page_title: Isabeau of Bavaria
section_title: Political factions and early diplomatic efforts
hierarchical_section_title: Isabeau of Bavaria / Political factions and early diplomatic efforts
context_page_description: Isabeau of Bavaria was queen of France between 1385 and 1422. She was born into the House of Wittelsbach as the eldest daughter of Duke Stephen III of Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Taddea Visconti of Milan. At age 15 or 16, Isabeau was sent to the young King Charles VI of France; the couple wed three days after their first meeting.
  Isabeau was honored in 1389 with a lavish coronation ceremony and entry into Paris. In 1392 Charles suffered the first attack of what was to become a lifelong and progressive mental illness, resulting in periodic withdrawal from government. The episodes occurred with increasing frequency, leaving a court both divided by political factions and steeped in social extravagances. A 1393 masque for one of Isabeau's ladies-in-waiting—an event later known as Bal des Ardents—ended in disaster with the King almost burning to death. Although the King demanded Isabeau's removal from his presence during his illness, he consistently allowed her to act on his behalf. In this way she became regent to the Dauphin of France, and sat on the regency council, allowing far more power than was usual for a medieval queen.
context_section_description: Isabeau's life is well documented, most likely because Charles' illness placed her in an unusual position of power. Nevertheless, not much is known about her personal characteristics, and historians even disagree about her appearance. She is variously described as "small and brunette" or "tall and blonde". The contemporaneous evidence is contradictory: chroniclers said of her either that she was "beautiful and hypnotic, or so obese through dropsy that she was crippled." Despite living in France after her marriage, she spoke with a heavy German accent that never diminished, which Tuchman describes as giving her an "alien" cast at the French court.
  Adams describes Isabeau as a talented diplomat who navigated court politics with ease, grace and charisma. Charles had been crowned in 1387, aged 20, attaining sole control of the monarchy. His first acts included the dismissal of his uncles and the reinstatement of the so-called Marmousets—a group of councilors to his father, Charles V—and he gave Orléans more responsibility. Some years later, after Charles' first attack of illness, tensions mounted between Orléans and the royal uncles—Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; John, Duke of Berry; and Louis II, Duke of Bourbon. Forced to assume a greater role in maintaining peace amidst the growing power struggle, which was to persist for many years, Isabeau succeeded in her role as peacekeeper among the various court factions.
  As early as the late 1380s and early 1390s, Isabeau demonstrated that she possessed diplomatic influence when the Florentine delegation requested her political intervention in the Gian Galeazzo Visconti affair. Orléans and the Duke of Burgundy were in the pro-Visconti faction while the anti-Visconti faction included Isabeau, her brother, Louis VII, Duke of Bavaria, and John III, Count of Armagnac. At that time Isabeau lacked the political power to effect change. Some years later, however, at the 1396 wedding of her seven-year-old daughter, Isabella, to Richard II of England (an event at which Charles attacked a herald for wearing Galeazzo's livery), Isabeau successfully negotiated an alliance between France and Florence with Florentine ambassador Buonaccorso Pitti.
  In the 1390s Jean Gerson of the University of Paris formed a council to eliminate the Western Schism, and in recognition of her negotiating skills he placed Isabeau on the council. The French wanted both the Avignon and Roman popes to abdicate in favor of a single papacy in Rome; Clement VII in Avignon welcomed Isabeau's presence given her record as an effective mediator. However, the effort faded when Clement VII died.
  During his short-lived recovery in the 1390s, Charles made arrangements for Isabeau to be "principal guardian of the Dauphin", their son,  until he reached 13 years of age, giving her additional political power on the regency council. Charles appointed Isabeau co-guardian of their children in 1393, a position shared with the royal dukes and her brother, Louis of Bavaria, while he gave Orléans full power of the regency.  In appointing Isabeau, Charles acted under laws enacted by his father, Charles V, which gave the Queen full power to protect and educate the heir to the throne. These appointments separated power between Orléans and the royal uncles, increasing ill-will among the factions. The following year, as Charles' bouts of illness became more severe and prolonged, Isabeau became the leader of the regency council, giving her power over the royal dukes and the Constable of France, while at the same time making her vulnerable to attack from various court factions.
  During Charles' illness, Orléans became financially powerful as the official tax collector, and in the following decade Isabeau and Orléans agreed to raise the level of taxation. In 1401, during one of the King's absences, Orléans installed his own men to collect royal revenues, angering Philip the Bold who in retaliation raised an army, threatening to enter Paris with 600 men-at-arms and 60 knights. At that time Isabeau intervened between Orléans and Burgundy, preventing
caption: John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy
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