10 - Endgame
from PART III - THE UNDOING
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
Summary
The dilemma about the dynastic succession was neither the only nor the most immediate concern raised by the death of young Gaston. By his marriage with Béatrix d'Armagnac, the heir of Foix-Béarn had been, as Espan de Lion put it, ‘the delight of his father and of the country, because through him the land of Béarn […] could remain in peace.’ But now, with its guarantor gone, the fragile peace mediated (not to say imposed) by the King of France and the Pope between the two greatest lords in the Midi was unlikely to hold – especially if the Count of Foix suspected the Armagnac clan of having had a hand in a plot to remove him. A series of recent and concurrent events in France could only aggravate this unstable situation. It had begun in the summer of 1380 with the recall of Louis d'Anjou from his lieutenancy of Languedoc; the Duke could perhaps find solace in the fact that he was needed elsewhere, but in fact his recall stemmed from the unrest provoked in Montpellier and other cities by his misgovernment. In mid-July the long overdue campaign to rid Auvergne and Languedoc of entrenched routiers was interrupted by the death of the Constable Bertrand du Guesclin; meanwhile, a new English chevauchée out of Calais – albeit of limited strategic importance – was adding to French woes, amid renewed fears that Buckingham's army would join forces with the rebellious Duke of Brittany.
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- Lord of the PyreneesGaston Fébus, Count of Foix (1331–1391), pp. 163 - 183Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008