BLANCHE DE CASTILLE AS REGENT OF FRANCE
IN a preceding chapter we saw how old Queen Eleanor was despatched into
Spain to bring her granddaughter, Blanche de Castille, as a bride for
Louis of France, and how Eleanor fell ill on the way, and handed over
her charge to Elie de Malmort, Archbishop of Bordeaux. The child whom
Eleanor was bringing back as a sacrifice to peace between John and
Philippe Auguste was then but a little over twelve years of age. Blanche
was born in the early part of the year 1188, at Palencia. Her father, a
good man and a brave warrior, was Alphonso VIII., surnamed the Noble,
King of Castille; and her mother was Eleanor of England, daughter of
Henry II. and Eleanor of Guienne. Fortunately, this latter lady seems to
have inherited none of the bad traits of her mother and namesake; at
least contemporary accounts call her "chaste, noble, and of good
counsel." The family of the young Princess Blanche was large and of
illustrious connections. We need not note those of the direct
Plantagenet line, which are sufficiently familiar, but on her father's
side we may mention her eldest sister, Berengere, who, married to her
cousin, the King of Leon, had been forced to separate from him in spite
of their love, in spite of their children, in spite of important reasons
of state. Queen Berengere was of a character, it appears, very much like
that of her sister, and there was much love between the two. Another
sister, but a year older than Blanche, married Alphonso of Portugal,
whose brother was that Count Ferrand de Flandre defeated at Bouvines by
Philippe Auguste and kept in captivity for many years. Of this sister a
curious story is told.
It appears that, in the negotiations between John and Philippe Auguste,
the name of the Princess of Castille who should become the wife of
Prince Louis had not been specified. The King of Castille had two
unmarried daughters, Urraque and Blanche. When the ambassadors of France
came, accompanied by Queen Eleanor, the two princesses were brought
before them. They chose Urraque, as the elder and the more beautiful;
but when they heard her name they protested that would never do, it was
too hard for the people of France to learn to pronounce; and so the
choice fell upon Blanche.
After being conducted to Normandy, where was the court of her uncle,
John, the little princess was married immediately. The treaty for whose
ratification and observance she was a sort of pledge was signed on May
22, 1200. John ceded nearly all that Philippe could ask, and bestowed
twenty thousand marks sterling upon the young husband. The next day the
ceremony was performed at Portmort, on the right bank of the Seine, by
the Archbishop of Bordeaux, in the presence of a great assemblage of
barons and ecclesiastics. The young prince and his bride could not be
married on French soil by reason of the interdict then in force against
his father for repudiating Ingeburge; hence the choice of Norman soil
and of such an out of the way place. The prince, aged only twelve years
and six months, proceeded with Blanche direct to Paris. There is no
record of the usual festivities accompanying a royal marriage, despite
the accounts of some modern historians, who claim that there were grand
tourneys, and that Louis was wounded in one of them.
In one so young as Blanche it is useless to look for the traits of the
grown woman; we might conjecture much, but it would be in the light of
after events. To those about her at this time Blanche seemed a beautiful
girl, deserving of the flattering play upon words which her name
suggested. She was _la princesse candide_ not only in looks but in
conduct, and won the devoted love of her boy husband, who seems to have
been himself of a lovable disposition. It was at his request that Hugh
of Lincoln, at that time in great repute, visited Blanche, whom he found
in tears and managed to console. But the times were troublous, and we
may well suppose that there was little chance for the fostering of quiet
domestic virtues when one had been forced to marry merely for reasons of
state. It is rumored, though not positively confirmed, that the crafty
King of France made use of his young daughter-in-law to solicit from
King John another slice of Normandy, which John dared not refuse.
Whether this be true or not, it is at least certain that neither
immediately nor ultimately did the marriage of Blanche de Castille help
the English Plantagenets. For John quarrelled with Alphonso, Blanche's
father, and the two were at war with intervals of truce, between 1204
and 1208, the subject of dispute being Gascony. Blanche naturally sided
with her father rather than with her uncle, and when she bore heirs who
might inherit the crown of France, made stronger by the accession of the
Norman lands which had been taken from John and given to her husband, it
is easy to see that her sympathies would be with her adopted country.
Blanche's first child a daughter, who lived but a short time, and whose
name is not known was born in 1205. On September 9, 1209, she gave birth
to a son, hailed as the heir to the crown, and named Philippe, in honor
of his grandfather. But this child, too, lived only a few years, dying
when between eight and nine. In the interval, on January 26, 1213,
Blanche had borne twins, Alphonse and Jean, who did not live long. Other
domestic joys and sorrows were coming to the young princess. Her father
won a great victory over the Moors, at Las Navas de Tolosa, July 16,
1212, and her sister Berengere wrote her the glad news: "It is my
pleasure to inform you of joyful news; thanks be to God, from whom all
good comes, our king, our lord, our father has vanquished on the field
of battle the Emir Almounmenim, by which, I think, he has won very great
honor; for until this time it has never happened that a king of Morocco
has been defeated in a pitched battle." Within two years after this the
gallant Alphonso was dead, and one month later his wife Eleanor followed
him to the tomb.
Father and mother had thus both been taken from Blanche, while she was
far from them, in a strange land. But her new country was winning a hold
upon her heart; in the war then waging between her Uncle John and her
father-in-law, all her interests and all her affection were on the side
of France. And now another son was born, on Saint Mark's day, April 25,
1215, at the royal residence of Poissy. The child was named Louis, and
his birth seems to have created but little interest, as was natural,
since the older brother, Philippe, was still living. But this child
became the famous Saint Louis, and pious legends must needs gather
around his birth and his infancy: it was at the special intervention of
Saint Dominique, whose prayers Blanche had asked, that this son was
born; then, at the time of his birth, the pious queen learned that, out
of consideration for her, the bells of the church of Poissy had been
silenced, so she had herself removed, though then in childbed. The piety
of Blanche was sincere but never exaggerated; it is easy to see in such
a legend the art of those who thought it fitting that a saint, even
before birth, should allow nothing to interfere with the services of the
church. In like manner Blanche's extreme jealousy in regard to her baby
is a fiction that has been often repeated. Louis was given to a nurse,
Marie la Picarde, and there is no truth in the story which represents
Blanche as snatching him from the breast of one of her ladies and
forcing the infant to disgorge the milk of the stranger.
The little Louis was not two years old when the English barons, in
revolt against John, called his father to their aid and promised him the
throne of England, to which he had no claim except through Blanche.
Louis went to England, in spite of the anathemas of the Pope against all
who dared oppose John. Successful at first against the English king, the
French prince began to suffer serious reverses when the hated John was
succeeded by his son, Henry, against whom the English barons had no just
cause of complaint. Philippe Auguste had been from the beginning too
politic to lend his son open assistance, or even to sanction his
enterprise. The task of collecting and sending him reinforcements
devolved upon Blanche. For the first time the full energy of her
character is displayed. A chronicler, almost contemporary, records an
alleged interview between her and Philippe Auguste, who, deaf to his
son's entreaties for help, had declared that he would do nothing, and
that he did not care to risk excommunication. "When Madame Blanche (it
is by this title that she is referred to even when queen) heard of this
she came to the king and said: 'Would you let my lord, your son, perish
thus in a strange land? Sire, for God's sake, remember that he is to
reign after you; send him what he needs, at least the revenues of his
own patrimony.' 'Certes,' said the king, 'I will do nothing, Blanche.'
'Nothing, sire?' 'No, truly.' 'In God's name, then,' replied Blanche, 'I
know what I will do.' 'And what will you do?' 'By the holy Mother of
God, I have beautiful children by my husband; I will put them in pledge,
and well I know some who will lend me on their security.' Then she
rushed madly from the king's presence; and he, when he saw her go,
believed that she had spoken but the truth. He had her called back, and
said to her: 'Blanche, I will give you of my treasure as much as you
would have; do whatever you wish with it; but rest assured that I myself
will send him nothing.' 'Sire,' said Madame Blanche, 'you say well.' And
then the great treasure was given to her, and she sent it to her lord."
The details of this conversation may not be absolutely accurate, but the
facts seem to have been correctly recorded. Blanche went to Calais and
there established headquarters for collecting provisions, munitions, and
a small army for her husband. She despatched an expedition to his aid,
the army being under command of Robert de Courtenay, the fleet under
that of the famous pirate and freebooter Eustache le Moine. But the
fleet was destroyed by the English off Sandwich, August 24, 1217, and
there was no other course open to Louis than to make the best terms he
could with Henry III. and return to France. Blanche had displayed an
energy that elicited the admiration of her contemporaries, but for the
next few years she had no part in the larger events of history.
Domestic duties, domestic sorrows, indeed, must have absorbed a good
deal of the energy of this devoted wife and mother. In September, 1216,
her son Robert had been born. In 1218 she lost Philippe, her oldest son.
Three other children came in rapid succession: John (1219); Alphonse
(1220); Philippe Dagobert (1222). Of these only Alphonse was destined to
live to manhood. The anxious mother, having lost so many of her
children, would make vows for their recovery when any of them fell ill.
Fearing that she might have forgotten to fulfil some of these vows,
often made under stress of anguish, she sought and obtained from the
Pope (1220) permission to perform charities in place of trying to fulfil
her vows in all cases.
In her native land, too, there were events to claim her attention. Her
brother, Henry, having been accidentally killed after a short reign,
Queen Berengere was the next heiress; but she refused the crown for
herself, placing it upon the head of her son, Ferdinand III., whom she
continued to counsel and assist very much as Blanche was later to
counsel her son. It is reported that the discontented subjects of
Ferdinand offered the crown to Blanche. Whether this be true or not, she
would never have taken sides against her sister Berengere.
On July 14, 1223, the great King Philippe Auguste died, and on August
6th Queen Blanche and King Louis VIII. were crowned with solemn
ceremonial. The Abbot of Saint-Remi, escorted by two hundred knights,
brought the sacred ampulla to the cathedral of Rheims, and the
archbishop anointed the royal pair. The king's sword was borne in the
procession by his half-brother, Philippe Hurepel, son of Agnes de
Meranie and Philippe Auguste. There were great festivities, lasting
eight days, and the new king and queen manumitted serfs and showed mercy
upon prisoners and captives. Queen Blanche still remains in the
background during the brief reign of Louis VIII.; but we may note that
she used her influence to secure the liberation of Ferrand de Portugal,
Count of Flanders, who had been in captivity since the battle of
Bouvines. Released from prison in 1227, Ferrand lived to become one of
Blanche's most steadfast and useful allies.
Louis VIII. died in November, 1226, leaving Blanche with eight children
to care for; in addition to those already mentioned there were Isabelle,
Etienne, and Charles, all born since the accession of Louis. The king,
who had forced the submission of Languedoc during the expedition on
which he died, made his barons swear to be true to his son Louis.
Realizing that his devoted wife could not reach him before his death, he
provided as best he could for her. With perfect confidence in her, a
confidence fully justified by the event, he declared that Prince Louis,
his heir, as well as the whole kingdom and all the rest of his children
should be under the tutelage of Queen Blanche until they came of age; to
this important portion of the king's will some of the great barons and
high church dignitaries were witnesses.
Blanche and her husband had loved each other tenderly and faithfully,
and at first the widowed queen was looked upon with compassion. She was
on her way to Louis's bedside, the younger children in a carriage and
Prince Louis riding ahead, when she was met by the news of his death.
Her grief was pitiable; but her sense of duty toward her children and
her realization of the difficulties and dangers of her position gave her
courage. She was not the kind of woman to succumb under grief for the
loss of a well-loved husband or anxiety at finding herself obliged to
govern a kingdom whose king was yet a boy.
At first the old retainers of Louis were around her and faithful to her.
She was politic enough to win the support of the only prince of the
blood, Philippe, surnamed Hurepel, on account of the great mat of shaggy
hair he had inherited from his father, Philippe Auguste. Ferrand, Count
of Flanders, was her friend, and she could rely upon the support of most
of the clergy, and especially upon that of the papal legate, Romain
Frangipani, Cardinal of Saint Angelo. Her surest allies, however, were
the immediate servants of the crown: the chancellor, Guerin, who was
unfortunately not to live long; Archambaud de Bourbon, Count Amaury de
Montfort, the chamberlain, Barthelemy de Roye, and the noble constable,
Mathieu de Montmorency. With the aid of such friends, Blanche began her
duties as regent.
How long this regency was to last, how long it really did last, are
matters not altogether easy to determine. In the first place, there were
precedents, in the royal line as well as in feudal annals, for
considering the age of majority as fourteen years; but there seems to
have been authority equally as good for holding to the age of
twenty-one. Louis was in his twelfth year when his father died. Blanche
continued to act as regent for about ten years, and there was no protest
based on the pretext that the young king should have been considered a
major at fourteen years.
As soon as possible, Blanche had Louis crowned, a ceremony which did not
imply that he was to be considered out of her tutelage, but which did
give him a certain amount of prestige and consequent protection. The
coronation, which took place on November 29, 1226, at Rheims, was but
poorly attended by the nobles. Already there was discontent, and the
great house of Dreux, led by the crafty and unscrupulous Pierre
Mauclerc, Count of Brittany, was at the head of the disaffected. Count
Thibaud de Champagne, son of Blanche's first cousin, would have come to
the coronation, but Blanche ordered the gates of Rheims closed against
him; for it was currently rumored, though the rumor was entirely without
justification, that Louis VIII. had died very suddenly because of poison
administered by Thibaud. But, with or without the presence of the great
barons, Louis IX. was crowned, and Blanche made for herself and her son
such friends as she could.
In England Henry III., always restive under the thought of the losses
sustained by his father in France, was continually scheming to regain
the lost territories. He formed alliances with some of the chief lords
of Poitou, entered into negotiations for the hand of Yolande, daughter
of Pierre Mauclerc, and made abortive, but nevertheless startling,
preparations for a descent upon the coast of France. His allies among
the discontented French nobility took up arms, inspired in part by the
jealous Isabelle d'Angouleme, who had been the queen of John Lackland
and was now Countess of Marche. Blanche promptly summoned the ban royal
to assemble at Tours, whither she went with Louis in February, 1227.
Count Thibaud de Champagne had been in treaty with the rebels and was
marching with his forces as if to join them in Poitou. Tradition says
that he was diverted by a secret message from Blanche; at any rate, he
suddenly turned in his march and came to Tours, did homage to the boy
king, and was graciously received by the queen regent. The defection of
Thibaud upset the plans of the rebels, who quarrelled among themselves.
Many of them came, one by one, to submit to Louis IX., and hostilities
were suspended between the French and Richard of Cornwall, brother and
representative of Henry III.
During the truce which followed, Blanche was enabled to prosecute the
unfinished war in Languedoc against Raymond VII. of Toulouse and the
Albigensian heretics. One is surprised to find that certain churches in
France refused at first to grant the king subsidies to conduct this
crusade, and that it was only by the vigorous measures of Cardinal
Remain that they were at length compelled to yield.
The turbulent barons could not endure being governed by a woman. If
Blanche had been a weak ruler the indignity of bearing her rule would
have been atoned for by the laxity of that rule; but she was strong, and
could control the barons, who accordingly hated her. Pierre Mauclerc and
his party declared that France was not meant to be ruled by a foreign
woman; they called her "Dame Hersent," like the she-wolf in the _Roman
du Renart_; they circulated odious calumnies against her. The most
noteworthy of these calumnies is that which connected her name with that
of Thibaud de Champagne as an adulteress. They said that Blanche had
been his paramour even during the life of her husband; nay, that she had
connived at the murder of her husband, poisoned by Thibaud. They alleged
that she was, moreover, secretly sending the royal treasure into Spain;
that she was so vile that one lover did not suffice; that she had
illicit relations with Cardinal Remain. It is needless to say that there
is no foundation for these tales; they are the tax that a good woman
paid for being at the same time great.
The malcontents plotted to separate the king from his mother, and
determined to carry him off by force. Blanche and Louis were near
Orleans when warned of the danger. Hastening toward Paris, they were
forced to take refuge in the strong castle of Montlhery, for the rebels
were assembled in force at Corbeil, between them and Paris. Blanche
appealed to the citizens of Paris to safeguard the king's approach.
There could not have been a better testimonial to the popularity of the
royal family and, incidentally, to the good government enjoyed under
Blanche than the response made by these _bourgeois_. The militia of the
surrounding country having been gathered in Paris, the combined forces
of the city and country marched to Montlhery, deploying along the route.
Long after this Saint Louis used to tell Joinville of his triumphal
entry: "He told me," says this chronicler, "that from Montlhery, the
road was filled with men with arms and men without arms, up to the gates
of Paris, and that all shouted and called upon the Lord to grant him
long and happy life, and to guard and protect him against his enemies."
The nobles were balked, and retired from Corbeil.
The barons, though temporarily disheartened, were by no means reduced to
peaceful submission. England was still in a threatening attitude; while
the long and relentless war against the Albigenses was dragging on, with
success now on this side, now on that. Blanche had need to fortify
herself as wisely as she could. She sought the support of the bourgeois.
The citizens of Limoges and of Saint-Junien in the Limousin, in charters
granted in 1228, swore fealty to the queen as well as to the king.
Cardinal Remain, at Blanche's instance, came back to France as legate;
she found his advice, and the prestige of the papal authority, of
material assistance. After some negotiation, the truce with England was
renewed for a year, from July, 1228, to July, 1229.
Philippe Hurepel, who had been faithful for a time to the interests of
his sister-in-law and her son, displayed discontent, and now went over
to the side of the rebels. It is said that he even had an eye on the
throne, and that the barons had some notion of trying to set up
Enguerrand de Coucy as king that Coucy who was the head of the house
with the famous motto:
"Je ne suis roi, ne due, ne prince, ne comte aussi:
Je suis le sire de Coucy."
Before actual hostilities began, Blanche had required and received new
oaths of fealty from the communes of the royal domain north of the
Seine, as far as Flanders. Magistrates of Amiens, Compiegne, Laon,
Peronne, and a host of other places, swore to defend the king, Queen
Blanche, and her children. The barons had arranged that Pierre Mauclerc
should begin hostilities, and that when Blanche summoned the feudal army
to march against him each should come, but come with only two knights,
which would make a force so small that Mauclerc would have nothing to
fear. Once more Thibaud de Champagne came to the rescue. He gathered all
the troops he could, and came with over three hundred knights, these
being, when joined to the contingents from the loyal communes of the
royal domain, enough to save Blanche. In January, 1229, Blanche marched
into the domains of the refractory Mauclerc--who had refused to appear
when summoned to the court--and laid siege to the strong castle of
Belleme. In a few days, though the stronghold was considered
impregnable, the garrison was forced to surrender. The actual military
operations of this successful siege were conducted, of course, by
Blanche's general, Jean Clement, the marshal of France; but she herself
looked after the comfort of her army. It was intensely cold; she ordered
the soldiers to build great bonfires in the camp, promising pay to those
who would fetch fuel from the forests; by this means, men and horses
were kept warm.
After the capitulation of the garrison of Belleme, Mauclerc's power was
temporarily broken, and Blanche marched back to Paris with Louis, who
had accompanied her. The barons had not received the support on which
they had counted from Henry III., whose weakness and vacillation kept
him from taking advantage of what would have been a splendid opportunity
to weaken the power of France.
In her precarious situation Blanche needed the support of all classes;
it was now her misfortune to incur, for a time, the ill will of the
students of the University of Paris. These students had, from long
custom and by royal favor, been allowed all sorts of privileges and
immunities, since the University added no little to the prestige of
Paris. They were a turbulent set, frequently engaged in brawls with the
citizens. On Shrove Monday, 1229, some students went to an inn at
Saint-Marcel, outside Paris, where they ate and drank, and then engaged
in a violent quarrel with the innkeeper when the bill was presented. The
quarrel at first seemed rather comic; after a wordy battle they came to
blows and pulling of hair, till the students were driven ignominiously
from the field. But next day, February 27th, they returned in force,
armed with sticks and stones, and even swords. In a spirit of
undiscriminating revenge, they wrecked the first inn they came across
and beat the people in the streets, women as well as men. Word was sent
at once to the authorities of the University, who appealed to Queen
Blanche through Cardinal Romain. The prefect of Paris, with his
soldiers, was ordered to proceed to the scene of the rioting and restore
order, which he did with rather too good a will, for in the process
there was bloodshed; several students were killed, and the complaint was
made that those whom the prefect and his men attacked were not the
guilty ones. The authorities of the University were up in arms against
the queen. As she declined to make the reparation they demanded--which
would have left the students more lawless than ever for the
future--teachers and students scattered, to Rheims, to Angers, to
Orleans, and many returned to their native land. The concessions which
Blanche then made could not bring back all who had gone away. Though her
policy may have been mistakenly severe one can but grant that she had
cause for being severe. All our sympathies are with the woman whom the
students did not hesitate to vilify, reviving the calumny about the
relations of Blanche and Cardinal Romain, who had given her able support
in this affair. Such currency did this vile story gain that one
chronicler tells us that the queen submitted to an examination to
disprove it.
The first real victory for France in the long war of the Albigenses came
with the treaty of Paris, sometimes called the treaty of Meaux, April
12, 1229. It is, perhaps, fortunate for the reader's good opinion of
Blanche that we omit to chronicle the horrors of this war, though most
of those horrors were committed before she became ruler of France.
Raymond VII., Count of Toulouse, the head and front of the resistance in
Provence, was Blanche's cousin, and she had always shown herself mindful
of family ties, so that we may charitably suppose that she did the best
she could for the ruined Raymond. We do not know that she assisted at
his humiliation,--barefooted, and in his shirt, he was led to the door
of Notre Dame and made to swear absolute submission to the Church--but
we cannot go wrong in assuming that some of the wise provisions of the
treaty of Paris were of her suggesting. The provisions were very wise
indeed, securing to the French crown almost everything that could be
hoped; in our wildest moments of enthusiasm, however, we could not
accuse Blanche of having tempered policy with mercy. As a summary of the
situation, we may state that Raymond contracted to' surrender to Louis
Beaucaire, Nimes, Carcassonne, and Beziers, with other territories on
the Mediterranean to the west of the Rhone; that Toulouse and its
territory must revert to his daughter Jeanne, who was to be espoused by
one of the brothers of Louis IX.; that the dominions remaining to him
should also revert to Jeanne, in failure of other heirs of his body.
Failing heirs of Jeanne, the domains acquired as her dower were to
revert to the crown of France. More complete ruin for Raymond could
hardly have been compassed. It was the end of Provence both as a
political and an artistic entity.
We have alluded several times to the famous Thibaud IV., called _Le
Chansonnier_, Count of Champagne. His relations with Blanche of Castille
are matter both of history and of legend; it behooves us to try to sift
the one from the other and to present some account of the loves of
Blanche and Thibaud.
Thibaud's mother, Blanche de Navarre, Countess of Champagne, had to play
a role not unlike that of her cousin Blanche de Castille; she acted as
regent in the name of her son, and it was due to her good management
that he was allowed to inherit his patrimony. This was surely an age of
woman, with Berengere ruling in Castille, Queen Blanche in France, and
another Blanche, of the same family, in Champagne. Thibaud was of a
gallant temperament, priding himself upon his knightly accomplishments,
but not less upon his talent as a poet; for he was one of those
imitators of the troubadours whom we might almost class with the
troubadours themselves. Of his gifts as a poet we shall not speak here;
in the histories of French literature will be found the record of many
of his chansons. As a man, it is altogether probable that Thibaud did
not suffer from an over-scrupulous conscience; we have knowledge of his
acting in very bad faith on several occasions. But these manifestations
of bad faith were almost always to the advantage of Blanche de Castille.
The rebel barons would enter into league with Thibaud, and he would
agree to betray his queen, and would even consider seriously the
question of marrying the daughter and heiress of Pierre Mauclerc. At the
critical moment comes a missive, nominally from the boy king: "Sir
Thibaud de Champagne, I have heard that you have promised to take to
wife the daughter of the Count Pierre de Bretagne; I bid you, by all
that you hold most dear in this kingdom, that you do not so. The reason,
you know full well;... for never have I had one who wished me more ill
than this same count." The impulsive Thibaud reads the note, and he and
his knights turn aside to support the fair lady who was the real author
of the missive. It was this sort of thing which made the barons hate and
distrust Thibaud and which gave some color to the reports they
industriously circulated, alleging that Blanche was the mistress of
Thibaud. The latter had already been accused of poisoning Louis VIII.;
it was now added that this crime had been connived at by his paramour,
Blanche.
That Thibaud really loved Blanche, there can be no reasonable doubt. His
amorous songs were probably inspired in part by this devotion to one
whom he might well admire and love, the fair, and good, and great Queen
Blanche, whom he could proudly claim as a cousin. In one of his songs he
alludes to her, it seems to us, very distinctly:
"Trop est ce trouble, et s'aveis si cler nom."
(Troubled was your life, and yet your name so clear.) The chronicles of
the time abound in allusions to Thibaud's passion. It is said that, on
one occasion, after a momentary revolt, he came to make his submission,
and was severely reproached by the queen for his ingratitude. "Then the
Count looked upon the Queen, who was so good and so beautiful, till her
great beauty overcame him, and he stood all abashed. Then he answered
her: 'By my faith, Madame, my heart and my body and all my lands are
yours; there is naught that could please you that I would not do
willingly; and never again, please God, will I go against you or yours.'
And he departed all pensive, and often into his thoughts would come the
memory of the sweet look, of the lovely countenance, of the queen. Then
his heart was filled with sweet and loving thought. But when he
remembered that she was so great a lady, and so good and pure that he
could never win her love, his sweet thought of love turned into great
sadness. And seeing that deep thought engenders melancholy, he was
counselled by some wise men to take lessons in _biaus sons de viele et
en douz chanz delitables_ (in sweet violin music and in soft and
pleasing songs). And so he and Gace Brusle made between them the most
beautiful, the most delightful, the most melodious songs ever heard,
either in songs or in violin music. And he had them put in writing in
the hall of his chateau at Provins and in that of Troyes; and they are
called the songs of the King of Navarre."
The chronicler who tells us this assigns the incident to the year 1236,
when Blanche would have been forty-eight years of age. The date is
obviously wrong, or rather the story of many years has been crowded into
one. Thibaud's love for Blanche must have begun when she was young and
really beautiful; one can hardly imagine a burning passion conceived for
a lady of middle age, the mother of twelve children. His devotion, then,
dates from an earlier period; indeed, we find definite record of it in
the calumnies circulated by the barons before 1230; and one chronicler
tells us that, during the war of that year, when the barons were
ravaging Champagne, Count Thibaud, dressed as a common stroller and
accompanied by one companion as miserably attired as himself, went
through the country to find out what his people were saying about him.
Everywhere he heard but ill of himself. "Then said the Count to his
_ribaud_ (vagabond companion), 'Friend, I see full well that a penn'orth
of bread would feed all my friends. I have none, indeed, I verily
believe, not a one whom I can trust, save the Queen of France.' She was
indeed his loyal friend, and well did she show that she did not hate
him. By her the war was brought to an end, and all the land (Champagne)
reconquered. Many tales do they tell of them, as of Iseut and Tristan."
The love of Thibaud was not to be doubted, but it is a delicate matter
to determine how far his sentiments were reciprocated by Blanche. On the
one hand, the party of the barons openly and violently accused her of
adultery; on the other hand, we know that no evil woman could have
reared Saint Louis and have been beloved and revered by him. If Blanche
was a good and pure woman, as we firmly believe, we shall again have to
disappoint the lovers of romance, for there must be some explanation
other than the purely erotic for her conduct toward Thibaud de
Champagne. Alas for the romance! the common-sense explanation is not far
to seek, and not difficult of acceptance when we remember the whole
career of this remarkable woman. Blanche de Castille was an astute
politician; otherwise she would never have been able to maintain her
position, with everything against her: the fact that she was a woman,
the fact that she was a foreigner, alone comprise many difficulties. We
do not know of a single instance in which she allowed her
feelings--love, hate, family affection, mere feminine weakness--to sway
her or interfere with the settled policy which she had determined upon
for the good of her kingdom and of her children. Indeed, as we shall see
later, one serious defect in her character was her inflexibility of
purpose, her resolute suppression of the tenderer feelings. That she
liked and perhaps admired the brilliant poet-knight who proclaimed his
devotion to her in "songs the sweetest ever heard," we need not doubt;
but she never responded to his ardent passion. Surrounded by enemies
domestic and enemies foreign, she took advantage of the romantic
devotion of a poet to win the very effective support of one of the most
powerful barons of France. Flattering Thibaud's vanity now and then,--it
was no small thing to be reputed the lover of a queen,--she adroitly
kept him in leash. As a sovereign, too, she was careful to retain his
good will by services of the utmost value, nay, of imperative necessity.
The truce with England was to expire on July 22, 1229. Just at this
time, when it might be supposed that the queen's energies would be
required in defending or at least in watching the western frontier,
threatened by Pierre Mauclerc and his English allies, the Duke of
Burgundy and the Count of Nevers prepared to invade Thibaud's country.
Marching into Champagne, they devastated the country and reduced Thibaud
to a very precarious condition. The pretext of this war was, first, that
Thibaud was a traitor and the assassin of Louis VIII.; secondly, that he
was a bastard, and that the real ruler of Champagne was Alix, Queen of
Cyprus, granddaughter of Thibaud's uncle, Henry II. of Champagne. The
claims were both, of course, preposterous, merely trumped up to hide the
real motive of the attack, which was aimed at Blanche de Castille and
through her at the power of the crown. Alix de Champagne, as the barons
called her, was herself of illegitimate descent, a fact recognized by
the Church itself.
Like a faithful sovereign, Blanche hastened to the defence of her
vassal. Ordering Ferrand de Flandre to create a diversion by an attack
upon the county of Boulogne, she summoned her vassals and commanded them
to desist from their attack upon Thibaud. They refused to obey; she
forthwith put herself at the head of her army and marched to Troyes. The
barons were compelled to accede to a truce.
During this truce Thibaud managed to secure several allies, and the
civil war broke out again, even before the nominal expiration of the
truce. Villages and towns were burned by the partisans on both sides;
Philippe Hurepel, it is said, besought Blanche to be allowed to fight a
duel with Thibaud to avenge the alleged murder of Louis VIII.--a sort
of appeal to the judgment of God. Wider and wider spread the flames of
civil war, till Blanche was almost at the end of her resources, and in
real peril. At this juncture a danger from without caused a temporary
cessation of hostilities against Thibaud de Champagne.
Pierre Mauclerc, now insolently styling himself Duke--not Count--of
Brittany, and adding an English title, Count of Richmond, had written to
Louis IX. announcing the withdrawal of his homage. He was to be
henceforth a vassal of the crown of England. Henry III. was preparing in
earnest for a descent upon France; and Blanche sought allies, or at
least friends, among her vassals, while the barons leagued against
Thibaud agreed to a truce. Collecting what forces she could, the queen,
accompanied by Louis, marched toward Angers against Pierre. Meanwhile,
with much pomp and ceremony and rich clothing and luxurious baggage,
Henry III. landed at Saint-Malo, on May 3, 1230, where he had an
interview with Pierre. Henry was full of splendid plans; fortunately for
Blanche, he was incapable of putting them into execution. The time was
frittered away in petty encounters, and in debauchery on Henry's part,
while Blanche continued to negotiate with any who seemed disposed to
favor her cause. She won in this way the support of some Breton and
Poitevin nobles, and held together her uncertain feudal army. As soon as
the legal forty days of their service were done, the more discontented
of the vassals in her army withdrew, and the king had to follow them in
order to prevent their renewing their attacks upon Champagne. Instead of
profiting by the embarrassment of his enemies and overwhelming the
French, Henry marched to and fro in Brittany, through Poitou and to
Bordeaux, returning thence to Brittany. His army was exhausted without
fighting; there was much sickness among men and animals; his provisions
were giving out. Tired of the fruitless expedition, he sailed back to
England, abandoning to the chances of war the Breton nobles who had
deserted France under promise of protection from England. Before the
joyful news of his departure could reach her, however, Blanche was again
in trouble in her attempts to protect Thibaud de Champagne.
A coalition stronger than before had been formed against Thibaud. He had
put forth his entire resources in his preparations for defence; but in a
pitched battle under the walls of Provins his forces were defeated and
routed, and the count himself fled to Paris with the pursuing victors at
his heels. All seemed lost, and his enemies were marching about as they
pleased over Champagne, when Queen Blanche arrived with her army, which
was large enough, fortunately, to intimidate the rebels. She would not
talk of terms with armed rebels, but demanded the evacuation of
Champagne. After some little parleying, in which the queen held firm,
the rebellious barons submitted. Reparation was agreed to on both sides,
and the chief of the malcontents, Philippe Hurepel, Count of Boulogne,
was satisfied by large indemnities granted him for the damage inflicted
by Ferrand de Flandre while he was making war, in defiance of his
sovereign, upon the Count of Champagne. Truly, mediaeval dispensations
are sometimes amazing.
By the end of 1230 the barons were at peace, and Blanche was at liberty
to turn her attention to Brittany and Pierre Mauclerc. Louis and his
mother marched upon Brittany in the early summer of 1231; but a truce
was made with England, and soon after with Pierre Mauclerc, to last
until June 24, 1234. The most critical period in Blanche's regency was
now passed. Her son, now nearing his majority, was firmly established on
his throne; for the great ones of the land had not been able to subdue
the spirit of his mother. Their wars had devastated a considerable
portion of France, but the common people knew who was to blame for the
havoc wrought; they had seen their queen a peacemaker, resorting to arms
in defence of loyal and oppressed subjects, but always endeavoring to
further the interests of the kingdom by preserving order within rather
than by seeking conquests without. She had shown herself a ruler full of
energy and resource; the great vassals of the crown, little by little,
recognized their inability to destroy her power, and abandoned the
attempt.
Two formidable enemies still threatened her, however, in the persons of
Henry III. and Pierre Mauclerc. While warlike preparations were going
forward, in anticipation of the expiration of the truce, domestic
sorrows fell upon Blanche; she lost two of her sons, John and Philippe
Dagobert, the first of whom died certainly in 1232, the second perhaps
in the same year, perhaps not till 1234. In the midst of great events,
those griefs which touch most nearly a woman's heart pass unnoticed by
chroniclers.
In order to be prepared for the expiration of the truce, Pierre Mauclerc
was seeking to gain such allies as he could. Even in the early part of
1232 he began negotiations with Thibaud de Champagne,--who had lost his
second wife, Agnes de Beaujeu, in the year preceding,--in order to bring
about his marriage to Yolande de Bretagne. We have seen how Blanche
checkmated this move of her wily adversary. Thibaud married, in
September, 1232, Marguerite, the daughter of the loyal Archambaud de
Bourbon. In the next year died one who had been a dangerous power in
France, Count Philippe Hurepel; his death removed one more of Blanche's
difficulties, for he had been restless and pugnacious, when not actually
in rebellion. In 1234 Blanche was enabled to do another good turn to
Thibaud, who now, by the death of his uncle, had become King of Navarre.
The old question of the succession in Champagne and the claims of Alix
had never been satisfactorily determined. Blanche now summoned Alix to a
conference, where, realizing that her party was no longer in the
ascendant, the latter renounced all claim to the counties of Champagne
and Blois.
From the south of France, that land of the troubadours, now laid waste
in the name of religion, Blanche had nothing to fear in the way of
active resistance. Her cousin, Raymond VII. of Toulouse, was completely
overcome and was intent only on making his peace with the Church. Prince
Alphonse of France was to wed Raymond's daughter, Jeanne, and the
restoration of some degree of prosperity in a land which might ere long
become a part of France was a matter which Blanche was too wise to
neglect. Never forgetting the political interests she had to serve, she
did all in her power to protect Raymond from petty annoyance and
spoliation, to soothe his feelings, and to get the Pope to return to him
the marquisate of Provence, taken away by the treaty of 1229. Meanwhile,
the royal power was being more firmly established over the domains ceded
to France.
Louis IX. was nearing manhood; it was time to seek a suitable alliance
for him. The initiative in this matter probably came from Blanche, who
decided everything for her son, with his unquestioning approval. In
1233, when Louis was nineteen, she consulted with her friends and
decided upon the daughter of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, as the
most suitable wife for her son. Though the King of France could have
commanded a more brilliant alliance, the marriage with Marguerite de
Provence was a happy one, and not impolitic, for it assured the
friendship of the Provencals, and through the mediation of the queen
peace was re-established between the Counts of Provence and Toulouse.
An embassy was despatched to escort the young princess, who, as became a
daughter of Provence, came with a numerous suite, in which there were
minstrels and musicians. Louis went to meet his bride, accompanied by
most of the members of the royal family, and the marriage ceremony was
performed at Sens, by the Archbishop, on May 26 or 27, 1234. Adequate
preparations consonant with the dignity of the occasion had been made by
Blanche, but there was no extravagance, no vain display. We hear of a
gold crown made for the young queen; of jewels purchased for her; and of
a ring formed of lilies and _marguerites_, with the inscription _Hors
cet and pourrions nous trouver amor?_--"Without this ring, can we find
love?" presented to the bride by Louis. A handsome wardrobe was provided
for the king, and to the lords and ladies of the court were given furs,
handsome robes, many of silk, and other presents. Tents were erected to
accommodate the crowd, which was too great to find housing in Sens, and
there was a leafy bower, made of green boughs, where the king's throne
was set up and where, doubtless, the minstrels played. Then there were
distributions of money among the poor, whom Blanche and her son never
forgot.
Marguerite was young, lovely, and, what was more important still in one
who must be the wife of a saint, had been carefully educated and reared
in piety. She was of gentler stuff than Queen Blanche, and so we shall
not find her playing any great role in history; but she was courageous,
and a devoted wife. She won her husband's love, and probably exercised
some influence over him; but of her married life and of her treatment by
Queen Blanche we shall not speak at present.
War with England was threatening again when, on June 8th, Louis returned
to Paris with his bride; for the truce with England could not be
renewed. Blanche de Castille had provided against the evil day, and the
vindictive cruelty of Pierre Mauclerc had helped on her projects. He
punished so severely those of his vassals who had been loyal to France
that it became easier for Blanche to detach one here and there as an
ally. She did not wait for the expiration of the truce to begin her
operations, but summoned her army and marched upon Brittany with
overwhelming forces. Pierre, who had had but small aid from Henry III.,
was compelled to submit, and a truce was agreed to for three months, to
terminate on November 15th. The delay had been sought by Pierre in the
hope of extracting, by entreaties or threats, more active assistance
from the miserable Henry III. Finding his appeals here in vain, Pierre
returned to France to submit to Blanche and Louis. It is said that he
came into the presence of the king with a halter about his neck, pleaded
for mercy, and abandoned to Louis all Brittany. While this is doubtless
an exaggeration, we know that he submitted absolutely, in November,
1234, to the will of his sovereign, and promised to serve faithfully the
king and his mother. It was not long after this that he went to the Holy
Land, leaving the government of Brittany in the hands of his son.
The most bitter, the most crafty, the most dangerous of her enemies
having been reduced to subjection, there remained but one task for
Blanche to accomplish in order to crown the work she had undertaken for
her son. In the course of the year 1235-1236 negotiations were
undertaken with England that resulted in a truce for a term of five
years. Blanche was about to hand over the more active control of affairs
to Louis; it was no bad beginning for him to find his realm at peace
within and without, with a prospect of the continuance of these
conditions.