To celebrate the US and Canadian release of The Formidable Women Who Shaped Medieval Europe: Power and Patronage at the Burgundian Court, Here’s an article about one of the most resourceful women in the book, Yolande of France.
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Yolande of France was an exceedingly resourseful woman. The eldest surviving daughter of King Charles VII of France and Marie of Anjou, she was born in Tours on September 23, 1434. Following the conclusion of a marriage treaty betweeen Yolande and the grandson of Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, Yolande left France for the court of Savoy to be given a proper education and learn the language, customs and traditions of her adopted country. Her brother would succeed their father as Louis XI, King of France, and he would play a significant role in the life of Yolande, along with Louis’ sworn enemy, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
The marriage of Yolande and Amadeus, Prince of Piedmont, finally occurred in Chambéry in 1452. They were not on good terms with their in-laws, the Duke and Duchess and preferred to stay away from a court they considered reckless and extravagant. Amadeus, pious and moderate, suffered from ill health because of epilepsy. Between 1453 and 1472, Yolande gave birth to ten children, seven of which survived infancy.
The couple were in Bourg-en-Bresse when they learned of the death of Amadeus’ father, Duke Louis, in Lyon on January 29, 1465. Her husband ascended the ducal throne as Amadeus IX. Because of his ill health, Amadeus wanted to devote himself to a life of seclusion and contemplation. For the sake of her children, Yolande opposed his wishes and persuaded her husband to remain the head of the government.
From the beginning of her husband’s reign, Yolande took it upon herself to administer the affairs of Savoy. In order to maintain the rights of her children and keep order in the government of Savoy, Yolande had to be on guard on three fronts. First, her own brother King Louis XI of France, while professing to be her protector, actively schemed to annex Savoy to the crown of France. Next, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and long-time foe of King Louis, also had designs on Savoy. And lastly, danger developed from the aims of her brothers-in-law: Philip, Count of Bresse, Jacques, Count of Romont, John Louis, Bishop of Geneva and Louis, King of Cyprus. These men held most of the territories on the western side of the Alps and all of them aspired to obtain government responsibilities.
Jacques, Count of Romont’s hegemony, was strongly rooted in the pays de Vaud. But the most dangerous and active of these men, Philip, Count of Bresse, began his meddling in the Savoyard government during his father’s reign. He obtained power in the Savoyard parliaments, as well as among the Swiss, and highly resented the growing influence of France in Savoy’s affairs. Yolande’s husband would be besieged by all these parties, along with other nobles who requested his support in the League of the Public Weal against Yolande’s brother, King Louis XI.
Perhaps at the request of Yolande, King Louis lured Philip of Bresse to France and locked him up in the castle of Loches on the pretense of his animosity toward the Francophile policy of Savoy. She sent troops to help her brother against the League of the Public Weal. These men fought at the Battle of Montlhéry in the summer of 1465. Following the battle, Louis tried to improve French relations with the ducal family of Savoy. Upon the death of Duke Louis of Savoy, Philip of Bresse reconciled with King Louis, who released him from his captivity. Philip quickly made his way to Savoy to have his appanage acknowledged and to seize the regency for his young nephew.
Yolande refused to yield to Philip. During a meeting of the Estates of Savoy in May-June 1466, Yolande agreed to some of Philip’s demands but acquired official recognition of her regency exclusively in her own name. In order to preserve the inheritance of her son, Yolande managed to avoid being overpowered by Philip of Bresse, as well as being strictly subservient to her brother. By now, Louis was urging the Duke of Milan to attack the Piedmont. Yolande reciprocated by following through and establishing a new alliance with Venice, which forced the Duke of Milan to abandon his attack on Vercelli.
Because of his health, Amadeus arranged for Yolande to be regent of Savoy without fully abdicating his own position. The Three Estates, the nobles and the people of Savoy, approved her appointment in 1469, causing even greater offense to Amadeus’ brothers. This is when Yolande began diplomatically playing all the parties off of one another, maintaining the status quo of her position.
The First Escape
A power struggle broke out in 1471 between Yolande and three of her brothers-in-law. Philip of Bresse struck first. He planned to take the duke and duchess into custody and besieged them in the castle of Montmélian. During eight days of negotiations, Yolande sent repeated requests to her brother for aid, which never arrived. Yolande was forced to surrender.
Amadeus headed to Chambéry with his brother Philip, but Yolande pretended to be ill, and promised to follow her husband the next day. The Count of Romont and the Bishop of Geneva stayed behind with the duchess, her children and her ladies-in-waiting. After dinner, Yolande sent all of her kitchen equipment and her master of the household to Chambéry and dismissed all her male servants. The bishop took his leave, fully expecting to see Yolande the next day.
At midnight, the signal of a lighted fire appeared on the castle walls. Two of the duchess’ loyal servants brought armed men near the castle. She opened the postern gates and her entire party passed through on horseback. They rode to La Bussière and spent the night in a monastery. She then made her way to Grenoble, where the inhabitants of the city received her with great honor. Successful negotiations for reconciliation occurred between King Louis, Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan and the Swiss.
Meanwhile, in Chambéry, Philip of Bresse took advantage of having his brother, the reigning duke, in his power and convoked the Three Estates in Amadeus’ name. Together with his brother, the Count of Romont, they formed a new government, prompting Yolande’s immediate protest. She wrote authoritative letters to the governors of all the fortresses throughout Savoy, forbidding them, under penalty of death and forfeiture of their goods, to deliver up their castles to anyone without express orders from her or from her son Charles, whose arrival from France she eagerly expected.
She sent messengers to the Three Estates, thanking them for their devotion and fidelity. She requested help from Milan and dispatched an ambassador to France to request the immediate return of her son. Sixteen-year-old Charles gathered an army of eight-thousand archers and headed to Savoy to rescue his parents. But when he arrived at Orléans, he was struck down by a fatal attack of pneumonia. His mother received the shocking news of his death on July 12, 1471.
Help from France and Milan eventually arrived. Philip of Bresse consented to recognize Yolande’s position of regent with the caveat that she form a council in which the princes of Savoy had a voice. Following the signing of a peace treaty, Yolande and Amadeus were reunited. Much to her alarm, her husband’s health had declined severely. They moved to Vercelli, hoping a change of air would improve his condition. But Amadeus died on March 30, 1472, at thirty-seven.
Yolande’s son Philibert, being only seven years old, needed a regent. Because Yolande maintained her status and authority throughout the crises, the Three Estates confirmed her regency as Philibert’s guardian. The delicate diplomatic and political balance Yolande had maintained soon deteriorated. She appealed to her brother Louis for aid. The French king responded by supporting Philip of Bresse and inciting him to rebel against Yolande, all the while professing he championed her cause.
In the fall of 1472, Yolande requested men to assist in the defense of several castles in Savoy from the Duke of Milan, but he refused. Yolande was compelled to rely on the Duke of Burgundy because she could not rely on her brother, her brother-in-law Philip of Bresse, or the Duke of Milan.
Through a gradual process, from 1468 to 1473, Charles intensified his connections with the House of Savoy. It appears Yolande had been thoroughly won over to a Burgundian alliance. Charles had various motives for his overtures to Savoy. He was determined to incorporate Alsace and Savoy into his own territories and considered Savoy to be an important ally against King Louis.
The most significant outcome of Charles’ diplomacy ended up being the direct threat his efforts created to the interests and influence of Bern. Bern sought a suitable pretext to start aggressive acts against Savoy and, in essence, the alliance of Savoy and Burgundy should have been enough to ward off trouble from Bern. But Charles the Bold went even further, taking into his pay the services of Yolande’s brother-in-law, Jacques, Count of Romont.
This made Charles the virtual ruler of the pays de Vaud, further aggravating Bern. From this point forward, Bern crafted a policy designed to undermine Burgundian influence in the pays de Vaud, as well as in Savoy. Charles, with his alliance with Yolande, established a Burgundian protectorate over Savoy, posting about eighty Burgundian mercenaries with Yolande to guard her person. Bern and Fribourg declared war against Burgundy on October 26, 1474, and took several cities.
Charles, occupied with his futile siege of Neuss in the Rhineland while these events occurred, was powerless to offer any help. Yolande protested vociferously. Incapable of retaliating, Bern triumphed. In the autumn of 1475, Yolande tried to mediate a peace between Charles the Bold and the Swiss federation (Eidgenossen). Bern, along with her allies, invaded and retook the pays de Vaud in October.
Yolande planned to enlist Charles the Bold’s aid in a retaliatory campaign against Bern. By this point, Charles had invaded and taken over Lorraine. He made his way from Nancy to Yolande’s rescue. Along the way, he continued his feud with the Swiss and suffered defeat at the Battle of Grandson on March 2, 1476. Alarmed at Charles’ recklessness in engaging with the Swiss, Yolande sent a secret envoy to Louis, proposing a Franco-Burgundian reconciliation, hoping to find a way back into her brother’s good graces.
The Second Escape
Yolande had put all of her trust in Charles and basically turned the government of Savoy over to him. Despite warnings from her brother, Yolande agreed to meet with the Burgundian duke at Lausanne at the end of March, perhaps hoping for a resolution to the conflict. Not long after this meeting, Yolande turned over several strategic places in Savoy to Burgundian troops and she supplied Charles with troops and officers. By the end of April, he considered the possibility of taking custody of Yolande on the pretext of protecting her from her brother Louis.
By now, Yolande questioned her alliance with Charles the Bold and considered approaching her brother for a new alliance. Charles got wind of this. Yolande and Charles met at St. Cloud just outside of Geneva and he tried to persuade her to stay in Switzerland and not return to the Piedmont. Yolande refused, and Charles ordered her capture. Charles now fully believed Yolande conspired with her brother.
They captured her that same night of June 26-27. Yolande departed from Gex and headed for Geneva, about ten miles away, with five of her children. Charles instructed his captain of the guard, Olivier de La Marche, to intercept her and transport her and the children to the county of Burgundy. Olivier would later state he was only following orders.
Olivier swung Yolande up on his saddle while others secured three of her children, her daughters Marie and Louise and her son Charles. In the dark, one of Olivier’s Italian officers intentionally allowed eleven-year-old Duke Philibert and his brother James Louis to slip away and servants of their mother hid them in the wheat fields, later taking them both away to Chambéry and finally to France for safekeeping with their uncle Louis.
Yolande and the children were put under the guardianship of an Englishman, first in the Château of Rochefort near Dijon and later in the castle of Rouvres in the county of Burgundy. Charles the Bold called her a ‘whore’ and swore to ‘make her pay for her sins.’ The princes of Savoy were now in control of the country. Louis saw an unbelievable opportunity and appointed Philip of Bresse as his lieutenant in Piedmont, while French officials arrived in Chambéry.
Her guards were not strictly vigilant, and Yolande began corresponding with her friends and her brother, trying to achieve her release. Louis began plotting a dramatic rescue of Yolande. By September, Louis sent a force of three hundred lances under the command of his governor of Champagne, Charles D’Amboise. On the night of October 2, 1476, Amboise took possession of Rouvres, overwhelming the garrison. Yolande, her children and her attendants escaped on horseback, making their way to French territory.
Pleased with the results of this mission, Louis commanded Yolande to come to him as quickly as possible. When he received word she approached, he provided her with an escort of his chief courtiers and awaited her arrival at the gates of Montils, a small lodge near the palace of Plessis-lès-Tours. As she dismounted, Louis embraced her and said, “Madame la Bourgogne, vous soyez la tres bien venue!” (Madame of Burgundy, you are very welcome). She embraced him back, answering that she was not Burgundian but a good Frenchwoman and happy to obey the King in whatever he wished to command her.
Louis persuaded Yolande to renounce all of her Burgundian connections, indirectly excluding Charles the Bold from the affairs of Savoy and the pays de Vaud. She left for Chambéry and once in Savoy, Philip of Bresse refused to restore to her the government of the subalpine provinces. It would take the reinforcement of an army led by Galeazzo of Milan to force Philip to withdraw his claims and consent to her supremacy. In November 1476, Yolande was reinstated in Savoy under a French protectorate.
Further reading: “The Romance of the House of Savoy 1003-1519” by Alethea Wiel, “Valois Burgundy” by Richard Vaughan, “Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy” by Richard Vaughan, “The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe” by Sharon L. Jansen, “The Valois: Kings of France 1328-1589” by Robert Knecht, “Louis XI: The Universal Spider” by Paul Murray Kendall, article on Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy by Francesco Cognasso, and on Iolanda of France, Duchess of Savoy by François Charles Uginet in Treccani, the Italian Encyclopedia
