France

The Mad King

painting
Bal des Ardents

One reason why France could fall into such disarray was because its center was so unstable. Charles VI had not long been king in his own right before he suffered from bouts of insanity.

The first incident occurred in 1392. Charles had had a bad year. His Constable, Olivier de Clisson, was assassinated in an especially bloody manner by a minor noble whom everyone believed had been employed by John of Montfort, Duke of Brittany. This incident deeply disturbed Charles, who felt he'd been attacked almost in his own person. He'd been itching for war against Brittany anyway, since John was in alliance with the English, and that summer he finally got his way.

This expedition, like every expedition of the Hundred Years War, it would seem, was filled with delays and difficulties, and Charles was not a man who endured these well. He set out from Paris on 1 July and still had not reached Brittany a month later. He fumed and stewed. He suffered from fevers. His doctors advised him not to go on, but he would not listen.

Finally, on 2 August, after riding half the day in blazing heat, Charles suddenly drew his sword and attacked anyone and everyone around him. The great lords of the court, and their pages and servants, tried to restrain the king without harming him. Some died in the effort. When Charles was finally disarmed and removed from his horse, he went limp and recognized no one.

This first bout lasted until the end of September. Not long, but long enough for the campaign against Brittany to be called off, and long enough for the various factions at court to do rapid maneuvering.

And so it went during subsequent episodes, which were frequent. He relapsed in 1393, and for the next thirty years, he was sane only intermittently. When he was sane, he functioned mostly at ceremonies; he was removed from any effective role in the government.

In his absence, the factions at court flourished. The Burgundians and Armagnacs were the most famous of these, but other elements existed. For example, the Queen, a Bavarian by birth, spent much of her reign trying to amass wealth to secure her family's position in Germany. Other secondary and tertiary pools of power and interest formed as well, tugging at the directions set by either the Burgundians or the Armagnacs.

The madness of Charles VI shows plainly the greatest weakness of the system of royal inheritance, for which principle the Hundred Years War was, at least in part, being fought. The alternative was the German approach, of elections, which also had its limitations and difficulties.