The Princes in the Tower, French Version

Those familiar with English history know the story of the Princes in the Tower--Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, the young sons of King Edward IV, who, after the death of their father in 1483, were imprisoned in the Tower of London and never seen again. The same history buffs might not, however, realize that France had its own version of imprisoned princes--François and Henri, the two young sons of François I, who were handed over to Charles V as ransom for their father and spent four years in miserable captivity in Spain.

The Treaty of Madrid, which François signed in 1526 to secure his release after the disastrous Battle of Pavie, contained many concessions to Charles V--the most notable being the transfer of Burgundy to the emperor and the renunciation of French claims to Flanders, Naples, and Milan. When François tried to convince Charles that he needed to return home to effect the transfer, Charles demanded that he hand over two of his three sons as hostages until the terms of the treaty had been fulfilled. François, who had spent the past year as Charles's prisoner, seems not to have balked at resigning his young sons, aged only seven and eight, to a similar fate. Perhaps he expected their absence to be a short one; perhaps he placed the well-being of his kingdom, struggling under the regency of his mother, over that of his own flesh and blood. Perhaps he was simply eager to make any deal necessary to gain his freedom. In any case, he agreed to the exchange, which was arranged to take place on March 17, 1526, at the border town of Bayonne.

The trade occurred in the middle of the Bidassoa River, which separates France from Castile. Two boats, one carrying the French king, the other his sons, met in the middle of the river at a raft that had been moored into place. The king hugged his sons and blessed them, telling them he would send for them soon. The two parties switched boats; the princes were rowed back to the Spanish bank while the king proceded to the French. As soon as he landed, François leapt onto his horse, shouted, "Now I am king; I am king once again!" and galloped off to meet his court at Bayonne. There is no record in the extensive descriptions of the exchange that he even looked back at the young sons he had just abandoned.

At first, the princes and their entourage of seventy persons were treated cordially; Eléonore, Charles's sister and François's new wife by proxy, treated the boys as sons. But as the weeks passed and it became obvious that François had no intention of surrendering Burgundy, the treatment of the princes grew harsher. They were taken away from Eleanor and moved to a castle farther south. After a foiled rescue attempt in February 1527, Charles took them further into Spain and dismissed nearly all their attendants. François, hoping to pressure Charles into releasing the boys, entered into league with England and the papacy. When that failed, he declared war on Charles in late 1527.

Of course, this declaration worsened the boys' situation. They were moved to the fortress of Pedraza in the high mountains north of Madrid, where they lived a spartan existence amidst Spanish soldiers. A French spy saw them twice in July 1529; townspeople told him the younger boy, Henry, hurled constant verbal abuse at the Spanish when the princes were permitted to attend Mass. Tired of Charles and François's posturing, Louise de Savoye, the king's mother, and Marguerite d'Autriche, the emperor's aunt and regent of the Netherlands, began negotiations to end the war. In August of 1529, the Treaty of Cambrai, or la paix des dames as it came to be known, was hammered out. Instead of ceding Burgundy, François agreed to pay 2 million écus for the ransom of his sons.

The princes remained in Spain while the king worked to raise the huge sum. Louise sent a man to Pedraza to check on the condition of the princes and to let them know they would soon return home. The man, Baudin, found the boys living in "a dark, disordered chamber with no adornments except straw mattresses." The window, high up the wall, was covered with bars. The boys had received no lessons since their tutor had been released months earlier; their French was rusty, since they only could speak it between themselves. They did have two small dogs to play with, but spent only minutes a day outside playing under the watch of fifty soldiers. Now aged eleven and twelve, they had been in captivity for four years.

François finally managed to collect the ransom by June of 1530, an incredibly difficult feat that nearly bankrupted the kingdom. A train of thirty-two gold-laden mules left Bayonne for the same spot on the Bidassoa River where the first exchange had taken place. The boys were reunited with their father and the court at Bayonne on July 3. On July 7, François married Eléonore, who had accompanied the princes from Spain. He thus fulfilled one of the stipulations of the original Treaty of Madrid.

How did four years of captivity affect these young boys and their relationship with their father? That is a subject for a future post. One can only imagine the sense of abandonment these young children felt, as well as anger towards a father who so blithely surrendered them so he could once again "be king."

(Source: Henry II, King of France 1547-1559 by Frederic J. Baumgartner. Duke UP, 1988. Photo of Pedraza Castle courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

The Captive King

Last we saw of King François, he had been taken prisoner by imperial forces at the disastrous Battle of Pavia (24 February 1525). French troops, fighting to recapture the duchy of Milan that François's predecessor Louis XII had lost, were surrounded and roundly defeated by Charles V's army. The King of France's captivity at the hand of the Holy Roman Emperor would last a little over a year and color the two monarchs' relationship for the duration of their reigns.

After the battle, François was taken to the Castle of Pizighettone near Cremona, where he remained for three months in the custody of the Spanish captain. Captured companions accompanied him, including his childhood friend Anne de Montmorency (who would remain François's most trusted counselor and eventually rise to the most powerful political position in France). These men were eventually given safe-conducts that enabled them to travel back and forth between Italy and France to negotiate the king's release. François appointed his mother, Louise de Savoye, regent during his absence. Louise established her court at Lyons, near the Italian border, to facilitate communications with her son and the emperor.

If François and his mother had hoped that Charles would quickly release him for a cash ransom, they were mistaken. Charles presented a long list of demands that included paying Charles's debts to Henry VIII, abandoning French claims to Milan and Genoa, and most importantly, ceding the duchy of Burgundy. The emperor planned to seal the settlement through the marriage of his niece, Mary of Portugal, to the Dauphin. Although François appeared amenable to some of the terms, he refused to negotiate as long as he continued to be held prisoner. He forwarded Charles's terms to Louise, who rejected them outright.

Hoping to cut short negotiations made all the lengthier by the distance separating the two courts, François begged for a face-to-face meeting with Charles. In June, he was taken to Spain on a fleet of galleys decorated in his honor, given a royal welcome in Barcelona, then moved to Valencia. He asked that his sister Marguerite be given safe-conduct to negotiate a peace, that he be moved closer to the site of negotiations for easier consultation, and that a truce be declared while the talks were in progress. Charles agreed to all three requests, yet continued to avoid meeting with François in person.

When the French ambassadors met with Charles in Toledo, the emperor continued to dismiss any discussion of a ransom. He was willing to make some concessions in his original demands, but claimed there could be no lasting peace as long as Burgundy remained in French hands. France, however, refused to consider surrendering the region; in fact, François, now in Madrid, made a secret declaration to the French ambassadors that he would never surrender Burgundy freely and that, if forced to do so, his action would be null and void.

Charles almost lost his opportunity to profit from the situation when François nearly died in September from a combination of acute depression, anorexia and a nasal abscess. The French king ran a fever for twenty-three straight days and lapsed into a semi-coma after Charles did, finally, come to see him. Later in the month, the abscess burst and François unexpectedly recovered. Peace talks resumed, this time facilitated by Marguerite, who had arrived during her brother's illness, but were suspended once again when Charles found the proposals unacceptable.

By the end of the year, the strain of the king's absence was growing too great for the kingdom. Louise de Savoye decided to abandon Burgundy and convinced François to accept Charles's terms. On January 14, 1526, the parties signed the Treaty of Madrid. In return for his freedom, François ceded Burgundy and abandoned his claims to Italy. He also agreed to hand over his two oldest sons as hostages until the terms of the treaty were fulfilled. In return, he demanded the hand of Charles's sister Eléonore in marriage, in order to keep her from marrying Charles de Bourbon, the prince of the blood who had sided with Charles during the war. Charles, swayed by advisors who believed the French king could be trusted, agreed. Little did he know that two days before the French king signed the treaty, he had made another secret declaration nullifying the surrender of Burgundy.

Betrothed by proxy to Eléonore in January, François remained in Madrid until mid-February, possibly for health reasons. Charles arrived, and together they traveled to meet Eléonore. A few days later, Charles set off to Seville to marry Isabella of Portugal, and François began the long journey back to France with his Spanish escort. The heartrending exchange of the monarch for his two young sons, which deserves a post of its own, was set for March 17 on the river Bidassoa.

[Source: The material for this post was condensed from R. J. Knecht's account in Renaissance Warrior and Patron, pp. 216-48.]