Charles II of Navarre

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Charles II (October 10, 1332, Évreux, – January 1, 1387, Pamplona), called "Charles the Bad," was King of Navarre 1349–1387 and Count of Évreux 1343–1387.

Besides the Pyrenean Kingdom of Navarre, he had extensive lands in Normandy, inherited from his father, Count Philip of Évreux, and his mother, Queen Joan II of Navarre, who had received them as compensation for resigning her claims to France, Champagne, and Brie in 1328. Thus, in Northern France, Charles possessed Évreux, Mortain, parts of Vexin, and a portion of Cotentin. He was a major player at a critical juncture in the Hundred Years War between France and England, allying alternately with both powers and repeatedly switching sides in order to further his own agenda.

[edit] Life

Coat of arms of Charles II

Since his father was first cousin to King Philip VI of France and his mother Joan of Navarre was the only child of King Louis X, Charles of Navarre was 'born of the fleur de lys on both sides', as he liked to point out, but he succeeded to a shrunken inheritance as far as his French lands were concerned. After he succeeded to the crown of Navarre in October 1349 Charles II visited his kingdom to be crowned in summer 1350 but otherwise apart from short visits spent the first 12 years of his reign almost entirely in France; he regarded Navarre principally as a source of manpower with which to advance his designs to become a major power in France. He hoped for a long time for recognition of his claim to the crown of France (as son of the daughter of King Louis X and as great-grandson - in unbroken male descent - of Philip III).

[edit] The murder of Charles de la Cerda and relations with John II (1351-1356)

Charles II served as Royal Lieutenant in Languedoc in 1351 and commanded the army which captured Port-Saint-Marie on the Garonne in 1352. The same year he married Joan, the daughter of King John II of France.^[1] He soon became jealous of the Constable of France, Charles de la Cerda, who was to be a beneficiary of the fiefdoms of Champagne, Brie, and Angoulême. Charles of Navarre felt he was entitled to these territories as they had belonged to his mother, the Queen of Navarre but they had been taken from her by the French kings for a paltry sum in compensation.^[2] After publicly quarrelling with Charles de la Cerda in Paris at Christmas 1353, Navarre arranged the assassination of the Constable, which took place at the village of l'Aigle (January 8, 1354), his brother Philip of Navarre leading the murderers. Charles made no secret of his role in the murder, and within a few days was intriguing with the English for military support against his father-in-law King John II, whose favourite the Constable had been.^[3] John II was preparing to attack his son-in-law's territories, but Charles's overtures of alliance to King Edward III of England led John instead to make peace with the King of Navarre by the Treaty of Mantes of 22 February 1354, by which Charles enlarged his possessions and was outwardly reconciled with John II. The English, who had been preparing to invade France for a joint campaign with Charles against the French, felt they had been double-crossed: not for the last time, Charles had used the threat of an English alliance to wrest concessions out of the French king.

John the Good, king of France, ordering the arrest of Charles the Bad, king of Navarre; from the Chroniques of Jean Froissart.

Relations between Charles and John II deteriorated afresh and John invaded Charles's territories in Normandy in late 1354 while Charles intrigued with Edward III's emissary, Henry, Duke of Lancaster at the fruitless peace negotiations between England and France held at Avignon in the winter of 1354-55. Once again Charles changed sides: the threat of a renewed English invasion forced John II to make a new agreement of reconciliation with him, sealed by the Treaty of Valognes on 10 September 1355. This agreement, too, did not last. Charles befriended and was thought to be trying to influence the Dauphin, and was apparently involved in a botched coup d'etat in December 1355 whose purpose appears to have been to replace John II with the Dauphin.^[4] John amended matters by making his son Duke of Normandy, but Charles of Navarre continued to advise the Dauphin how to govern that province. There were also continued rumours of his plots against the king, and on 5 April 1356 John II and a group of supporters burst unannounced into the Dauphin's castle at Rouen, arrested Charles of Navarre and imprisoned him. Four of his principal supporters (two of whom had been among the assassins of Charles de la Cerda) were beheaded and their bodies suspended from chains. Charles was taken to Paris and then moved from prison to prison for greater security.^[5]

[edit] Charles against the Dauphin (1356-1358)

Charles remained in prison after John II was defeated and captured by the English at the Battle of Poitiers. But many of his partisans were active in the Estates General which endeavoured to govern and reform France in the power-vacuum created by the King's imprisonment while much of the country degenerated into anarchy. They continually pressed the Dauphin to release him. Meanwhile his brother Philip of Navarre threw in his lot with the invading English army of the Duke of Lancaster and made war on the Dauphin's forces throughout Nomandy. Eventually on 9 November 1357 Charles was sprung from his prison in the castle of Arleux by a band of 30 men from Amiens led by Jean de Picquigny.^[6] Greeted as a hero when he entered Amiens, he was invited to enter Paris by the Estates General, which he did with a large retinue and was 'received like a newly-crowned monarch'.^[7] He addressed the populace on 30 November listing his grievances against those who had imprisoned him. Etienne Marcel led a 'demand for justice for the King of Navarre' which the Dauphin was unable to resist. Charles demanded an indemnity for all damage done to his territories while he had been imprisoned, free pardon for all his crimes and those of his supporters, and honourable burial for his associates executed by John II at Rouen. He also demanded the Dauphin's own Duchy of Normandy and the county of Champagne, which would have made him effectively ruler of northern France. The Dauphin was virtually powerless, but he and Charles were still in negotiations when news reached them that Edward III and John II had reached a peace agreement at Windsor. Knowing this could only be to his disadvantage, Charles had all the prisons in Paris opened to create anarchy and left Paris to build up his strength in Normandy.^[8] In his absence the Dauphin tried to assemble a military force of his own, but Charles meanwhile gave his executed followers a solemn state funeral in Rouen Cathedral on 10 January 1358 and effectively declared civil war, leading a combined Anglo-Navarrese force against the Dauphin's garrisons.

[edit] Charles, the Paris Revolution and the Jacquerie (1358)

Meanwhile Paris was in the throes of revolution. On 22 February the Dauphin's chief military officers, the marshals Jean de Conflans and Robert de Clermont were murdered before his eyes by a mob led by Etienne Marcel, who made the Dauphin a virtual prisoner and invited Charles of Navarre to return to the city, which he did on 26 February with a large armed retinue. The Dauphin was forced to agree to many of Charles's territorial demands and to promise to finance for him a standing army of 1,000 men for his personal use.^[9] However illness prevented Charles from escorting the Dauphin to meetings demanded by the nobility at Senlis and Provins, and the Dauphin was thus able to escape his Parisian and Navarrese guardians and open a campaign from the east against Charles and against revolutionary Paris. Etienne Marcel implored Charles to intercede with the Dauphin but he achieved nothing and the land around Paris began to be plundered both by Charles's forces and by the Dauphin's. In the last days of May the peasant rebellion of the Jacquerie erupted to the north of Paris as a spontaneous expression of hatred for the nobility that had brought France so low. Etienne Marcel publicly declared Parisian support for the Jacquerie. Unable to get help from the Dauphin, the knights of northern France appealed to Charles of Navarre to lead them against the peasants. Although he was allied with the Parisians, Charles was no lover of the peasantry and felt Marcel had made a fatal mistake. He could not resist the chance to appear as a leader of the French aristocracy and led the suppression of the Jacquerie at the Battle of Mello, 10 June 1358 and the subsequent massacres of rebels. He then returned to Paris and made an open bid for power urging the populace to elect him as 'Captain of Paris'.^[10]

This move lost Charles the support of many of the nobles who had supported him against the Jacquerie, and they began to abandon him for the Dauphin while he recruited soldiers - mainly English mercenaries - for the 'defence' of Paris, though his men, picketed outside the city, raided and plundered far and wide. Realizing the Dauphin's forces were much stronger than his, Charles opened negotiations with the Dauphin, who made him substantial offers of cash and land if he could induce the Parisians to surrender. They, however, distrusted this deal between princes and refused the terms outright; Charles agreed to fight on as their captain but demanded that his troops be billetted in the city. Before long there were anti-English riots in the city and Charles, with Etienne Marcel, was forced by the mob to lead them against the marauding garrisons to the north and west of the city - against his own men. He led them (no doubt deliberately) into an English ambush in the woods near the bridge of St Cloud and about 600 Parisians were killed.^[11]

[edit] Charles capitulates (1359-60)

After this Charles abandoned Paris and stayed outside the city at the Abbey of St Denis while the revolution burned itself out, Etienne Marcel was killed, and the Dauphin regained control of Paris. Meanwhile he opened negotiations with the English King, proposing that Edward III and he should divide France between themselves: if Edward would invade France and help him defeat the Dauphin, he would recognize Edward as King of France and do homage to him for the territories of Normandy, Picardy, Champagne and Brie.^[12] But the English king no longer trusted Charles and both he and the captive John II regarded him as an obstacle to peace. On 24 March 1359 Edward and John concluded a new treaty in London whereby John would be released back to France on payment of a huge ransom and would make over to Edward III large tracts of French territory - including all of Charles of Navarre's French lands. Unless Charles submitted and accept suitable (undefined) compensation elsewhere, the Kings of England and France would jointly make war on him.^[13] However the Estates General refused to accept the treaty, urging the Dauphin to continue the war. At this Edward III lost patience and decided to invade France himself. Charles of Navarre's military position in Northern France had deteriorated under attacks from the Dauphin's forces throughout the spring, and with the news of Edward's impending invasion Charles decided he must reach an accommodation with the Dauphin. After protracted haggling the two leaders met near Pontoise on 19 August 1359; on the second day Charles of Navarre publicly renounced all his demands for territory and money, saying he wanted nothing more than what he had at the beginning of hostilities and 'wanted nothing more than to do his duty to his country'. It is unclear whether he was actuated by patriotism in the face of an imminent English invasion, or had decided to bide his time until a more favourable juncture to renew his campaign.^[14] After the comparative failure of Edward's campaign in the winter of 1359-60 (the Dauphin did not offer battle and pursued a 'scorched earth' policy with the populace seeking shelter in the walled towns while the English endured terrible weather) a final peace treaty was agreed between Edward III and John II at Brétigny, while John II concluded a separate peace with Charles of Navarre at Calais. Charles was forgiven his crimes against France and restored to all his rights and properties; 300 of his followers received a royal pardon. In return he renewed his homage to the French crown and promised to help clear the French provinces of the marauding companies of Anglo-Navarrese mercenaries, many of which he was responsible for releasing in the first place.^[15]

[edit] The Burgundian Inheritance and the loss of Normandy (1361-1365)

In 1361, after the premature death of his second cousin, Duke Philip I of Burgundy, Charles claimed the Duchy of Burgundy by primogeniture. He was the grandson of Margaret of Burgundy, eldest daughter of Duke Robert II of Burgundy (d. 1306). However, the duchy was taken by John II, son of Joan of Burgundy, second daughter of Duke Robert II, who claimed it in proximity of blood, and made provision that after his death it would pass to his favourite son Philippe.

To have become Duke of Burgundy would have given Charles the position at the centre of French politics that he had always craved, and the abrupt dismissal of his claim provoked fresh bitterness. After the failure of an attempt to win the Pope to his claim, Charles returned to his kingdom of Navarre in November 1361. He was soon plotting afresh to become a power in France. A planned rising of his supporters in Normandy in May 1362 was an abject failure, but in 1363 he evolved an ambitious plan to form two armies in 1364, one of which would go by sea to Normandy and the other, under his brother Louis, would join forces with the Gascons operating with the Great Company in Central France and invade Burgundy, thus threatening the French King from both sides of his realm. In January 1364 Charles met Edward, the Black Prince at Agen in order to negotiate the passage of his troops through the English-held duchy of Aquitaine, to which the Prince agreed perhaps because of his friendship with Charles’s new military adviser Jean III de Grailly, captal de Buch, who had been betrothed to Charles sister and was to lead his army to Normandy.^[16] In March 1364 the Captal marched towards Normandy to secure Charles’s domains.

John II of France had returned to London to negotiate with Edward III, and the defence of France was once more in the hands of the Dauphin. There was already a royal army in Normandy besieging the town of Rolleboise, nominally commanded by the Count of Auxerre but actually generalled by Bertrand du Guesclin. Charles's designs were well known in advance and in early April 1364 this force seized many of Charles’s remaining strongholds before the Captal de Buch could reach Normandy. When he arrived he started concentrating his forces around Evreux, which still held out for Charles. He then led his army against the royal forces to the east. On 16 May 1364 he was defeated by du Guesclin at the Battle of Cocherel. John II had died in England in April, and news of the victory of Cocherel reached the Dauphin on 18 May at Reims, where on the following day he was crowned Charles V of France.^[17] He immediately confirmed his brother Philippe as Duke of Burgundy.

Undeterred by this resounding defeat, Charles of Navarre persisted in his grand design. In August 1364 his men began a fight back in Normandy while a small Navarrese army under Rodrigo de Uriz sailed from Bayonne to Cherbourg. Meanwhile Charles's brother Louis of Navarre led an army across the Black Prince's territories and across France, evading the French royal forces sent to intercept him and arrived in Normandy on 23 September.

[edit] Marriage and children

He married Joan of France (1343–1373), daughter of king John II of France. He had the following children by Joan:

1. Marie (1360, Puente la Reina – aft. 1400), married in Tudela on January 20, 1393 Alfonso d'Aragona, Duke of Gandia (d. 1412)
2. Charles III of Navarre (1361–1425)
3. Bonne (1364 – aft. 1389)
4. Peter d'Évreux, Count of Mortain (c. March 31, 1366, Évreux – c. July 29, 1412, Bourges), married in Alençon on April 21, 1411 Catherine (1380–1462), daughter of Peter II of Alençon
5. Philip (b. 1368), d. young
6. Joanna of Navarre (1370–1437), married first John V, Duke of Brittany, married second Henry IV of England
7. Blanca (1372–1385, Olite)

[edit] Death

Charles's horrific death by being burnt alive became famous all over Europe, and was often cited by moralists, and sometimes illustrated in illuminated manuscript chronicles.^[18] There are various contemporary versions that vary in detail: this is Francis Blagdon's English account, of 1801:

Charles the Bad, having fallen into such a state of decay that he could not make use of his limbs, consulted his physician, who ordered him to be wrapped up from head to foot, in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy, so that he might be inclosed (sic) in it to the very neck as in a sack. It was night when this remedy was administered. One of the female attendants of the palace, charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissars, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Jonathan Sumption, Trial by Fire: The Hundred Years War II (London: Faber & Faber, 1999), pp. 107-8.
2. ^ Sumption(1999), p. 103.
3. ^ Sumption(1999), pp. 124-5.
4. ^ Sumption(1999), pp. 199-200.
5. ^ Sumption(1999), pp. 206-7.
6. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 294-5.
7. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 295-6.
8. ^ Sumption (1999), p. 302.
9. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 314-15.
10. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 317-337.
11. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 338-344.
12. ^ Sumption (1999), p. 348.
13. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 400-401.
14. ^ Sumption (1999), p. 418-21.
15. ^ Sumption (1999), p. 453.
16. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 504-5.
17. ^ Sumption (1999), pp. 508-11.
18. ^ Barbara Tuchman;A Distant Mirror, 1978, Alfred A Knopf Ltd

[edit] External links

• The Daily Lush
• Britannica Entry