Charles d'Orléans

French poet, military leader, and duke of Orléans

• Born: November 24, 1394
• Birthplace: Paris, France
• Died: January 4, 1465
• Place of death: Amboise, France

Defeated and taken prisoner while leading French troops at Agincourt, Charles spent twenty-five years in captivity in England writing lyric poetry in French and English. After being released, he contributed to peace negotiations and maintained a poetry salon.

Early Life

The parents of Charles d’Orléans (sharl dohr-lay-ahn) were Louis, duke of Orléans and brother of King Charles VI, and Valentina, daughter of the duke of Milan. Louis was powerfully influential in French politics but was a man of dissolute habits; Valentina was a gentle, cultured woman. On June 29, 1406, at age fourteen, Charles married Isabelle, daughter of Charles VI and child-widow of England's Richard II, and who was five years older than he. Isabelle died September 13, 1409, after giving birth to a daughter.

In 1407, two years before Charles lost his wife, his father was murdered by hired assassins of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, whose interest was in destroying rivals for control over Charles VI, who was often mentally unstable. Charles's mother, apparently exhausted by the combination of sorrow, appeals for justice, and burdens in administering the estate, died a year later.

With support from friends of his father, Charles assumed the title duke of Orléans himself and in 1410 married Bonne, the daughter of Bernard d’Armagnac. With this alliance, Charles tried for years to avenge Burgundy's crime, coming closest in 1415 by gaining support from the king and receiving consolation in memorial masses clearing his father's name and condemning the murder; he could not, however, punish Burgundy.

Later that same year, Charles was the most important of many French nobles captured in the astonishing defeat of the massive French army at Agincourt by the much smaller English forces led by King Henry V. He was kept prisoner in England for twenty-five years, from 1415 to 1440.

Life's Work

The English considered the duke of Orléans their most important political prisoner because of his high rank and the antagonism between England and France in these last decades of the Hundred Years’ War. Henry V insisted on strong security to prevent escape and never asked ransom for Charles's deliverance. In later years, the brother of Henry V, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, continued this strong opposition to Charles's release. Charles probably never was actually in what most people would consider a jail; he was, however, moved every few years from such castles as Windsor to Pontefract in 1417, Fotheringhay in 1421, Bolingbroke in 1422, London in 1425, Canterbury in 1427, Peterborough in 1428, Amthill in 1430, Dover and London in 1433, Wingfield in 1434, Calais in 1435, and London in 1437 until 1440. These frequent movements may have been to prevent him from ingratiating himself with his primary guardians.

During most of this time, he was permitted to keep servants and to receive money and household goods, including wine from France. Charles was able to send messengers to oversee affairs on his estates in France and to make political appointments. He was clearly on friendly terms with at least one of his guardians, William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, a minor poet in English himself. In fact, when Suffolk was later accused of treason and then assassinated in 1450, one of the charges against him was that he supported release of the duke of Orléans for ransom.

For posterity, Charles's most important activity while in captivity was writing poetry, principally love lyrics. His most characteristic verse form in these years was the ballade (sometimes called ballad), an intricate verse form requiring at least three stanzas of equal length and a refrain at the end of each stanza. Charles used twenty-one stanzaic patterns and wrote in both eight-syllable and ten-syllable lines, preferring the eight-syllable line.

During his lifetime, Charles was respected for his poetry in French. Some of his correspondence included an occasional lyric, often with a request for a poem in response, especially in letters to the later duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good. While in captivity, however, he seems also to have written in English. A large collection of ballades, rondels, and occasional verses (6,531 lines) survives in the manuscript Harley 682. The speaker of these poems identifies himself as Charles, duke of Orléans; some of them are approximate translations of his French poems, others are unique. All the poems correspond in theme and verse forms to his French poems, but like Middle English verse generally, his English poems lack the grace and precision of the French lyrics.

Both in French and English, the poems written during these years in England make much use of personification and allegory, a manner of expression derived from Le Roman de la rose (c. 1230; the romance of the rose), a lengthy narrative started by Guillaume de Lorris but completed by Jean de Meung more than a century before Charles's work. Charles employed such personifications as Hope, Despair, Disdain, and Sadness to represent his inner experience in these shorter lyrics, particularly in ballades. The speaker in these poems is a man restricted in his activities, frequently feeling ignored or rejected and rarely gaining satisfaction. He often calls himself a prisoner of love.

Some commentators quarrel over whether these love lyrics have historical references or are merely conventional exercises in an outmoded tradition. Attempts to identify the lady or ladies alluded to in these poems include speculation that the Peerless Lady might be Charles's first wife, Isabelle (who died six years before his capture at Agincourt); his second wife, Bonne; and various English ladies. More than one scholar has pointed to the earl of Arundel's second wife, Maud Lovell.

An intriguing candidate for the replacement in the poet's heart following the death of the Peerless Lady is Anne Moleyns, a woman related by marriage to the earl of Suffolk. The first letters of one of Charles's English poems spell out ANNE MOLINS, but no other evidence besides this acrostic points to such a relationship. This beloved mistress has even been identified as a personification of France itself, indicating a reappearance of Charles's patriotism for that country after years of captivity deadened any emotional ties. Most recent scholars give up on identifying the ladies and urge the beautiful expression of complex feeling in Charles's poetry as valuable for any sensitive reader.

When released from English captivity for ransom in 1440, the duke of Orléans sincerely attempted peace negotiations between the two great powers, but not with much success. The French themselves were less interested in peace at this time because their own military power was ascending and the might of the English was in decline. Also in 1440, Charles married Marie de Clèves, niece of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. Among the children was a son, Louis, born in 1462, who later became King Louis XII. Charles tried unsuccessfully to reclaim property in Asti, Italy, that he had inherited from his mother. Again, however, the more important activity in this later phase of his life was writing poetry. Though he continued to write ballades as before, his preference now was for the rondel (some commentators call these same poems rondeaux). Charles's rondels are primarily composed of thirteen or fifteen eight-syllable lines divided in three stanzas using only two rhyme sounds. Most characteristically he communicates with irony or even bawdy humor in this later poetry, often with expression of indifference to the desires or pains of love.

In his last years, while living in Blois, Charles maintained a poetry salon in his home and invited noble guests, members of his household, and other poets, such as François Villon, to participate in poetic entertainments. The duke of Orléans died on January 4, 1465, while on a trip to Amboise.

Significance

The status of Charles d’Orléans as a major French medieval poet seems secure and even improving; he ranks alongside François Villon and above Guillaume de Machaut and Eustache Deschamps when measured by comparable representation in selective anthologies. He does not refer to historic events or draw extensively from classical or European literature for allusions. Thus, in his poetry, he is not scholarly or intellectual by Renaissance and later standards. No one can deny, however, the elegance and concision of his best poems, especially the rondels.

The question of evaluating his English poetry remains open partly as a result of uncertainty about his authorship but also as a result of insufficient attention by Middle English specialists to fifteenth century lyrics. Charles's English poetry may in fact surpass that of any English poet of his era while still falling short of his own standard in French.

In review of his achievements as a government leader, one must credit him with good intentions, as he battled for many worthwhile causes, but he is most famous for defeat. He never truly avenged his father's murder, though John the Fearless was assassinated early in Charles's captivity; the Battle of Agincourt stands as one of the most astonishing defeats in history; his attempts to gain release from captivity meant many years of frustration; and he failed to regain his property in Italy. Nevertheless, he always earned respect from his captors and loyal followers; Joan of Arc even spoke of freeing the duke of Orléans as one of her objectives. His enforced leisure as prisoner probably led to his finding consolation in writing poetry. He was a man who achieved much in the midst of great adversity.

Bibliography

Arn, Mary-Joe, ed. Charles d’Orléans in England, 1415-1440. Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 2000. A biographical account of Charles’s poetry, its reception by his contemporaries, his writing in two languages, and more.

Arn, Mary-Joe. “The Structure of the English Poems of Charles of Orléans.” Fifteenth Century Studies 4 (1981): 17-23. Argues that Charles’s English poems constitute a single work representing love as an incurable disease.

Champion, Pierre, ed. Charles d’Orléans: Poésies. 2 vols. Reprint. Paris: Librairie Honore Champion, 1966. The standard edition of the French poems, including the eleven English poems in two predominantly French manuscripts.

Coldiron, A. E. B. “Toward a Comparative New Historicism: Land Tenures and Some Fifteenth-Century Poems.” Comparative Literature 53, no. 2 (2001): 97-116. The author, while presenting a historical account of Charles, his work, and the milieu in which he wrote, argues for a multilingual approach to the study of literature in order to get a more accurate account of events.

Fein, David A. Charles d’Orléans. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Contains a brief biography and careful analysis of the major French poems (with English translations) but omits coverage of the English poems. The author describes the early ballades as inwardly centered with personified emotions for exploring thoughts and feelings.

Fox, John H. The Lyric Poetry of Charles d’Orléans. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1969. A study of the French poems (with English translations) reviewing literary background, style, and Charles’s distinctive poetic personality.

Goodrich, Norma Lorre. Charles Duke of Orléans: A Literary Biography. New York: Macmillan, 1963. Written much like a historical novel. The author embellishes historical facts about Charles with descriptions of places, analogous anecdotes, and brief biographies of major contemporaries.

Goodrich, Norma Lorre. Charles of Orléans: A Study of Themes in His French and in His English Poetry. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1967. Compares French and English poems to prove single authorship, based on themes such as self-analysis, hope, disdain, war, peace, and craftsmanship.

Jacob, E. F. The Fifteenth Century: 1399-1485. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1961. An admirable, authoritative study of Lancastrian England. The author’s attention to political and economic concerns and the personalities of Henry V and Henry VI gives background for Charles’s imprisonment and his difficulty with peace negotiations.

McLeod, Enid. Charles of Orléans: Prince and Poet. London: Chatto and Windus, 1969. An engaging biographical study with bold interpretations of persons and events alluded to in his poetry.

Newman, Karen. “The Mind’s Castle: Containment in the Poetry of Charles d’Orléans.” Romance Philology 33 (1979): 317-328. Takes the image of containment in Charles’s verses as implying intellectual-spiritual levels of meaning in addition to imprisonment by enemies or by love.

Spearing, A. C. “Prison, Writing, Absence: Representing the Subject in the English Poems of Charles d’Orléans.” Modern Language Quarterly 53, no. 1 (March, 1992). Considers some understudied poems of Charles, particularly from manuscript Harley 682, written while he was imprisoned.

Steele, Robert, and Mabel Day, eds. The English Poems of Charles of Orléans. Reprint. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. A scholarly edition with a description of manuscripts, an argument in favor of Charles’s authorship, and notes and a glossary.