King Philip IV, also known as Philip the Fair, had three sons, and a daughter named Isabella. Their names were Louis, Philip, and Charles in that order. All of them made good marriages as befitting their station. Louis married Marguerite of Burgundy and Philip married Jeanne of Burgundy. Charles married Jeanne’s sister, Blanche of Burgundy. The two sister’s were Marguerite’s cousin, so they were all related in one way or the other. Isabella married Edward II of England. The tale of that marriage is a whole other story, but Isabella does come into play in this story.
See, Isabella had given her sisters-in-law beautifully embroidered purses while on a state visit to France with her husband. The French Queen, Isabella’s mother, had recently died, and the Burgundian princesses had helped to bring life back into the French court. Isabella wanted to repay the kindness.
Back in England, two Norman knights had recently arrived at the English court of Edward II. Their names were Philip and Gautier d’Aulnay. This was nothing unusual: French and Norman knights were often in attendance. They caught the attention off many ladies at court. They were handsome and charming, but that wasn’t what drew Isabella’s attention. What drew Isabella’s eye, though, wasn’t their looks. They were wearing the same purses that Isabella had given to her sisters-in-law. She wondered if there wasn’t anything going on behind the scenes…
The brothers weren’t that discrete, and rumors soon began to reach King Philip. Isabella shared her suspicions and the two brothers were put under surveillance as well as the three Burgundian princesses. The Trail led them back to the Tour de Nesle, an old fortress on the Seine. The three ladies had basically transformed it into a bachelorette pad. All three women and the two knights were arrested, and the the two brothers were tortured. Under the torture, the men confessed to their adulterous deeds with Marguerite and Blanche. Jeane was not active in the affairs, but was present and was aware of the others’ infidelities. This was, of course, a big deal: if any of them were pregnant, they’d be passing off some bastard as the legitimate heir. The fate of the Capetian line was at stake. Punishment was swift and brutal.
The men were publicly castrated, flayed alive, and then decapitated. The women were a tad more more fortunate. All three went on trial before the Paris Parliament. Prince Philip intervened for his wife, Jeanne, and she was found not guilty. The other two were not so lucky. Blanche and Marguerite were found guilty, had their heads shaved, and were sent to the Château Gaillard, where they were imprisoned underground.
A few months after this whole unfortunate incident, Philip IV died, probably in shame. The crown, of course, went to his oldest son, Louis, who became Louis X. Technically he had a daughter, Jeanne, from his marriage to Marguerite, but since the incident, her paternity had been called into question. Luckily for Louis, Marguerite died soon after his ascension to the throne, leaving him available to remarry. Louis remarried immediately and very quickly got his new wife pregnant. Alas, Louis died after a game of tennis and his baby son soon died after he did.
Louis still had that daughter, Jeanne, from his first marriage to Marguerite that I mentioned earlier; but, considering the questionable paternity and (more importantly) the fact that she was four years old, no one much objected when Philip, Louis’s next brother, took the crown. The moment he took the crown, Philip convened the Three Estates of France and confirmed Salic Law, which stated that women could not inherit (different from, say, primogeniture in England which stated that women could inherit; just after all the boys). This took the orphan Jeanne right out of the equation. Unfortunately, Philip and his male heir soon died as well. He left behind, four daughters, but under his father’s own edict, they could not inherit.
And so we come to the third and final brother, King Charles. He was still technically married to Blanche from before, who was still currently imprisoned in the Château Gaillard. Despite her imprisonment, she managed to eke out some some comfort with one of her jailers and gave him a child. Charles used this to gain an annulment, and married again twice, but still without male heirs.
Salic Law disallowed the throne to pass to Isabella, but she tried to win the claim for her son, Edward III of England. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have the Hundred Years War.
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