Scott Alexander (author/host)

This was an act that made no political sense, an act that could only really be justified by blood vengeance, and the Burgundians unquestionably snapped.

They held Paris by that point, and with it physical control of the king and the queen.

And there was an army that had just taken Rouen that was available to their service if they had the wit to use it.

Charles the Mad played no particular role in the Anglo-French treaty that resulted.

The key figures were Henry V of England, who intended not merely to reclaim Normandy but to press his great-grandfather's claim to the French throne.

Philip the Good of Burgundy, who had a blood feud to pursue, and Isabeau of Bavaria, Queen of France, a ruthless and ambitious woman who probably deserved better than she got from history.

She'd done a fine job playing the political game and trying to keep her family alive during the Armagnac-Burgundian feud, but by this point she was all out of cards.

The treaty said that Henry V would wed Charles' daughter, that Isabeau of Bavaria would swear that the Dauphin Charles, an Armagnac, was no son of the king's but the product of an incestuous affair between her and Louis of Orlans, and since that meant that they were all out of male descendants of Charles the Mad, why, Henry would serve as regent for him and inherit through his own wife when he died.

Footnotes, first about Isabel of Bavaria swearing about the Dauphin.

The title of Dauphin is that of the heir to the French throne, like Prince of Wales in England.

And a footnote about the incestuous affair, legally your brother's wife is your sister.

Back to the text.

At that point the dominoes fell fast.

The Arminax, under the exceedingly poor leadership of the Dauphin Charles and his exceedingly inept advisors, now the rump state of France, tried to fight multiple times.

They called on Scotland for aid, and got it, and called on Castile, and didn't.

Footnote.

That they appealed and were de facto ignored is my supposition.

There are people mentioning that they hold out hope Castile will help them, and they were allied with the Castilians in the last bout of the war, but I failed to track down any evidence of any help Castile actually gave them.

Back to the text.

Every time they tried to fight, they were beaten.