Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII

I'd never heard about her until now! Haven't studied enough French
history before! It's interesting...Anne became the Duchess of
Brittany in her own right at 11 years of age in 1487. (Brittany was
one of the richest Duchys in the World at that time!)...I wonder if
Edward or Richard ever sought an alliance with her and one of their
young sons?

She married her second husband Charles VIII of France in 1491. He
became King in 1483 at the age of just 12. He ruled under a regent,
his sister Anne who was only nine years older than him! ...I wasn't
aware that this 21 year old girl was regent of France while Henry
Tutor negotiated with the king of France!

Their marriage was short though and they lost all three sons in
infancy. Charles died in 1498 at the age of 28. Anne married
Charles's heir Louis in 1499.

--- In , mrm_bell
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
>
> I'd never heard about her until now! Haven't studied enough French
> history before! It's interesting...Anne became the Duchess of
> Brittany in her own right at 11 years of age in 1487. (Brittany
was
> one of the richest Duchys in the World at that time!)...I wonder
if
> Edward or Richard ever sought an alliance with her and one of
their
> young sons?
>
> She married her second husband Charles VIII of France in 1491. He
> became King in 1483 at the age of just 12. He ruled under a
regent,
> his sister Anne who was only nine years older than him! ...I
wasn't
> aware that this 21 year old girl was regent of France while Henry
> Tutor negotiated with the king of France!
>
> Their marriage was short though and they lost all three sons in
> infancy. Charles died in 1498 at the age of 28. Anne married
> Charles's heir Louis in 1499.

According to John Gillingham (one of his raunchy pub stories)
Charles was a sexual athlete and very ugly. She didn't want to marry
him and was more or less dragged screaming to the altar. The court
was so concerned she would reject Charles on the wedding night that
more people than usual were present to check all went as it
should..ahem. He said she wouldn't let him leave in the morning! He
had a similar tale about an Italian whore sent to occupy Charles for
a summer campaigning season to prevent his invading Italy. She was
allegedly so successful that they tried to send her again the next
year but she refused absolutely...ho hum. I cannot vouch for the
veracity of either of these but John said it in all seriousness
(aside from the twinkle in his eye).

Charles apparently had an enlarged head and died after walking into
a door which seems to have damaged his brain - preumable the head
was too big for it!

Anne was an intelligent woman in a difficult position, and she seems to
have made
the most of it. Not quite physical perfection either, she had a limp,
though what
the cause was I'm not sure. She was Claude's mother. Claude married
Francois I of
France and was queen when Anne Boleyn was at the French court; she was
also Catherine
of Aragon's counterpart during the Field of Cloth of Gold escapade.

I got to "know" Anne of Brittany through Townsend Miller's "Castles
and the Crown": Juana and Philip met up with her and Louis at Blois
during
their overland trip to Spain from Flanders after the deaths of Juana's
brother Juan,
sister Isabel and baby nephew Miguel, the series of catastrophes which
landed Juana
as heiress to her parents' lands. The implication from Miller's view is
that Anne
and Charles had a workable partnership. Here, via Questia.com's online
edition of
the book is a taste of what went on, told in Miller's inimitable style:

(p 206 - 210)

"About the tragicomedy of this visit to Blois we know a great deal;
there are
accounts of it by Lalaing, by Jean d'Auton, by Padilla, by the Flemish
court-chronicler
Molinet and the French one St. Gelais. Philip entered the Presence
first, down a
gallery lined with 400 pages and Swiss Guards carrying torches against
the winter
dusk. In the Great Hall, with its Turkish carpets and huge silver
candelabra hung
on thick silver chains, Louis sat waiting. He seems to have been in high
good humor;
he had been not long married and was a father for the first time, at
forty. "Voilà
un beau Prince!" he exclaimed genially as Philip reached the door--but
he took
care to let his visitor make the three formal bows of homage before he
went forward
to embrace him. <P class=3text align=left>Juana, during this pretty
masculine passage, had been sidetracked into an antechamber. There she
was taken
in charge by the Duchess of Bourbon, who, after Philip's presentation,
led her in.
She must have had a swirling impression of the French dignitaries who
hedged Louis
round--among them the cardinals of Rouen and Amboise, the Marshal of
Giés, the young
Count of Angoulême (that swarthy lad who would one day be Francis I
--and Juana's
son-in-law). She must, too, have been trembling with nerves, for the
Duchess of
Bourbon took a tight hold on her arm. Whether Louis gave her the kiss
on the cheek
so shocking to Spanish sensibilities and etiquette is a matter of
debate. But he
was certainly wary himself, and anxious to avoid any explosion with the
haughty
Spanish Princess. He got rid of her as quickly as possible on the
pretext that his
wife was eager to receive her.

To the Queen's bedchamber the Duchess now led Juana, still holding her
firmly. Once
again she was plunged in a thicket of high foreign nobility--the Duchess
of Alençon,
the Countess of Dunois, the Countess of Angoulême Louise of Savoy, Mlle.
de Foix-Candale.
In their midst, on a chair of state under a rich canopy, sat Anne
herself. Anne
of Brittany had both jilted Maximilian and been the person for whom the
Imperial
Margaret was once thrown over, and although Philip seemed willing to
forget these
offenses to his family, Juana was not. She intended to make only a
slight obeisance
to Anne, the minimum that protocol required. But Anne, like her
husband, knew plenty
of royal ruses (she had been Queen before, as wife of Louis's
predecessor Charles
VIII)--and she had one in readiness. As Juana began to execute her brief
maneuver,
the Duchess of Bourbon gave her a shove on the arm. It sent her all the
way down.
To her horror, Juana found herself on her knees to the Queen of France.


She must have been seething as she was finally taken to her apartments.
And at their
door another irritation awaited her --the infant Claude. Juana can
hardly have
been in the mood for this fresh reminder of the French alliance--who
immediately
burst into howls and screams--or for the pipings of the childish
entourage, twenty-four
little girls "all under twelve," who had been brought with her. It is
true that her rooms, when she did get inside them, were royal enough,
hung with
cloth of gold and white damask and red satin and furnished with green
velvet stools
and cushions and silver-gilt vases. Her supper, at seven, was served
with great
ceremony: first came "six little pages clad in the Queen's livery of
yellow
damask with stripes of crimson velvet, each carrying a golden
candlestick,"
then the Duchess of Bourbon with a gold box of sweetmeats, Louise of
Savoy with
another of finger-napkins, the Duchess of Valentinois and Mlle. de Foix
with huge
gilt <I>drageoirs</I> full of candies and preserved fruits, and at the
end of the whole procession a platoon of footmen bearing a large
green-velvet coffer
full of mirrors, sponges and <I>lessives</I>, candles, clothes-brushes
with red velvet handles, pincushions of crimson satin, combs and
nightcaps--perhaps
a hint that she was expected to go to bed as early as possible. Juana
did manage
a polite comment on the cloth-of-gold coverlet of her bed. But when she
at last
got between the linen sheets--alone, for Philip was dining with M. de
Nevers and
the Count Palatine --it is not difficult to imagine the resentful boil
of her emotions.
</P> <P class=3text align=left>So the visit began. So it continued.
The next day, Wednesday, Philip and Louis played tennis. After tennis
they ate together.
After eating, they sat down to cards. Juana, meanwhile, was kept
skillfully isolated
among the ladies: she was taken to Mass in the morning by the Queen, the
French
duchesses and thirty young ladies in furred robes; that afternoon they
trailed back
for Vespers. Juana was never much interested in the Divine Office,
feminine company
bored her (she was pre-eminently a man's woman, throughout her life),
and she no
doubt felt miserable indeed as she sat trapped in the icy chapel and
wondered what
Louis was saying over the cards to poison Philip against Spain and her
father. With
the clench of her nerves and the indigestible candies and sugared fruits
which the
ladies continued to force upon her when she finally got back to her
rooms, it is
not surprising that she was taken sick in the middle of that second
night of the
visit. What is touching, and a little sad, is that she felt herself so
friendless
that she had no one to call for but the Bishop of Córdoba--who helped
her bring
everything up by a smart thump on the back.

Nor was Thursday any better: Louis and Philip went falconing for the
day. Friday
the two men spent on a snowy stag-hunt, Saturday at a tournament, Philip
jousting
in crimson velours. Sunday she had to sit through the wedding of the
Marquis of
Monferar and Mlle. de Alençon. And on Monday, at a great Solemn Mass
with the French
choir on one side and the famous Burgundian one on the other, it became
apparent
where all the hobnobbing and parleying between Louis and Philip had
been leading:
after a sermon by Louis's confessor on a text that must have brought a
wry twist
to the lips of the ironical Archduchess ("Ecce quam bonum et quam
jocundum
est habitare reges et principes in unum"), Philip formally signed the
Treaty
of Trent which sealed the marriage of Charles and Claude. The
ratification itself
was surely painful enough for Juana. But it was probably at this Mass,
too, that
her famous encounter, her climactic encounter, with the French Queen
took place.

Philip had been easy prey. But Juana, apart from the brief triumph of
getting her
to kneel to Anne, they had not yet tamed, not yet been able to lure
into any public
act of subservience. Now they had a new wile ready. At the moment of the
Offertory,
one of the Queen's ladies turned to Juana. She held out a small bag of
coins. It
was customary, she whispered, for the hosts to provide money to be
offered in their
name. Juana may have reached out. But suddenly she saw the trick. If
she offered
in the Queen's name she would put herself in the position of a servant,
an inferior,
in short of the vassal which they were determined to make her appear.
Her hand
jerked back. She would offer for herself, she said in a loud voice; she
needed no
charity. Anne sat furious in her white brocaded satin through the rest
of the service;
as soon as it was over, and as fast as her lame leg allowed, she swept
from the
church--ahead of Juana. It was both a deliberate insult and another
trap. But having
escaped one snare, Juana had no intention of pitching straight into
another--that
of straggling out in Anne's wake like a mere attendant. She delayed. She
delayed
longer. Finally, when it could look like an independent departure, she
gathered
her ladies and left. To Anne--waiting outside for the procession to
reform, halffrozen
and hoist on her own petard--she paid no attention. She went straight to
her chambers.

That night, when she came down to the banquet, she was in full Spanish
dress.

The gesture is characteristic. Whatever else one may think or not think
of Juana,
she had no drop of either the coward or the hypocrite. It is impossible
not to admire
her as she comes flashing into the Great Hall at Blois in her Spanish
atuendo, her
head thrown back, her eyes blazing. It was her defiance, her glove
thrown down after
a week of humiliations. And everybody knew it. The pretense could be
kept up no
longer, the atmosphere was too thunderous. Arrangements were made for an
immediate
departure. Juana was hardly able to avoid leaving some sort of present
for the baby
Claude, but the strange nature of the gift she decided on--a brooch
with the figure
of a naked man--leads one to fascinated conjectures.

II

To Spain, to Spain. The Loire and the French court were behind them (
Philip could
not understand Juana's relief; he had had a good time)...."