Charles VIII of France

Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable (30 June 1470 – 7 April 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He 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.
In a remarkable stroke of audacity, Charles married Anne of Brittany in 1491 after she had already been married by proxy to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in a ceremony of questionable validity. 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.
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, due to his revolutionary artillery, conquered the Italian peninsula without much opposition. A coalition formed against the French invasion of 1494–98 attempted to stop Charles' army at Fornovo, but failed and Charles marched his army back to France.
Charles died in 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 second cousin once removed and brother-in-law at the time, Louis XII from the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois.
Youth
Charles was born at the Château d'Amboise in France, the only surviving son of King Louis XI by his second wife Charlotte of Savoy. His godparents were Charles II, Duke of Bourbon (the godchild's namesake), Joan of Valois, Duchess of Bourbon, and the teenage Edward of Westminster, the son of Henry VI of England who had been living in France since the deposition of his father by Edward IV. Charles succeeded to the throne on 30 August 1483 at the age of 13. His health was poor. He was regarded by his contemporaries as possessing a pleasant disposition, but also as foolish and unsuited for the business of the state. In accordance with the wishes of Louis XI, the regency of the kingdom was granted to Charles' elder sister Anne, a formidably intelligent and shrewd woman described by her father as "the least foolish woman in France." She ruled as regent, together with her husband Peter of Bourbon, until 1491.
Marriage
Charles was betrothed on 22 July 1483 to the 3-year-old 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. 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, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, died in a riding accident, leaving his 11-year-old daughter Anne 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 Maximilian. 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 Frederick 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) and agree to be married to Charles VIII instead.
In December 1491, in an elaborate ceremony at the Château de Langeais, Charles and Anne of Brittany were married. The 14-year-old Duchess Anne, not happy with the arranged marriage, arrived for her wedding with her entourage carrying two beds. However, Charles's marriage brought him independence from his relatives and thereafter he managed affairs according to his own inclinations. Queen Anne lived at the Clos Lucé in Amboise.
There still remained the matter of Charles' first betrothed, the young Margaret of Austria. Although the cancellation of her betrothal meant that she by rights should have been returned to her family, Charles did not initially do so, intending to marry her usefully elsewhere in France. Eventually, in 1493, she was returned to her family, together with her dowry – though the Duchy of Burgundy was retained in the Treaty of Senlis.
Around the king there was a circle of court poets, the most memorable being the Italian humanist Publio Fausto Andrelini from Forlì, who spread Renaissance humanism in France. During a pilgrimage to pay respects to his father's remains, Charles observed Mont Aiguille and ordered Antoine de Ville to ascend to the summit in an early technical alpine climb, later alluded to by Rabelais.
Italian War
To secure France against invasions, Charles made treaties with Maximilian I of Austria (the Treaty of Barcelona with Maximilian of Austria on 19 January 1493) and England, (the Treaty of Étaples with England on 3 November 1492) buying their neutrality with large concessions. The English monarch Henry VII had forced Charles to abandon his support for the pretender Perkin Warbeck by despatching an expedition which laid siege to Boulogne. He devoted France's resources to building up a large army, including one of Europe's first siege trains with artillery.
In 1489, Pope Innocent VIII (1484–1492), then being at odds with Ferdinand I of Naples, offered Naples to Charles, who had a vague claim to the Kingdom of Naples through his paternal grandmother, Marie of Anjou. Innocent's policy of meddling in the affairs of other Italian states was continued by his successor, Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), when the latter supported a plan for a carving out a new state in central Italy. The new state would have impacted on Milan more than any of the other states involved. Consequently, in 1493, Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, appealed for help to Charles VIII. Charles then returned Perpignan to Ferdinand II of Aragon to free up forces for the invasion of Italy. The next year in 1494, Milan faced an additional threat. On 25 January 1494, Ferdinand I, King of Naples, died unexpectedly. His death made Alfonso II, king of Naples. Alfonso II laid claim to the Milanese duchy. Alfonso II now urged Charles to take Milan militarily. Charles was also urged on in this adventure by his favorite courtier, Étienne de Vesc. Thus, Charles came to imagine himself capable of actually taking Naples, and invaded Italy.
In an event that was to prove a watershed in Italian history, Charles invaded Italy with 25,000 men (including 8,000 Swiss mercenaries) in September 1494 and marched across the peninsula virtually unopposed, using gunpowder artillery powerful enough to rapidly reduce Italian fortifications not designed to endure it. He arrived in Pavia on 21 October 1494 and entered Pisa on 8 November 1494. The French army subdued Florence in passing on their way south. Reaching Naples on 22 February 1495, the French Army took Naples without a pitched battle or siege; Alfonso was expelled, and Charles was crowned King of Naples.
There were those in the Republic of Florence who appreciated the presence of the French king and his Army. The famous friar Savonarola believed that King Charles VIII was God's tool to purify the corruption of Florence. He believed that once Charles had ousted the evil sinners of Florence, the city would become a center of morality. Thus, Florence was the appropriate place to restructure the Church. This situation would eventually spill over into another conflict between Pope Alexander VI, who despised the idea of having the king in northern Italy where the Pope feared the King of France would interfere with the Papal States, and Savonarola, who called for the king's intervention. This conflict would eventually lead Savonarola to be suspected of heresy and to be executed by the State.
The speed and power of the French advance frightened the other Italian rulers, including the Pope and even Ludovico of Milan. They formed an anti-French coalition, the League of Venice on 31 March 1495. The formation of the League of Venice, which included the northern Italian states of Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Mantua, and the Republic of Florence in addition to the Kingdom of Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Naples, appeared to have trapped Charles in southern Italy and blocked his return to France. Charles would have to cross the territory of at least some of the League members to return home to France. At Fornovo in July 1495, the League was unable to stop Charles from marching his army out of Italy. The League lost 2,000 men to his 1,000 and, although Charles lost nearly all the booty of the campaign, the League was unable to stop him from crossing their territory on his way back to France. Meanwhile, Charles' remaining garrisons in Naples were quickly subdued by Aragonese forces sent by Ferdinand II of Aragon, ally of Alfonso on 6–7 July 1495. Thus in the end, Charles VIII lost all the gains that he had made in Italy.
Over the next few years, Charles VIII tried to rebuild his army and resume the campaign, but he was hampered by the large debts incurred in 1494–95. He never succeeded in gaining anything substantive.
Death
Charles died in 1498, two and a half years after his retreat from Italy, as the result of an accident. 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 2:00 p.m., while returning from the game, he fell into a sudden coma and died nine hours later.
Charles bequeathed a meagre legacy: he left France in debt and in disarray as a result of his ambition. However, his expedition did strengthen cultural ties to Italy, energizing French art and literature in the latter part of the Renaissance. Since his children predeceased him, Charles was the last of the elder branch of the House of Valois. Upon his death, the throne passed to his brother-in-law and second cousin once removed, Louis XII. Anne returned to Brittany and began taking steps to regain the independence of her duchy. In order to stymie these efforts, Louis XII had his 24-year childless marriage to Charles's sister, Joan, annulled and married Anne.
Appearance and personality
Charles was a man of very short stature and ill health, described as monstrous by the Italians, so much so that Jacopo d'Atri felt compelled to communicate to the Marquise Isabella d'Este that the king "is not as deformed as our people describe him". He had a big head, short crooked legs, six toes per foot ; He was also afflicted with a persistent tremor in his hands. According to chronicler Marin Sanudo, he did not wear a helmet because his weak complexity did not allow him to do so. Contemporaries agreed that its only beauty was the look, in which there was a certain nobility.
The Venetian ambassador Zaccaria Contarini described it in 1492:
He was considered ambitious and fanatical, an admirer of the ancient paladins of the Carolingian cycle to the point of wanting to imitate them with his enterprise in Italy. He was nicknamed the Affable or the Courteous for his friendliness in disposing with everyone. ] In these terms, in fact, the Duchess Beatrice d'Este speaks of it to her sister Isabella:About noon [King Charles] came to see us in a very domestic way together with his wealthier courtiers and stayed for about three hours with me and my ladies, with such familiarity and affection that no greater could be desired from a prince in the world. He wanted to see my ladies dance and then me, and he took singular pleasure in it. – Letter from Beatrice d'Este to Isabella d'Este, 12 September 1494.The historian Philip of Comines said of it: "there was never a man so petty of body and unintelligent as the king, but it was not possible to find in the world a better creature than himself", in relation to the fact that, in his opinion, Charles had consoled himself early on with the death of his only son, Charles Orlando, having the suspicion that the child, Bold and courageous already at the age of three, "continuing in that inclination would have ended up taking away his authority and power".
Passion for women
Charles was an unrepentant womanizer, indeed he had a real obsession for women: writes the chronicler Girolamo Priuli that, on returning to France in 1495, Charles had been attacked by "coast sickness" due to the excessive coitus practiced in Italy; and adds that he was reckoned among the most lewd men in France, that "when he had been involved with one, he cared no more than her", and that although he was careful not to touch the wives of others, he had sometimes "used also tyranny to take the virgins and the wives of others, to such an extent the beauty delighted them".
Marin Sanudo says: "According to the French custom of wanting above all to be in pleasure with women, and his climate is given to Venus, so this King followed his pleasures very much, both to be at an age suitable for this, and because his nature so he required. And he tried various types of women here in Italy, which were brought to him by his French".For this reason the Duchess Beatrice d'Este, in coming to pay homage to him in Asti, brought with her the eighty most beautiful ladies of Milan, whom he wanted to kiss all on the mouth according to the custom French, including the Duchess and the very young Bianca Giovanna Sforza, daughter of Ludovico il Moro. With some of those ladies the king then took pleasure, offering them gold rings in exchange. At the same time he delighted to see Beatrice herself dance and to make her try on about twenty dresses, in order to choose which one she would wear in the portrait he had requested, under the pretext of showing his wife Anna the Duchess's clothing. Il Moro wrote to Caterina Gonzaga, a noble courtesan from Romagna, to make her come urgently to Asti to satisfy the king for a very rich fee, but it seems that the woman had refused to go because she was in love with Ferrandino d'Aragona.
In the same days the Marquis William IX of Montferrat invited the king to Casale to his mother Maria, whom Charles greatly desired to know because, although she had been married to an old man, she was still young and had a reputation for being beautiful. In Naples he was mad with love for Eleonora Piccolomini d'Aragona, daughter of the late Duke of Amalfi, pushed by her mother Maria Marzano of Aragon to prostitute herself in order to regain the County of Celano; and at the same time had as a favorite a Gonzaga whom he met in Guastalla, which is assumed to be the same Caterina who had initially refused the offer of the Moro. This is evident from the chronicler Marin Sanudo and from a report of the Venetian ambassadors of May 1495.
During the battle of Fornovo an album containing the licentious portraits of all the mistresses he had had in Italy was stolen from him, to get it back which Carlo prayed at length to the Marquis Francesco II Gonzaga, who had sent it to his wife in Mantua. Still on 6 October, at the end of his unsuccessful expedition and during the negotiations for the Peace of Vercelli, he did not stop thinking about women: having received the visit of some Mantuan singers, he questioned them about the features of the Marquise Isabella d'Este, her character and her way of dressing, also wanting to know if she was as beautiful as her sister Beatrice d'Este.
In short, Charles liked short women because he too was short. Jacopo d'Atri communicated to the Marquise his suspicion that the king would come to Mantua to kiss her "a thousand times", however the meeting never took place, as shortly after he returned to France.
The manuscript Les dictz des femmes de diverses nations contains a miniature of the "duchesse de Bar", accompanied by a rhyming caption: "For proud bearing and merry countenance / Sumptuous costume in the new style / For kind welcome and choice beauty / There is no one in memory / Who has ever so pleased Charles the French King." Referring to the sumptuous Milanese welcome in Asti and her actual exuberance in dress, which so impressed French visitors, the historian René Maulde-La-Clavière identified this woman in the Duchess of Bari, Beatrice d'Este. In fact, her husband Ludovico was also called "duc de Bar" in French and Charles himself addressed him with this title: "notre trés cher et trés amé cousin, le seigneur Ludovic, duc de Bar". The hypothesis would be confirmed by the fact that Louis d'Orléans unequivocally called Beatrice "la duchesse de Bar". The miniature shows a young woman riding a mule, wearing a showy feathered hat, a dress with horizontal stripes, a wand in her hand, and a dagger belted at her side. However, it would not appear to be a portrait of Beatrice, nor was she ever the king's lover, therefore the verses should be understood only in relation to gallant receptions, and not dedicated to a "mistress" of the king, as supposed by some. Other historians have identified this woman with the then Duchess of Bar, Philippa of Guelders (1467–1547), who died as a nun and in the odour of sanctity, and even in this case it does not appear that she was ever Charles's lover.
Issue
The marriage with Anne resulted in the birth of six recorded children, who all died young:
Charles Orland, Dauphin of France (11 October 1492 – 16 December 1495), died of the measles when three years old. Buried at Tours Cathedral.
Francis (August 1493), was premature and stillborn. Buried at Notre-Dame de Cléry.
Stillborn daughter (March 1495)
Charles, Dauphin of France (8 September 1496 – 2 October 1496). 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.
Media
The 1671 English play Charles VIII of France by John Crowne depicts his reign.
Charles VIII's invasion of Italy and his relations with Pope Alexander VI are depicted in the novel The Sultan's Helmsman.
In the 2011 Showtime series The Borgias, Charles VIII is portrayed by French actor Michel Muller.
In the 2011 French-German historical drama Borgia, Charles VIII is played by Simon Larvaron.
The event of the king's death is depicted in the TV series Borgia with a small twist: in the episode, Charles himself plays a game of jeu de paume with Cesare Borgia and loses; while leaving the game, Charles strikes his head on the lintel of a door. The 2012 Spanish TV series Isabel also depicts the death of Charles VIII. In that series, Charles was played by the actor Héctor Carballo.
In the 2017 German-Austrian historical drama Maximilian, a young Charles when he was Dauphin is portrayed by French actor Max Baissette de Malglaive. Made available by American cable network Starz in 2018.
Ancestry
See also
First Italian War
Louis III of France, another French king who died after hitting his head on a lintel
Notes
References
Sources
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1470 births
1498 deaths
15th-century kings of France
Burials at the Basilica of Saint-Denis
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French real tennis players
House of Valois
Medieval child monarchs
People from Amboise
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