Noble Blood - Charles the Beloved, the Mad, the Fool

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

While feverish and riding on a hot day, King Charles VI had a fit of madness, and murdered one of his own men. For the rest of his reign, he would be plagued by periods of insanity during which he often couldn't remember his own name. And without a clear regent, greedy factions attempting to rule in his place led to chaos for France.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. It was January of 1393, and the Queen of France, Queen Isabel, was throwing a ball. Ostensibly, the ball was to celebrate the third marriage of a twice-widoed lady-in-waiting. But really, the party's purpose was a little broader. The queen's husband, King Charles VI, was often ill, prone to fits and bouts of insanity that would last months. Queen Isabel liked to hold plenty of events at court to distract and entertain the king. and hopefully keep him in his right mind.

The main event of this ball would be a chivalry featuring six senior knights. The knights would dress up in costumes as wild men from the forest and then delight the attendees at the party by dancing and howling and screaming in their faces, gesticulating at them, running around in a frenzy, and inviting the party guests to guess their identities. If you've never dressed as a wild man from the forest before, or if you're planning on doing it next Halloween, the costumes involved covering the men from head to toe in linen soaked in pitch, and then sticking on in a flax so they looked hairy and, well, wild.

Their faces were also covered in masks made of the same linen soaked in pitch, covered in dried flax. No one, not even the queen, knew that one of the six mysterious dancing wild men was actually King Charles the sixth. The raucous celebration began and women in the crowd screamed as the half-dozen men leapt around them. And then, late to the party, came the Duke of Orleans, the king's brother. The Duke of Orleans was drunk and holding a torch. Part of the game of the shivoree was guessing which knights were hidden beneath the layers of extremely flammable linen and pitch and dried flax. And so the duke leaned in closer to get a better look. Maybe you see where this is going.

The wild man burst into flames. As he flailed, he quickly ignited the other wild men around him. A young duchess only 14 recognized the king and managed to protect him from the sparks with her skirts, but for the rest of the men it was a gruesome scene. The smell of burning pitch and then charred flesh filled the room. A cardinal wrote that he watched the burnt genitals of one of the men fall to the floor, releasing a stream of blood. One of the other nights was able to save himself

by jumping into a barrel of wine, but aside from the king, the rest of the men perished from the flames. The evening would come to be known as the Ball de Sardons, ball of the burning men. It's a grisly chapter that unfortunately seems to represent

the reign of Charles the Six. His reign was an era of chaos and voices shouting over each other for control. As king, Charles would be trailed by tragedy, by civil war and foreign invasion. But his most pernicious enemy would be his own mind. For 30 years, the king would suffer alternating periods of lucidity and madness. as his kingdom fell into disarray around him, the king would be as powerless as he was that night the ball of the burning men, as he watched his friends fall and burn.

Death at what should have been a party. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Charles's father died when he was just 11 years old, a few weeks before his 12th birthday. The age of majority for taking over a kingdom in the 1300s was 14, and so in the meantime, in came Charles's uncles. The duties of the kingdom were divided up amongst them. His paternal uncles, the brothers of the former king, were the most important. They were the Duke of Anjou, the Duke of Burgundy, also known as Philip the Bold, and the Duke of Barry. Duke of Anjou, the Duke of Anjou,

became regent, Burgundy took over the royal household, and Barry was given the governorship of the regent of Longadoc and Aquitaine. Charles' one maternal uncle, the Duke of Bourbon,

assisted with the royal household. As you can imagine, chaos ensued. Like evil uncles out of a fairy tale, the group of them, known as the Sires de Fleur de Lé, were selfish and avaricious, less interested in running the country and more interested in

using their newfound power to benefit themselves, undoing all of the good work that the Dead King, Charles V, had done lowering taxes in the meantime. The regent, the Duke of Anjou, first snatched whatever treasures he could from the Dead King's private treasury. Then to make more money for himself and also to fund the increasingly expensive hundred years war, he raised sales taxes and withheld payment from troops. The troops didn't take that very well. In retaliation, soldiers flocked to Paris in protest. To quote W.H. Jervises, a history of France, the furious and underpaid troops took to the streets to commit, quote, every kind of excess. More details about what those excesses are aren't given,

so unfortunately we'll have to use our imagination. Their outrage was directly against the regent, and they demanded that the Duke of Anjou lower the new taxes. Of course, faced with a angry mob of soldiers, the Duke conceded. But his concession was only temporary. There would be another tax on cloth and another riot this time in Rouen. But this time, the regent was ready to put the riot down with swift and immediate force. The leaders of the revolt were executed, and the duty on cloth continued. Now that he had tasted victory in subduing the matter, the Duke of Anjou would no longer concede or back down. He enacted a new tax in Paris, an excise duty on the produce sold in markets.

That led to another massive insurrection in which people stormed government offices and released the prisoners at the Chatelle. But the group of protesters, called the Malotines, didn't have a natural leader. and so the fervor and energy of the riots eventually dissipated, terms could be negotiated. The court declared that the tax would be abandoned and that there would be amnesty for the riders. For a moment, there was calm. Until the court started with arrests and executions, amnesty be damned. Finally, the city's advocate general arranged to pay the court.

the Duke of Anjou a hundred thousand francs if there would be no more retaliation for the protests. The Duke happily agreed. Almost immediately after this strategic and domestic disaster, the Duke of Vangzhou got word from his cousin, Joanna of Naples, that she was making him her successor. So, as one does, he waved goodbye to France and bounded off with a small army to Naples, where he was all red, to beat out a competing heir to the throne. But before he did that, the Duke of Anjou died suddenly in Italy. One uncle down, but no matter, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, took over duties as regions. The Duke of Burgundy had married the heiress of Flanders.

He used the power of France to control that region against insurrection with a brutal fist. The people of Ghent, who had been rebellious, Elias were met with the full power of what Jervis calls, quote, rapacious and brutal aristocracy. Wanting another ally to defend Flanders, particularly against the threat from the English, the Duke of Burgundy arranged for his nephew, the king, to marry Isabeau of Bavaria. Charles the 6th was 16. Isabel was a few years younger. You might recall that the age of majority in France was 14, and that by this point Charles was well past it. So why then did he keep letting his uncles control the country's affairs?

Well, we don't really know. Charles didn't seem that interested in being king. It seems as though he thought that his uncles were doing the hard parts of his job for him, and he was free to hunt and ride and drink with his friends. But soon, his uncle's mounting military failures would leave Charles no choice but to finally accept his crown. First, there was a disastrously failed invasion of England. One fleet was hit by a devastating storm off the coast of Brittany,

and then the Duke of Barry, having not supported the invasion of England, in the first place, delayed until the tide and season meant it was too late to sail. England swept in, attacked, and destroyed several friendships easily. But there was more that Philip the Bold Duke of Burgundy wanted his nephew to do. They didn't call him the Bold for nothing. The Duke of Burgundy said that the king needed to mount an expedition against a man named Duke William Gisjjjjj. Drews, who had somehow insulted Charles, Burgundy said, but who had absolutely insulted Burgundy's wife's aunt. In other words, it was a petty family squabble, and the Duke of

Burgundy wanted to use the power of the King of France. And so, young Charles mounted the expedition like his uncle asked, but in the end it led to nothing. Charles lost a number of troops, And in the end, when he did win, all he asked for was for William of Goudreuse to apologize, which he did. The Cardinal Bishop of L'on spoke up at the next council board meeting. By now, the king was 21 years old. It was time for him to terminate the regency and cut free his selfish, battle-hungry uncles. Charles agreed. He told his uncles he would be taking over.

and, with all of the grace and charm in the world, his uncles respectfully conceded their power over to him. That very same day, Cardinal Bishop Blanc died of suspected poisoning, but that could just be, you know, complete coincidence. As official king, Charles VI reinstalled the incredibly competent and wonkish ministers that his father had used, a group both affectionately and mockingly called the marmisei, the marmosettes. Together, they brought back these sensible tax policies and laws that had disappeared in the confusion and selfishness of the four-way regency. It's at this point that Charles gets his first nickname. Charles the bien-a-me, Charles the Beloved. But it wouldn't last.

Just a few years later, disaster and death would reach Charles and cling to him for the rest of his life. In 1392, one of the king's closest advisors and allies, a man named Oliver de Clisson, had an attack on his life by another gentleman named Pierre de Crone. Crowe was a young cousin of the Duke of Brittany, and recently he had been distanced from court. He blamed Oliver de Clisson for his change in fortunes. And so one evening, when Oliver de Clisson was walking home, Crowe and a few friends ambushed him in the street and left him for dead. Fortunately, Oliver de Clisson lived.

Crowe, on the other hand, fled to the safety of his cousin in Brittany, who took him under his protective custody. Well, that would not stand for King Charles VI. he needed justice for his friend. And so, on July 1st, the king mounted an expedition towards Brittany. The summer was sweltering, and the pace of the party traveling was excruciatingly slow. A few weeks into their journey at the northwestern city of Le Mans, the king came down with an illness that kept him in bed for three weeks.

The king's physicians wanted to keep him in bed for longer, but Charles refused. Even though he still had a fever, he mounted his horse and demanded that the party continue. That day was August 5th, and it was swelteringly hot. They rode for a few quiet hours while the sun basted down on them from directly overhead. And then a man appeared on the road. He's sometimes described as a leper or a beggar. But either way, this man jumped in front of the horses and started waving his arms. Ride no further, noble king, he shouted.

Turn back. Thou art betrayed. He kept repeating that over and over again. Thou art betrayed. Thou art betrayed! The king's guards forced the man out of the road and shook him off. But the man wouldn't leave. He continued to walk behind the horses, shouting up at the royal procession. Thou art betrayed!

The man was mad, clearly. The king ignored him. In fact, the king found that he could ignore most things in the hot August heat, with the gentle, lulling stride of his horse beneath him. The king felt himself sinking into something of a stry. stupor until a crash. A page had fallen asleep on his horse and dropped a lance which struck a helmet with a loud bang. Charles VI went mad. He pulled his sword and started whipping it back and forth at his own men. You're all traitors, he cried. The king stabbed at his knights and men

flailing wildly. By the time they were able to disarm the king, He had already murdered one of his own soldiers and wounded several others. After a few days when the king came to and his fever broke, he was deeply regretful and ashamed of what he had done. He was haunted by it. His uncles would take over again just for a bit, just until the king was well again. If he ever got well again, they said in private.

Just a few years later, more of Charles' friends suffered grim, accidental deaths at the ball of the burning men. What was meant to be a light-hearted romp to lighten the king's spirits became a living nightmare. Of the four men who eventually died from their burns, only one died that evening. The other three died slow and painful deaths with burns. covering most of their bodies. For his part, the king's brother, the Duke of Orleans, felt horribly guilty for being the one who had held the initial torch. The people of France were outraged when word of the tragedy reached them.

Was it attempted regicide? How had anyone allowed the king to be put in such a position of danger? In order to appease the public, the Duke of Orleans and several of the king, his advisors embarked on a literal walk of shame while the king rode on horseback beside them to the Notre Dame Cathedral to do public penance. The Duke of Orleans also paid for a chapel to be built at a nearby monastery. The people still loved their king, Charles the beloved, but he would test that love for the rest of his reign and eventually he would take on a new epithet, Charles Lefou, or Charles the Mad.

For three to five months, Charles would be completely lucid and sane. And then, for anywhere from three to nine months, he would lose his tether to reality, forgetting his own name, forgetting he was king, unable to recognize any of his children or his wife, Isabel. Once, when his wife came to his bedchamber, hoping, to personally remind her husband of who she was. An exasperated Charles just told his servants to take care of whatever it was that this woman seemed to want. He didn't realize why that was funny. When it wasn't indifference towards his loved ones, it was outright animosity.

The only family member he seemed able to recognize was his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, jealous of her relative power over the king, the king's uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, remember him, took advantage of the era's superstitions and said that the Duchess had only made herself known to the king with sorcery. Burgundy had her banished from court. This tension between Burgundy and Orleans would become an important pattern. In 1395, King Charles spent weeks claiming that he was St. George. He ran around a lot of the time. His staff would have to wall off entrances to the king's residences

so that he wouldn't get lost and they wouldn't lose track of him. In 1405, Charles didn't bathe or change his clothes for five months. It was around this time that he suffered from the glitone. last illusion, the idea that he himself was made of glass and that he could shatter at any moment. He was obsessed with protecting himself from shattering, insisting on having iron rods sewn into his clothing so he could stay straight and unharmed when he might be forced to interact with anyone. Just as it had been during his childhood, having no clear regent for the king meant to that the kingdom fell into confusion and chaos nearing anarchy as rival factions,

the queen, the king's oldest son, the dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Duke of Orleans were all vying for power. After the Duke of Burgundy died in his 60s, his claim to power is taken up by his son, John the Fearless, the new Duke of Burgundy. In 1407, while the Queen was recovering from an illness, the Duke of Orleans visited her every day. At the end of November, the Duke received a message from the king, saying that he needed him at the palace immediately. The Duke of Orleans left to go heed his brother's request. But the message was a fake, meant to lure him out onto the street, where he was attacked and killed. So who killed the king's brother? Well, John the Fearless, the

new Duke of Burgundy, didn't really deny that he did. In order to avenge his father's death, the new Duke of Orleans enlisted the support of his father-in-law, the Duke of Amniak, and thus began the Ammniak-Burgundian Civil War. All of this was happening at the same time as the ongoing hundred-year war with England. As a rule, you don't want to have a civil war, at the same time you're also fighting off an external enemy. It gets a little complicated with the battles and rival factions, but the Cliff Notes version is that in all of the chaos, Henry V of Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare fame,

swept into France and won the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. During a period of lucidity, Charles VI signed the Treaty of Trois, which named Henry V as Charles' successor, and married Henry to one of Charles's daughters. In the Shakespeare version of the story, the treaty happened right after Agincourt. But really, these things are slow and undramatic. It was five years later. Charles X.

Charles X is the unnamed French king in the Shakespeare play, but none of Charles's madness is referenced. Instead, if you've read Henry V, the French king is portrayed as just in. indecisive, dominated by the overbearing presence of his ministers and advisors. When Charles X finally does die, it's met with whales in the streets. They cry for him, in a way that they didn't at all for his uncles or his brother. Even after 30 years of madness, he was still Charles the Beloved.

That's the story of Charles VI, but keep listening after a brother. brief sponsor break to hear a little bit of what happened in France after his death. And a quick personal note, if you want to support the show, you can do so on Patreon at patreon.com slash noble blood tales, where I'll be posting episode scripts and bibliographies and announcing things like merch drops. Because guess what? We're getting merch. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wode. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Farrell.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up-and-coming talent.

He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. and he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey there folks, Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here.

And we know there is a lot of news coming at you these days from the war with Iran to the ongoing Epstein fallout, government shutdowns, high-profile trials, and what the hell is that Blake lively thing about anyway? We are on it every day, all day. Follow us, Amy and TJ for news updates throughout the day. Listen to Amy and TJ on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. The Treaty of Trois made Henry V of England next in line for the French throne, but Henry died before Charles did, which made Henry's son, Henry the next French king upon Charles's death. The baby was crowned in Paris at Notre Dame, but Charles's son, the Dauphan, who should have gotten the throne, didn't take that lying down. He fought to win back his crown from the east.

English usurpation. And the Defant had an advantage. You see, there was this peasant who led a siege at Orleans that lasted only nine days. And then this peasant led the troops through another handful of quick and miraculous victories and allowed the d'Enfant to make it to rhyme where he would be crowned Charles the seventh. Eventually, this peasant who bolstered the Frenchman, and the Frenchman, and allowed the d'Enfant to make it to rhyme, troops to victory would be captured by the Burgundian sect of French nobles who were allied with the English. I told you it got a little complicated between the Burgundians and Orleans. After being put on trial, the peasant was burned at the stake. But she was later canonized as a Catholic saint. She's sometimes called the maid of Orleans, but you probably know her

as Joan of Arc. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales and you can learn more about the show

over at Noble Blood Tales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Everyone, I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.