учебный год 2023 / Fortescue

1999 THE FRENCH POLEMICAL TREATISES 121

commonplace Frenchargument that if cognate succession were possible for the French Crown, then Charles King of Navarre (d. 1387)or Louis Count of Flanders (d. 1384)would have inherited ahead of Edward III,

an argument repeated by almost every polemical writer, including Jean Juvenal.1 Fortescue even produced his own English example, arguing that Margaret, granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, would have con- veyed a claim to the English throne to Malcolm of Scotland.2 But of course English history did offer one famous example of cognate succession to the throne: Henry II, son of the EmpressMatilda.3 In this case Fortescue argued that the people had elected Stephen Count of Blois as their ruler because Matilda was the only direct heir of Henry I and a woman could not receive the throne. Yet Stephen himself did not have a direct male heir, so he persuaded Parliament to allow Matilda's son Henry to succeed him. Thus Henry II did not succeed by hereditary right but by the authority of Parliament.A highly peculiar account of events forced upon Fortescue by the logic of his argument, this solution had much in common with that offered by Jean Juvenal, who argued that Matilda could not be queen 'iurahereditatis'but only by means of

an agreement made between her father and the people of the realm.4

The only major French polemical treatise to be produced after the Yorkist usurpation was an anonymous work entitled Pour ce que plusieurs, written in 1464 almost certainly as a manual for French diplomats at the negotiations at St-Omer.5In generalthis work was little different from earlier polemical treatises, but it did offer two unique sections. Firstly, the anonymous author provided a lengthy and often inaccurate discussion of the breach of the Anglo-French truce in 1449, meeting a need that CharlesVII had earlierbrought to the attention of Jean Juvenal des Ursins.6 But perhaps more importantly Pour ce que plusieursalso provided the first Frenchexamination of the Yorkisttitle to the FrenchCrown. Before 1461the Frenchpolemical writershad happily championed the heirs of Lionel Duke of Clarence as rightful heirs to the English throne, in orderto embarrassthe Lancastrians.In a letterof 1404

I. Fortescue, Works,pp. 66*, 507, and Jean Juvenal, Les ecritspolitiques, i.I58-9, 166-7; ii.I9, 27, Fortescue also argued that if cognate succession were possible in Spain, then John of Gaunt and Edmund Duke of York would have inherited a title to the throne through their wives, the

daughters of Peter, King of Spain: Works,pp. 497, 507, and see A. Goodman and D. Morgan, 'The Yorkist Claim to the Throne of Castile', Journal ofMedieval History, xi (1985), 6I-7I.

2.Fortescue, Works,pp. 64*-65*, 506, 525-8.

3.Neither Fortescue nor the French writers addressed the additional problem that despite their 'universal' arguments against female succession, there were twelve reigning queens across Europe between 1350and 1450:A. Wolf, 'Reigning Queens in Medieval Europe: When, Where and Why', Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (Stroud, 1994), pp. i69-88.

4.Fortescue, Works,pp. 65*, 506-6, and the fragment in The Governance ofEngland, pp. 536; Jean Juvenal, Les ecrits politiques, ii.45-6, 6o-I, 84. This was an awkward solution because it

inevitably contradicted Fortescue's emphasis upon hereditary right. 5. J. Calmette and G. Perinelle, LouisXIetlAngleterre

Scofield, The Life and Reign ofEdward the Fourth (2 vols., London, 1923), i.305-7.

6. Lewis, 'War, Propaganda and Historiography', 209n; Jean Juvenal, Les ecritspolitiques, iii.79.

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or I405 Jean de Montreuil referredto Edmund Earl of March as 'Anglie heredes'andJeanJuvenalreportedthat 'ceulxde La Marche, de Perssyet Nothonbellant, yssus dudit Leonel,' were closer in line of succession

than the usurperHenry of Lancaster.'But when EdwardIV became king in I46I, the Frenchneeded to develop argumentsagainstthe Yorkisttitle to the French throne; in 1462, for example, Edward instructed his ambassadorsto Philip the Good and Louis XI to put pressureupon the French by all means possible, including recalling the rights of the kings of England to the Crown of France.Thus it was clear that the French would face some stiff bargaining in order to achieve their aim of an alliance with the Yorkists, and under these circumstances French

diplomats would requirecarefulcoaching.2

On the whole, Pour ce que plusieurs offered all the traditional arguments on the French royal succession, though in many cases extending them through some bold fabrications that completed the development of the Salic Law myth. Yet there is also evidence that Pour ce que plusieurs was influenced by the recent pamphlets of Sir John Fortescue. For example, the treatise followed Fortescue in rejecting female succession on the grounds that if females might succeed, then the realm would have to be divided if there were more than one daughter.3 Similarly,the French author emphasized the support given to the Valois title by undisturbed possession for I36 years,and the consent of Church and princesacrossEurope, thus recallingthe argumentswhich Fortescue had used to defend the Lancastrian title.4 Pour ce que plusieurs also placed great emphasis on the inability of women to rule because they

could not be anointed, an argument that had been revived by Jean Juvenal,but which Fortescuehad discussed farmore extensively.5Yetthe connections between the English and French materialsaremost evident when Pourcequeplusieursaddressedthe specific titles of the Yorkistsand Lancastriansto the Frenchthrone. To overcome the Yorkistclaim to the

French throne, Pour ce queplusieursargued that EdwardIV was not the true king of England and so could not have inherited any title to France

from EdwardIII, even supposing that such a claim had everexisted. The first reason, taken from Fortescue,was that Philippa was not in fact the true daughter of Lionel Duke of Clarence but ratherthe daughter of a

I. JeanJuvenaldidsuggest,though,thatthefailureto avengethemurdersof bothEdwardII and RichardII ultimatelyrenderedall Englishmen,includingthe heirsof LionelDuke of Clarence, ineligibleto succeedto the throne:Jeande Montreuil,Opera,i.28o-2;

politiques,i.I75-I82;ii-.56and159.

2.Calmetteand Perinelle,LouisXI et lAngleterre,pp. I4-I5.

3.Pourcequeplusieursjustifiedthiscontentionbyreferenceto thecustomof Parisandthelie de France,whichdid in factrequirethedivisionof a propertyamongstsisters:PretensionsdesAnglois,

pp.17 (fos. 9V-IOr)In. I446 JeanJuvenalhad impliedthat this local custom affectedthe royal succession,whenheobservedthatthecustomof thevicomteof Parisexcludedwomen:JeanJuvenal,

Lesdcritspolitiques,ii.44-5.

4. PretensionsdesAnglois, pp. 35, 43 (fos.I9r, 23v).JeanJuvenal hademphasizedthe international recognitionfortheValoismonarchs:Lesdcritspolitiques,ii.39-40.

5. PretensionsdesAnglois, pp. 7, I19-20 (fos.o'r-IIr); Litzen, A War ofRoses and Lilies, pp. 57-9.

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secondfilz toute la succession.Et est la raisonpourceque la fille ne puet

moyenle filzne puetvenira leritage.

Thus Pourcequeplusieurscited the English practiceof entail to the male line, and then supported this by referenceto the specific civil law maxim

used by Fortescue, Digest, 50, I7, 54.1

Having dealt with the Yorkists,Pour ce que plusieurs turned to the Lancastrians,employing an argument that had been used by both Jean Juvenaland Fortescue.The Englishman had confessed that 'King Henrie the Fifte seeing that the kinges of Englande so comyn of a dawghter of Fraunce, maie not enjoy the sayde lande of France by suche title, he agreed, beyng a righteouse Prince, to leave that title, and the name of kinge of France'. Pour ce que plusieurs embroidered upon

reporting that Henry V had willingly given up his claim to the French throne when he had been informed that the FrenchCrown could not fall

to women or their sons; thereafterhe had acknowledged Charles VI as the rightful King of France and so only claimed to be the heir to the French Crown by virtue of the treaty of Troyes, which Pour ce que

plusieurs demonstrated was invalid.2 Yet what is remarkableabout this account in Pource queplusieurs is that the author studiously avoided all mention of the murderof RichardII and the usurpation of the throne in

1399 that had featured prominently in all previous French polemical texts. These terrible events were well known in France thanks to two

the Chronique de la traison et mort de Richart Deux roy d'Engleterre. These enjoyedwide circulation, judging by the forty-sixsurviving copies and their influence over other French chronicles such as the Chronique

du Religieuxde Saint Denys.3There is little doubt that the French royal court was horrified at the Lancastrian usurpation and the murder of

Richard II; Christine de Pizan refused to serve such a 'deesloyal'

I. Earlierin the treatise,theFrenchauthorhadcitedtwoadditionalrulesfromRomanlawwhen

discussingthe matterearlierin his text, but he now trimmedhis discussiondown in a direct

paraphraseof the argumentsused by Sir John Fortescue:Pretensionsdes Anglois, pp. 33-5 (fos.x8--Ir).The two extrarules,citedin PretensionsdesAnglois,pp. 12-3 (fol.7r)were'Nemo dat

quodnon habet',whichin factwasnot a lawat all,but rathera commonproverbusedby Seneca,

Aristotle,Aquinas,DanteandJeande Montreuil,and'Mediumprediumquodnon servitimpedit servitutem'(Digest,8.3.7.I), whichhadbeencitedby Raoulde Preslesandthe Somniumviridarii.

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of the position before 146I, when the French writers used the Yorkist claim to embarrassthe Lancastrians,but the treatise certainly did not

openly declare Henry VI to be the rightful king of England. Moreover, this omission did not correspondwith a contemporarychange in French interest in the fate of Richard II, because the Chroniquede la traison et mort de Richart Deux roy d'Engleterrewas included in three of the

manuscripts of Pour ce que plusieurs.1Rather, this surprising tact may simply reflectthe wish of the author to avoid any unnecessaryattack on the Lancastriansand hence reveala personalconnection with their party.

There is very little evidence to explain the evident connections between the writings of JeanJuvenaldes Ursins and SirJohn Fortescue, and Pour ce que plusieurs. There is certainly no indication that a manuscript containing any of the works of JeanJuvenalcirculatedin either England or Scotland in this period, or that Fortescueever saw the French treatise Trescrestien, tres hault, trespuissant roy. This text was written as a diplomatic manual, as JeanJuvenal stated in the introduction when he reportedthat CharlesVII had commissioned the work in anticipation of the personalmeeting between himself and Henry VI.2Thus it is possible that Fortescuelearnedof the treatise,or at least the argumentsdeveloped

by Jean Juvenal, through the medium of a French diplomat who was himself intimately familiar with the work. This individual could well have been the author of Pourcequeplusieurs,in turn explaining how the anonymous Frenchman was able to acquire material from Sir John Fortescuefor his own work.3Pourcequeplusieursdid offer two pieces of information directly associatedwith Scotland. Firstly,the author cited a quotation, incorrectly attributed to Bede, which was commonly found in fifteenth-century Scottish chronicles: 'Anglicus angelus est cui nunquam credere fas est, Dum tibi dicit ave tanquam ab hoste cave'. Secondly, he cited specific lands claimed by the Scottish crown, 'la conte

de Hontiton, Nothombelland, Tindal et pluiseurs grans terres et seignouries en Angleterre'. Both these pieces of information may have

I. British Library,Add. MS 36451; Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, MS I2192-4; Vienna, Osterr.

Nationalbibl. MS 3392.

2. See Jean Juvenal, Les ecritspolitiques, ii.i-ii for the manuscripts of Trescrestien, trespuissant, treshault roy, and ii.I3-5 for the introduction to the treatise. Kekewich, 'SirJohn Fortescue and the

Yorkist Succession', suggests that the vernacular treatise cited in De titulo, may in fact have been a longer version of Ofthe title ofthe house of York;Litzen, 'A War of Roses and Lilies', p. I5, identifies

this as a potential French source. See Fortescue, Works,pp. 63*, 66*.

3. Intriguingly two arguments used by Fortescue in his De laudibus legum Anglie (1468-7I) to

highlight the contrast between civil and canon law had also appeared in Pour cequeplusieurs: firstly, the different laws on bastardy in France and England, and secondly, in connection with succession,

the notion that 'larbreportera fruit de tele qualite soit doulz ou amer que fait cellui dont il procede', derived from Matthew. 8: I8: Fortescue, De Laudibus, chs. 39, 42; Pour ce que plusieurs, pp. I5-6

(fos.8-9r), 58-6I (fos32'-33v).

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royal proclamation.1These works may have been intended to win over

not just the English but also foreign powers, especially the King of Franceand the papacy.Certain sections of both Latin pamphlets sound

as if they were composed for foreigners.To cite just one example, chapter two of Defensio juris domus Lancastriae argues that entail is an

undisputed law in the kingdom of England ('in regno Angliae') and the rule that no one may pass on to another more right than they themselves possess is agreed by the learned men of that kingdom ('illius regni').2 Throughout the Hundred Years War both the English and French dispatched detailed discussions of their quarrels both to independent powers such as the papacyand the emperor,and to each other. With the advent of civil conflict in England there was an even greater need for international support for both the Lancastriansand the Yorkists.Thus

early in I46I Margaret of Anjou sent Morice Doulcereau, an agent of Pierrede Breze, and two Dominicans to the continent, to petition Pius II on behalf of Henry VI; while Edward IV sent to the Pope an exposition of his hereditary right to the throne.3 In De titulo Edwardi comitis Marchiae, Fortescue testified to the importance of papal recognition for the Lancastriancause when he cited a supposed bull of Pius II of November 1461,justifying resistanceto EdwardIV not only by all Englishmen but also by Louis XI himself; Fortescue was perhaps implying that not only Henry's subjects but also the French King had a

duty to support Henry VI.4 Certainly this competition for both papal and Frenchsupport continued for the restof the decade and may provide the most important context for Fortescue's writings on succession. Fortescue was an active diplomat for Henry VI in France and even provided memoranda to Louis XI on the political situation in England, including a 'grantmemoire declaratifdes droitz' that EdwardIV claimed to the Crowns of Franceand England. It is highly unlikely that this was the Opusculumde natura legis naturae,which made no direct reference to the situation in England or France. Rather this complex treatisewas most probably intended for the papacy: he wrote it in Latin and composed the second half in the form of an allegory, which might suggest that the work was intended to be readaloud at the papal curia.5

I. A. Allan, 'Royal Propaganda and the Proclamations of Edward IV', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research,lix (1986), I49-50.

2.Fortescue, Works,p. 506.

3.Scofield, Edward the Fourth, i.60o-2, 170-4, 215-6, and see my forthcoming article 'War,

Propaganda and Diplomacy in France and England During the Fifteenth Century'.

4. Fortescue, Works, pp. 69*-70*, 74*. There is little support for the notion that Pius II gave unequivocal support to the Lancastrians, as Fortescue claimed: Scofield, Edward the Fourth, i.233-4; M. Harvey, England, Rome and the Papacy, 1417-1464: The Study of a Relationship (Manchester, 1993), pp. 203-5.

5. For the lost 'memoire' see Bibliotheque Nationale, manuscrit frangais 6974, fo.27', cited in Calmette and Perinelle, Louis XI et IAngleterre, p. 303, and A. Gross, The Dissolution of the Lancastrian Kingship (Stamford, 1996), pp. 75-7.

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