Episode 54: The Widowed Bride
After Prince Juan’s death in 1497, Margaret of Austria spent almost two years in mourning in Spain, being treated with empathy and kindness by the Catholic Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand. Margaret’s sudden singleness meant that, whether she liked it or not, her father Maximilian was going to update her profile on the Tinder for European royalty, and start swiping through every eligible prince or king throughout the continent to see how he could next use his daughter for his own political gains. We will sort through the prospective matches and, while Margaret travels through France on her way back home, we’ll make a detour there ourselves for a game of royal tennis which will end in a royal death, divorce and subsequent sex scandal. Salacious! Margaret of Austria arrived back in Ghent in March 1500, just in time to be present at the christening of her nephew, Charles, a grandiose celebration such as had not been seen in the Low Countries before, even including a fire breathing dragon. In the aftermath, Margaret’s future would once again be discussed within the various courts of Europe and she would be married off for a third and final time, this time to Philibert the Handsome, Duke of Savoy.
“The Widowed Bride” episode artwork by Steven Straatemans
Marrying Margaret off… again.
After a year of mourning her husband Juan, Prince of Asturias, in Spain, Margaret of Austria had still not returned to her home country of Flanders. By all reports she was treated with love and kindness by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella as a grieving daughter, all of them bound together by their shared sorrow. After all, when Prince Juan had died, she was pregnant and therefore carrying the heir to their thrones. When Ferdinand of Aragon ordered that news of Juan’s death be taken to Margaret’s father, the Emperor Maximilian, he said to “tell him that our distress has prevented us from sending him the news earlier, and that our grief is increased by considerations for Princess Margaret, although she tries very hard, as befits her, to bear her trouble gently and wisely; and we try our best to console and please her, endeavouring to make her forget her loss. Her pregnancy, thanks be to God, goes on well, and we hope in His mercy that the result will be a reparation and consolation for our trouble. We do, and will, take as much care of the Princess as we would of her husband if he were alive, and she will always fill the same place as he did in our hearts.”
Margaret gave birth to a still born daughter in April 1498, which on a human level must have heaped a near unbearable amount of grief onto the shoulders of an already much bereaved woman. Thoughts and discussions turned towards her returning to her brother’s and/or father’s lands. Yet she stayed in Spain still. We hear of Margaret teaching French to her deceased husband’s younger sister, Catherine of Aragon, who was betrothed to the heir of England, Arthur, Prince of Wales and whose name will become a very well known one in the history of the coming Reformation. The Spanish ambassador to England, Gonzalvo de la Puebla, wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella that “the Queen and the mother of the King wish that the Princess of Wales (Catherine of Aragon) should always speak French with the Princess Margaret (of Austria), who is now in Spain, in order to learn the language, and to be able to converse in it when she comes to England. This is necessary, because these ladies do not understand Latin, and much less Spanish. They also wish that the Princess of Wales should accustom herself to drink wine.The water of England is not drinkable, and even if it were, the climate would not allow the drinking of it.” Undrinkable water and complaints about the weather in England 500 years ago? Some things never change.
In addition to Margaret of Austria’s usefulness as a teacher of French, we also assume that Ferdinand of Aragon saw a political advantage in keeping Margaret in Spain, even after she had lost her daughter. The succession to the powerful Castilean throne moved into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella’s eldest surviving daughter, also called Isabella, who was married to King Manuel I of Portugal. However, word began to filter into Spain that Maximilian’s son Philip the Fair, the husband of their next oldest daughter, Joanna, had started styling himself Prince of Castile. Cheeky bugger. In August 1498 the daughter Isabella died after giving birth to a son and heir, who sadly died before his second birthday. As such, the titles to Castile went to Joanna and, via the medieval concept of jure uxoris by which a noble man held the right to rule his wife’s lands as he wished, effectively Philip. This greatly concerned Queen Isabella’s husband Ferdinand, King of Aragon. At the very least, the fact that Philip’s sister Margaret was still in Spain gave him leverage. On a cold, political level, in the eyes of the powerful monarchs who dominated the political scene of western Europe during this time in Spain, England, France, the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire, Margaret was once more a pawn to their interests.
Over the coming months there would be a lot of ambassadorial to-ing and fro-ing in which Maragaret’s future would be much discussed. We don’t want to go into all the details of this, but if you are interested in that minutiae, a good source is the Calendar of State papers volume 1, 1485 - 1509, which is a collection of accounts related to the diplomatic relationship between England and the Spanish kingdoms, now held in an archive at the Spanish town of Simancas but available online, translated, at british-history.ac.uk. Simply speaking, there were now multiple paths towards remarriage that Margaret’s future might take. Rumours flew that Margaret was going to marry the King of France, or maybe English king Henry VII’s son, Arthur Prince of Wales (who was already engaged to Catherine of Aragon), or perhaps to the King of Scots, or the King of Poland, the Duke of Milan or even the King of Hungary! The theoretical idea of marrying Margaret of Austria, or suggesting that someone else should do so, would lubricate the gears of trans-European diplomacy until her father or brother made a final decision. Maximilian sets the tone of his official position regarding all of these prospects in correspondence with the Spanish ambassador, Fuensalida. “There is no prince in Christendom whom she could marry… The King of Naples has no son of marriageable age; the King of England has already betrothed his son to the daughter of the Catholic sovereigns; the King of Scotland is a poor thing; the Duke of York (i.e. Perkin Warbeck) is married, and not at liberty; the King of Hungary has a wife already; the King of Poland is a nobody; so that there is no fit husband for her. It is true that the King of France is talking of repudiating his wife (i.e. Anne of Brittany), and marrying her to Monsieur Louis with great dowries and states, whilst he keeps Brittany, since he has lost hope of having children by her, and he wants to marry my daughter Margaret. But I will not consent to this on any account, nor would my daughter, for she has a great objection to go to France. Besides, I know for a fact that the King of France caused something to be given to her to bring on her miscarriage, and tried to poison King Ferdinand as well; so that there is nothing to be said about my daughter's marriage yet awhile.”
To give context to this official position, we know that Maximilian was in the process of making a peace with France, going behind the backs of Ferdinand and Isabella. Eleanor E Tremayne, who wrote a seminal book on Margaret in the early 20th century, wrote of this that “We may be quite sure that this hint that a French alliance was possible for Margaret was intended to remind Ferdinand that he must be careful not to offend his ally…” For their part, the Spanish ambassadors tried long and hard to keep Margaret in Spain, arguing that the French king Charles VIII had less chance of getting his grubby little claws into her while she was on the Iberian peninsula. Maximilian sent a group of diplomats to go get her, and the Spanish convinced them how dangerous the sea voyage would be, to the point that they begged Maximilian for a bigger, more protected ship. The tides of history, however, would shift again in April 1498, giving Maximilian the chance to bring her home another way. That way would be through France.
It’s worth digressing for a while to talk about France, if only because it’s been a while, but also because a lot of the wider international politicking going on, of which Margaret’s relationship status was a concern, was largely to do with how everybody felt about France. Fair warning, this digression is going to take us to some dark and unexpected places.
A game of tennis leads to a royal death in France
The time had come for another transformational moment for the French Kingdom, which would happen in the form of the person who wore its crown. The last time we really spoke about the King of France, Charles VIII, we saw him retreating out of Italy in the summer of 1495 after his campaigning there saw pretty much all of his major enemies (Spain, England, the Holy Roman Empire and a bunch of Italian states) coalesce against him in the form of the Holy League. This anti-France alliance had been one of the major motivations behind the double-marriages between Philip the Handsome and Princess Johanna, and Margaret of Austria and Prince Juan, which had linked the Spanish and Habsburg dynasties. The tensions between France and the Holy League had made traveling between Spain and the Low Countries a dangerous affair and was the reason why Margaret and Johanna had had to endure horrendous sailing voyages to attend their respective weddings. Well Charles VIII died in April, 1498 in such strange circumstances that we will let the chronicler and an old mate of ours Philippe de Commines relate the story in full:
“On the 7th of April, 1498, being the eve of Palm Sunday, [Charles VIII] took his queen [Anne of Brittany) by the hand, and led her out of her chamber to a place where she had never been before, to see them play at tennis in the castle-ditch… It was the nastiest place about the castle, broken down at the entrance, and everybody committed a nuisance in it that would. The king was not a tall man, yet he knocked his head as he went in. He spent some time in looking upon the players, and talked freely with everybody. I was not there myself (for I had gone to my country- house about a week before) but his confessor the Bishop of Angers, and the gentlemen of his bed-chamber, who were then about him, told me what I write. The last expression he used whilst he was in health was, that he hoped never to commit a mortal sin again, nor a venial sin if he could help it ; and with those words in his mouth he fell down backwards, and lost his speech. It was about two in in the afternoon when he fell, and he lay motionless till eleven o'clock at night. Thrice he recovered his speech, but he quickly lost it again, as his confessor told me, who had confessed him twice that week, once of course, and a second time upon occasion of his touching for the king's evil. Every one went into the gallery that pleased, where the king was laid upon a coarse bed; and he never left it till he died, which was nine hours after. The confessor told me that every time he recovered his speech he called out upon God, the glorious Virgin Mary, St. Claude, and St. Blaise, to assist him. And thus died that great and powerful monarch in a sordid and filthy place, though he had so many magnificent palaces of his own, and was building another more stately than any of them, yet he died in this poor chamber. How plain , then, and natural is it , from these two examples, for us to acknowledge the power and omnipotence of God, and that our life is but a span and a trifle, though we are so greedy and ambitious after the riches of this world ; and that princes no more than peasants are able to resist the Almighty.”
Wow that is one colourful story… a short man who dies after innocuously hitting his head on a door frame while going to watch a tennis match. Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany had had their own struggles to produce heirs, with four children being born but not one surviving infancy. As such, and due to the fact that the French interpretation of Salic law meant that women could not inherit the crown, upon Charles’ death his cousin Louis, Duke of Orleans, became the new King of France. We spoke about Louis in episode 48 when we saw him retreating from the castle of Novara after having been besieged there for months during the French retreat from Italy in 1495.
When Charles VIII died Anne of Brittany began making moves to reassert Brittany’s independence from France. You might remember that Margaret of Austria had spent her childhood betrothed to Charles VIII, being raised at the court in France to one day be Queen. Charles abruptly broke off their engagement, however, when he instead married Anne of Brittany (who if you recall was actually already married to Margaret’s father Maximilian, so was Margaret’s mother-in-law [it’s all very inbred]). That marriage had brought the fiercely independent Duchy of Brittany into the hands of the French King and had been the reason for Margaret’s of Austria’s first long trek across France back to the Low Countries after a discarded betrothal. Soon after Charles died, Anne began making appointments within Brittany and had coins minted there which proclaimed “Anne, by the grace of God, queen and duchess of the Britons”. The new King, Louis XII, did not want to lose Brittany and knew that within the terms of Anne’s marriage contract to Charles VIII was a clause that said she would marry his successor. Perfect! The problem was that Louis himself was already married to Charles VIII’s older sister, Joan of France.
The split between Joan of France and Louis XII
Sometimes known as Joan the Lame, she was the second child of King Louis XI. Joan had been born disabled, reportedly having a club foot and scoliosis, hence the “lame” part of her moniker. When she was around 9 years old her father lived up to his “universal spider” nickname and organised for Joan to be married to Louis of Orleans, Orleans being a cadet branch of the Valois house. He apparently figured Joan would not be able to have children and wanted to make sure this branch of the family tree ended there. Louis XI got special dispensation from the pope for Joan and Louis of Orleans to be married despite the fact that they had shared consanguinity, which is to say that they were very closely related. He also apparently made it clear that Louis of Orleans had no choice in the matter, apparently threatening him with drowning if he did not go through with it. The two were married in 1476, but now, 22 years after that, and in his new position as King, Louis XII wanted to ensure Brittany remained part of France so appealed to pope Alexander VI for an annulment.
The ensuing papal tribunal was a deadset scandal at the time. At first Louis XII argued that the marriage should be annulled because of the fact that they were too closely related, but Joan’s lawyers simply pointed to the previous papal dispensation and said “yeah but look this covers that.” So then Louis pivoted to say that he had actually been forced into the marriage by Louis XI, which, if he had actually been threatened with drowning, was probably a fair enough point. The problem with this line of argument, however, is spelled out by David D’Avray in his book “Papacy, Monarchy and Marriage”: “in the Middle Ages no formal marriage ceremony was required for a valid marriage, so that mutual consent at any point during the time the couple had been together would arguably have made it into a marriage. It was not just a matter of showing that consent was lacking when the wedding took place. The length of time the marriage had lasted was consequently difficult to justify legally, though the case was not absurd.” They had been married for 22 years, so it doesn’t seem difficult to imagine that Louis consented to the marriage at some point during that time. The strongest grounds Louis XII had for annulment was when he argued that the marriage had not been consummated. One way to test this would be for Joan to undergo a physical examination of her private parts but she argued that this would be inappropriate for a woman of her standing (fair enough). Instead both sides made solemn oaths, Joan claiming that they definitely had had sex and Louis XII saying the opposite.
The king’s physician, Salomon de Bombelles, was called as a witness. He testified that he once remarked to the king that one of his bodyguards was complaining that Louis and Joan were having too much sex, to which Louis responded: “‘The devil I do: I have never in my life mounted her naturally like another woman.” And, when the speaker replied that the same lord our king ought to have a talk with her with a view to obtaining his freedom, he replied to this that he did not know and, when he wanted to have intercourse with her, he found a certain twistedness at the orifice of the vulva, such that his penis could not enter, but as he aroused himself he ejaculated the semen between or over the legs of the same Lady Joan, and this act displeased him so much that he would have wished to have married one of the poorer noble women of this kingdom.” It’s a graphic description, but it does at least maybe explain how both sides solemnly testified the way they did. Joan might have thought that they had been having sex, Louis on the other hand didn’t. The scandalous ordeal continued with allegations of witchcraft which we don’t need to get into, but in the end, Pope Alexander VI had the marriage annulled. Funnily enough, shortly thereafter Louis had the Pope’s son, Cesar Borgia, declared to be Duke of Valentinois, a completely made up title, and also arranged a good marriage for him. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. So in December 1498 the marriage was annulled and on the 7th of January, 1499, Louis XII was married to Anne of Brittany, keeping that important territory in union with France. As for Joan of France, she was made Duchess of Berry and moved to Bourges, where she began building a monastery and founded a new religious order called Order of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She died 6 years later but the order still exists to this very day and in 1950 she was made a Saint by Pope Pius XII.
In the midst of all these proceedings Maximilian considered the death of Charles VIII as a chance to maybe have another stab at Brittany to whose Duchess, the recently widowed Anne of Brittany, he had once been married. When that was evidently not going to progress, he began to conjure up ideas of the old Burgundian territories being brought into his son’s realm. These, although providing the titular weight to his son’s princedom, had been passed back into the House of Valois upon the death of Charles the Bold in 1477. Maximilian reckoned they were Philip’s by right and he sent some troops into France and urged his son to get involved with him. The Archduke Philip, however, did the opposite and concluded the Treaty of Paris with the new King Louis XII in August 1498, in which he renounced any claims on Burgundy or Brittany. Around the same time the Spanish and English monarchs also came to a settlement with France.
For Margaret of Austria, this meant she could safely depart Spain and comfortably make her way back to Flanders by land across France. She left Spain in September, 1499, never to return. At Bayonne, Margaret was met by an envoy from her brother, filled with people who were familiar to her, such as the woman who had been with her since birth, Madame de Commines. Her entourage continued on through the winter months and in late February, shortly before she reached Ghent, she received word that her sister-in-law, Johanna, had given birth to a son. She pushed on and reached her home town on the 4th of March, in time for the infant’s baptism.
Charles V - born on a toilet?
The child whose birth we alluded to before the break, Philip the Handsome and Johanna of Castille’s second kid but, importantly, first son, will eventually grow up to become Emperor Charles V. He will reign over the biggest empire Europe had seen up until that point, during some of the most complex and transformative times Europeans have ever lived through. So fair warning, it’s safe to say that you are going to hear a lot about him over the next many episodes. For now, however, it is worth telling a little about his very first big moments in life - namely the circumstances of his birth and, two weeks later, the baptismal celebration that enveloped the people of Ghent as they got to see their new native prince.
Charles was born in the Hof ten Walle in Ghent in the early hours of February 24, 1500. His birth was seen as such a significant event that from that point on the building would be known as the Prinsenhof. In his book, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V, historian Geoffrey Parker, quotes a court poet who was in Ghent at the time and wrote of the occasion “Great and small shouted ‘Austria’ and ‘Burgundy’, Throughout the whole city for three hours. Everyone ran about while shouting the good news of [the birth of] a prince of peace.” In the original text of that quote, you get the word “paesyselick” so perhaps instead of saying a “prince of peace” it might be “an easter prince”. Molinet in his chronicle mentions “all the people of the country and especially the people of Ghent were supremely rejoiced”. A Spanish envoy in the Burgundian court named Diego Ramirez de Villaescusa de Haro, whose accounts of these happenings is one of the main primary sources for historians, wrote in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, “the people celebrated and did no work, and at night there was great celebration and much joy. And from all these festivities, the greatest beneficiaries were the tavern-keepers”. It would not take much for anybody who has been to Ghent in modern times to imagine what the consumption of copious amounts of Belgian beer might have looked like in the city during these ad hoc celebrations.
A more colourful account of the birth can be found in an 1838 French language Belgian history called Histoire des troubles des Pays-Bas” by Luc Jean Joseph van der Vynckt, which we have translated as follows: “The Infanta [Johanna] experienced at intervals wanderings of mind. She loved her husband desperately; but from this conjugal love was soon born a jealousy so violent, that one sometimes saw terrible effects: this dominating passion burst forth on every subject and often without subject; there is a singular example at the birth of Prince Charles (later Charles V.) The archdukes lodged at Ghent, at the palace still called today the Prinsenhof. On February 25 [sic], 1500, there was a great celebration at the court; The princess, magnificently adorned, was present at the end of her pregnancy, but she left for a moment, under the pretext of some need: her ladies, seeing her delay in returning, looked for her, and she was found alone in full labor in a very dangerous place and in no way intended for this august birth. She was rescued in time, and happily gave birth to this monarch. There was no need to hide the circumstance from the public, because everything went well, and the universal and tumultuous joy caused by this birth did not allow any search in this regard. No author, as far as I know, has made known this anecdote, which rests in Ghent on a discreet and good tradition.” So basically, it’s a folk story from Ghent that Johanna, jealous and scared that her husband was going to flirt with other women at a ball, got all dressed up and attended the party, only to have to hastily leave to give birth in a room that was not really suited to do it.
Over time this has morphed into a story told by Flemish author Louis Paul Boon in his final novel “Het Geuzenboek”, published in 1979: “it happened at four o’clock in the early morning of February in the year 1500, when the city of Ghent was still asleep. Joanna of Castile, the Spanish woman, who would soon be called the ‘Madwoman’ for hidden state interests, was in the last moments of her pregnancy. The wind howled in the narrow streets, the rain pelted against the small windows of the Prinsenhof. With her swollen belly she let herself be put on the chamber pot for a moment, and sitting there she gave birth to her second child, her son who would be called Charles. It was ridiculous, grotesque and horrible: from the garbage of a chamber pot one had to pick up this one who “would become the great Emperor Charles, the last prince of the great Burgundian Empire, the ruler who would say with incomparable arrogance: ‘In my country the sun never sets.’”” So a local legend, immortalised in writing by an author centuries removed from the events, suggests that the person who would become the most powerful man in the world was born on a toilet. You can take that one with a grain of salt.
Charles V’s baptism
Although the actual moment of Charles’ birth is wrapped up in folktale, the spectacular occasion of his baptism is more well documented. The most well known sources about the baptism are the chronicles by Molinet and Prudencio de Sandoval, but a more vivid account is a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella from a Spanish envoy to the Burgundian court with a long name which we will just shorten to Villaescusa. An article which analyses the source material for our knowledge about the baptism and delves into its layers of meaning is titled The Baptism of Charles V by Rolf Strøm Olsen who is a professor of humanities at the IE University of Segovia, Spain. We’ve relied on it a lot for this section. As mentioned before the break, Margaret of Austria and her entourage had been on the road back to the Low Countries from Spain for over 5 months when she received word that Johanna had given birth to Charles. She hurried on to Ghent and arrived a few days before the baptismal celebration. Preparations for it were already well underway. Villaescusa wrote that “on arriving in Ghent, there were many torches, lanterns and candles in the streets”. The baptism was held on March 7, 1500, and was an event which had no real precedent for its grandeur and public nature. Baptism of an heir had long been a big deal, of course, though not ever on such a scale. In the early days of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy the baptisms in the family would involve a relatively humble procession to a grandly decorated church. In the article The Baptism of Charles V, author Rolf Strøm Olsen notes that, from the reign of Philip the Good, dignitaries from the different territories that the Burgundian dukes now ruled were also expected to attend.
Following the crisis caused by the death of Charles the Bold, and the subsequent wars and rebellions under the stewardship of the foreign prince Maximilian, the birth of Philip the Fair back in 1478 had represented the arrival of a prince naturel. Molinet tells us of his baptism in Bruges and that “a gallery of wood was built, eight feet wide and raised two cubits off the ground, which started from the residence of the duke, passing along the rue de Saint-Armand, through the market, and ending at the Church of St Donat.” Essentially, in a first for the Low Countries, a long catwalk had been constructed for the whole court to their little turns, you know what I mean? This novelty served several purposes. Besides physically elevating the ruling clan above a crowd, it actively invited the crowd in the first place, creating a space for them to stand in contrast to it. With Philip’s baptism and the raised wooden walkway, there was a definite role for the public to play as spectators and participants in the event. The event could come to represent more than just the baptism of a new ruler, but a communal celebration of unity across class lines.
By the time we get to the baptism of Philip’s first child, Eleanor, in 1498, not only do we find the elevated wooden walkway, but there were also 18 gates along it that represented the 18 titles due to the heir of the Burgundian holdings, and torches in the surrounding building, lighting the way. Molinet writes of Eleanor’s baptism and of children who participated in the ceremony, such as one “'luxuriously dressed, holding a staff in his hand in the manner of a prophet” and of other kids standing under the gates who, “dressed as angels and shepherds sang melodiously.” We can assume from this that a lot of the preparations for Eleanor’s baptism came before it was known whether or not she was a son, and therefore the heir to the Habsburg lands. So her baptism ended up serving as a rehearsal for that of her younger brother.
When Charles was born, a two week clock started ticking down for workers and organisers in Ghent to get things in order for the celebration of yet another prince naturel who would keep their interests at heart when he eventually came to rule. His existence was political from the beginning. There was actually a controversy at court around his chosen name and given titles. He was named Charles after his godfather, the powerful Prince of Chimay Charles de Croy, but clearly also as a nod to his great grandfather, Charles the Bold. His title was supposed to be Count of Charolais, but this was seen as possibly antagonistic towards France, so he was given Duke of Luxembourg instead. Rolf Strøm Olsen argues that there were different layers of political maneuverings around this. “The dispute shows the tension that existed over the question of continuity with Valois traditions. It is… probable that many in the Habsburg court saw it as advantageous to separate their dynastic fortunes from those associated with Charles the Bold as a way to send a message of appeasement to Ghent and the other cities of Flanders.” If you remember back to Episode 30 - A Rebuke of the New Duke, the city of Ghent had given Charles the Bold an extremely rude welcome when making his Joyous Entry as Duke of Burgundy in 1467. The memory of Charles’ violent rule and the collective punishments he meted out, as well as the financial and political turmoil that marked his reign and the time after his death would have lingered long in the minds of the people of Flanders, but particularly in Ghent.
In the organisation of the event, there was clearly some level of collaboration between the civil authorities of Ghent and those in the court who had been tasked with overseeing it. Ghent forked up most of the cash and we also know how much Flemish cities like to try and out-do each other. Just as the Joyous Entry had become a conventional occurrence for which the city’s were supposed to draw pride, now the baptism of ducal children could serve the same purpose. Even for a people accustomed to hosting lavish Joyous Entries, apparently the Gentenaars outdid even themselves, in the words of Molinet, they “put themselves to work so magnificently that nothing was spared”. The procession route was adorned with forty triumphal arches, three of which were larger than the rest and adorned with the words WISDOM, JUSTICE and PEACE, the others representing the various titles Charles would inherit. There were also Tableux Vivants - living scenes with actors portraying classical and biblical allegories, all revolving around the themes of water and baptism. The Spanish envoy Villaescusa later described the event for his king and queen: “After [the final] gate of the [Gravensteen] Palace [a] walkway led into the city, and, after some thirty pasos (a pasos is about 2 feet or 60cm)," began a building constructed of wood in the form of a bridge rising above the ground on wooden beams and supported in some places a half a storey [above the ground] and in some places more and others less. And this was constructed in the street so that on both sides there remained a certain space between the bridge and the houses, in certain places wider, and others less wide, in which space the inhabitants [of Ghent] watched the solemn procession, for in the actual bridge were only those who were going to accompany [the prince] to celebrate the baptism. And this bridge extended to the Church of St John which is in the middle of the city, and where the Baptism was to be held.”
The event was held at night, so the visual motifs and representations had to be expertly illuminated. Across the city flame and light was used in various ways to enhance the entire spectacle, with thousands of torches and candles used to light the procession. Flames shot out of the mouth of the 14th century metal dragon which stands atop the Belfort. On the river Lei, the shipper’s guild (with whom we should feel some acquaintance following our episode 53) had a bedecked boat lit up by 225 flambeaus. Villaescusa says that “for this event [it] had been done up so that its bow, stern, mast and topsail were all covered in tapestries down to the water”. A band pumped out tunes all night from within the ship as people watched on in wonderment. To top it all off, the next day a jousting ceremony was held in which Phillip the Handsome took part.
We could go on about this in loads more detail, but we’ve already established that if you are getting the sense that this was a huge party, then you are thinking the right way. What we really want to emphasise here, however, is that this wasn’t like other big public celebrations which we have seen in previous episodes, The Joyous Entries we have spoken out in previous episodes were all political and constitutional affairs, where the people were greeting their prince and the prince would uphold and confirm their privileges and make various appointments. Joyous Entries were a necessary part of the constitutional agreements that had developed between the Burgundian dukes and the different people of their diverse territories. But as Rolf Strøm-Olsen writes: “Charles's baptism marks a moment where a ritual event moves from reinforcing the contractual and legal obligations that bond a ruler with his subjects to operating on a broader political level through a symbolism and convention that was intended to transcend regional political identities and to offer a rhetorical narrative designed to portray the Habsburg dynasty as more than simply the sum of its parts”. Arguably, this was the culmination of a process that had started with Philip the Good, who had done so much to garner so many different titles of the Low Countries into his family’s hands, and was the first to insist that foreign dignitaries attend his children’s baptisms even though there was no legal obligation to. Now, some generations later, the baptism of a new native prince was enough to get representatives from all across the Low countries to descend upon the most rebellious city in the Low Countries, where everyone could attend an event that cost a lot of hard work, literally elevated their lords above them all and which they had to pay for themselves. Whilst the long-time wish of the Burgundians to become kings had not quite come to fruition, here was an event that suggested the ruler’s embodiment as the state, like Strøm-Olsen said, ‘greater than the sum of its parts.’ This was as close to a coronation as they could get.
Margaret of Austria marries Phil the Handsome (the other one)
To wrap this episode up it behooves us to briefly take a look at what happened to Margaret of Austria immediately following the baptism. As one of Charles’ four godparents, Margaret had played a central role in the baptismal ceremony as described by Villaescusa. After the procession had brought the group into the church, 'bishops and abbots and the princess [Margaret of Austria] and Madame Lagrande [Margaret of York] climbed up to the first platform and presented the child for unwrapping ... And having been unwrapped, was taken and carried to the higher stage onto which climbed the ... princess and Madame Lagrande, the godmothers, the prince of Chimay and the Seigneur de Berghes, the godfathers, and the said bishops.”
Now that the big event was over, however, what remained regarding Margaret was still the big question that had haunted her life ever since infancy: who should she be married off to? Well, while her brother and father figured that out for her, she was to be sent off to the Palace at La Quesnoy in Hainault, which you might remember was the personal estate where Charles the Bold had spent so much time, especially during the years he had been estranged from his father.
As mentioned at the start of this episode, Margaret’s marriage prospects were of interest to multiple people who sat in the top echelons of European power. France and Spain were still contesting over Naples and Italy. The Burgundian court in Brussels saw pro-Spanish and pro-French parties contesting for power, with the Francophilic Croys once again coming into dominance. It wasn’t long before Philip had betrothed his new heir, Charles, to marry a French princess. The Spanish king of Aragon, Ferdinand, who had worked so hard politically to keep France isolated, had arranged for his youngest daughter Catherine to marry Arthur the Prince of Wales, heir to the English throne. Philip, being pro-France, sought to disrupt this union by marrying Margaret off to the English instead. Supposedly the idea was to bring about a Franco-English-Burgundian alliance against the Spanish. Amidst all this, Maximilian’s position was obscure. His focus had turned more and more towards launching a crusade (that old chestnut) and, although he had been ostensibly allied with Ferdinand and Isabella through their childrens’ marriages, Ferdinand rightly suspected he was negotiating with the French behind their backs. Amongst all that, though, Maximilian continued to ponder the multitude of marriage proposals received for his daughter’s hand, which we went through earlier in this episode.
When the Spanish ambassador, Fuensalida, visited Margaret in 1500 he learned of a marriage proposal from the Duke of Savoy, ruler of the lands that nestled between France, Italy and Switzerland. According to Fuensalida, both Margaret and Maximilian were favourable to the match. It has been argued that Philip was against the match, since it would mean Margaret would no longer be a piece that could be used against Spain, but also because by marrying into Savoy Margaret would officially took dominion over the southern Burgundian lands which their mother had bequeathed to her but which Philip had controlled on her behalf. Margaret’s marriage to Savoy would see him lose land. This contention is disputed elsewhere, however, as the marriage to Savoy could be seen as a win-win for Philip and Max. Savoy’s closeness to France would appease the Francophilic Philip (Philibert was a cousin of the recently deceased King Charles VIII), while also pleasing Maximilian for providing a land passage to Italy where he could finally go and get crowned by the Pope.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle was Margaret herself, who had become more determined in having some sort of say in her future. In her biography of Margaret, Jane de Iongh tells us that “when Philip the Handsome presented her with a document to sign in which she was to declare that no form of pressure had been used upon her, Margaret refused to set her name to it. By this action she showed herself to be no longer the totally will-less pawn of whom ambition and arrogance could dispose at pleasure. But she still lacked the courage to oppose this new marriage which Philip for his own selfish political reasons forced upon her.” In August of 1501 she was shipped off to her third husband, called Philibert the Handsome, Duke of Savoy. Yes, that is right, her new fella had a similar name and the exact same epithet as her brother. Two Phil the Handsomes is just what we needed to make this series of developments more clear. We started off this episode seeing Margaret of Austria as a widow after the sudden death of her husband and we end up with her marrying a new prince charming.
Her new husband Philibert was a man with many interests, but government administration was not one of them, so his bastard brother René had taken the lead there, being in control when Margaret arrived. Margaret, though, had obviously undergone some serious growth, from being the young princess whose destiny was decided by others to a Duchess whose destiny might have been chosen by others, but which she was going to grab with both hands. She lived up to her high intelligence and would prove herself to be a shrewd political operator there, soon coming to be the active ruler of Savoy. There she would have some of the happiest years of her life, whilst further developing her skills in government, leadership and people management. Even though she had been shuttled from one arranged marriage to another - within the space of one episode! - from this point on Margaret was not going to be a mere pawn anymore. But she also wasn’t just going to live happily ever after as some French Duke’s missus. There’s still a lot of evolution to happen in the future for Margaret of Austria, and we will see what shape her final form takes, in future episodes of History of the Netherlands.
Sources used:
Chroniques de Jean Molinet, Tome 5
Margaret of Austria: Regent of the Netherlands by Jane de longh
The First Governess of the Netherlands: Margaret of Austria by Eleanor E. Tremayne
Correspondencia de Gutierre Gomez de Fuensalida, embajador en Alemania, Flandes é Inglaterra (1496-1509)
The Memoirs of Philippe de Commines, Lord of Argenton Vol 2
Papacy, Monarchy and Marriage 860-1600 by David D’Avray
Emperor: A New Life of Charles V by Geoffrey Parker
‘Dynastic Ritual and Politics in Early Modern Burgundy: The Baptism of Charles V’ by Rolf Strøm-Olsen in Past & Present No. 175 (May, 2002), pp. 34-64 (31 pages) Published By: Oxford University Press
Het Geuzenboek by Louis Paul Boon