The Probert Encyclopaedia of People

CHARLES THE BOLD

Charles the Bold was Duke of Burgundy. He was born in 1433 at Dijon. He was the son of Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal. While his father yet lived Charles left Burgundy, and forming an alliance with some of the great French nobles for the purpose of preserving the power of the feudal nobility, he marched on Paris with 20,000 men, defeated Louis XI at Montlheri, and won the counties of Boulogne, Guines, and Ponthieu. Succeeding his father in 1467 he commenced his reign by severe repression of the citizens of Liege and Ghent.

In 1468 he married Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV of England. Liege having rebelled, the duke stormed and sacked the town. In 1470 the war with France was renewed, and although the duke was forced to sue for a truce he soon took up arms anew, and, crossing the Somme, stormed and fired the city of Nesle. Louis meanwhile involved him in greater embarrassments by exciting against him Austria and the Swiss. Charles, ever ready to take up a quarrel, threw himself on Germany with characteristic fury, and lost ten months in a futile siege of Neuss. He was successful, however, in conquering Lorraine from Duke Rene.

Charles now turned his arms against the Swiss, took the city of Granson, putting 800 men to the sword. But this cruelty was speedily avenged by the descent of a Swiss army, which at the first shock routed the duke's forces at Granson, on March the 3rd, 1476. Mad with rage and shame Charles gathered another army, invaded Switzerland, and was again defeated with great loss at Moral. The Swiss, led by the Duke of Lorraine, now undertook the reconquest of Lorraine, and obtained possession of Nancy. Charles marched to recover it, but was utterly routed and himself slain. The house of Burgundy ended in him, and his death Without male heirs removed the greatest of those independent feudal lords whose power stood in the way of the growth of the French monarchy. His daughter Mary married Maximilian of Germany, but most of his French territory passed into the hands of the French king.
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