'Louis XII' (
June 27,
1462 –
January 1,
1515), called "the Father of the People" () was the thirty-fifth
king of
France and the sole
monarch from the
Valois-Orléans branch of the
House of
Valois. He reigned from
1498 –
January 1,
1515 and pursued a very active foreign policy.
Biography
Birth
Louis was born on
June 27th of
1462, in the
Château de Blois,
Blois,
Touraine (in the contemporary
Loir-et-Cher ''département''). The son of
Charles, duc d'Orléans and
Marie of Cleves, he succeeded his father as
Duke of Orléans in the year
1465.
Marriage
In
1476, Louis was required to marry the pious
Jeanne of France (
1464–
1505), the daughter of his second cousin,
Louis XI, the middle-aged "Spider King" of France. After Louis XII's predecessor
Charles VIII died childless, Louis' marriage was annulled in order to allow him to marry Charles’ widow, the former Queen-Consort,
''Anne de Bretagne'' (
1477–
1514), who was the daughter and heiress of
Francis II of Brittany, in a strategy meant to integrate the
duchy of
Brittany into the French monarchy.
The annulment was not simple, however. Described as "one of the seamiest lawsuits of the age", Louis did not, as might be expected, argue the marriage to be void due to consanguinity (the general allowance for the dissolution of a marriage at that time: though he could produce witnesses to claim that the two were closely
related due to various linking marriages, there was no documentary proof, merely the opinions of courtiers. Likewise, Louis could not argue that he had been below the legal
age of consent (fourteen) to marry: no one was certain when he had been born, with Louis claiming to have been twelve at the time, and others ranging in their estimates between eleven and thirteen. As there was no real proof, however, he was forced to make other arguments.
Accordingly, Louis (much to the horror of his Queen) claimed that she was physically malformed, providing a rich variety of detail as to how she was malformed, and that he had therefore been unable to
consummate the marriage. Jeanne, unsurprisingly, fought this uncertain charge fiercely, producing witnesses to Louis boasting of having "mounted my wife three or four times during the night." Louis also claimed that his sexual performance had been inhibited by
witchcraft; Jeanne responded by asking how he was able to know what it was like to try to make love to her.
Had the
Papacy been a neutral party, Jeanne would likely have won, for Louis's case was exceedingly weak. Unfortunately for the Queen,
Alexander VI Borgia (''Roderic Borja'') was committed, for political reasons to grant the divorce, and accordingly he ruled against ''Jeanne'', granting the annulment. Outraged, she reluctantly stepped aside, saying that she would pray for her former husband, and Louis married the equally reluctant former Queen, Anne.
Louis XII occupies an ambigious position in history, being both a late Medieval and a Renaissance monarch.
After the death of Anne, Louis then married the
English Princess Mary (
1496–
1533), the daughter of
Henry VII Tudor, the King of England in
Abbeville, France, on
October 9,
1514, in an attempt to conceive an heir to his throne and perhaps to further establish a future claim for his descendants upon the English throne as well. He was ultimately unsuccessful.
Children
The only marriage of Louis's which produced any children was his second, with Anne of Brittany. By her he had two surviving daughters:
★
Claude of France (
1499–
1524), later married her relative
Francis, the
count of
Angoulême and future King of France.
★
Renée of France (
1510–
75), later married
Ercole d'Este,
Duke of
Ferrara.
There were also two
boys, who died shortly after birth:
★ The elder son, lived and died
21 January,
1508
★ The younger son, lived and died
21 January,
1512
Policies
Although he came late (and unexpectedly) to power, Louis acted with vigour, reforming the French legal system, reducing taxes and improving government, much like his contemporary
Henry VII did in England. He was also skilled in managing his nobility, including the powerful
Bourbon faction, which greatly contributed to the stability of French government. In the
Ordinance of Blois of 1499 and the
Ordinance of Lyon of 1510, he extended the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption in the law. Highly complex French
customary law was to be codified and ratified by royal proclamation.
In an attempt to take control of the
Duchy of Milan, to which he had a claim in right of his grandfather, Louis embarked on
several campaigns in Italy. He successfully secured
Milan itself in the year
1499 from his enemy,
Ludovico Sforza, and it remained a French stronghold for twelve years. His greatest success came in his war with
Venice, with the victory at the
Battle of Agnadello in 1509. Things became much more difficult for him from 1510 onwards, especially after
Julius II, the great warrior Pope, took control of the Vatican and formed the "
Holy League" to oppose the ambitions of the French in Italy. The French were eventually driven from Milan by the
Swiss in the year
1513.
Louis also pursued the claim of his immediate predecessor to the
Kingdom of Naples with
Ferdinand II, the
King of Aragon from the
House of Trastámara. They agreed to partition the Neapolitan realm in the
Treaty of Granada (
1500), but were eventually at war over the terms of partition, and by the year
1504 France had lost its share of Naples.
Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes. He had duly earned the title of ''Father of the People'' ("''Le Père du Peuple''"), conferred upon him by the Estates in 1506.
Death
Louis died on
January 1 1515, and was interred in
Saint Denis Basilica. Due to the tradition of
Salic Law, which did not allow women to inherit the throne of France, he was succeeded through the inheritance of his eldest daughter, Claude, by a cousin, her husband Francis I Valois-Angoulême, who founded his own line of French kings.
Ancestors
References
★ Baumgartner, Frederic J., ''Louis XII''
New York:
St.Martin's Press,
1996.
ISBN 0-312-12072-9
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
العربية
ä¸å›½
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिनà¥à¤¦à¥€
Italiano
日本語
Português
РуÑÑкий
Español
