English King, Edward V

EDWARD V
Edward V (2 November 1470 – c.1483), was King of England from his father Edward IV's death on 9 April 1483 until 26 June of the same year.

Boy King Edward V with his father

He was never crowned, and his 86-day reign
was dominated by the influence of his uncle and Lord Protector, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who succeeded him as Richard III on 26 June 1483; this was confirmed by the Act entitled Titulus Regius, which denounced any further claims through his father's heirs.

Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, were the Princes in the Tower who disappeared after being sent to heavily-guarded royal lodgings in the Tower of London. Responsibility for their deaths is widely attributed to Richard III, but the lack of any solid evidence and conflicting contemporary accounts also suggest other possible suspects.

Along with Edward VIII, and the disputed Matilda and Jane, Edward V is one of four English monarchs since the Norman Conquest never to have been crowned. As it is generally assumed that he died close to the time of his disappearance, he is the shortest-lived male monarch in English history – his great-nephew, who was crowned Edward VI, died in his sixteenth year.

Boy King Edward V coin

It was at Ludlow that the 12-year-old prince received news, on Monday 14 April 1483, of his father's sudden death five days before. Edward IV's will, which has not survived, nominated his trusted brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector during the minority of his son. Both the new king and his party from the west, and Richard from the north, set out for London, converging in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire.

On the night of 29 April Richard met and dined with Earl Rivers and Edward's half-brother, Richard Grey, but the following morning Rivers and Grey, along with the king's chamberlain, Thomas Vaughan, were arrested and sent north.

Edward V as Prince of Wales

 They were all subsequently executed. Dominic Mancini, an Italian who visited England in the 1480s, reports that Edward protested, but the remainder of his entourage was dismissed and Richard escorted him to London.

On 19 May 1483, the new king took up residence in the Tower of London, where, on 16 June, he was joined by his younger brother Richard, Duke of York.

Bones belonging to two children were discovered in 1674 by workmen rebuilding a stairway in the Tower. On the orders of King Charles II, these were subsequently placed in Westminster Abbey, in an urn bearing the names of Edward and Richard.

The bones were reexamined in 1933 at which time it was discovered the skeletons were incomplete and had been interred with animal bones. It has never been proven that the bones belonged to the princes, and it is possible that they were buried before the reconstruction of that part of the Tower of London. Permission for a subsequent examination has been refused.

In 1789, workmen carrying out repairs in St George's Chapel, Windsor, rediscovered and accidentally broke into the vault of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Adjoining this was another vault, which was found to contain the coffins of two children.

This tomb was inscribed with the names of two of Edward IV's children: George, 1st Duke of Bedford, who had died at the age of 2; and Mary of York who had died at the age of 14. Both had died before the King. However, the remains of these two children were later found elsewhere in the chapel, leaving the occupants of the children's coffins within the tomb unknown. In 1486 Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth, sister of Edward V, married Henry VII, thereby uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster.

English King, Henry V

HENRY V
Henry V (9 August 1386 – 31 August 1422) was King of England from 1413 until his death at the age of 36 in 1422.

Late 15th century depiction of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Valois

 He was the second English monarch who came from the House of Lancaster.

After military experience fighting the Welsh during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr, and against the powerful aristocratic Percys of Northumberland at the Battle of Shrewsbury, Henry came into political conflict with his father, whose health was increasingly precarious from 1405 onward.

After his father's death in 1413, Henry assumed control of the country and embarked on war with France in the ongoing Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) between the two nations.

His military successes culminated in his famous victory at the Battle of Agincourt (1415) and saw him come close to conquering France. After months of negotiation with Charles VI of France, the Treaty of Troyes (1420) recognised Henry V as regent and heir apparent to the French throne, and he was subsequently married to Charles's daughter, Catherine of Valois (1401–37). Following Henry V's sudden and unexpected death in France two years later, he was succeeded by his infant son, who reigned as Henry VI (1422–61, 1470–71).

A gold noble coin of Henry V

The Welsh revolt of Owain Glyndŵr absorbed Henry's energies until 1408. Then, as a result of the king's ill health, Henry began to take a wider share in politics. From January 1410, helped by his uncles Henry Beaufort and Thomas Beaufort – legitimised sons of John of Gaunt – he had practical control of the government. Both in foreign and domestic policy he differed from the king, who in November 1411 discharged the prince from the council. The quarrel of father and son was political only, though it is probable that the Beauforts had discussed the abdication of Henry IV, and their opponents certainly endeavoured to defame the prince.

Henry, while Prince of Wales, presenting Thomas Hoccleve's, Regement of Princes to the Duke of Norfolk, British Library, 1411–13

After Henry IV died on 20 March 1413, Henry V succeeded him and was crowned on 9 April 1413 at Westminster Abbey, London, Kingdom of England. The ceremony was marked by a terrible snowstorm, but the common people were undecided as to whether it was a good or bad omen. Henry was described as having been "very tall (6ft 3 in), slim, with dark hair cropped in a ring above the ears, and clean-shaven". His complexion was ruddy, the face lean with a prominent and pointed nose. Depending on his mood, his eyes "flashed from the mildness of a dove's to the brilliance of a lion's".

Starting in August 1417, Henry V promoted the use of the English language in government,  and his reign marks the appearance of Chancery Standard English as well as the adoption of English as the language of record within Government. He was the first king to use English in his personal correspondence since the Norman conquest, which had occurred 350 years earlier. While he was in England, Henry's brother Thomas of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Clarence, led the English forces in France.

Silver groat of Henry V, York Museums Trust

In March 1421, Thomas led the English to a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Baugé against a Franco-Scottish army. The Duke himself was killed in the battle. On 10 June 1421, Henry sailed back to France to retrieve the situation. It would be his last military campaign. From July to August, Henry's forces besieged and captured Dreux, thus relieving allied forces at Chartres. That October, his forces lay siege to Meaux, capturing it on 2 May 1422. Henry V died suddenly on 31 August 1422 at the Château de Vincennes, apparently from dysentery, which he had contracted during the siege of Meaux. He was 36 years old and had reigned for nine years.

Shortly before his death, Henry V named his brother John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, regent of France in the name of his son Henry VI of England, then only a few months old. Henry V did not live to be crowned King of France himself, as he might confidently have expected after the Treaty of Troyes, because the sickly Charles VI, to whom he had been named heir, survived him by two months. Henry's comrade-in-arms and Lord Steward John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley, brought his body back to England and bore the royal standard at his funeral. Henry V was buried in Westminster Abbey on 7 November 1422.

French King, Louis XII

LOUIS XII
(27 June 1462 – 1 January 1515) was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his cousin Charles VIII, who died without a closer heir in 1498.

Louis XII 

 Before his accession to the throne of France, he was known as Louis of Orléans and was compelled to be married to his disabled and supposedly sterile cousin Joan by his second cousin, king Louis XI. By doing so, Louis XI hoped to extinguish the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois.

Louis of Orléans was one of the great feudal lords who opposed the French monarchy in the conflict known as the Mad War. At the royal victory in the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488, Louis was captured, but Charles VIII pardoned him and released him.

He subsequently took part in the Italian War of 1494–1498 as one of the French commanders. When Louis XII became king in 1498, he had his marriage with Joan annulled by Pope Alexander VI and instead married Anne of Brittany, the widow of his cousin Charles VIII. This marriage allowed Louis to reinforce the personal Union of Brittany and France.

Louis persevered in the Italian Wars, initiating a second Italian campaign for the control of the Kingdom of Naples. Louis conquered the Duchy of Milan in 1500 and pushed forward to the Kingdom of Naples, which fell to him in 1501. Proclaimed King of Naples, Louis faced a new coalition gathered by Ferdinand II of Aragon and was forced to cede Naples to Spain in 1504.

Louis XII coin

Louis XII did not encroach on the power of local governments or the privileges of the nobility, in opposition with the long tradition of the French kings to attempt to impose absolute monarchy in France.

A popular king, Louis was proclaimed "Father of the People" (French: Le Père du Peuple) in 1506 by the Estates-General of Tours for his reduction of the tax known as taille, legal reforms, and civil peace within France. Louis, who remained Duke of Milan after the second Italian War, was interested in further expansion in the Italian Peninsula and launched a third Italian War (1508–1516), which was marked by the military prowess of the Chevalier de Bayard.

Although he came late (and unexpectedly) to power, Louis acted with vigour, reforming the French legal system, reducing taxes and improving government much like his contemporary Henry VII did in England. To meet his budget after having reduced taxes, Louis XII reduced the pensions for the nobility and for foreign princes. In religious policy, Louis XII re-instituted the Pragmatic Sanction, which established the Roman Catholic Church in France as a "Gallic Church" with most of the power of appointment in the hands of the king or other French officials. As noted above, these reforms had been proposed at the meeting of the Estates General in 1484.

Louis was also skilled in managing his nobility, including the powerful Bourbon faction, greatly contributing to the stability of French government. In the Ordinance of Blois of 1499 and the Ordinance of Lyon issued in June 1510 he extended the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption in the law. Highly complex French customary law was codified and ratified by the royal proclamation of the Ordinance of Blois of 1499. The Ordinance of Lyon tightened up the tax collection system requiring, for instance, that tax collectors forward all money to the government within eight days after they collected it from the people. Fines and loss of office were prescribed for violations of this ordinance.

Louis XII leaving Alessandria to attack Genoa, by Jean Bourdichon

To assert his claim to his half of the Kingdom of Naples, Louis XII sent an army under the command of Bernard Stuart of Aubigny composed of 1,000 lances, 10,000 infantrymen including 5,000 Swiss troops to Naples in early June 1501. In May 1501, Louis had obtained free passage for his troops to march through Bologne on the way to Naples. As the army approached Rome, Spanish and French ambassadors notified Pope Alexander VI of the thus far secret Treaty of Grenada, signed 11 November 1500, which divided the Kingdom of Naples between France and Spain.

The Pope was pleased and enthusiastically issued a bull naming the two kings — Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Spain — as the Pope's vassals in Naples. Indeed, the public announcement of the treaty in the Vatican was the first news that Federico IV, the current king of Naples, had received about his fate and his betrayal by his own cousin, King Ferdinand II of Spain. Being a stern disciplinarian, Lord Stuart held the troops of his army to strict decorum during most of the march to Naples.

However, discipline fell apart when the army passed through Capua. The French army plundered and raped Capua mercilessly. However, when news of the rape of Capua spread throughout southern Italy, resistance to the French vanished. King Federigo, King of Naples fled and the French Army entered Naples unopposed. Louis XII claimed the throne of Naples and pursuant to the sharing agreement with Ferdinand II shared half the income of Naples with Spain. However, as Machiavelli had said, the agreement could not last and in early 1502 relations between France and Spain had gone sour.

Negotiations were started between France and Spain over their disagreements about Naples. However, in April 1502, without waiting for the conclusion of these negotiations, Louis sent an army under the command of Louis d' Armagnac, Duke of Nemours against the Spanish in Apulia. On 24 December 1514, Louis was reportedly suffering from a severe case of gout. In the early hours of 1 January 1515, he had received the final sacraments and died later that evening. Louis was interred in Saint Denis Basilica.

French King, Louis XI

LOUIS XI
Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), called the Prudent (French: le Prudent), was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father Charles VII. Louis was a devious and disobedient Dauphin of France who entered into open rebellion against his father in a short-lived revolt known as the Praguerie in 1440. The king forgave his rebellious vassals, including Louis, to whom he entrusted the management of the Dauphiné, then a province in southeastern France. Louis's ceaseless intrigues, however, led his father to banish him from court.

From the Dauphiné, Louis led his own political establishment and married Charlotte of Savoy, daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy, against the will of his father. Charles VII sent an army to compel his son to his will, but Louis fled to Burgundy, where he was hosted by Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, Charles' greatest enemy.

In this painting by Jean Fouquet, Louis's father Charles VII is depicted as one of the three magi, and it is assumed that Louis XI, then Dauphin, is one of the other two.

 When Charles VII died in 1461, Louis left the Burgundian court to take possession of his kingdom. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity earned him the nicknames the Cunning (Middle French: le rusé) and the Universal Spider (Middle French: l'universelle aragne), as his enemies accused him of spinning webs of plots and conspiracies.

In 1472, the subsequent Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, took up arms against his rival Louis. However, Louis was able to isolate Charles from his English allies by signing the Treaty of Picquigny (1475) with Edward IV of England. The treaty formally ended the Hundred Years' War. With the death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, the dynasty of the dukes of Burgundy died out. Louis took advantage of the situation to seize numerous Burgundian territories, including Burgundy proper and Picardy.

Jean Fouquet

Without direct foreign threats, Louis was able to eliminate his rebellious vassals, expand royal power, and strengthen the economic development of his country. He died in 1483 and was succeeded by his son Charles VIII. At the same time that France and Burgundy were fighting each other, England was experiencing a bitter civil conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. Louis had an interest in this war, since the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was allied with the Yorkists who opposed King Henry VI.

When the Earl of Warwick fell out with the Yorkist King Edward IV, after helping Edward attain his throne, Louis granted Warwick refuge in France. Through Louis's diplomacy, Warwick then formed an alliance with his bitter enemy Margaret of Anjou in order to restore her husband Henry VI to the throne. The plan worked, and Edward was forced into exile, but he later returned to England. Warwick was then killed at the Battle of Barnet in 1471. King Henry VI was soon murdered afterwards.

Now the undisputed master of England, Edward invaded France in 1475, but Louis was able to negotiate the Treaty of Picquigny, by which the English army left France in return for a large sum of money. The English renounced their claim to French lands such as Normandy, and the Hundred Years' War could be said to be finally over. Louis bragged that although his father had driven the English out by force of arms, he had driven them out by force of pâté, venison, and good French wine.

Just as his father had done, Louis spent most of his reign dealing with political disputes with the reigning Duke of Burgundy, and for this purpose he employed the Swiss, whose military might was renowned. He had admired it himself at the Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs. War broke out between Charles and the Swiss after he invaded Switzerland. The invasion proved to be a tremendous mistake. On 2 March 1476, the Swiss attacked and defeated the Burgundians at Grandson. On 5 January 1477, the duke was actually killed at the Battle of Nancy, an event that marked the end of the Burgundian Wars.

Coin of Louis XI, struck ca. 1470

Louis thus was able to see the destruction his sworn enemy. Other lords who still favored the feudal system gave in to his authority. Still others, such as Jacques d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, were executed. The lands belonging to the Duchy of Burgundy as constituted by Louis's great-great-grandfather John II for the benefit of his son Philip the Bold reverted to the crown of France

Louis developed his kingdom by encouraging trade fairs and the building and maintenance of roads. Louis XI pursued the organization of the kingdom of France with the assistance of bourgeois officials. In some respects, Louis XI perfected the framework of the modern French Government which was to last until the French Revolution. Thus, Louis XI is one of the first modern kings of France who helped take it out of the Middle Ages. Louis XI was very superstitious and surrounded himself with astrologers. Interested in science, he once pardoned a man sentenced to death on condition that he serve as a guinea pig for a gallstone operation.

Through war, cunning, and sheer guile, Louis XI overcame France's feudal lords, and at the time of his death in the Château de Plessis-lez-Tours, he had united France and laid the foundations of a strong monarchy. He was, however, a secretive, reclusive man, and few mourned his death. Despite Louis XI's political acumen and overall policy of Realpolitik, Niccolò Machiavelli actually criticized Louis harshly in Chapter 13 of the The Prince, calling him shortsighted and imprudent for abolishing his own infantry in favor of Swiss mercenaries.