François II of Brittany

François II of Brittany ( Breton Frañsez II in ), born the June 23rd 1435 with the castle of Clisson and died with Couëron the September 9th 1488, is the last duke of independent Brittany. Oldest son of Richard d' Étampes, it is titular count of Stamps and lives at the court of France when it inherits the duchy of Brittany and of the counties of Richemont and Vertus.

The order of succession with the throne of Brittany having been modified by the first treated of Guérande in 1365, to avoid any dispute, even a crisis of succession, the duke François I {{er}} makes him marry his/her oldest daughter Marguerite, heiress according to the tradition former to the treaty of Guérande.

It reaches the throne in 1458 after the death of his cousins François Ier and Pierre II and of his uncle Arthur III, the Connétable of Richemont.

Marriages and descent

He marries in first weddings with Vannes, on November 16th, 1455, Marguerite of Brittany (1443-1469), oldest daughter of the duke François Ist He has only one Jean son of them, titrated count de Montfort Amaury, which saw 3 months from June 29th to August 25th, 1463. Marguerite dies in Nantes the September 25th 1469, at 26 years.

It remarie with Clisson on June 26th, 1471 with Marguerite de Foix-Navarre, known as center of milk , girl of Gaston IV of Navarre, count de Foix, of which it a:

Of its mistress Antoinette de Magnelais (1420 + 1474), it also has two bastard:

Government of Brittany

François II is interested little in control of the businesses: he seldom attends the ducal Council, which is the government of the duchy: between 1459 and 1463, it assists only three times to with it, and is satisfied to keep up to date with the decisions with his collaborators whom it lets control and tear, the chancellor Guillaume Chauvin, then the general treasurer, Pierre Landais, very powerful of 1481 to 1485. He complains about the time spent to the signature of the administrative acts. Alain Bouchard still describes it like weak his person and weaker of his understanding .

He prefers the life of pleasures of a large lord of his time, sharing the essence of his leisures in huntings, plays and with his favorite official Antoinette de Maignelais. When so many princes of its century raise quarrelsome or pretentious currencies, it makes engrave on one of its jewels the currency It is of treasure only of jubilation .

Policy of independence

At the selected small town of Valves for administrative capital and main home by Jean IV and Jean V, he prefers the commercial big city of Nantes, on the Loire (where he was high) and close to France. He moves his Court there.

Contrary to the legend, there does not exist any subjection of Brittany to France. The famous " hommage" of the Duke of Brittany to King de France, is anything else only one contract of mutual assistance, as well as a subjection for the territories out of Brittany. The king admittedly owes with his power a preeminence, but this one is purely honorary, and no prerogative in Brittany confers to him. The immense lawyer Marcel Planiol, in his treaty in five volumes on the Institutions of Brittany, showed in an irrefutable way that, in all the fields (dynastic succession, government, development of the laws, currency, war and peace, diplomacy, justice, administration….), the capacity of kings de France stops Net at the borders of Brittany; there is no example of royal decree which received execution in Brittany; the French agents which dare to enter the Duchy expose their life. Brittany is then a sovereign state.

Its first minister-chancellors do a rather remarkable work. They improve the structures suitable for management of a centralized State. Having lived at the court of France and knowing the operation of the administrative structures of a great State, they create, with the agreement of the Holy See, the Université of Nantes in the Années 1460, thus giving to Brittany the means of training its prelates, officers, frameworks and magistrates. With the beginning of the insane War, they transform into 1485 the “Court of interlocutory” and the seasonal sessions of justice of the States in a Parlement sedentarized in Vannes. This court of justice is sovereign and no call to the Parliament of Paris is more possible. The umbilical cord - to tell the truth more than thin, since the Dukes did everything to prohibit on their subjects to call some with the justice of the King - with France is broken. Brittany is apparently finally removed from the influence of its neighbor.

The period is marked by the rise of the dangers. After having cut down the Burgundian power, in 1477, Louis XI advises with his wire to await his majority for seized the duchy. Hatred between the two States is wild, because Brittany as much as France feel threatened (at the time of the war of the public property, the Breton armies arrived to Paris, threatening the dynasty of France). Commynes testifies to the hatred of Louis XI with regard to the Breton ones, and to fear that they inspire to him.

Homage to the king

François II carries like his predecessors a crown to high florets, strikes currency of gold and of money, anoblit, legitimates, names the Breton prelates, seals Sceau of majesty, treats directly with the foreign powers. It adds the loan to it to the Roman law and the French tradition of the concept of “Lèse-majesté”. He thus exerts a broad power on the Duchy of Brittany and must return the Hommage to king de France in 1459 and 1461 for this stronghold and his French possessions. In the framework of the latent conflicts between the large feudal ones and the king of France, François II, very influenced by Louis II of Orleans, cousin of king de France, he undertakes a policy of opposition which is translated, in 1461 by a Hommage simple - and nonliege - for Brittany, the liege Hommage being limited for his possessions out of Brittany.

He makes moreover write by Pierre the Baud a history of Brittany, where the origin of its dynasty is placed in the Troyens, argument to dispute the Salic law and the royal capacity.

Conflicts with the king of France

He refuses to attend the crowning of Louis XI in Rheims, refuses the collar about Saint-Michel which Louis XI proposes to him (and constraints that implied), solemnizes in answer a little more his clean Ordre of Hermine in a Ordre of Hermine and Ear, and takes part in diplomatic alliances whose king of France is excluded, even which are unfavourable for him. He carries out even wars against the king of France, his suzerain. He sends a delegation very few to the General states of Turns.

This policy opposes the king of France Louis XI and runs up against the designs and susceptibility of it. The policy of François II reached for top his participation in the revolt of the insane War and the defeat of large feudal vis-a-vis it royal capacity. The failure of its policy of opposition to the king led to the strengthening of the royal capacity on the Duchy.

Interior difficulties

Weak, it can be binding neither on its advisers, nor with its barons. In 1373, Jean IV had had to leave in exile for lack of support its nobility. This risk of rebellion returned in front of the uncertainty of the Breton succession. The temptation of a prestigious marriage for the Anne heiress went hand in hand with an alliance which the duke sought to escape the diplomatic pressure and soldier from Louis XI. This defensive alliance could be obtained at the price of the marriage of Anne with a foreign prince, thus frustrating the cross ambitions of the applicants with this succession. In addition, the mistrust of François II for the Viscount of Rohan, his lack of affinity for the Breton lords with which he had not lived his youth, makes him prefer the council of foreign princes (though of its family): the duke of Orleans (future Louis XII), the Orange prince, Alain d' Albret… and of simple Breton middle-class men, of which authoritative the Pierre Landais, haï of the aristocracy. Rancours born of this ousting are for much in the distrust of the noble ones - in addition pensioned by the royal treasure - for François II and their passage to the opposing party, that of Penthièvre which the king of France represented from now on.

The crisis of succession

Its absence of male descent makes envisage difficulties for the succession, and accentuates the internal dissensions with the duchy. The family of Rohan claiming to go down from former kings de Bretagne, the Viscount Jean II of Rohan, also of the chief of his Marie wife of Brittany believes itself best placed to collect the heritage of Brittany. With the support of the Marshal of Rieux and high Breton aristicratie, he proposes to marry his two first wire (François and Jean) with the two girls of François II. The duke will push back this project. The king Louis XI having repurchased with the downward last of Penthièvre, Nicole de Brosse, his rights to the duchy, the court of France counted on this element to dispute the succession of François II with his daughters. With Montargis in 1484, the regent of France Anne de Beaujeu meets five rebels with the authority of François II, who recognize Charles VIII for heir to Brittany in the absence of a male heir. A little later this aristocratic conspiracy eliminates Landais, hung on July 19th, 1485, and replaces it by a formed triumvirate of prince d' Orange, the marshal of Rieux and the lord de Lescun (all signatories with Montargis). However, arrived at the capacity, they reconsider the engagement of Montargis and pursue the same policy of independence as Landais.

In 1486, by precaution, François II fact of recognizing his daughters Anne (1477-1514) and Isabeau (1478-1490) heiresses of the duchy in the joined together States with Vannes, including by the signatories of the Treated of Montargis. But there remain many the noble Breton ones having important interests French side, making a choice more difficult in the event of war.

In 1488, its death, its diplomacy, its armies, its interior policy and her matrimonial policy failed. It leaves a duchy deeply divided, ruined by the war, occupied by the enemy troops, partly annexed with the powerful French neighbor (St-Malo) and in the hands of a minor - heiress to marry duchy - bound by the treaty of the Orchard to its winner.

Wars

Continuing work of his predecessors and like the dukes of Burgundy, François II tries to maintain the independence of the Brittany, posts certain attributes of sovereignty, seeks as from 1463 to constitute with the Burgundy, the England and of large French princes of alliances which appear as fragile as the league of the Public property (in 1465), to which it brings only one late and insufficient adhesion. He however obtains by the Traité of Saint-Maur the renunciation of Louis XI of the right of Régale on the évêchés Breton ones.

In 1468, François II enters to military countryside with Mr Charles, (brother of Louis XI) for the conquest of Normandy and Poitou. Their initial successes turn badly and by the Traité of Ancenis with the king Louis XI one returns to the former situation. But the death of combined of François II deprive it of important supports: Mr Charles dies in 1472, the duke of Alençon in 1474 and Charles Bold the in 1477 (involving the end of Burgundy). The English occupied by the Guerre of the Two-Pinks cannot intervene like previously, while Anjou-Provence falls into the escarcelle royal one with death from the Bon king Rene and from its transitory successors. These disappearances reverse the power struggles and make it possible to the king to take the initiative.

With the treated of Senlis (September 29th, 1475), its independence is a time attached: François II commits himself supporting the king of France in his wars, will not be able to make him the war, and its foreign politics will be aligned on that of the king. This treaty is confirmed by those of Arras (1482) and of Bourges (1485), with as little success as the precedent.

In 1481, it offers his/her daughter and heiress Anne in marriage to prince de Galles Edouard, wire of king d' Angleterre Edouard IV, but a strong party the Breton ones opposes a new English seizure, one century after the war of succession. The assassination of the king Edouard IV, then of his son become king some time into 1483 puts these plans at ground. The multiple promises of marriage of its heiress form the dorsal of her diplomacy, and its multiple reversals do not discourage the applicants. The duke seeks to regulate his succession by marrying his heiress with Maximilien de Habsbourg, which the kingdom of France ruins the weapons the hand after its death.

The duke takes part in the insane Guerre which turns badly for him: the request for general mobilization of April 1487 is a failure: its call is heard not only little, but the noble ones having made displacement are relaxed upon the first engagement. Their discharge, let us remind that this feudal Ost shouldered few troops mercenaries was opposed to the most powerful army of Europe of then, which had an artillery with iron balls, a particularly effective innovation. Two royal forwardings (1487 and 1488) and the decisive defeat of Saint-Aubin of Cormier make it possible the regent of France Anne de Beaujeu to require that the Anne princess not be married without the approval of France (Traité Orchard, 1488).

Two months after its terrible defeat sanctioned by humiliating Treated Orchard, he dies of a fall and leaves involved in debt Brittany, stake of a free-Breton Guerre (1489-1491) which devastates it two years lasting. His/her daughter is the stake of the ambitions of the members of her entourage like regent of France Anne de Beaujeu.

Burial

One can admire within the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre of Nantes, the Tombeau of François II and Marguerite de Foix, carried out at the beginning of the XVI° century by Michel Colombe and Jean Perréal, on the ordering of his daughter the Anne duchess. The unit is regarded as a masterpiece of the French sculpture.

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