A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [375]
The purchase price was 400,000 livres, of which Louis paid only 60,000 down. Marie retained the usufruct of the domain and the use of the castles of La Fère and Du Châtelet for her residence, but legal disputes continued after the sale. By some means or other she was compelled to acquit Louis of 200,000 livres, or half the price, while the balance of 140,000 on the other half remained unpaid. No less than eleven lawsuits were brought by Marie against Orléans in an attempt to recover, before she died suddenly after a wedding feast in 1405, not without “a suspicion of poison.” Her son Robert de Bar continued the litigation, both as plaintiff against Orléans and as defendant against the Dame de Coucy, who had not, after all, married Stephen of Bavaria and was still maintaining her dower rights in the courts. In 1408, after the death of Louis d’Orléans, Parlement allowed the widow’s claim, but this lapsed a few years later when her daughter Isabel, who had married the brother of Jean de Nevers, died without an heir. Meanwhile Charles d’Orléans, Louis’ son, remained in possession, and when Charles’s son became King as Louis XII, the barony of Coucy passed, where it had long been desired, to the crown.
The tormented century sank to a close in keeping with its character. In March 1398 the Emperor Wenceslas and the King of France met at Reims in a renewed effort to end the schism of which they represented opposite sides. Charles VI had been persuaded that he would never recover from his affliction until the Church was re-united. To unseat Benedict, the University of Paris had proposed that France withdraw obedience, but before adopting this radical measure, one more attempt to obtain mutual abdication by the popes was to be tried. The assent of the Empire to exert pressure on Boniface was required, and this was the purpose of the assembly at Reims. Owing to the disabilities of the two major sovereigns, one incapacitated by alcohol and the other by insanity, the result was not what it might have been. Renewed madness was already darkening Charles’s mind when he arrived and in the brief intervals when he was lucid, Wenceslas was drunk. The Emperor entered the negotiations in a stupor which he maintained by steady consumption while vaguely agreeing to anything that was proposed. When reason entirely deserted Charles, the assembly dispersed.
Persuasions and threats of force were brought to bear on both popes, and resisted. France resorted to withdrawal of obedience and even to a siege of the papal palace with Pope Benedict inside, but neither of these measures succeeded in effectively deposing him, and the first caused so much trouble that it had to be rescinded. Richard II, intent on friendship with France, agreed to demand the abdication of Boniface, which only succeeded in violently antagonizing the English, already disaffected by the King’s misgovernment. The citizens of London, partisans of Gloucester, would now call the King nothing but Richard of Bordeaux (his birthplace) and were greatly excited against him, saying, “His heart is so French that he cannot hide it, but a day will come to pay for all.”
Then happened in England those “great and horrible” events, the like of which, Froissart felt, had not been seen in all the history he had recorded. Convinced of plots against him, Richard removed Gloucester to Calais, where he was strangled with a towel, executed Arundel, banished Warwick and the Percys, and so aroused the fears and hates of his subjects that in 1399 his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke was able to depose him without a sword being raised in the rightful King’s defense. Compelled publicly to resign the crown, Richard was transferred from the Tower to a more secluded