor of the battle of Cocherel (1364), who rid the kingdom of the mercenary Free Companies by marching them off to make war on Spain. On the diplomatic front in Europe, Charles cemented alliances with Milan, which was ruled by his brother-in-law Gian Galeazzo Visconti. His kinship with the Luxemburg family (through his mother, Bona of Luxemburg, he was the nephew of Emperor Charles IV) secured him the benevolent neutrality of the Empire. The closing years of Charles V's reign were dulled by the return to Rome in 1378 of the papacy which, when it move to Avignon in 1309, touched off the Great Western Schism, a momentous event that split European Christendom asunder until well into the fifteenth century.

In the cultural sphere, the reign of Charles V marked a high point. Sweeping urban and architectural projects were undertaken, including major improvements in the defensive system of Paris such as the new wall surrounding the city, the completion of Vincennes, the construction of the Bastille, and the remodeling of the Louvre and the hôtel Saint-Pol. The sculptor Andre Beauneveu was invited to court and commissioned to design the royal tombs at Saint-Denis. Charles V was an especially active patron of literature. He had texts of historical interest such as the Grandes Chroniques de France (Great Chronicles of France) continued and brought up to date ; moreover, in the interest of his subjects the sovereign, known also as Charles the Wise, instituted a sagacious policy of commissioning French translations of important texts in a variety of intellectual fields : theology, philosophy and political philosophy, morals, history, natural sciences, astronomy and astrology (the latter was regarded as a useful guide in political matters), history, and geography. To carry out the translation project, he called upon a group of intellectuals of the first rank (Raoul de Presles and Nicolas Oresme most notably, but also Jean Corbechon, translator of the encyclopedistBartholomaeus Anglicus). At the same time, Charles amassed an unprecedented book collection, with volumes housed in all the royal residences but installed mainly at the Louvre on three floors of the northwest tower, called the Falconry. The first inventory of the library at the Louvre was drawn up in 1373 by Gilles Malet, keeper of the king's books. A verification of this inventory in 1380 described 910 volumes. Another portion of the royal library, made up of the most luxurious volumes, formed a kind of memorial to the dynasty's glory and was kept within the thick walls of the keep at Vincennes along with other precious art objects from the king's collections. A detailed inventory was prepared in 1380, the year of the king's death. Some one hundred manuscripts from Charles V's various libraries have survived : two of the most precious are the Grandes Chroniques de France and the Catalan Atlas. Royal patronage stimulated manuscript painting in Paris, where the art flourished anew at the close of the fourteenth century. Charles V's opulent tastes were imitated by his brothers,Louis of Anjou, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and especially John of Berry. And following the royal example, certain great lords also encouraged translations : Gaston Phoebus for example, to whom an Occitan translation of Bartholomew the Englishman's Liber de proprietatibus rerum was dedicated. The court's artistic activity was copied all over Europe ; its influence extended as far as Barcelona, in the Breviary of Martin of Aragon.

Emperor Charles iv of luxemburg

Charles IV of Luxemburg (1316-1378)

Elected king of the Romans in 1346 and king of Bohemia the following year, Charles IV of Luxemburg was crowned emperor at Rome in 1355 and retained the imperial title until his death in 1378. During his reign imperial policy refocused on the Germanic sphere and abandoned the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire as a universal monarchy. Charles IV concentrated his energies chiefly on the economic and intellectual development of Bohemia. He founded the university of Prague in 1348 and encouraged the early humanists ; he is known to have corresponded with Petrarch. Owing to his activity as a builder and patron, art and architecture flourished in his capital (construction of the Charles Bridge and of the Radschin, completion of Saint Vitus's cathedral by Peter Parler). From the reign of Charles IV dates the first flowering of manuscript painting in Prague. In 1356 he issued the Golden Bull which codified the procedures for imperial elections.

His French education left a lasting mark on Charles IV of Luxemburg, eldest son of John of Luxemburg. The latter, known as John the Blind, king of Bohemia, was an ardent francophile and patron of the poet Guillaume de Machaut ; he died at Crécy in 1346 while fighting on the French side. Charles's sister, Bona, married the eldest son of Philip VI of Valois, the future John II the Good, in 1335. Thus, Emperor Charles IV of Luxemburg was the maternal uncle of King Charles V, who solicited his relative's advice at Metz in 1356 during the Parisian revolt. This family connection was celebrated publicly when Charles IV made a solemn visit to his nephew in 1378, just months before his death . A detailed account of the occasion, enriched by many splendid miniatures, can be found in Charles V's copy of the Grandes Chroniques de France (BNF, Fr 2813).

king Henry VIII

Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509, before he was eighteen years old. He had originally been the second son in his family, and had been educated to become a churchman. He was better versed in academics and the arts than the average prince of his time. He was noted for his musicianship, learning, poetry and athletic prowess. He was considered extremely handsome, was over six feet tall and slender, and had golden hair.

When Henry came to the throne, he was the possessor of one of the largest fortunes in Europe, accumulated by his father, Henry VII. He was far more interested in renovating the court and surrounding himself with scholars and artists, leaving much of the governing of England to Thomas Wolsey. He married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon after his father's death, and before he was crowned. It is notable that he had no material reason to marry Catherine. She had briefly been his brother, Arthur's wife, and her dowry had long been absorbed into the royal treasury. She lived in poverty at Henry 's court, and was in the process of returning to Spain when Henry VII died and the new king, Henry VIII, took her as his bride.

 

Henry and Catherine had only one child who survived infancy, Princess Mary. It was his lack of a male heir that led Henry to decide to put Catherine aside. At the time, a woman inheriting the throne of England would bring it to whatever man she married as her dowry. Henry couldn't bear the idea of England being ruled as a territory of another country by Mary's future husband.

 

After Henry failed to have his marriage to Catherine annulled by the Pope, he declared himself Supreme Head of the Church in England. His marriage to Catherine was annulled, and she was eventually sent into retirement in the country. The Act of Supremacy was drawn up, to which all loyal British subjects were to swear. Catherine and Princess Mary refused, as did Sir Thomas More.

Henry, desperate for an heir, and in love with Anne Boleyn, a maid of honour to Catherine, began to have his subjects who refused to swear to the Act of Supremacy put to death. Though Catherine and Mary were threatened with execution, they were spared, though Thomas More, Bishop Fisher and many other people lost their lives when they refused to denounce their loyalty to the Pope.

The date of Henry's marriage to Anne is uncertain, but they were married in early 1533. She gave birth to Princess Elizabeth in September of that year. Successive pregnancies failed to produce the son that Henry wanted desperately. Anne was accused of adultery and incest,treasonous crimes in a King's consort, and was executed in 1536.

 

Catherine of Aragon had died during Henry's three year marriage to Anne, so he found himself unmarried and without a male heir at forty-five, after more than twenty years of marriage to two different women. During his troubled marriage to Anne, his eye had fallen on yet another maid of honour in service to the Queen, Jane Seymour.

Jane was a quiet young woman who seemed to be a calming influence on Henry, who had become increasingly erratic and brutal over time. Unfortunately, their marriage was short lived, as she died of puerperal fever in 1537, shortly after giving birth to Henry's long desired son, who would become Edward VI. Henry seems to have truly mourned Jane, and remained unmarried for three years after her death.

In 1540, Henry entered an arranged marriage with Anna of Cleves. Now the Supreme Head of the Church of England, it was expedient for Henry to cement diplomatic ties with the Lutheran Germanic states.

Anna's appearance, when she arrived in England, was a disappointment to Henry. He had the marriage dissolved almost immediately, but Anna drove a hard bargain in accepting an annulment. She was presented with several properties, including Richmond Palace, she retained "visitation rights" with Edward, Elizabeth and the now\ grown Princess Mary, and she was styled Henry's "most beloved sister".

 

Now suffering from poor health, including gross obesity, a leg ulcer that refused to heal, and sporadic attacks of "dropsy" or edema, Henry entered old age. During his brief marriage to Anna, his eye had fallen on one of her maids of honour (Henry had quite a taste for maids of honour), Katherine Howard.

Katherine was between sixteen and nineteen when she married Henry. Orphaned at an early age, she had led a largely unsupervised and unchaste life up until the time she caught the eye of the King. Her past indiscretions caught up with her after she and Henry were married and were compounded by an affair she had after becoming Queen. She was executed in 1542.

In seriously declining health, Henry knew he would likely die and leave Edward to inherit as a minor. A boy king was in danger of becoming a puppet at the hands of his Protectorate. Henry kept his courtiers on tenterhooks through the final years of his reign as he continually revised his will, which he kept secret until the last.

Katherine Parr was a serious woman who had twice before been married to ailing old men. She was well acquainted with the rigors of nursing an elderly sick husband. She was also a Protestant, and entertained Henry with theological discussions. She befriended his estranged daughters and reunited his family. She managed to survive her unpredictable husband.

Henry VIII died in 1547, after months of illness. He left one legitimate heir, Edward VI, a frail child of nine. Henry's daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, long declared illegitimate, posed serious threats to the throne of their brother. England had ceased to be a Catholic country with allegiance to Rome during Henry's reign, though it was torn between Catholic and Protestant factions during the reigns of Edward and then Mary I. Henry's interest in culture and education had converted his court from a medieval establishment into a center of Renaissance culture. This cultural emphasis reached full flower during the reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I.