Everything about Philip Vi Of France totally explained
Life
In July, 1313, Philip married
Joan the Lame, daughter of
Robert II, Duke of Burgundy, and princess Agnes of France, the youngest daughter of
Louis IX. In an ironic twist to his "male" ascendancy to the throne, the intelligent, strong-willed Joan, an able regent of France during the King's long military campaigns, was said to be the brains behind the throne and the real ruler of France.
Their children were:
- John II (April 26, 1319 – April 8, 1364)
- Marie (1326–1333), who married John of Brabant, the son and heir of John III, Duke of Brabant, but died shortly afterwards.
- Louis (January 17, 1328 – January 17, 1328)
- Louis (June 8, 1330 – June 23, 1330)
- Jean (1333–1333)
- Philip of Valois (1336–1375), Duke of Orleans
- Jeanne (1337–1337)
After Joan died in
1348, Philip married
Blanche d'Évreux, princess of Navarre, daughter of the queen regnant
Joan II of Navarre, on
January 11,
1350. They had one daughter: Jeanne (
1351–
1371), who was intended to marry
John I of Aragon, but who died upon the journey.
Philip VI died at
Nogent-le-Roi,
Eure-et-Loir on
August 22,
1350 and is interred with his second wife, Blanche de Navarre (1330–
1398) in
Saint Denis Basilica. He was succeeded by his first son by Jeanne of Burgundy, who became
John II.
Reign
Philip's reign was punctuated with crises. It began with military success in
Flanders at the
Battle of Cassel (August
1328), where Philip's forces reseated
Louis I of Flanders, who had been unseated by a popular revolution. The able Jeanne gave the first of many demonstrations of her competence as regent in his absence.
Philip initially enjoyed relatively amicable relations with Edward III, and they planned a crusade together in
1332, which was never executed. However, the status of the
Duchy of Aquitaine remained a sore point, and tension increased. Philip provided refuge for
David II of Scotland in
1334 and declared himself champion of his interests, which enraged Edward. By
1336, they were enemies, although not yet openly at war.
Philip successfully prevented an arrangement between the
papacy in
Avignon and
Emperor Louis IV although, in July 1337, Louis concluded an alliance with Edward III.
The final breach with England came when Edward offered refuge to
Robert III of Artois, formerly one of Philip's trusted advisers. However, after he committed
forgery to try to obtain an inheritance, he barely escaped France with his life, and was hounded by Philip throughout Europe. Edward made him
Earl of Richmond and honored him; in retaliation, Philip declared on
May 24,
1337 that Edward had forfeited Aquitaine for rebellion and disobedience. Thus began the
Hundred Years' War.
Hundred Years' War
Philip entered the Hundred Years' War in a position of comparative strength. France was richer and more populous than England, and was then in the height of her medieval glory. The opening stages of the war, accordingly, were largely successful for the French.
At sea, French privateers raided and burned towns and shipping all along the southern and southeastern coasts of England. The English made some retaliatory raids, including the burning of a fleet in the harbor of
Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the French largely had the upper hand. With his sea power established, Philip gave orders in
1339 to prepare an invasion of England, and began assembling a fleet off the
Zeeland coast at
Sluys. However, in June
1340, in the bitterly-fought
Battle of Sluys ("l'Ecluse"), the English attacked the port and captured or destroyed the ships there, ending the threat of an invasion.
On land, Edward III largely concentrated upon
Flanders and the
Low Countries, where he'd gained allies by diplomacy and bribery. A raid in
1339 (the first
chevauchée) into
Picardy ended ignominiously when Philip wisely refused to give battle. Edward's slender finances wouldn't permit him to play a waiting game, and he was forced to withdraw into Flanders and return to England to raise more money. In July 1340, Edward returned and besieged
Tournai; again, Philip brought up a relieving army which harassed the besiegers but didn't offer open battle, and Edward was again forced to return home, fleeing the Low Countries secretly to escape his creditors.
So far, the war had gone quite well for Philip and the French. While often stereotyped as chivalry-besotten blockheads, Philip and his men had in fact carried out a successful
Fabian strategy against the debt-plagued Edward, and resisted the chivalric blandishments of single combat or a combat of two hundred knights that he offered. In
1341, the
War of the Breton Succession allowed the English to place permanent garrisons in
Brittany. However, Philip was still in a commanding position: during Papally-arbitrated negotiations in
1343, he refused Edward's offer to end the war in exchange for the
Duchy of Aquitaine in full sovereignty.
The next attack came in
1345, when the
Earl of Derby overran the
Agenais (lost twenty years before in the
War of Saint-Sardos) and took
Angoulême, while the forces in Brittany under Sir
Thomas Dagworth also made gains. The French responded in the spring of
1346 with a massive counter-attack against Aquitaine, where an army under
John, Duke of Normandy besieged Derby at
Aiguillon. On the advice of
Godfrey Harcourt (like Robert III of Artois, a banished French nobleman), Edward sailed for
Normandy instead of Aquitaine. As Harcourt predicted, the Normans were ill-prepared for war, and many of the fighting men were at Aiguillon. Edward sacked and burned the country as he went, taking
Caen and advancing as far as
Poissy before retreating before the army Philip hastily assembled at
Paris. Slipping across the
Somme, Edward drew up to give battle at
Crécy.
Close behind him, Philip had planned to halt for the night and reconnoiter the English position before giving battle the next day. However, his troops were disorderly and not to be handled: the roads were jammed by the rear of the army coming up, and by the local peasantry furiously calling for vengeance on the English. Finding them hopeless to control, he ordered a general attack as evening fell. Thus began the
Battle of Crécy; and when it was done, the French army had been well-nigh annihilated, and Philip barely escaped capture. Fortune had turned against the French.
The English seized and held the advantage. Normandy called off the siege of Aiguillon and retreated northward, while Sir Thomas Dagworth captured
Charles of Blois in Brittany. The English army pulled back from Crécy to besiege
Calais; the town held out stubbornly, but the English were determined, and easily supplied across the
English Channel. Philip led out a relieving army in July
1347, but unlike the siege of Tournai, it was now Edward who had the upper hand. With the plunder of his Norman expedition and the reforms of his tax system he'd executed, he could hold to his siege lines and await an attack Philip dare not deliver. It was Philip who marched away in August, and the city capitulated shortly thereafter.
Final years
After the defeat at Crécy and loss of Calais, the Estates refused to raise money for Philip, halting his plans to counter-attack by invading England. In
1348, a new woe struck France: the
Black Death, which in the next few years killed one-third of the population, including Queen Joan. The resulting labor shortage caused inflation to soar, and the king attempted to fix prices, further de-stabilizing the country. His last major achievement was the purchase of the
Dauphiné and the territory of
Montpellier in the
Languedoc, in
1349. At his death in
1350, France was still very much a divided country filled with social unrest.
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