Episode 31: A Luckless Legate in Liège

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At the beginning of 1468, after having crushed a second uprising in Liège in the space of two years, Charles the Bold set about the all-important task of figuring out who he was going to marry. At the same time, he was once again being dragged into affairs in France as petulant nobles there began once more to grumble about his nemesis, French king, Louis XI. Although Charles and Louis’ enmity stretched back to before either of them had taken the reigns of power, it had become focused on the region of the Somme towns, which Charles’ father had remarkably ceded to Louis before his death, but which Charles had re-taken possession of in the treaty of Conflans. While preparing to go to war against France, Liège erupted once more into revolt. A papal legate named Onofrio de Santa Croce was sent to Liège in order to try to find a peaceful resolution to this on-going social unrest, and although he did a remarkable job in trying to find a pathway through the murkiness, in the end he was unsuccessful. On October 30, 1468, Charles the Bold, accompanied by a no doubt unhappy French King, Louis XI, would begin a final sack of Liège which would see the city burn for 7 weeks.

Charles marries Margaret of York

Charles was once again a bachelor after his second wife, Isabella of Bourbon - mother to his only child, Mary of Burgundy - died while he was busy negotiating a peace to end the War of the Public Weal in France. That marriage had been orchestrated by his father, Philip the Good, but with Philip dead, so too was the pro-French stance he had shifted Burgundy towards at the end of his reign. Charles instead looked to England and to the woman he himself had wanted to marry back in the 1450s, Margaret of York, sister to the now King of England, Edward IV.

By March, 1468, an agreement was reached and in June of that year, Margaret and her retinue were put on a ship and set off for Sluis, near Bruges. Despite a French ship apparently trying to attack them on the way, she successfully made it to the Low Countries on the 25th of June. The pair were private married shortly after.

A much more formal and elongated ceremony befitting the princely position of Duke of Burgundy was held a week later in Damme. The flurry of festivities was apparently quite tiring for Charles, who according to de la Marche, returned to his quarters after the mass and slept “as if he were to be on watch on the following night.”

Some contemporaries claimed that immediately after the wedding, Charles set out to once more wage war against the French monarch, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Vaughan even goes as far as to suggest that, at the time of his wedding to Margaret, he showed little to no interest in once more advancing towards France. Perhaps ‘giving his troth’ in a wedding alliance with the English was enough of an insult to Louis XI for the time being. After the nuptials, Charles thus made his way north to Zeeland and then on to Holland, to make appropriately Joyous Entries in towns in those regions, before returning to Brussels two weeks later.

Liège hopes rest on Onofrio papal legate

So while all that was happening, back in Liège, the city had been left reeling in the wake of the harsh punishment Charles had meted out in November 1467, after their second uprising against him in the space of two years. Remember that after Burgundian troops had crushed the rebellious armies, Charles had ordered the city of Liège’s walls to be torn down, the guilds to be disincorporated, all of the citizens rights and privileges to be revoked and the city’s entire constitution and system of justice to be replaced by 14 officers selected by the bishop, but who had sworn an oath of loyalty to him, Charles. Although most of the extremist elements in Liège had been either killed, imprisoned or fled after the rebellion, faced with this new reality, many Liégeois who had not been swept up in the earlier rebellions now found reason to object. There was also reaction from the Vatican. The primary reason that Onofrio de Santa Croce had been sent as a papal legate, was because the Church felt that its liberties had been infringed with Charles’ treaties. His strategy became to reconcile the people of Liège with their bishop and then to deal with Charles.  

When Onofrio arrived in Liège in April, spirited rumour and discussion would have preceded him, his presence likely giving hope to the chastened locals that their Church and Holy Father would defend them and the rights which Charles had trampled all over. Onofrio spent around a month in Liège, breaking one of Charles’ dictates by allowing mass to be said in the main church in Liège, St Lambert’s. This was the first time in the 12 years that he had been Prince-Bishop of Liège that Louis of Bourbon had actually performed any of the religious duties that that position entails. Ruth Putnam says of this moment “If Onofrio thought he had reformed the bishop by forcing him into performing his priestly rites he soon learned his mistake. That ecclesiastic speedily disgusted his flock by his ill-timed festivities, and then forsook the city and sailed away to Maestricht in a gaily painted barge, with gay companions to pass the summer in frivolous amusements suited to his dissolute tastes.” In June, Onofrio headed off to Bruges to meet with Charles.

Negotiations between Charles the Bold, Louis of Bourbon and the people of Liège

Charles was as fervently religious as his predecessors had been and, even though he saw himself as a prince of unsurpassed virtue and glory, he was still extremely mindful of the authority of the Church. He adulated the Virgin Mary, paying homage to her frequently. Regardless, he believed he held political authority over the clerical position of Bishop of Liège. Louis of Bourbon, a puppet placed there by his father, had lived with an extravagance that had rankled with his subjects, who were prone to revolt at the best of times. His submissiveness to the Dukes of Burgundy meant that many people in Liège were happy to lay the blame with the Duke of Burgundy.

Charles and Louis of Bourbon met with Onofrio and Charles treated him with respect and friendliness. But he still refused to budge on the matters of the peace terms he had concocted. Onofrio was, himself, not a pushover, reminding Charles that he had literally justified his attack on Liege as being ‘to protect the church.’ They did not come to any agreement, other than Onofrio concededing that he would give apostolic approval to any terms that the bishop and people of Liege agreed to with the Duke.

By August, Charles had been persuaded by the Counts of Berry and Bourbon to once more resume military action against Louis XI. He soon sent out a call for his forces to assemble. Onofrio once more caught up with him in Brussels before he left, bringing Louis of Bourbon, along with him. According to Onofrio, Charles sought reassurance that Onofrio would give approval to any terms that the Bishop, people and Duke could all agree upon. Onofrio affirmed this, at which point Charles turned to Louis of Bourbon, his father’s and now his puppet, and asked his thoughts on the matter. To Charles’ immense frustration Louis decided that, actually, he would rather like to adhere to the wishes of the Estates of Liege, basically denying the legitimisation of Charles’ peace terms.

Onofrio says “...The duke turned to the bishop (and said) ‘I am amazed that you and the elders of your church think you might be wiser now than you were when these treaties were agreed to at Liège, especially as the crisis ought at that time to have sharpened your minds. You should remember that everything I did then at Liège to subdue the discontented populace was done at your request and in the interests of your country and church. I cannot understand what this ambiguity and anxiety means nor what causes it.’

The bishop replied to the duke:

‘As I understand it, most noble prince, the legate wants to ascertain from us on oath whether we entirely agree to all these clauses, and if they all promote the honour, liberty and utility of the Church. Since we shall be on oath concerning this matter, we are bound to speak the truth.’

The duke was extremely annoyed on hearing this and, speaking rapidly in French, almost in a stammer, said: ‘Now I recognize the tricks and deceipts of the French king Louis, who habitually rescinds afterwards with a protest what was before promised and agreed to in writing and on oath. Now Louis de Bourbon, you’re trying to follow in his footsteps, but I don’t care whether or not these articles are ratified. I shall put to the sword anyone who infringes my sentence, duly promulgated and accepted.’ With these words, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword, he called for his horses in order to set out with his army against the king.”

Onofrio’s French was not great, and he had not fully understood what Charles had said to the bishop in such vehement anger and disbelief. Once it had been translated into Latin for him, however, he responded:

‘The bishop, glorious prince, did not speak so badly. You must allow the bishop, the elders of the church and the leading men of the country to offer their opinions freely on this matter. He and I will take on this business and ascertain these things from them separately. I feel sure we can deal with the matter in such a way as to preserve the honour of God and of the Church and yet not inconvenience you.. . After all, only ten or twelve out of almost fifty articles in that peace treaty need to be altered or improved in some way because they seem to be damaging to the Church. . . . And in order that this can be achieved more solemnly and expeditiously, may it please your highness to send two of your councillors to Liege with me and the bishop to deal with the matter with us.’

Charles, however, was not quite the magnanimous duke that his father had been and thought that allowing his councillors to go to Liège would be showing too great a willingness to entertain the concessions which the Liégeois were hoping for. Instead he told Onofrio that only he, Onofrio, could determine which articles in the peace treaty might be altered for the benefit of the Church, but that nothing could be done without Charles’ express permission. On August 8 the Duke called for the mobilisation of his troops and two days later he departed Brussels, leaving Onofrio, the bishop and the matter of Liege to once more respond to calls for help from French nobles against their King. Onofrio, unsatisfied with the outcome of his meeting with the Duke, returned to Liège whilst the bishop of Liège, Louis of Bourbon, packed up all his stuff and his court, and headed for his summer of fun in Maastricht.

Liège rises up… again

Charles had left his lieutenant-general, Guy of Humbercourt, in charge of Liège. With the call to arms on August 8th, Humbercourt left Liège to head off to join his lord. Things, at this moment, were looking brighter for the Liégeois than they had for years. They had the papal legate, Onofrio, in to bat for them and, although they did not know it, Charles had agreed that some of his harsh peace terms may, in theory, be amended. What is more, it looked like he was going to go and be distracted by war in France. Despite this, however, the Liegeois were not going to just sit by and passively watch how things played out.

Word soon began to spread that Charles was going to lead an army to France. With his representative Humbercourt no longer present, many rebels and other exiles began to feel confident enough to start trying to take back castles and towns across the territory. The old demagogue, Raes de Lyntre, did not return from exile to carry on the fight. Rather, this next phase of the rebellion was led by a group of three men; Jean de Wilde, Vincent de Bueren and Gosuin de Streel. The first two were older knights, one from Liege and the other a banished noble from Guelders. The third, Gosuin de Streel, was part of a powerful, local family, whose uncle was among the upper echelons of the city’s magistracy and whose father had been killed in the Battle of Brustem fighting against the Duke. Despite his relative youth, Gosuin had been an active part of the revolutionary movements from an early stage and his participation had not gone unnoticed by Charles who, when he dictated the harsh terms on Liège, had specifically denied him inclusion in the peace, making him an outlaw. In the words of 19th-century Belgian historian, Godefroid Kurth, he was ‘young, witty and cheerful, he was the idol of the people of Liège.’

This group soon found support amongst artisans and workers and reached around 200 in number when they began retaking towns such as Bouillon and Tongeren in early September, before capturing the Meuse pass, which would allow them access to the city of Liège itself. With the ducal presence greatly diminished after Burgundian troops were summoned by Charles, the rebels fought their way back into the city of Liège on September 9. They have been described as a rag-tag, emaciated, bearded group of ‘unfortunates’ whose ‘audacity made the authorities lose their minds.’ Indeed, upon their arrival many fled, including city administrators, such as the mayor, as well as those who could be held and punished as pro-Burgundian. Although still small in number, the rebel’s success in taking Liege was the clarion call for those who had remained in hiding since their last defeat by the Duke. Word went out from the city and people returned to it, ready to once more take arms. This included many of those rebel, guerrilla fighters we mentioned in a previous episode, those of the green tent, with their fancy hand-cannons. 

Now in control, the three leaders encouraged and coerced certain other influential figures in the town to give their support and a new, revolutionary government was formed. Again. The papal legate, Onofrio, was at this point present in Liège and the next day met with members of the new regime. The stance they took was one of obsequiousness to the church and even to their absent prince-bishop Louis of Bourbon, claiming that their issue was with the Duke of Burgundy, who had no authority over the people of Liege. They begged Onofrio to intercede with the bishop on their behalf, perhaps hoping to drive a wedge between Louis of Bourbon and Charles the Bold.

What followed was a bunch of last gasp attempts by Onofrio to try and reconcile Louis of Bourbon with his people, with Onofrio pulling out every trick and threatening every punishment from his canonical book to try and get the desired outcome. But Louis of Bourbon’s indecisiveness and flip-flopping led to negotiations failing. Word arrived that Guy of Humbercourt, Charles’ right-hand man in Liège, had amassed an army and was about to retake the lands lost to the rebels. Onofrio decided that he had best try to deal with him, meeting Humbercourt and Louis of Bourbon in Tongeren on October 9. Humbercourt refused to treat with the papal legate, nor allow the people of Liège safe passage to talk with their bishop. A feisty exchange between them saw Onofrio accusing Humbercourt that his intent was vile, more to do with booty and rapacious blood-lust than the noble pursuit of protecting Church lands. Although many of the negotiations had seemed fruitless from the beginning, this is probably the point at which any peaceable conclusion to any of this became truly impossible.

War begins

So the next day a large group of Liegois, led by two of their leaders, Jean de Wilde and Gosuin de Streel, stunningly launched a surprise attack on Tongeren. Commynes reckons that this was incited by two ambassadors which the French king had sent to stir up trouble. This is doubtful but possible. With relative ease they overcame the meagre defences; like most towns in the territory its walls had also been ripped down according to Charles’ previous punishment. The three most significant men in Tongeren, Humbercourt, Louis of Bourbon and Onofrio were all captured. Humbercourt was released after convincing one of the nobles there to release him on ransom. According to Commynes, this nobleman was thereafter killed by the rebels. The other two, Onofrio and the bishop, were taken back to Liège. On the way the other rebel leader, Vincent de Buren, came out to meet them with a great crowd of Liégeois. This was not a friendly crowd and, horrifyingly, some amongst them became violent and committed atrocities, which included bringing one of the bishop’s advisors, a man named Robert de Morialmé, in front of the bishop and killed him. From Commynes:

“The people were exceedingly overjoyed at the taking of their bishop: There were also taken with him that day, several canons of the church whom the people equally hated, and killed five or six of them... among the rest there was one Monsieur Robert, an intimate friend of the bishop’s...they slew this Robert in the bishop’s presence, cut him into small pieces, and in sport threw them at one another’s head...Those who fled...gave the alarm to the whole country, and it was not long before the duke had the news of it.”

Treaty of Ham and Louis XI unwillingly joins the Burgundian expedition against Liège

Charles the Bold was camped in the town of Peronne, and his focus was split between the goings-on in Liege and diplomatic negotiations with the French. Louis XI was once-more showing a willingness to talk and the peace negotiations were tracking quite well. They did have to overcome a political obstacle when the Burgundian diplomats got upset that their seats were six inches lower than those of their French counterparts. Nonetheless, the result was something called the Treaty of Ham, which sounds delicious and was signed on October 1. This treaty denied the Liégeois rebels something which they had been so certain of when they began this phase in the rebellion, and upon which their fate greatly depended. Burgundian troops would not be crossing the Somme and taking on the forces of the French king.

A week later, the French ambassador arrived in Peronne to make an offer to Charles. This was for a firm and lasting alliance between France and Burgundy. Charles immediately sent a message to his army, which had been preparing to take on France, telling them to forget that and prepare for a march on Liege. Three days later, in a very bold move of his own, Louis XI himself showed up in Peronne, ostensibly to establish an end to the enmity which the two had shared since they were teenagers. 

This was, perhaps, not the smartest move by Louis XI. Sure, he may have been showing impeccable trust in the Duke of Burgundy by showing up at his door, but he was left in a vulnerable position.  As you may remember, Louis XI had been extremely active in encouraging rebellion amidst the subjects of his rival and, according to some, the Liégeois rebels had consistently expected a French army to turn up and save them, during various phases of this whole thing. Louis’ had sent agent provocateurs to Liege to further stoke the flames of this rebellion. According to some historians, Charles was well aware of this. So when he turned up in Peronne, what with all the trouble in Liege, Charles’ response was to lock him up for three days, while he thought seriously about having him killed. Eventually, he simply forced him to join the Burgundian march on Liège. 

They were accompanied by a great many knights and noblemen, including powerful members of the House of Bourbon. On the 13th of October, the combined Burgundian-French force retook Tongeren. Everyone's favourite papal legate, Onofrio, was still in Liège, imploring the rebels to not engage with the armies sweeping through the countryside, on a pillaging rampage of destruction. But he could not contain them for long. On the evening of October 21st a few thousand of them flowed out of Liege, led by Jean de Wilde, Vincent de Bueren and Gosuin de Streel, and began to counterattack when they could. The revolutionary forces had managed to capture a bunch of horses when they had taken Tongeren and, despite, of course, many of their force never having fought on a horse before, they took this recourse, with much remorse. They saddled up on the 22nd and rode out to fight some Burgundians around Lantin, just outside Liège, where they were wiped out. In Liège, the air was wrought with desperation and despair. Onofrio and the bishop, along with several hundred others, sought refuge in one of the city’s towers.

It was the day following the disaster at Lantin that word began to spread around Liege that the French king was accompanying the hated Duke. This was a dagger blow for anybody still holding out hope for assistance from Louis XI. Onofrio, being as brave as ever, decided to make one of his classic ‘last-attempts’ and tried to convince the town leaders to let him and the bishop go and talk to Charles. After much debate and disagreement, they were finally permitted, and they made their way out of the doomed town, escorted by Jean de Wilde and his men. After passing through Lantin, and witnessing the destruction from the day before, they were inexplicably captured by a brother-in-law of the bishop and the group was assaulted. Louis of Bourbon was freed from having to return to the people he had let down so many times, and Onofrio was eventually released, never receiving a chance to talk with Charles the Bold. According to Kurth, when he left for Maastricht Onofrio was “drunk with bitterness and humiliation”.

600 Franchimontois and the Destruction of Liège

By the 29th of October, the Liegeois rebels were clutching at straws, desperate for any avenue they could find to get themselves out of this. One such attempt happened that night, when a strike force of around 500 men, led by Gosuin de Streel, embarked upon a covert mission to sneak into the camp in which the Duke and the King of France slept, in a last ditch attempt to kill them. This event has gone down in history as the attack of the ‘600 Franchimontoise’ thanks to Commynes, who erroneously wrote that the attackers had come from the mountainous Franchimont region of Liège. It is a pretty remarkable story which we do not have time here to go deeply into, but it was like a medieval hail Mary last gasp attempt to prevent the inevitable. When facing up against overwhelming odds, why not go for the jugular and try to spectacularly kill both the King of France and Duke of Burgundy?

Charles’ army was diverse and numbered in the tens of thousands. It was composed of soldiers from an array of his territories, such as Picardy, Flanders and Holland. His officers included members of the high nobility from Burgundian, Imperial and French territories and a strategic plan saw different groups, under different leadership, attacking different gates into Liege. The next day was Sunday and those in the Duke’s advisory who were urging temperance, which included the King of France and the Bishop of Liège, likely tried to use the holy day as a reason for delaying the attack. It has been suggested that Charles’ adamence to persevere probably indicates that he had decided that the total destruction of Liège had a godliness about it. The inhabitants of the town, fully aware of what was coming, did not think it would be upon them so quickly. So on this Sunday, the 30th of October, 1468, the attack and sacking of Liège began. The walls had been half destroyed already over the previous year and it was not long before Charles’ various troops occupied the city’s streets. Witnesses tell us that, while some sections of the population fought on bravely, in defiance of the sorrow which they had somehow escaped a year before, it was hopeless. Soon the spirit of the city was in as much ruin as its former fortifications.

The sacking was planned and organised, although historians disagree on the extent of violence and destruction. The city was divided into four sections and these were assigned to different parts of the army, who were then permitted to pillage whatever valuables could be found, except for what was in churches. This last part seems to have been largely ignored and later records would find clerical valuables from Liège in places all around Europe. Charles did forbid some of his leading nobles from looting St Lambert’s cathedral, but then went about doing it himself. Some letters from soldiers who were there complain about having to stand guard on the market and miss out on the best booty and other witnesses and chroniclers claim that the violence and deprivations were immense. As Marchandise et al write: 

“Whatever their age, sex, social condition, no Liège citizen was safe from Ducal wrath and many of them, especially the soldiers of the rearguard, were drowned, taken to arms or hanged publicly.”  

It is unclear whether Charles always intended to completely destroy the city, as he had done to Dinant. Louis XI departed Liège on November 2. Charles had basically forced him to come along and witness the imminent destruction of the Liégeois rebels. Even if Louis had not sent military support to the Liégeois, he had certainly been giving them tacit support, as he did to anyone he thought would cause disturbance to the stability of Burgundy. Charles’ domination in Liege was not in Louis’s interests. One story is that, on his return from escorting the French king back towards France, Charles made the decision that Liège was to be completely destroyed. He would burn it three times for each of the rebellions its people had committed against him. Carpenters and workers from other places, such as nearby Maastricht, were called to come to the site and dismantle houses nearest to the city’s churches. This was so the churches would avoid the inferno that Charles was about to command. The rest of the city was stripped bare and, on the 3rd of November, was put to the flame. When Charles himself departed on November 9th, he left some Limburgers, traditional adversaries of the Liégeois, to oversee its continual destruction. Another story has it that they lit a new fire every morning for seven weeks afterwards, each time in a different location in the now charred, scarred and marred town. As the Burgundian army departed, and participants of all ranks returned home, there would be multiple accounts from all around Europe of the loaded wagons of stolen goods from Liège that accompanied them.

Although the status of Louis of Bourbon as prince-bishop remained intact following the victory of Charles, he was forced to sign over a part of the city of Liège to the Duke of Burgundy. This became known as the Isle of the Duke, and became the administrative and military base for Burgundian operations in Liège. It was then occupied by pro-Burgundian settlers. For all intents and purposes, Liège was now Burgundian. 

As we have seen, Charles had a very different temperament to his father’s and, with his decisive defeat of Liège, he had likely confirmed in his own mind that this aggressive approach towards limiting urban rights and identities was the right one. He would continue encroaching upon those rights in towns all across his Low Country territories, sometimes with success but often not. Charles’ pretensions as a prince of impeccable right would have, by the end of 1468, been peaking. Charles wanted a crown, as his father had. The only person who could give him one was the Emperor and, if Charles was to succeed, he would need to control as much imperial territory to leverage as he could. However, there were still major areas of the Low Countries that were not yet under his control, namely Guelders and Friesland. And it is there where our story will take us in the next episode.

Sources used

Charles the Bold by Richard Vaughan

The Promised Lands by Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier

Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States by Robert Stein

Charles the Bold, the Last Duke of Burgundy by Ruth Putnam

La destruction de la ville de Liège (1468) et sa reconstruction by Alain Marchandisse, Irène Vrancken-Pirson and Jean-Louis Kupper
Diplomatic Aspects of Charles the Bold’s Relations with the Holy See by R. J. Walsh

La cité de Liège au Moyen âge: Tome III by Godefroid Kurth

Special Operations in the Age of Chivarly by Yuval Noah Hariri