Posted on 04/05/2022 6:06:37 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1356, the French King John II — John the Good, to history — avenged himself on his cousin and rival, Charles the Bad.
This affair embroils us in the French dynastic turmoil that spawned the Hundred Years’ War: five months after the nastiness in this post, King John was an English prisoner following the catastrophic Battle of Poitiers. It’s a good job he got his revenge in when he had the chance.
The fight — in its largest sense — was all about the throne of France, the poisonous fruit of the dynasty-wrecking Tour de Nesle affair of royal adultery decades before. That affair destroyed two princesses who could have become queens, and with it the potential of legitimate heirs for their husbands. With the family tree’s next generation barren, succession passed from brother to brother until the last brother died.
So now who’s big man in France?
Awkwardly, the last king’s nearest male relative also happened to be the king of France’s rival — his nephew, Edward III of England.
France barred Edward with a quickness, on the grounds that Edward was related via a female line. That put the patrimony in the hands of John the Good’s father, a previously un-royal cousin known as Philip the Fortunate. Less fortunately, this succession also conferred upon the new Valois line Edward’s rival claim and the associated interminable violent conflict.
Besides these two, there was yet another cousin who aspired to the French scepter: our guy Charles the Bad, King of the Pyrenees-hugging realm of Navarre. This guy’s mother had her legitimacy cast in doubt by the whole Tour de Nesle adultery thing years ago, and her woman bits had ruled her out of ruling France — but not Navarre...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Hmmmm… that must make the current occupant of the White House ‘Joseph the Infirm’.
All I know is that he gets 10%.
Thanks for posting. I had not seen these lately.
‘Joseph the Infirm’
That works.
I was thinking “Joseph the Incontinent”.
Nah, he’s still just “Joseph the Pretender”.
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