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PHILIPPE IV. (OF FRANCE). 



PHILIPPE V. (OF FRANCE). 



.,.1 



BayonDe, followed by mutual hostilities between the vowels of the 

 Cinque Port* and France, ripened the jealousy of Philippe into 

 determined hostility to Edward. He summoned Edward, under 

 certain penalties, to appear before the parliament at Paris, to answer 

 for the hostilities committed by bis vaunts ; and Edward, observant 

 of hi* subordination as a vassal of the King of France, obeyed the 

 summon' by (ending his brother Edmond to appear for him (1294). 

 Anxious to avoid a continental war, ha consented to deliver up fix 

 towns in Quirnne to commissioners appointed by Philippe ; and to 

 surrender twenty of the persons most deeply implicated in the pre- 

 vious hostilities, to Uke their trial before the parliament of Paris. 

 Instead of fix towns, Philippe caused the whole of Guionne to be 

 occupied bj an armed force; and when he had thus obtained posses- 

 sion, he charged Edward with contumacy, and cited him again before 

 the parliament, under heavier penalties for non-appearance than before. 

 Enraged at being thus outwitted, the English monarch renounced his 

 allegiance, sent an army to recover Guienne in 1295, and formed 

 alliances with various continental princes against Philippe. But the 

 war was languidly carried on, for Edward's attention was engrossed 

 by Scottish affairs, and his continental allies made few efforts, except 

 the Fleming', who were unfortunate. Hostilities were terminated by 

 a truce of indefinite length, and by the arrangement of some matri- 

 monial alliances between the two royal house?, concluded by the 

 mediation of the Pope Boniface VIII. in 1298. By the terms of this 

 truce, part of Guienne was restored to Edward, but the final 

 adjudication of that great fief was reserved for the future decision of 

 the pope. The expenses of this war increased the necessities of 

 Philippe, and these led hiiu into disputes with the clergy and the pope, 

 UK! made him persecute the Jews iu order to extort from them a por- 

 tion of their wealth. One beneficial result sprang from his desire of 

 money he emancipated the serfs of Languedoc, commuting his rights 

 over them for a pecuniary payment. 



1'l.ilippe was anxious to avenge himself on the princes who had 

 allied themselves with Edward. The defeat and death of Adolphus 

 of Nassau, king of the Romans, iu 1298, may be ascribed to his 

 intrigues. The Count of Flanders was imprisoned and his county 

 seized; but the oppressions of the French caused a revolt of the 

 Flemings, in attempting to suppress which the French suffered a com- 

 plete defeat at Courtrai in 1302. Philippe advanced next year into 

 Flanders with a vast army, but effected nothing ; and in order to have 

 his bands free for this war, and for a dispute with the pope, which he 

 had been long carrying on, he made a definitive peace with Edward of 

 England, to whom ho restored the whole- of Guienno (1303). He 

 advanced into Flanders, defeated the Flemings both by tea and land 

 in 1301, but found still so obstinate a resistance, that he made peace, 

 contenting himself with the cession of a small part of the country, 

 and conceding the independence of the rest. The pope had mean- 

 while been seized by Nogaret, Philippe's envoy at Anagni ; and 

 though released by the populace, had died about a month after of a 

 fever, the result probably of the agitation to which he had been 

 exposed (1303). The exactions and the depreciation of the coinage, by 

 which Philippe provided resources for the Flemish war, provoked dis- 

 content in various parts of his dominions, which he endeavoured to 

 suppress by mercilesi severity. The seizure and banishment of the 

 Jews of Langutdoc, and the confiscation of their property, was 

 another of the measures to which he had recourse at this time (1306). 



Among the methods which Philippe employed to fill his exchequer, 

 the depreciation of the coinage had been one of the most usual. He 

 had paid in this depreciated coinage the sums he had borrowed in a 

 currency three times more valuable. When however he found that 

 his pUn began to tell against himself, his revenues beiug paid iu the 

 depreciated coinage, he found it necessary to correct the abuse, and to 

 issue money equal in value to that of previous reigns. This however 

 canted fresh disturbances; debts contracted iu the depreciated money 

 bad now to bo paid in the new and more valuable coinage ; and this 

 hardship led to commotions, which Philippe repressed with atrocious 

 cruelty. He found it necessary however to publish some new edict), 

 in order to remedy the evil complained of (1305). In order to con- 

 ciliate the nobility, whose alliance he wished to make a counterpoise 

 to the popular discontent, Philippe restored the practice of judicial 

 eomtat iu all heavier accusations against the nobility. 



It was probably the desire of Philippe to obtain their wealth, that 

 led to the rapprmwion of the great military order of the Templars. 

 They wen accused of criims the most revolting by two worthless 

 members of their own order ; and Philippe gave secret orders for the 

 arrest of all who were ill France; and these orders were executed in 

 all parts of his dimiuions at the same time. The trials were carried 

 on lieforc diocesan tribunals ; and though the pope (who was a creature 

 of Philippe) at first claimed for himself the investigation of charges 

 affecting an ecclesiastical body, he gave up the point, reserving to 

 himself only the trial of the grand-master and a few other chief men. 

 The judges were eager to convict the accused ; confessions were wrung 

 from many by torture ; numbers were brought to the stake for 

 denying the confessions thus extorted ; others were condemned to 

 various inferior penalties. The persecution became general in I 

 but out of France the Templars were generally acquitted of tho 

 charge* brought against them. The pope, however, at the instance of 

 a council ancmbUd at Vienne, suppressed the order by virtue of bis 



papal authority, and granted thoir pomeiwioiis to the Hospitallers 

 (1311). But Philippe and his nobles had already sei/.>d their French 

 pooseesions, and the Hospitallers were obliged to redeem them with 

 heavy payments. Jacques de Molay, grand-master of tha Templars, 

 and the commander of Normandy, were burnt in Paris in 1314, for 

 retracting their confessions. 



The lost years of Philippe's reign were signalised by these infamous 

 proceedings. He managed about the same time (1310) to gain pos- 

 session of Lyon, which had previously enjoyed a considerable degree 

 of independence, though nominally subject to the empire. He also 

 interfered as mediator in 1313 between Edward II. of England, who 

 bad married hi* daughter Isabella, and the discontented barons of that 

 kingdom. His necessities induced him to persecute afresh tho Jews 

 and tho Lombard merchants; and his severe and suspicious temper 

 led him to reiterated cruelties. The wives of his three son 

 charged with adultery, and two of them were declared guilty, and 

 condemned to imprisonment; while their lovers, and those who were 

 supposed to have aided in their crimes, were put to death by the most 

 horrid tortures. The wife of Philippe, Count of Poitiers, his second 

 son, was acquitted (1314). Philippe lo Bel died at Fontninebl.au, 

 from the effect of on accidental fall while hunting on the 'Jluh of 

 November 1314, in the thirtieth year of his reign, and the forty -sixth 

 of his age. 



It was in the reign of Philippe le Bel that the ' Tiers Etat,' or 

 commons, were admitted for the first time to take part iu the national 

 assemblies subsequently designated ' les EtnU Gdndraux, or States- 

 General.' They were present at a council held iu 1302 on occasion of 

 Philippe's dispute with the Pope Boniface VIII. It was in thi- 

 also that the sittings of tho parliament, the supreme justiciary court, 

 into which, by the substitution of the lawyers for the nobles, the 

 ancient Cour do Pairs [PuiLirTE II.] had been transformed, became 

 fixed at Paris. 



PHILIPPE V., known as PHILIPPE LE LONG, the second son 

 of Philippe IV., or ' Le Bel,' was born in 1294, and succeeded to the 

 throne in 1316. His elder brother, Louis X., or Louis le Ilutin, had 

 died .'.th of June 1316, leaving by his first wife a daughter, who suc- 

 ceeded him on the throne of Navarre, and his queen, who was his 

 second wife, pregnant On the news of his brother's death, Philippe, 

 who was at Lyon, where the conclave of cardinals were engage.! in 

 tho election of a pope, hastened to Paris, and assumed the govern- 

 ment, which was confirmed to him by the barons of the kingdom, who 

 were assembled for the purpose, until the birth of tho child, of which 

 tho widowed queen was then pregnant. If she produced a son, he 

 was to retain the government as regeut during the minority of tho 

 child ; if a daughter, he wag to be recognised as king. Tho child, 

 which was a boy, died a fow days after birth (November 1310), and 

 Philippe assumed the sovereiguty in full right, and was crowned at 

 Reims, January 9th, 1317. 



It was upon this occasion that the Salic law, by which females were 

 excluded from the succession to the throne, was established as a 

 constitutional law iu France, l.miix X. had left a daughter, .' 

 queen of Navarre; aud thero appears to have been no just ground, 

 either from precedent or from analogy of the laws of succession which 

 prevailed in other kingdoms, or iu the great fiefs, for her exclusion. 

 The ground urged by the legal supporters of Philippe's claim was au 

 ancient law excluding females from the succession to the .v.li 

 a peculiar species of allodial possessions, but which law could only 

 by a remote analogy be made to bear on the succession to the throne. 

 Tho case of a sole heiress to tho crown ha 1 not however occurred 

 before ; and if there was no precedent for the exclusion of a female, 

 there was no instance of one having really occupied the throne. 

 Jeanne was, besides, a female and a minor : the Duke of Bourgogne, 

 her maternal uncle, who was her natural mppoi-ti r, was induced to 

 surrender her claim: the States-General, beiug convoked, confirmed 

 the title of Philippe; and the death of his only sou indiu-cil hi< 

 brother Charles to assent to it, in the hope of turning against 

 Philippe's own daughters the law of which he was desirous to avail 

 himself to the exclusion of his niece. The Salic law was thus firmly 

 established as the fundamental law in the. French monarchy. 



The States-General were assembled three times in this reign ; first 

 to confirm Philippe's title to the throne, then to regulate the finances, 

 and lastly for a general reform of abuses. In the fir-t of these 

 assemblies Philippe issued an edict, giving a military organisation to 

 the communes, though he was subsequently obliged, by the jealousy 

 of tho nobility, to make some modification- in it. Another of hU 

 edicts revoked the grouts made by bis father aud brother from tho 

 royal domain, aud became the foundation of the constitutional prin- 

 ciple that that domain was inalienable. In other edicts he gave 

 increased regularity to the legal and fiscal institutions which were 

 gradually superseding the arrangements of the feudal system. These 

 edicts were issued by the king as from himself, and the States-General 

 were carefully precluded from the exercise of any properly legislative 

 functions. 



The south of France was during this reign the scene of cruel perse- 

 cutions, directed by the influence of the pope, John XXII., against 

 those accused of sorcery, and against the Franciscan monks, hi 

 1320 an immense body of the French peasantry assembled from all 

 parts for a crusade, attracted by two priests, who preached that the 



