Louis XII of France

Louis XII (27 June 1462 – 1 January 1515) was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his cousin Charles VIII, who died without a closer heir in 1498.

Before his accession to the throne of France, he was known as Louis of Orléans and was compelled to be married to his handicapped and sterile cousin Joan by his uncle, king Louis XI. By doing so, Louis XI hoped to extinguish the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois.

Louis of Orléans was one of the great feudal lords who opposed the French monarchy in the conflict known as the Mad War. At the royal victory in the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488, Louis was captured, but Charles VIII pardoned him and released him. He subsequently took part in the Italian War of 1494–1498 as one of the French commanders.

When Louis XII became king in 1498, he had his marriage with Joan annulled by Pope Alexander VI and instead married Anne of Brittany, the widow of his cousin Charles VIII. This marriage allowed Louis to reinforce the personal Union of Brittany and France.

Louis persevered in the Italian Wars, initiating a second Italian campaign for the control of the Kingdom of Naples. Louis conquered the Duchy of Milan in 1500 and pushed forward to the Kingdom of Naples, which fell to him in 1501. Proclaimed King of Naples, Louis faced a new coalition gathered by Ferdinand II of Aragon and was forced to cede Naples to Spain in 1504.

Louis XII did not encroach on the power of local governments or the privileges of the nobility, in opposition with the long tradition of the French kings to impose an absolute monarchy in France. A popular king, Louis was proclaimed "Father of the People" (Le Père du Peuple) in 1506 by the Estates-General of Tours for his reduction of the tax known as taille, legal reforms, and civil peace within France.

Louis, who remained Duke of Milan after the second Italian War, was interested in further expansion in the Italian Peninsula and launched a third Italian War (1508–1516), which was marked by the military prowess of the Chevalier de Bayard.

Louis XII died in 1515 without a male heir. He was succeeded by his cousin Francis from the Angoulême cadet branch of the House of Valois.

Early life
Louis was born on 27 June 1462 in the Château de Blois, Touraine (in the modern French department of Loir-et-Cher). The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Marie of Cleves, he succeeded his father as Duke of Orléans in the year 1465.

In the 1480s, Louis was involved in the so-called Mad War against royal authority. Allied with Francis II, Duke of Brittany, he confronted the royal army at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488, but was defeated and captured. Pardoned three years later, Louis joined his cousin King Charles VIII in campaigns in Italy.

All four of Charles VIII's children died in infancy. The French interpretation of the Salic Law permitted claims to the French throne only by male agnatic descendants of French kings. This made Louis, the great-grandson of King Charles V, the most senior claimant as heir of Charles VIII. Louis thus succeeded to the throne on the king's death.

Governance
Although he came late (and unexpectedly) to power, Louis acted with vigour, reforming the French legal system, reducing taxes and improving government, much like his contemporary Henry VII did in England. He was also skilled in managing his nobility, including the powerful Bourbon faction, by which he greatly contributed to the stability of French government. In the Ordinance of Blois of 1499 and the Ordinance of Lyon of 1510, he extended the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption in the law. Highly complex French customary law was codified and ratified by royal proclamation.

Wars
In an attempt to take control of the Duchy of Milan, to which he had a claim in right of his paternal grandmother Valentina Visconti, Louis embarked on the so-called Italian Wars. In the Italian War of 1499–1504, he successfully secured Milan itself in the year 1499 from his enemy, Ludovico Sforza, and it remained a French stronghold for twelve years. His greatest success came in the War of the League of Cambrai with Venice, which brought him a victory at the Battle of Agnadello in 1509. Things became much more difficult for him from 1510 onwards, especially after Julius II, the great warrior Pope, took control of the Vatican and formed the "Holy League" to oppose the ambitions of the French in Italy. The French were eventually driven from Milan by the Swiss in the year 1513.

Louis also pursued the claim of his immediate predecessor to the Kingdom of Naples with Ferdinand II, the King of Aragon. They agreed to partition the Neapolitan realm in the Treaty of Granada (1500), but were eventually at war over the terms of partition, and by the year 1504 France lost its share of Naples.

As Portrayed in Machiavelli's The Prince
Louis's failure to hold on to Naples prompted a commentary by Niccolò Machiavelli in his famous opus The Prince:

Legacy


At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes.

In spite of his military and diplomatic failures, Louis proved to be a popular king. He duly earned the title of Father of the People ("Le Père du Peuple") conferred upon him by the Estates in 1506.

Marriages


In 1476, Louis XI forced Louis (his second cousin) to marry his daughter Joan of France. Louis XI was succeeded by Charles VIII, who died childless in 1498, the predecessor of Louis XII. Charles had been married to Anne, Duchess of Brittany in order to unite the quasi-sovereign Duchy of Brittany with the Kingdom of France. To sustain this union, Louis had his marriage to Joan annulled after he became king so that he could marry Anne, who was now a widow.

The annulment, described as "one of the seamiest lawsuits of the age", was not simple. Louis did not, as might be expected, argue the marriage to be void due to consanguinity (the general allowance for the dissolution of a marriage at that time). Though he could produce witnesses to claim that the two were closely related due to various linking marriages, there was no documentary proof, merely the opinions of courtiers. Likewise, Louis could not argue that he had been below the legal age of consent (fourteen) to marry: no one was certain when he had been born, with Louis claiming to have been twelve at the time, and others ranging in their estimates between eleven and thirteen. As there was no real proof, he was forced to make other arguments.

Accordingly, Louis (much to the horror of his wife) claimed that she was physically malformed, providing a rich variety of detail precisely how, and that he had therefore been unable to consummate the marriage. Joan, unsurprisingly, fought this uncertain charge fiercely, producing witnesses to Louis's boast of having "mounted my wife three or four times during the night." Louis also claimed that his sexual performance had been inhibited by witchcraft. Joan responded by asking how he was able to know what it was like to try to make love to her.

Had the Papacy been a neutral party, Joan would likely have won, for Louis's case was exceedingly weak. Pope Alexander VI, however, was committed for political reasons to grant the divorce, ruling against Joan accordingly. He granted the annulment on the grounds that Louis did not freely marry, but was forced to marry by Joan's father Louis XI. Outraged, Joan reluctantly submitted, saying that she would pray for her former husband. She became a nun and was canonized in 1950.

Louis married the reluctant queen dowager, Anne, in 1499. They had four stillborn sons, and two daughters. The elder daughter, Claude, was betrothed by her mother's arrangement to the future Emperor Charles V in 1501. But after Anne failed to produce a living son, Louis dissolved the betrothal and betrothed Claude to his heir presumptive, Francis of Angoulême, thereby insuring Brittany would remain united with France. Anne opposed this marriage, which took place only after her death in 1514. Claude succeeded her mother in Brittany and became queen consort to Francis. The younger daughter, Renée (1510–1575), married Duke Ercole II of Ferrara.

After the death of Anne, Louis married Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII of England, in Abbeville, France, on 9 October 1514. This was a final attempt to produce an heir to his throne, for despite two previous marriages the king had no living sons. Louis died on 1 January 1515, less than three months after he married Mary, reputedly worn out by his exertions in the bedchamber. Their union produced no children.

Issue
Louis XII had an illegitimate son, Michel Bucy, Archbishop of Bourges from 1505, who died in 1511 and was buried in Bourges.

Death
On 24 December 1514, Louis was reportedly suffering from a severe case of gout. In the early hours of 1 January 1515, he had received the final sacraments and later died that evening. Louis was interred in Saint Denis Basilica.

Succession
The succession to the throne of France followed Salic Law, which did not allow women to inherit the throne. As a result Louis was succeeded by Francis I. Francis I was the son of his first cousin and would become his son-in-law upon Francis I's marriage to Claude of France. Louis' successor founded his own line of French kings.

The succession to the ducal crown of Brittany followed semi-Salic tradition, allowing women to inherit the crown in their own right (suo jure). Anne of Brittany had predeceased Louis XII; her eldest daughter, Claude of France had inherited the Duchy of Brittany directly in her own right (suo jure) before Louis' death. When Claude married Francis I became Duke of Brittany jure uxoris thereby assuring the maintained unity of the Kingdom.

Honours

 * Kingdom of France : Grand Master of the Order of Saint Michael
 * Kingdom of France – Duchy of Orléans : Last Grand Master and Knight of the Order of the Porcupine