The Treaty of Picquigny was a peace treaty negotiated on 29 August 1475 between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France. It followed from an invasion of France by Edward IV of England in alliance with Burgundy and Brittany. It left Louis XI of France free to solve the threat posed by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
Following the Treaty of London in 1474, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, had agreed to aid England with an invasion of France. By June 1475, Edward IV had landed on the coast of France. Edward IV had an army of around 11,000 [1] and a further 2,000 archers from Brittany. [2] Edward's plan was to march through Burgundian territory to Reims. However Charles failed to provide the support he had promised, and refused to allow the English to enter Burgundian-controlled towns. [3] Edward also received little support from his other ally Francis II, Duke of Brittany. [4]
Louis then sent Edward word that he was willing to offer more than Edward's allies could. He contacted and induced Edward to negotiate a settlement. The two negotiated by meeting on a specially-made bridge with a wooden grill-barrier between the sides, at Picquigny, just outside Amiens.[ citation needed ]
The negotiations led to an agreement signed on 29 August 1475. The two kings agreed to a seven-year truce and free trade between the two countries. [3] Louis XI was to pay Edward IV 75,000 crowns upfront, basically a bribe to return to England and not take up arms to pursue his claim to the French throne. He would then receive a yearly pension thereafter of 50,000 crowns. Also the King of France was to ransom the deposed English queen, Margaret of Anjou, who was in Edward's custody, with 50,000 crowns. It also included pensions to many of Edward's lords.[ citation needed ]
Other terms of the treaty were that if either king experienced a rebellion, the other would provide military support to defeat it. Edward's daughter Elizabeth of York was to marry the Dauphin Charles when she came of age. [3] The English claim to the French throne was to be subject to arbitration along with other disagreements between the monarchs. A committee should meet annually to discuss the issues and their conclusions should be binding. It was to comprise the archbishops of Canterbury and Lyons, Edward's brother George, the Duke of Clarence, and Louis, Count of Dunois. [5]
In addition to the king, his leading advisors also received pensions from the French. Thomas Rotherham the chancellor had 1,000 crowns a year. John Morton had 600 crowns, and Sir John Howard and Sir Thomas Montgomery 1,200 each. William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, who had been the chief advocate for the treaty, was to receive 2,000 crowns a year. [5]
The details of the negotiations are related by the chronicler Philippe de Commines, who says that the Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III) was opposed to the treaty, considering it dishonourable. He refused to participate in the negotiations. However, he joined the celebrations in Amiens after it was concluded. Commines also relays a series of sarcastic comments made by the French king about Edward's notorious womanising, as well as his fear of the English because of the events of the Hundred Years' War. [3]
The apparent bribery in the treaty led to some disaffection on both sides. A number of commentators, both English and French, considered it dishonourable. Louis de Bretaylle, English envoy to Spain, confided that this one shady deal took away the honour of all Edward's previous military victories. [3]
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Louis XI, called "Louis the Prudent", was King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father, Charles VII.
Margaret of York —also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy—was Duchess of Burgundy as the third wife of Charles the Bold and acted as a protector of the Burgundian State after his death. She was a daughter of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the sister of two kings of England, Edward IV and Richard III. She was born at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, in the Kingdom of England, and she died at Mechelen in the Low Countries.
Philippe de Commines was a writer and diplomat in the courts of Burgundy and France. He has been called "the first truly modern writer" and "the first critical and philosophical historian since classical times". Neither a chronicler nor a historian in the usual sense of the word, his analyses of the contemporary political scene are what made him virtually unique in his own time.
Charles I, nicknamed the Bold, was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477.
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Tanneguy III du Châtel was a Breton knight who fought in the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War and the Hundred Years' War. A member of the Armagnac party, he became a leading adviser of King Charles VII of France, and was one of the murderers of Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy in 1419.
The Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War was a conflict between two cadet branches of the French royal family – the House of Orléans and the House of Burgundy from 1407 to 1435. It began during a lull in the Hundred Years' War against the English and overlapped with the Western Schism of the papacy.
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