French King, Francis II

FRANCIS II
Francis II (French: François II) (19 January 1544 – 5 December 1560) was a monarch of the House of Valois-Angoulême who was King of France from 1559 to 1560. He was also King consort of Scotland as a result of his willing marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, from 1558 until his death in 1560.

Francis II and Mary Stuart

He ascended the throne of France at the age of fifteen after the accidental death of his father, Henry II, in 1559. His short reign was dominated by the first stirrings of the French Wars of Religion.

Although the royal age of majority had been set at fourteen, his mother, Catherine de' Medici, entrusted the reins of government to his wife's uncles from the House of Guise, staunch supporters of the Catholic cause. They were unable to help Catholics in Scotland against the progressing Scottish Reformation, however, and the Auld Alliance was dissolved. Francis was succeeded by two of his brothers in turn, both of whom were also unable to reduce tensions between Protestants and Catholics.

A little over a year after his marriage, on 10 July 1559, Francis became king at the age of fifteen upon the death of his father Henry II, who had been killed in a jousting accident. On 21 September 1559, Francis II was crowned king in Reims by his uncle Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. The crown was so heavy that nobles had to hold it in place for him. The court then moved to the Loire Valley, where the Château de Blois and the surrounding forests were the new king's home. Francis II took the sun for his emblem and for his mottoes Spectanda fides (This is how faith should be respected) and Lumen rectis (Light for the righteous).

According to French law, Francis at the age of fifteen was an adult who in theory did not need a regent. But since he was young, inexperienced, and in fragile health, he delegated his power to his wife's uncles from the noble House of Guise: François, Duke of Guise, and Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine.

Francis II and his wife Mary Stuart

His mother, Catherine de' Medici, agreed to this delegation. On the first day of his reign, Francis II instructed his four ministers to take orders from his mother, but since she was still in mourning for the loss of her husband, she directed them to the House of Guise.

The two eldest brothers of the House of Guise had already had major roles in the reign of Henry II. Francis, Duke of Guise, was one of the most famous military commanders in the royal army and the Cardinal of Lorraine had participated in the most important negotiations and matters of the kingdom. After the young king ascended the throne, the two brothers split the custody of the kingdom: Francis became head of the army and Charles the head of finance, justice, and diplomacy.

The rise of the House of Guise worked to the detriment of its old rival, Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France. At the new king's suggestion, he left the court for his estates to get some rest. Diane de Poitiers, mistress of the previous king, was also asked not to appear at court. Her protégé Jean Bertrand had to surrender his title Keeper of the Seals of France to chancellor François Olivier, whom Diane had removed from this position a few years earlier. It was a palace revolution.

The transition has been described as brutal, but while it no doubt caused the Constable considerable frustration, there were no confrontations or reprisals. Anne de Montmorency remained tied to power. As soon as the day after the death of the king, he was present at the council meeting and was also at the coronation. Later he supported the repression of the conjuration of Amboise, notably by going to the Parlement of Paris to communicate to its members the measures taken by the king. In July 1560 he came back to court and to the council, although in a much less flamboyant manner than before. The Guises were now the new masters of the court.

Francis II and Mary Stuart

The king granted them numerous favours and privileges, one of the most significant being the title of Grand Master of France, a title until then held by the son of the Constable, François de Montmorency.

With the marriage of Francis II and Mary Stuart, the future of Scotland was linked to that of France. A secret clause signed by the queen provided that Scotland would become part of France if the royal couple did not have children. The queen's mother, Marie of Guise, was already regent for Scotland. Because of French control over their country, a congregation of Scottish lords organised an uprising and made the regent and her French councils leave the capital, Edinburgh, in May 1559. Having taken refuge at the fortress of Dunbar, Marie of Guise asked France for help. Francis II and Mary Stuart sent troops right away. By the end of 1559, France had regained control of Scotland.

Nothing seemed to stand in the way of France controlling Scotland apart from English support for the uprising of the Scottish nobles. Queen Elizabeth I of England was still offended that Francis II and Mary Stuart had put on their coat of arms those of England, thus proclaiming Mary's claims on the throne of England. In January 1560, the English fleet blockaded the port of Leith, which French troops had turned into a military base. They were supported by the arrival in April of 6000 soldiers and 3000 horsemen, which began the siege of the city.

Mary Stuart

Just as English troops were not particularly successful, the French troops found themselves in a better strategic position. But the poor financial situation of the French government and internal turmoil in the French kingdom prevented any military reinforcements from being sent. When the Bishop of Valence and Charles de La Rochefoucault, sieur of Randan, sent by the king to negotiate, arrived in Scotland, they were treated almost like prisoners.

With Marie of Guise shut up in an Edinburgh fortress, the two men were forced to negotiate a peace that was disadvantageous to France. On 6 July 1560, they signed the Treaty of Edinburgh, which ended French occupation of Scotland. Francis II and Mary Stuart had to withdraw French troops and stop displaying England's arms.

A few weeks later, Scotland's parliament established Protestantism as the state religion. When Francis II and Mary Stuart were presented with the Treaty of Edinburgh, they were outraged and refused to sign it; they also challenged the legitimacy of the Scottish parliament's decision.

The health of the king deteriorated in November 1560. On 16 November he suffered syncope. After only 17 months on the throne, Francis II died on 5 December 1560 in Orléans, Loiret, from an ear condition. Multiple diseases have been suggested, such as mastoiditis, meningitis, or otitis exacerbated into an abscess.

Ambroise Paré, the royal surgeon, considered performing a trepanation. Some suspected Protestants of having poisoned the king, a view held by Catholics as the tensions between them and Protestants were on the rise; however, this has not been proven. Francis II died childless, so his younger brother Charles, then ten years old, succeeded him. On 21 December, the council named Catherine de Médici as Regent of France.

The Guises left the court, while Mary Stuart, Francis II's widow, returned to Scotland. Louis, Prince of Condé, who was jailed and awaiting execution, was freed after some negotiations with Catherine de Médici. On 23 December 1560, the body of Francis II was interred in the Saint-Denis by the Prince of La Roche-sur-Yon.

Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I

Maximilian I (22 March 1459 – 12 January 1519) was King of the Romans (also known as King of the Germans) from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never crowned by the Pope, as the journey to Rome was always too risky.

Maximilian I 

He was the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, and Eleanor of Portugal. He ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of his father's reign, from c. 1483 to 1493.

Maximilian expanded the influence of the House of Habsburg through war and his marriage in 1477 to Mary of Burgundy, the heiress to the Duchy of Burgundy, though he also lost the Austrian territories in today's Switzerland to the Swiss Confederacy.

Through marriage of his son Philip the Handsome to eventual queen Joanna of Castile in 1498, Maximilian helped to establish the Habsburg dynasty in Spain, which allowed his grandson Charles to hold the thrones of both Castile and Aragon. Charles' father Philip died in 1506, so Charles succeeded Maximilian as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, and thus ruled both the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Empire simultaneously.

Maximilian was born at Wiener Neustadt on 22 March 1459. His father, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, named him for an obscure saint whom Frederick believed had once warned him of imminent peril in a dream. In his infancy, he and his parents were besieged in Vienna by Albert of Austria. One source relates that, during the siege's bleakest days, the young prince would wander about the castle garrison, begging the servants and men-at-arms for bits of bread.

At the time, the Dukes of Burgundy, a cadet branch of the French royal family, with their sophisticated nobility and court culture, were the rulers of substantial territories on the eastern and northern boundaries of modern-day France. The reigning duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was the chief political opponent of Maximilian's father Frederick III. Frederick was concerned about Burgundy's expansive tendencies on the western border of his Holy Roman Empire, and, to forestall military conflict, he attempted to secure the marriage of Charles's only daughter, Mary of Burgundy, to his son Maximilian. After the Siege of Neuss (1474–75), he was successful. The wedding between Maximilian and Mary took place on the evening of 16 August 1477.

Maximilian I coin

Maximilian's wife had inherited the large Burgundian domains in France and the Low Countries upon her father's death in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. Already before his coronation as the King of the Romans in 1486, Maximilian decided to secure this distant and extensive Burgundian inheritance to his family, the House of Habsburg, at all costs.

The Duchy of Burgundy was also claimed by the French crown under Salic Law, with Louis XI, King of France vigorously contesting the Habsburg claim to the Burgundian inheritance by means of military force. Maximilian undertook the defence of his wife's dominions from an attack by Louis XI and defeated the French forces at Guinegate, the modern Enguinegatte, on 7 August 1479.

Maximilian and his younger brothers Ferdinand II and John, painting by Jakob Seisenegger, 1539

The wedding contract between Maximilian and Mary stipulated that only the children of bride and groom had a right to inherit from each, not the surviving parent. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Mary's death in a riding accident on 27 March 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilian's aim was now to secure the inheritance to one of his and Mary's children, Philip the Handsome.

Some of the Netherlander provinces were hostile to Maximilian, and they signed a treaty with Louis XI in 1482 that forced Maximilian to give up Franche-Comté and Artois to the French crown. They openly rebelled twice in the period 1482–1492, attempting to regain the autonomy they had enjoined under Mary. Flemish rebels managed to capture Philip and even Maximilian himself, but they were defeated when Frederick III intervened. Maximilian continued to govern Mary's remaining inheritance in the name of Philip the Handsome. After the regency ended, Maximilian and Charles VIII of France exchanged these two territories for Burgundy and Picardy in the Treaty of Senlis (1493). Thus a large part of the Netherlands (known as the Seventeen Provinces) stayed in the Habsburg patrimony.

Maximilian I coin

Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on 16 February 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main at his father's initiative and crowned on 9 April 1486 in Aachen. He became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of his father in 1493. Much of Austria was under Hungarian rule when he took power, as they had occupied the territory under the reign of Frederick. In 1490, Maximilian reconquered the territory and entered Vienna.

German King, Frederick III

FREDERICK III
Frederick III (21 September 1415 – 19 August 1493), called the Peaceful or the Fat, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death, the first emperor of the House of Habsburg. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the Pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome. Prior to his imperial coronation, he was duke of the Inner Austrian lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, and also acted as regent over the Duchy of Austria (as Frederick V) from 1439. He was elected and crowned King of Germany (as Frederick IV) in 1440. He was the longest-reigning German monarch when in 1493, after ruling his domains for more than 53 years, he was succeeded by his son Maximilian I.

During his reign, Frederick concentrated on re-uniting the Habsburg "hereditary lands" of Austria and took a lesser interest in Imperial affairs. Nevertheless, by his dynastic entitlement to Hungary as well as by the Burgundian inheritance, he laid the foundations for the later Habsburg Empire. Mocked as "Arch-Sleepyhead of the Holy Roman Empire" (German: Erzschlafmütze) during his lifetime, he is today increasingly seen as an efficient ruler.

Frederick's style of rulership was marked by hesitation and a sluggish pace of decision making. The Italian humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, who at one time worked at Frederick's court, described the Emperor as a person who wanted to conquer the world while remaining seated.

Although this was regarded as a character flaw in older academic research, his delaying tactics are now viewed as a means of coping with political challenges in far-flung territorial possessions. Frederick is credited with having the ability to sit out difficult political situations patiently. According to contemporary accounts, Frederick had difficulties developing emotional closeness to other persons, including his children and wife Eleanor. In general, Frederick kept himself away from women, the reasons for which are not known. As Frederick was rather distant to his family, Eleanor had a great influence on the raising and education of Frederick's children, and she therefore played an important role in the House of Habsburg's rise to prominence.

Born at the Tyrolean residence of Innsbruck in 1415, Frederick was the eldest son of the Inner Austrian duke Ernest the Iron, a member of the Leopoldian line of the Habsburg dynasty, and his second wife Cymburgis of Masovia. According to the 1379 Treaty of Neuberg, the Leopoldinian branch ruled over the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, or what was referred to as Inner Austria. Only three of Frederick's eight siblings survived childhood: his younger brother Albert (later to be Albert VI, archduke of Austria), and his sisters Margaret (later the electress of Saxony) and Catherine. In 1424, nine-year-old Frederick's father died, making Frederick the duke of Inner Austria, as Frederick V, with his uncle, Duke Frederick IV of Tyrol, acting as regent.

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III in Ceremonial Armour

From 1431, Frederick tried to obtain majority (to be declared "of age", and thus allowed to rule) but for several years was denied by his relatives. Finally, in 1435, Albert V, duke of Austria (later Albert II, the king of Germany), awarded him the rule over his Inner Austrian heritage. Almost from the beginning, Frederick's younger brother Albert asserted his rights as a co-ruler, as the beginning of a long rivalry. Already in these years, Frederick had begun to use the symbolic A.E.I.O.U. signature as a kind of motto with various meanings. In 1436 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, accompanied by numerous nobles knighted by the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which earned him great reputation.

Frederick's political initiatives were hardly bold, but they were still successful. His first major opponent was his brother Albert VI, who challenged his rule. He did not manage to win a single conflict on the battlefield against him, and thus resorted to more subtle means. He held his second cousin once removed Ladislaus the Posthumous, the ruler of the Archduchy of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, (born in 1440) as a prisoner and attempted to extend his guardianship over him in perpetuity to maintain his control over Lower Austria. Ladislaus was freed in 1452 by the Lower Austrian estates.

He acted similarly towards his first cousin Sigismund of the Tyrolian line of the Habsburg family. Despite those efforts, he failed to gain control over Hungary and Bohemia in the Bohemian–Hungarian War (1468–78) and was even defeated in the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–88) by the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus in 1485, who managed to maintain residence in Vienna until his death five years later in the Siege of Vienna. Ultimately, Frederick prevailed in all those conflicts by outliving his opponents and sometimes inheriting their lands, as was the case with Ladislaus, from whom he gained Lower Austria in 1457, and with his brother Albert VI, whom he succeeded in Upper Austria.

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III in Ceremonial Armour

These conflicts forced him into an anachronistic itinerant existence, as he had to move his court between various places through the years, residing in Graz, Linz and Wiener Neustadt. Wiener Neustadt owes him its castle and the "New Monastery". Still, in some ways his policies were astonishingly successful. In the Siege of Neuss (1474–75), he forced Charles the Bold of Burgundy to give up his daughter Mary of Burgundy as wife to Frederick's son Maximilian. With the inheritance of Burgundy, the House of Habsburg began to rise to predominance in Europe. This gave rise to the saying "Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry", which became a motto of the dynasty.

The marriage of his daughter Kunigunde to Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria, was another result of intrigues and deception, but must be counted as a defeat for Frederick. Albert illegally took control of some imperial fiefs and then asked to marry Kunigunde (who lived in Innsbruck, far from her father), offering to give her the fiefs as a dower. Frederick agreed at first, but after Albert took over yet another fief, Regensburg, Frederick withdrew his consent. On 2 January 1487, however, before Frederick's change of heart could be communicated to his daughter, Kunigunde married Albert. A war was prevented only through the mediation of the Emperor's son, Maximilian.

In some smaller matters, Frederick was quite successful: in 1469 he managed to establish bishoprics in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, a step that no previous Duke of Austria had been able to achieve. Frederick's personal motto was the mysterious string A.E.I.O.U., which he imprinted on all his belongings. He never explained its meaning, leading to many different interpretations being presented, although it has been claimed that shortly before his death he said it stands for Austriae Est Imperare Orbi Universali" or Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan ("All the world is subject to Austria"). It may well symbolise his own understanding of the historical importance and meaning of his rule and of the early gaining of the Imperial title.

German King, Otto IV

OTTO IV
Otto IV (1175 – May 19, 1218) was one of two rival kings of Germany from 1198 on, sole king from 1208 on, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1209 until he was forced to abdicate in 1215.

Otto IV

 The only German king of the Welf dynasty, he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1210. Otto was the third son of Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, and Matilda of England.

His exact birthplace is not given by any original source. He grew up in England in the care of his grandfather King Henry II. Otto was fluent in French as well as German.

He became the foster son of his maternal uncle, Richard I of England. In 1190, after he left England to join the Third Crusade, Richard appointed Otto Earl of York.

The authenticity (or authority) of this grant was doubted by the vassals of Yorkshire, who prevented Otto taking possession of his earldom. Still, he probably visited Yorkshire in 1191, and he continued to claim the revenues of the earldom after becoming king of Germany, although he never secured them. Neither did he succeed in getting the 25,000 silver marks willed to him by his uncle in 1199.

In 1195, Richard began negotiations to marry Otto to Margaret, daughter and heir presumptive of King William the Lion of Scotland. Lothian, as Margaret's dowry, would be handed over to Richard for safekeeping and the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland (Carlisle) would be granted to Otto and turned over to the king of Scotland. The negotiations dragged on until August 1198, when the birth of a son to William rendered them unnecessary. Having failed in his efforts to secure Otto an English earldom or else a Scottish kingdom, in September 1196 Richard, as duke of Aquitaine, offered Otto with the county of Poitou. There is some disagreement over whether Otto received Poitou in exchange for or in addition to the earldom of York.

Detail from the memorial table of Henry the Lion, Otto IV and their consorts. 

Otto was in Poitou from September 1196 until mid-1197, when he joined Richard in Normandy to confer over the appointment of bishops to the vacant sees of Poitiers, Limoges and Périgueux. He then participated in the war against Philip II of France on the side of Richard. In October he returned to Poitou. The German historian Jens Ahlers, taking into account Otto's life prior to 1198, considers that he might have been the first foreign king of Germany. After the death of Emperor Henry VI, the majority of the princes of the Empire, situated in the south, elected Henry’s brother, Philip, Duke of Swabia, king in March 1198, after receiving money and promises from Philip in exchange for their support.

Those princes opposed to the Staufen dynasty also decided, on the initiative of Richard of England, to elect instead a member of the House of Welf. Otto's elder brother, Henry, was on a crusade at the time, and so the choice fell to Otto. Otto, soon recognised throughout the northwest and the lower Rhine region, was elected king by his partisans in Cologne on June 9, 1198.

Otto IV coin

Otto took control of Aachen, the place of coronation, and was crowned by Adolf, Archbishop of Cologne, on July 12, 1198.

This was of great symbolic importance, since the Archbishop of Cologne alone could crown the King of the Romans. Nevertheless, the coronation was done with fake regalia, because the actual materials were in the hands of the Staufen.

Otto returned to Germany to deal with the situation, hopeful to salvage something from the looming disaster. He found most of the German princes and bishops had turned against him, and that Frederick, who had made his way up the Italian peninsula, had avoided Otto’s men who were guarding the passes through the Alps and had arrived at Constance.

Otto soon discovered that after Beatrix died in the summer of 1212, and Frederick arrived in Germany with his army in September 1212, most of the former Staufen supporters deserted Otto for Frederick, forcing Otto to withdraw to Cologne. On December 5, 1212, Frederick was elected king for a second time by a majority of the princes.

The support that Philip II of France was giving to Frederick forced King John of England to throw his weight behind his nephew Otto.

Otto IV coin

The destruction of the French fleet in 1213 by the English saw John begin preparations for an invasion of France, and Otto saw a way of both destroying Frederick’s French support as well as bolstering his own prestige.

He agreed to join John in the invasion, and in February 1214, as John advanced from the Loire, Otto was supposed to make a simultaneous attack from Flanders, together with the Count of Flanders. Unfortunately, the three armies could not coordinate their efforts effectively. It was not until John, who had been disappointed in his hope for an easy victory after being driven from Roche-au-Moine and had retreated to his transports that the Imperial Army, with Otto at its head, assembled in the Low Countries.

On 27 July 1214, the opposing armies suddenly discovered they were in close proximity to each other, on the banks of the little river Marque (a tributary of the river Deûle), near the Bridge of Bouvines. Philip's army numbered some 15,000, while the allied forces possessed around 25,000 troops, and the armies clashed at the Battle of Bouvines.

Otto IV and Pope Innocent III shake hands

 It was a tight battle, but it was lost when Otto was carried off the field by his wounded and terrified horse, causing his forces to abandon the field. It is said that Philip II had sent to Frederick the imperial eagle which Otto had left lying on the battlefield.

This defeat allowed Frederick to take Aachen and Cologne, as Otto was forced again to withdraw to his private possessions around Brunswick, and he was forced to abdicate the imperial throne in 1215. He died of disease, at Harzburg castle on May 19, 1218, requesting that he be mortally expiated in atonement of his sins. Historian Kantorowicz described the death as gruesome: "deposed, dethroned, he was flung full length on the ground by the Abbot, confessing his sins, while the reluctant priests beat him bloodily to death. Such was the end of the first and last Welf Emperor." He is entombed in Brunswick Cathedral.