T H I 



371 



T H I 



century, when the Galdan or emperor of the Oloth Cal- 

 mucks, who subjected to his sway all the tribes north of the 

 Thian Shan Mountains, began to extend his conquests to 

 the south of that range. The petty Turkish sovereigns, not 

 being able to make resistance, yielded, and became tri- 

 butary to the Ototh Calmucks. " When the Galdan had 

 been defeated by the Chinese, and had died (1697), the 

 power passed from the Oloth Calmucks to the Songare.-. 

 [SoxGAKiA, vol. xxii., p. 345], who soon established their 

 authority among the Turkish princes in Thian Shan Nanlu, 

 and even subjected Tibet. They kept it until their widely 

 extended empire was destroyed by the Chinese in 1756, and 

 their sovereign, Amursana, fled to Tobolsk, where he died 

 17~<7 . Tin 1 most powerful of the Turkish princes, the 

 Kodjas of Yarkiang and Kashgar, considered this event 

 favourable to the establishment of their independence, as 

 they thought it impossible that the Chinese could send an 

 army sufficiently numerous for the subjection of Thian 

 Shan Nanlu through the wide desert which separates Pro- 

 per China from their country, and they refused to submit to 

 the authority of the Mantchoo emperor. But the emperor 

 sent two armies from Hi over the Thian Shan Nanlu 

 Mountains. The first was only partly successful, and took 

 Kutshe ; but the other, under the command of Tshaohoei, 

 subjected the whole of the country, and in 1759 the Kodjas 

 were obliged to retire to Badakshan. 



In 1703 an insurrection broke out in the town of Ushi, 

 but it was soon put down. In 1826 the descendants of the 

 Kodjas, having insinuated themselves into the favour of the 

 Khun of Khokand, and obtained from him the support of a 

 small army, entered Thian Shan by the Terek Pass, and 



dcd in taking Kashgar, Aksu, Yarkiang, and Khotan ; 

 but a Chinese army of 00,000 men being sent against them, 

 they were defeated in three battles, and again retired to 

 Badakshan, where Wood, in his journey to the source of 

 the river Oxus, found one of these Kodjas living in 

 exile. 



iDu Halde's History of China; Mailla's Histoire Gf- 



df In Chin/'; Klaproth's Magasin Asiatique ; 



Wathen's Memoir on Chinese Tartary and Khokan, in 



J'lurinil of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. iv. ; Wood's 



;/' >i Jiiurni'i/ tn tin' Source of the R/ri'r n.i-nx : 



Ritter's Erdkuiiii , vol. i., ii., and v.) 



THIBAUT V., count of Champagne, and first king of 

 Navarre of that name, occupies a respectable rank among 

 the Troubadours. It has been pretty satisfactorily shown 

 by recent writers on the subject that the scandalous 



- told of this king by Matthew of Paris and others 

 rest, upon no satisfactory evidence. They have however 

 been more successful in disproving the tales of their pre- 

 decessors than in substituting anything in their place. 

 They have rendered Thibaut's biography in a great mea- 

 sure negative. 



He was born about the beginning of the year 1201, and. 

 has been called Theobaldus Posthumus, on account of 

 his lather having died before his birth. His mother, 

 Blanche, daughter of Sancho the Wise, king of Navarre, 

 took charge of and governed his extensive territories as 

 regent for twenty years. A taste for literature was here- 

 ditary in the family of Thibaut. His grandmother, Marie 

 of France, held, about the middle of the twelfth century, one 

 of the most celebrated ' Courts of Love,' and some of her 

 judgments have been preserved by Andre le Chapelain. 

 Ilis mother Blanche induced by her commands Aubein 

 ie Sezane to compose several songs, after he had solemnly 

 renounced the practice of poetry. With such examples 

 before him it was natural enough that the young count of 

 Champagne ^hould contract a taste for rhyming. 



An attempt was made in the year 1214 to wrest the 

 territories of Champagne from the widow and her son. 

 The father of Thibaut was a younger son: his elder 

 brother Henry followed Philippe Auguste to the Holy 

 Land, and, marrying there a sister of Baldwin IV., king of 

 Cyprus and Jerusalem, had by her two daughters, Alice, 

 queen of Cyprus, and Philippa, who married Airard de 

 Brienne. The father of Thibaut V., after his brother's 

 departure foi Palestine, took possession of Champagne 

 and Brie, which were held without challenge by him, and 

 by his widow in name of her son, till 1214. Airard de 

 Urieniie then claimed them in right of his wife. Philippe 

 Auguste decided in favour of Thibaut, and the sentence 

 was confirmed by the peers of France, in July, 1216, on 



the ground that Henry, when departing for the East, had 

 ceded all his lands in France to his brother, in the event 

 of his not returning. In November, 1221, the seigneur of 

 Brienne was persuaded to abandon his claims upon receiv- 

 ing a compensation. 



In the same year Thibaut took upon himself the 

 management of his domains, which rendered him, bv 

 their extent, and the title of count palatine, which they 

 conferred upon their holder, the most powerful vassal of the 

 crown. During the brief and troubled reign of Louis VIII 

 (July, 1223, to November, 1226), Thibaut distinguished 

 himself by nothing but the pertinacity with which he in- 

 sisted upon his feudal rights. At the siege of Hochelle 

 he consented to remain till the town was taken, but 

 exacted in return a declaration from the king that by so 

 doing he did not render himself liable on any future occa- 

 sion for more than the 40 days' service in arms due by 

 the vassals of the crown. In the crusade against the 

 Albigenses (induced probably by regard for the count of 

 Toulouse, who was his kinsman) he resisted every en- 

 treaty of the king to remain with the army after the 40 

 days had expired ; and his departure from it was one of 

 the foundations for the stories afterwards circulated to his 

 disadvantage. 



On the death of Louis VIII. a league was formed by a 

 number of the most powerful French nobles to prevent 

 the queen from acting as regent. Thibaut was at the 

 outset a party to this confederacy. There are extant 

 letters of Pierre, duke of Bretagne, and Hugues de 

 LoMgMIi (dated March, 1226, which, as the year is now 

 made to commence, would be called 1227), authorizing 

 him to conclude in their name a truce with the king. The 

 regent however found means to detach the count of 

 Champagne from his allies ; for an attempt which they 

 made soon after to obtain possession of her person and the 

 king's was frustrated by the opportune arrival of Thibaut 

 at the head of a strong body of horse. 



The duke of Bretagne and his coadjutors were much 

 incensed at the desertion of the count of Champagne, and 

 appear to have soon after formed the project of harassing 

 him by supporting the claims of the queen of Cyprus upon 

 Champagne and Brie. He was however, on account of 

 his wealth, too desirable an ally to be lost without an en- 

 deavour to regain him. Overtures of reconciliation were 

 made, in consequence of which count Thibaut engaged, 

 in 1231, to take to wife the daughter of Pierre of Bretagne. 

 Thibaut had been twice married before ; in his 18th 

 year, to Gertrude, daughter of the count of Metz, from 

 whom he was divorced, and afterwards to Agnes de 

 Beaujeu, by whom he had a daughter. The regent, fear- 

 ing the consequences of this reconciliation, interfered to 

 break it off. The marriage-day had been fixed, and the 

 bridegroom was already on his way to the place where it 

 was to be celebrated, when letters" from the king, forbid- 

 ding him to conclude the engagement, were delivered to 

 him. He obeyed the royal mandate. 



This insult determined the confederates to carry into 

 execution their original project. They sent for the queen 

 of Cyprus, and invaded Champagne, avowedly for the pur- 

 pose of putting her in possession of it. The king marched 

 to the assistance of Thibaut, and under his auspices a 

 compromise was arranged. Thibaut ceded to the queen 

 of Cyprus lands to the value of 2000 livres yearly, and 

 paid her in addition 20,000,000 of livres in money. This 

 sum was advanced by the king, who received in return 

 the estates of Sancerre and others, which Thibaut's father 

 had held before he acquired Champagne. 



Here seems the proper place to notice the stories told bv 

 Matthew of Paris regarding the loves of Thibaut and queen 

 Blanche, and the poisoning of Louis VIII., laid to the 

 charge of the former. Matthew only mentions the accusa- 

 tions as a rumour he had heard. No other historian o. 

 equal antiquity mentions them. Had Thibaut been 

 suspected of being the murderer of the king, the charge 

 would probably have been urged against him by one or 

 other of the rival factions, with whom he played fast and 

 loose immediately after. There is not a passage in his 

 poems that can be interpreted into a declaration of attach- 

 ment to Blanche, who was moreover thirteen years his 

 senior. But it is easy to see how the rumour mentioned 

 ay Matthew ef Paris arose. A rhymed chronicle, appa- 

 rently of the age of Thibaut, represents him as going 



3B2 " 



