On this day, 2 January 1471
Edward IV, King of England, and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, met in Flanders to formalize an alliance.
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On this day, 2 January 1471, Edward IV, King of England, and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, met in Flanders.
At this point, Edward IV had been exiled from England. Richard Neville, Duke of Warwick, who history knows as “the kingmaker,” had defected to the Lancastrian side. In July 1470, He struck an unlikely alliance – the Treaty of Angers – with Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI of England’s queen, with the help from her cousin, Louis IX of France. With promises of help from the king of France, Warwick had therefore freed the feeble Henry VI from the Tower of London, parading him through London as the king.
Contemporary depiction of Edward IV from Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, circa 1480. Lambeth Palace Library, MS 265
However, Edward IV was not simply biding his time in exile. He sought help from his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who was married to his sister, Margaret of York. For a time, Charles the Bold was neutral in the English civil war – it didn’t matter who was king of England as long as they supported Burgundy in the impending war against France. Charles the Bold had family in the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. However, things started to change when Warwick declared England for France, as should have been expected. After all, much of the reason he defected from the York side of the Wars of the Roses was because he was a French supporter and Edward IV was for his wife’s kin in Burgundy.
On 3 December 1470, Louis XI rescinded the Peace of Peronne, the agreement that ended the previous Franco-Burgundian War. He then confiscated all of Charles the Bold's lands in France. After he then forcibly took the Burgundian town of St. Quentin, Charles the Bold decided to back Edward IV. With the help of a trusted and great local lord, Louis de Bruges, Lord of Gruuthuse, on this day, 2 January 1471, Edward IV met Charles the Bold for the first time since he had been exiled from England. Charles gave £20,000 to help with Edward’s invasion of his homeland as well as providing troops and helping gather ships. In exchange, Edward IV promised that England would help Burgundy in the war with France. On 11 March 1471, Edward IV set sail for England.
What do you think? Was it a good idea for the Duke of Burgundy to pick a side in the Wars of the Roses? Let me know in the comments!
Sources for this article:
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor, p405-406
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones, p228
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_roses.html
https://www.warsoftheroses.com/mapsandsources/sources/the-arrival-of-king-edward/#:~:text=With%20the%20help%20of%20a,Edward%20with%20money%20and%20ships
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rivers_%26_Caxton_Presenting_book_to_Edward_IV.JPG_(Cropped).jpg