A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [89]
To their own undoing, the companions of the Star took seriously the oath not to flee from battle. In 1352, during the war in Brittany, a French force led by Marshal Guy de Nesle was caught in ambush at a place called Mauron by an Anglo-Breton force of about equal numbers. The French could have fled and saved themselves but that they were bound by their oath not to retreat. Though surrounded, they stood and fought until virtually all were killed or captured. So thick lay the dead on the field that the body of Guy de Nesle was not recovered until two days later. Seven French bannerets and 80 or 90 knights lost their lives not counting those captured, leaving so great a hole in the Order of the Star as, “with the great mischiefs and misfortunes that were to follow, caused the ruin of that noble company.”
In France’s misfortunes a young man of twenty, Charles, King of Navarre, grandson of Louis X, saw his opportunity. Whether he really aimed at the French crown, or at revenge for wrongs done him, or at stirring trouble for its own sake like Iago, is a riddle concealed in one of the most complex characters of the 14th century. A small slight youth with glistening eyes and a voluble flow of words, he was volatile, intelligent, charming, violent, cunning as a fox, ambitious as Lucifer, and more truly than Byron “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” Seductive and eloquent, he could persuade his peers or sway a mob. He allowed himself the same unbridled acts of passion as Jean and other rulers, but, unlike Jean, he was a plotter, subtle, bold, absolutely without scruple, but so swerving and unfixed of purpose as to undo his own plots. His only constancy was hate. He is known to history as Charles the Bad.
Through his mother, daughter of Louis X, Charles of Navarre was more directly descended from the last Capets than Jean II, but his parents had renounced any claim to the crown when they acknowledged Philip VI. They had been compensated by the Kingdom of Navarre. The tiny mountain realm in the Pyrenees offered their son too little scope, but as Count of Evreux he held a great fief in Normandy where influence could be exerted. This became his main base of operations.
He was moved to action by jealousy and hatred of Charles d’Espagne, the new Constable, upon whom the King with rash favor had bestowed the county of Angoulème, which belonged to the house of Navarre. After infuriating Charles of Navarre by taking his territory, Jean, in fear of the result, tried to attach him by giving him his eight-year-old daughter, Jeanne, in marriage. Almost immediately he redoubled the first damage by withholding his daughter’s dowry, which did not make a friend of his new son-in-law.
Charles of Navarre struck at the King through Charles d’Espagne. With no taste for half-measures, he simply had him assassinated, not without calculating that many nobles who equally hated the favorite would rally to the man who removed him. He did not kill with his own hands but through a party of henchmen led by his brother, Philip of Navarre, joined by Count Jean d’Harcourt, two Harcourt brothers, and other leading Norman nobles.
Seizing an occasion in January 1354 when the Constable was visiting Normandy, they broke into the room where he was sleeping naked (as was the medieval custom) and, with drawn swords gleaming in the light of their torches, dragged him from his bed. On his knees before Philip with hands clasped, Charles d’Espagne begged for mercy, saying “he would be his serf, he would ransom himself for gold, he would yield the land claimed, he would go overseas and never return.” Count d’Harcourt urged Philip to have pity, but the young man, filled with his brother’s rage and purpose, would not