A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [270]
In May 1385 he sent a message to his uncle saying that he was about to make a pilgrimage to the Madonna del Monte near Lago Maggiore and would be glad to meet with him outside Milan. His proposal seemed natural enough because Gian Galeazzo, though “subtle in intellect and wise in the ways of the world,” was very devout, carrying a rosary and accompanied by monks wherever he went, and greatly concerned with penance and pilgrimage. He also relied on astrologers to select propitious moments for his decisions, and once refused to discuss a diplomatic matter at a particular time because, as he wrote his correspondent, “I observe astrology in all my affairs.” These tastes and his apparent fear of his uncle, shown by doubling his guard and having all his food tasted, caused Bernabò to regard him with contempt. When a courtier, suspicious of Gian Galeazzo’s message, warned of a possible plot, Bernabò scoffed. “You have little sense. I tell you I know my nephew.” At age 76, after a lifetime of bullying, he was both overconfident and careless. Gian Galeazzo’s plan depended on just that.
With two of his sons, but otherwise unprotected, Bernabò rode to the rendezvous outside the gates. Gian Galeazzo, accompanied by a large bodyguard, dismounted, embraced his uncle and, while holding him tightly, called out an order in German, upon which one of his generals, the condottiero Jacopo del Verme, cut Bernabo’s sword belt while another, crying “You are a prisoner!”, seized his baton of office and took him in custody. Immediately Gian Galeazzo’s forces galloped through Milan and occupied its strong points. Because of his reasonable government of Pavia, the populace was ready to welcome him as a deliverer, and greeted him with cries of “Viva il Conte!” followed by their first thought on removal of the tyrant, “Down with taxes!” To smooth the transition, Gian Galeazzo allowed the mob to sack Bernabò’s palace and burn the tax registers. He reduced taxes as one of his first measures and made up the difference from Bernabò’s hoard of gold. Legitimacy or its appearance was supplied by summoning a Grand Council to endow him with formal dominion and by sending a legal transcript of Bernabò’s crimes to all states and rulers.
The Milanese state was now controlled by a single ruler who was to loom ever larger as time went on. Bernabò’s sons were neutralized, in the case of one by life imprisonment, in the case of the second by his own worthlessness, and by a lifetime pension for the third and youngest. The towns of Lombardy submitted uneventfully, and the tyrant himself was locked up in the fortress of Trezzo, where in December of the same year he died, supposedly poisoned by order of the usurper. Bernabò was buried in Milan with honors although without the baton of office, and his equestrian statue, already made at his design, was erected as he had planned.
The fall of the modern Tarquin amazed the world, with echoes reaching into the Canterbury Tales, where it is related in the “Monk’s Tale” how “Thy brother’s son … within his prison made thee to dye.” Not the least of the consequences was to implant in the shallow if implacable heart of Isabeau of Bavaria a relentless desire for revenge upon Gian Galeazzo who had deposed, if not murdered the grandfather she had doubtless never known. Since the usurper was to emerge as one of the major figures of Europe and she as Queen of France, the results were grave and far-reaching.
At seventeen, Charles VI was an ardent, inconstant youth who rode nine courses in the lists at the tournaments in honor of the Burgundydouble wedding. His martial appetite had been encouraged by his uncles for the sake of