Louis XII of France

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Louis XII (1462-1515) was king of France from 1498 to 1515. An ambitious and conspiratorial prince, he was later regarded as "good king Louis" and the "father of his people." His reign was remembered as a golden age of peace and repose.

The son of Charles, Duc d'Orléans, and Mary of Cleves, Louis XII was born on June 27, 1462. In 1465, when only 3 years old, Louis succeeded his father as Duc d' Orléans. Royal interference was to make the youth and early manhood of Louis d'Orléans a singularly unhappy one. In 1465 Louis XI appointed the chief councilors and servitors of the young duke and thereafter continued to keep a watch on the administration of the appanage. The king later married his daughter, Jeanne of France (a physically handicapped woman who was not expected to produce any heirs), to Louis.

Early Career

By the time Louis was old enough to think about revenge, there were too few allies left him, so successful had Louis XI been in pacifying the aristocracy and repossessing the great appanages. So it was not until the accession of Charles VIII in 1483 that the duke had an opportunity to press his claims for a place in the government of the kingdom. The new king was young and inexperienced, and the dominant persons in his government were his older sister Anne and her husband, Pierre de Beaujeu. Louis tried to rally support from within the nobility and the royal administration itself for a rebellion against the guardians of the King. When support for this enterprise failed to materialize, he initiated intrigues with two old enemies of the monarchy, the Duke of Brittany and the son-in-law and political heir of the last Duke of Burgundy. The armed rising that he helped engineer against the Crown, the guerre folle of 1487-1488, ended disastrously with his capture. Louis spent 2 years in captivity, saved only by the fact that he was heir apparent to the throne. Then, in 1491, when Charles began to free himself from the domination of his sister and her husband, he arranged a reconciliation with the duke, and soon Louis began to enjoy the King's favor, as evidenced by the prominent part allotted him during Charles VIII's Italian invasion of 1494-1495.

Italian Wars

The unexpected death of Charles VIII without male heirs in 1498 brought his cousin Louis d'Orléans to the throne as Louis XII. Louis secured a papal annulment of his marriage to Jeanne of France in December 1498. A month later he married Anne of Brittany, the widow of Charles VIII. This marriage helped prepare the way for a new invasion of Italy since it ensured that Brittany could not become a focus for intrigues against the monarchy. Like Charles VIII, Louis XII reorganized and reformed the royal administration, particularly that of justice, just before he descended upon Italy (1499) in search of conquest and glory.

In addition to the tenuous claim of Charles VIII to Naples, which Louis XII inherited, Louis himself had a family claim upon the duchy of Milan. Louis prepared the conquest of Milan by dissolving the League of Venice, the coalition that had expelled Charles VIII from Italy in 1495. This left Duke Lodovico Sforza of Milan isolated, and the French invasion of his duchy in 1499 was a complete success.

Louis then signed the secret Treaty of Granada (1500) with Ferdinand of Aragon, by which the two monarchs agreed to cooperate in the conquest of the kingdom of Naples and to divide it afterward. That conquest, too, was successful, but barely had the two allies installed themselves in their respective halves of the kingdom in 1502 when they began to quarrel. By 1503 disease and superior Spanish generalship had driven the French from Naples. Nine years later, in 1512, Louis XII was also driven from Milan. As in 1495, the expulsion of the French was achieved through a coalition, the Holy League of 1511, composed of Italian powers, led by the papacy, together with the Holy Roman emperor and Ferdinand of Aragon.

In 1513 the ambitious young ruler of England, Henry VIII, launched an invasion of France from Calais, while the Swiss, still smarting from earlier ill treatment at the hands of Louis XII, entered the service of the German emperor and launched another invasion of France from the east, gravely threatening Dijon and the whole province of Burgundy. Only because his enemies had no wish to push their aggression further was Louis XII able to negotiate settlements and escape without territorial sacrifices in France itself.

His Character

Of all the kings who ruled France in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Louis XII is the most difficult to assess. This is largely owing to the lack of reliable contemporary documentation. Soon after his death, Louis XII was elevated by 16th-century historians and moralizing political theorists into an exemplar, a model of the "good king." But this idealized portrait is highly untrustworthy. At times he collected more annual revenue from his subjects than did the hated Louis XI (although it is likely that the realm was now wealthier), and in order to finance the Italian wars, Louis XII resorted to the sale of royal offices, an expedient that his successors were to enlarge upon and that had grave consequences for the future of the monarchy and for French society as a whole. His reputation as a good king was probably due more to the excesses of his immediate predecessors and successors, in comparison with whom he seemed especially beneficent, than to any unique attributes of his own.

It is not possible to determine how far Louis's policies were shaped by others and how far they were his own. Very soon after his accession he receded into the background of even his own government. As far as contemporaries could tell, foreign affairs, which were the most important matter for the King, were supervised by Georges d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen. Other domestic matters, especially the distribution of offices, pensions, and rewards, seem to have been very much influenced by the Queen, Anne of Brittany.

Assuring the royal succession was probably the most serious political problem for Louis XII. He and Anne had only one child, their daughter, Claudia. In 1514 Louis arranged the marriage of Claudia to Francis of Angoulême, a prince of the younger branch of the house of Orléans and heir apparent to the throne.

After Queen Anne died (1514), Louis XII remarried, partly in accord with the needs of his foreign policy and partly in the hope that he might yet have a son. The new queen was the sister of Henry VIII, Mary of England, a youthful beauty whose fast-paced life, contemporaries observed, wore down her aging and weakened husband. Louis XII died on the night of Jan. 1, 1515, less than 3 months after his remarriage. It is to his credit that he arranged the marriage of Francis of Angoulême to his daughter and that he associated his son-in-law with him in the government, for this assured the peaceful and undisturbed succession of Francis.

Further Reading

A detailed narrative of the reign of Louis, with an extensive bibliography, is J. S. C. Bridge, A History of France from the Death of Louis XI, 1483-1515, vols.3 and 4 (1929). Other prominent personalities of the reign have not received adequate biographical treatment. See also Marjory Bowen, Sundry Great Gentlemen: Some Essays in Historical Biography (1928), and M. R. Bolton, The Golden Porcupine (1947), a historical novel about Louis XII and his times.

Additional Sources

Baumgartner, Frederic J., Louis XII, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Louis XII (France) (born 1462–1515; ruled 1498–1515), king of France. The only son of Charles of Orléans and Mary of Cleves, Louis was the great-grandson of Charles VI (ruled 1380–1422). As a youth, Louis did not expect to gain the throne since he was several degrees of blood distant from the ruling family. Louis XI (ruled 1461–1483) coerced him into marrying his deformed daughter Jeanne, who was probably incapable of bearing children. He spent his early adulthood seeking an annulment for the marriage. When Louis XI's son became Charles VIII in 1483, Louis competed with Charles's older sister Anne of Beaujeu to become regent for the underage king. His purpose was largely to gain a position of authority from which to secure an annulment. When the Estates-General of 1484 refused him the office, he led the "Fools' War" against the monarchy. Defeated at the Battle of St-Aubin in Brittany in 1488, he was imprisoned for three years. He was released in time to join Charles in the first French invasion of Italy (1494), to make good the French claim to the kingdom of Naples.

Because Charles's only child died at age three, Louis gained the throne when Charles died in April 1498. Those who had opposed him in the Fools' War were fearful that he would exact revenge on them now that he was king, but Louis soothed them with his famous remark: "It is not honorable for the king of France to avenge the quarrels of a duke of Orléans." After loading Pope Alexander VI's (reigned 1492–1503) son Cesare Borgia with French titles and gold, he received an annulment from Jeanne of France and married Charles's widow, Anne of Brittany, in January 1499. With her he had two daughters, Claude and Renée. Theologians of the University of Paris bitterly criticized the annulment, and when it led to unrest among the students, Louis cracked down on the university in 1499 and severely reduced its autonomy.

Louis had a claim to the duchy of Milan through his grandmother Valentina Visconti, and he sought to make good his Italian rights in the second French invasion of Italy (1499). Concentrating on winning Milan, which he achieved in 1500, he agreed to divide Naples with Ferdinand of Aragon (ruled 1468–1516), but Ferdinand expelled the French from the entire realm in 1503. For the next several years France was largely at peace. Louis dramatically reduced taxes, which, along with the era's broad prosperity, prompted the Estates-General to name him "Father of the People" in 1506. Louis's most prominent advisor was Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, whose influence and place in government were so vast that the saying "Let George do it!" is said to have referred to d'Amboise.

Although his tastes still were largely those of the Middle Ages, Louis took an interest in Renaissance culture, which he saw on several trips to Italy. He patronized the Italian humanists Lescaris and Aleandro, who taught Greek in France, and supported the classics advocate and humanist Guillaume Budé at the beginning of his career. In 1499 Louis brought Italian architects and artists to France to rebuild the château of Blois, although the principal architect was probably the French mason Colin de Briart. The rebuilt château introduced the concept that a king need not live in a gloomy, fortified stronghold but in a beautiful place with open spaces and pleasant gardens for gracious living.

Louis allowed Pope Julius II (reigned 1503–1513) to persuade him to join an anti-Venetian league, bringing him back into the thick of Italian politics. After defeating the Venetians at Agnadello in May 1509, he found that Julius had organized a league to drive him out of Italy. Louis attempted to counter Julius by convoking the schismatic Council of Pisa in 1511, but it drew only four cardinals and a few French bishops. After Louis's nephew Gaston de Foix defeated the papal-Spanish army at Ravenna in March 1512, the cardinals at Pisa declared Julius deposed and convoked the college of cardinals to elect a successor. De Foix's death prevented the French army from marching on Rome to effect Julius's deposition. The pope excommunicated Louis and promised parts of France to the Swiss, Aragón, England, and the Holy Roman Empire, which had joined his alliance. Ferdinand of Aragón seized southern Navarre, and Henry VIII invaded northern France. The French army retreated back to France, leaving Milan to the Swiss. The death of Julius in 1513 allowed Louis to make peace with the new pope, the Medici Leo X (reigned 1513–1521). When Anne died in January 1514, he secured peace with Henry VIII by marrying his sister Mary. The excitement of the wedding and his young bride probably hastened his death on 1 January 1515. His first cousin, Francis of Angoulême, who had married his daughter Claude in 1514, succeeded him as Francis I.

Bibliography

Baumgartner, Frederic J. Louis XII. New York, 1994. A recent scholarly biography.

Bridge, John. A History of France from the Death of Louis XI. 5 vols. Oxford, 1921–1936. A detailed history of France for the era of Louis's reign, it is especially strong on the French wars in Italy.

Quilliet, Bernard. Louis XII: pere du peuple. Paris, 1986. Especially good on the cultural developments of Louis's reign.

—FREDERIC J. BAUMGARTNER

Louis XII King of France and Naples; Duke of Brittany; Count of Provence Reign 7 April 1498 – 1 January 1515 Coronation 27 May 1498, Reims Predecessor Charles VIII Successor Francis I Spouse Joan of France Anne, Duchess of Brittany Mary of England Issue Claude, Queen of France Renée, Duchess of Ferrara Father Charles, Duke of Orléans Mother Marie of Cleves Born 27 June 1462(1462-06-27) Château de Blois, France Died 1 January 1515 (aged 52) Paris Burial Saint Denis Basilica, France

Louis XII entering Genoa in 1507. Miniature by Jean Bourdichon

Louis XII (27 June 1462 – 1 January 1515), called "the Father of the People" (French: Le Père du Peuple) was king of France and the sole monarch from the Valois-Orléans branch of the House of Valois. He reigned from 1498 to 1515 and pursued a very active foreign policy.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Domestic and foreign policies 3 Marriages 4 Death 5 Family 5.1 Ancestors 5.2 Issue 6 References

Early life

Louis was born on 27 June 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.

In the 1480s Louis was involved in the so-called Mad War against royal authority. Allied with Francis II, Duke of Brittany he confronted the royal army at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, but was comprehensively defeated and captured. Pardoned three years later, Louis joined his cousin King Charles VIII, in campaigns in Italy.

All four of Charles VIII's children died in infancy. The French interpretation of the Salic Law permitted claims to the French throne only by men, and further ruled out descendants of female lines. This made Louis, the great-grandson of King Charles V, the most senior claimant as heir of Charles VIII. Louis thus succeeded to the throne on the king's death.

Effigy of Louis XII on a coin of 1514

Domestic and foreign 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 paternal grandmother Valentina Visconti, 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.

Marriages

In 1476, Louis was required to marry the pious Joan 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 of Brittany (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, described as "one of the seamiest lawsuits of the age", was not simple, however. 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 precisely how, and that he had therefore been unable to consummate the marriage. Joan, unsurprisingly, fought this uncertain charge fiercely, producing witnesses to Louis' boast of having "mounted my wife three or four times during the night." Louis also claimed that his sexual performance had been inhibited by witchcraft; Joan responded by asking how he was able to know what it was like to try to make love to her.

Flamboyant Gothic equestrian Louis above the main door of the Château de Blois

Had the Papacy been a neutral party, Joan would likely have won, for Louis's case was exceedingly weak. Unfortunately for the Queen, Pope Alexander VI (the former Roderic Borja) was committed for political reasons to grant the divorce, and accordingly he ruled against Joan, 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.

After the death of Anne, Louis then married Mary Tudor (1496–1533), the sister of Henry VIII, the King of England in Abbeville, France, on 9 October 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. Despite two previous marriages, the king had no living sons and sought to produce an heir; but Louis died on 1 January 1515, less than three months after he married Mary, reputedly worn out by his exertions in the bedchamber. Their union produced no children.

Death

Louis died on 1 January 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 by his first cousin's son Francis I Valois-Angoulême (who was also his son-in-law), who founded his own line of French kings.

Family

Ancestors

v • d • e Ancestors of Louis XII of France

16. John II of France               8. Charles V of France                       17. Bonne of Bohemia               4. Louis I de Valois, Duke of Orléans                             18. Peter I, Duke of Bourbon               9. Joanna of Bourbon                       19. Isabella of Valois               2. Charles, Duke of Orléans                                   20. Galeazzo II Visconti               10. Gian Galeazzo Visconti                       21. Biana of Savoy               5. Valentina Visconti                             22. = 16. John II of France               11. Isabelle of Valois                       23. = 17. Bonne of Bohemia               1. Louis XII of France                                         24. Adolph II, Count of Mark               12. Adolph III, Count of Mark                       25. Margaret of Cleves               6. Adolph I, Duke of Cleves                             26. Gerhard VI von Jülich               13. Margaret of Julich                       27. Margarete von Ravensberg               3. Marie of Cleves                                   28. Philip II, Duke of Burgundy               14. John II, Duke of Burgundy                       29. Margaret III, Countess of Flanders               7. Mary of Burgundy                             30. Albert I, Duke of Bavaria               15. Margaret of Bavaria                       31. Margaret of Brieg

Issue

By Anne of Brittany
Name	Birth	Death	Notes
Claude of France	14 October 1499	20 July 1524	married Francis I of France on 18 May 1514; had issue
Renée of France	25 October 1500	12 June 1574	married Ercole II d'Este in April 1528; had issue
Unnamed son	21 January 1508	21 January 1508
Unnamed son	21 January 1512	21 January 1512

References

• Baumgartner, Frederic J., Louis XII, New York: St.Martin's Press, 1996. ISBN 0-312-12072-9
• Hochner, Nicole, Louis XII: Les dérèglements de l’image royale, collection «Époques» Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2006 http://www.champ-vallon.com/

Louis XII of France House of Valois, Orléans branch Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty Born: 27 June 1462 Died: 1 January 1515
Regnal titles
Preceded by Charles VIII of France	King of France 7 April 1498 – 1 January 1515	Succeeded by Francis I of France
Preceded by Frederick IV	King of Naples, King of Jerusalem 1501–04	Succeeded by Ferdinand III
Preceded by Ludovico Sforza	Duke of Milan 1499–1512	Succeeded by Maximilian Sforza
French royalty
Preceded by Charles, Dauphin of France	Heir to the Throne as Heir presumptive 30 August 1483 — 11 October 1492	Succeeded by Charles Orlando, Dauphin of France
Preceded by Charles Orlando, Dauphin of France	Heir to the Throne as Heir presumptive 6 December 1495 — 8 September 1496	Succeeded by Charles, Dauphin of France
Preceded by Charles, Dauphin of France	Heir to the Throne as Heir presumptive 2 October 1496 — July 1497	Succeeded by Francis, Dauphin of France
Preceded by Francis, Dauphin of France	Heir to the Throne as Heir presumptive early 1498 — 7 April 1498	Succeeded by Francis, Count of Angoulême
French nobility
Preceded by Charles VIII of France	Duke of Brittany by marriage with Anne of Brittany 8 January 1499 – 9 January 1514	Succeeded by Francis I of France
	Dauphin of Viennois, Count of Valentinois and of Diois as 'Louis III of Viennois' 7 April 1498 – 1 January 1515
	Count of Provence and Forcalquier as 'Louis IV' 7 April 1498 – 1 January 1515
Preceded by Charles I	Duke of Orléans as 'Louis II' 5 January 1465 – 7 April 1498	Succeeded by Merged into Royal Domain (eventually Henri II Henry II)
	Duke of Valois as 'Louis II' 5 January 1465 – 7 April 1498	Succeeded by Merged into Royal Domain (eventually Francis)
	Count of Blois as 'Louis V' 5 January 1465 – 7 April 1498	Succeeded by Merged into Royal Domain (eventually Gaston)

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