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Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

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of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild

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from Aaronminkie. Listener discretion

0:07

is advised. It

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was January of thirteen ninety

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three and the Queen of France,

0:15

Queen Isabel, was throwing

0:17

a ball. Ostensibly,

0:20

the ball was to celebrate the

0:22

third marriage of a twice widowed

0:25

lady in waiting, but really

0:28

the party's purpose was a little broader.

0:31

The Queen's husband, King Charles

0:33

the sixth, was often ill,

0:36

prone to fits and bouts

0:38

of insanity that would last

0:41

months. Queen Isabeau

0:43

liked to hold plenty of events

0:45

at court to distract

0:48

and entertain the King and

0:50

hopefully keep him in his right mind.

0:53

The main event of this ball would

0:56

be a shivery featuring six

0:58

senior nights. The knights

1:00

would dress up in costumes as

1:03

wild men from the forest and

1:05

then delight the attendees at the party

1:08

by dancing and howling and screaming

1:10

in their faces, gesticulating at

1:12

them, running around in a frenzy,

1:15

and inviting the party guests to

1:17

guess their identities. If

1:20

you've never dressed as a wild

1:23

man from the forest before, or

1:25

if you're planning on doing it, next Halloween.

1:28

The costumes involved covering

1:30

the men from head to toe in linen

1:33

soaked in pitch, and then

1:35

sticking on enough flax so they

1:37

looked terry and well wild.

1:40

Their faces were also covered in

1:43

masks made of the same linen

1:45

soaked in pitch covered

1:48

in dried flax. No

1:50

one, not even the Queen, knew

1:53

that one of the six mysterious

1:55

dancing wild men was actually

1:57

King Charles the sixth. The

2:00

raucous celebration began, and

2:03

women in the crowd screamed as

2:05

the half dozen men leapt around

2:07

them, and then late

2:09

to the party came the Duke of Orleans,

2:13

the King's brother. The

2:15

Duke of Orleans was drunk and

2:17

holding a torch. Part

2:20

of the game of the chivery was

2:22

guessing which nights were

2:24

hidden beneath the layers of extremely

2:27

flammable linen and

2:30

pitch and dried flax,

2:33

and so the Duke leaned in closer

2:35

to get a better look. Maybe

2:38

you see where this is going. The

2:41

wild man burst into flames.

2:44

As he flailed, he quickly

2:46

ignited the other wild men around

2:49

him. A young duchess

2:51

only fourteen, recognized

2:53

the king and managed to protect

2:55

him from the sparks with her skirts.

2:58

But for the rest of the men, it

3:00

was a gruesome scene.

3:03

The smell of burning pitch and

3:06

then charred flesh filled

3:08

the room. A cardinal wrote

3:11

that he watched the burnt genitals

3:14

of one of the men fall to the floor,

3:17

releasing a stream of blood.

3:20

One of the other nights was able to

3:23

save himself by jumping into a barrel

3:25

of wine, but aside

3:27

from the King, the rest of the

3:29

men perished from the flames.

3:33

The evening would come to be known as

3:35

the Bal de Sardin Ball of

3:38

the Burning Men, it's

3:40

a grisly chapter that unfortunately

3:43

seems to represent the

3:45

reign of Charles the sixth. His

3:48

reign was an era of chaos

3:50

and voices shouting over

3:52

each other for control. As

3:55

king, Charles would betrayaled by

3:57

tragedy, by civil war, and

4:00

foreign invasion, but

4:02

his most pernicious enemy

4:04

would be his own mind. For

4:07

thirty years, the king would suffer

4:09

alternating periods of lucidity

4:12

and madness as

4:14

his kingdom fell into disarray

4:16

around him. The king would

4:18

be as powerless as he was

4:21

that night the Ball of the Burning Men,

4:24

as he watched his friends fall

4:26

and burn death

4:29

at what should have been a party.

4:33

I'm Dana Schwartz, and this

4:35

is noble blood. Charles's

4:42

father died when he was just eleven

4:44

years old, a few weeks before his twelfth

4:46

birthday. The age of majority

4:49

for taking over a kingdom in the thirteen

4:52

hundreds was fourteen, and

4:54

so in the meantime in came Charles's

4:57

uncle's The duties of the

4:59

king them were divided up. Amongst

5:01

them, his paternal uncles,

5:04

the brothers of the former king, were

5:07

the most important. They

5:09

were the Duke of Anjou, the Duke

5:11

of Burgundy, also known as Philip

5:13

the Bold, and the Duke of Barry.

5:16

Duke of Anjou became regent. Burgundy

5:19

took over the royal household, and

5:22

Barry was given the governorships

5:24

of the regions of Langu, Duck and

5:26

Aquitaine. Charles

5:29

is one maternal uncle, the

5:31

Duke of Bourbon, assisted with

5:33

the royal household. As

5:36

you can imagine, chaos

5:38

ensued. Like evil

5:40

uncles out of a fairy tale.

5:43

The group of them, known as the Sires

5:45

de flour de Lis, were selfish

5:48

and avaricious, less interested

5:50

in running the country and more interested

5:53

in using their new found

5:55

power to benefit themselves,

5:58

undoing all of the good work that

6:00

the dead King Charles five

6:03

had done lowering taxes. In the meantime,

6:06

the regent, the Duke of Anjou, first

6:09

snatched whatever treasures he could

6:12

from the dead king's private treasury.

6:15

Then, to make more money for himself

6:17

and also to fund the increasingly

6:20

expensive Hundred Years War, he

6:22

raised sales taxes and withheld

6:25

payment from troops. The

6:27

troops didn't take that very

6:29

well. In retaliation,

6:32

soldiers flocked to Paris

6:34

in protest. To quote

6:37

W. H. Jervis's A

6:39

History of France, the furious

6:42

and underpaid troops took

6:44

to the streets to commit quote

6:47

every kind of excess. More

6:50

details about what those excesses

6:52

are aren't given, so unfortunately,

6:55

we'll have to use our imagination. Their

6:58

outrage was directly against

7:01

the regent, and they demanded

7:03

that the Duke of Anjou lower the new

7:05

taxes. Of course, faced

7:08

with an angry mob of soldiers,

7:11

the Duke conceded, but

7:13

his concession was only temporary.

7:16

There would be another tax on cloth

7:19

and another right, this time in Rua.

7:22

But this time the regent was ready

7:24

to put the riot down with swift

7:27

and immediate force. The

7:30

leaders of the revolt were executed,

7:32

and the duty on cloth continued.

7:38

Now that he had tasted victory

7:40

in subduing the masses, the Duke

7:42

of Anjou would no longer concede

7:45

or back down. He enacted

7:47

a new tax in Paris, an

7:49

exercise duty on the produce sold

7:51

in markets. That led

7:53

to another massive insurrection,

7:57

in which people stormed government

7:59

offices and released the prisoners

8:01

at the Chatelai. But the

8:03

group of protesters called the Melotines

8:07

didn't have a natural leader, and

8:09

so the fervor and energy of

8:11

the riots eventually dissipated.

8:15

Terms could be negotiated.

8:18

The court declared that the tax would

8:20

be abandoned and that there would

8:22

be amnesty for the riders. For

8:25

a moment, there was calm,

8:27

until the court started with arrests

8:30

and executions. Amnesty

8:33

be damned. Finally,

8:35

the city's advocate general arranged

8:38

to pay the Duke of Anjou a

8:40

hundred thousand francs if there

8:42

would be no more retaliation for the

8:44

protests. The Duke happily

8:47

agreed. Almost

8:49

immediately after this strategic

8:52

and domestic disaster, the

8:54

Duke of Anjou got word from his cousin

8:57

Joanna of Naples that she was

8:59

making him her successor, So

9:02

as one does, he waved goodbye to

9:04

France and bounded off with a small

9:06

army to Naples, where he was all ready

9:08

to beat out a competing heir to the throne.

9:11

But before he did that, the Duke of Anjou

9:14

died suddenly in Italy, one

9:17

uncle down, but no matter, Philip,

9:20

the Bold, Duke of Burgundy

9:22

took over duties as regions. The

9:25

Duke of Burgundy had married the heiress

9:27

of Flanders. He used

9:29

the power of France to control

9:32

that region against insurrection

9:34

with a brutal fist. The

9:37

people of Ghent, who had been rebellious,

9:39

were met with the full power

9:41

of what Jervis calls quote rapacious

9:45

and brutal aristocracy.

9:52

Wanting another ally to defend

9:54

Flanders, particularly against

9:56

the threat from the English, the

9:58

Duke of Burgundy arranged for his nephew,

10:01

the King, to marry Isabeau

10:03

of Bavaria. Charles

10:05

the sixth was sixteen, Isabeau

10:08

was a few years younger. You

10:11

might recall that the age of majority

10:13

in France was fourteen, and

10:16

that by this point Charles was well past

10:18

it. So why then

10:20

did he keep letting his uncle's control

10:23

the country's affairs. Well,

10:26

we don't really know. Charles

10:28

didn't seem that interested in being king.

10:32

It seems as though he thought that his

10:34

uncles were doing the hard parts of his job

10:36

for him, and he was free

10:39

to hunt and ride and drink

10:41

with his friends. But

10:43

soon his uncle's mounting military

10:46

failures would leave Charles no

10:48

choice but to finally accept

10:51

his crown. First,

10:53

there was a disastrously

10:55

failed invasion of England. One

10:58

fleet was hit by a devastating

11:00

storm off the coast of Brittany,

11:03

and then the Duke of Berry, having

11:05

not supported the invasion in the first place,

11:08

delayed until the tide and season

11:11

meant it was too late to sail. England

11:14

swept in, attacked and destroyed

11:16

several friendships easily. But

11:20

there was more that Philip the Bold,

11:22

Duke of Burgundy, wanted his

11:24

nephew to do. They didn't call

11:26

him the Bold for nothing. The

11:29

Duke of Burgundy said that the king

11:31

needed to mount an expedition

11:34

against a man named Duke William

11:36

Girous, who had somehow insulted

11:39

Charles, Burgundy said, but

11:41

who had absolutely insulted

11:44

Burgundy's wife's aunt. In

11:47

other words, it was a petty

11:49

family squabble, and the Duke of

11:51

Burgundy wanted to use the power

11:54

of the King of France, and

11:56

so young Charles mounted the

11:58

expedition like his uncle asked. But

12:01

in the end it led to nothing. Charles

12:05

lost a number of troops and

12:07

in the end, when he did win, all

12:10

he asked for was for William of

12:12

Gudrus to apologize, which

12:14

he did. The Cardinal

12:17

Bishop of Land spoke up at the next

12:19

Council board meeting. By now

12:22

the king was twenty one years old,

12:24

it was time for him to terminate

12:26

the regency and cut free

12:29

his selfish, battle hungry

12:31

uncles. Charles

12:33

agreed. He told his uncle's

12:35

he would be taking over, and

12:38

with all of the grace and charm in the world,

12:41

his uncle's respectfully conceded

12:43

their power over to him.

12:45

That very same day, Cardinal

12:47

Bishop Land died of suspected

12:50

poisoning, but that could just be,

12:52

you know, complete coincidence. As

12:56

official King Charles the

12:58

Six reinstalled the incredibly

13:01

competent and wonkish ministers

13:03

that his father had used, a

13:05

group both affectionately and

13:08

mockingly called the Marmose

13:11

the Marmosetts. Together

13:13

they brought back the sensible tax

13:16

policies and laws that had

13:18

disappeared in the confusion and selfishness

13:21

of the Four Way Regency. It's

13:23

at this point that Charles gets his

13:26

first nickname, Charles

13:28

le bien Army Charles

13:30

the Beloved. But it

13:33

wouldn't last. Just a

13:35

few years later, disaster

13:37

and death would reach Charles

13:40

and cling to him for the rest

13:42

of his life.

13:51

Into one

13:54

of the King's closest advisers

13:56

and allies, a man named Oliver

13:58

de Clesson had an attack

14:01

on his life by another gentleman

14:03

named Pierre de Krome. Kraw

14:06

was a young cousin of the Duke of Brittany,

14:09

and recently he had been distanced

14:12

from court. He blamed Oliver

14:14

de Clisso for his change in fortunes,

14:17

and so one evening, when Oliver de Clissen

14:19

was walking home, Kraw and a few

14:22

friends ambushed him in the street

14:25

and left him for dead. Fortunately,

14:28

Oliver de Clisson lived. Kraw,

14:30

on the other hand, fled to the safety

14:33

of his cousin in Brittany, who

14:35

took him under his protective custody.

14:38

Well, that would not stand for King

14:40

Charles the Six. He needed

14:42

justice for his friend, and

14:44

so on July one,

14:46

the king mounted an expedition

14:49

towards Brittany. The

14:51

summer was sweltering and

14:54

the pace of the party traveling was

14:56

excruciatingly slow. A

14:59

few week into their journey, at

15:01

the northwestern city of Lament, the

15:04

king came down with an illness

15:06

that kept him in bed for three weeks.

15:09

The king's physicians wanted to keep

15:11

him in bed for longer, but Charles

15:14

refused. Even though he

15:16

still had a fever. He mounted

15:18

his horse and demanded that

15:20

the party continue. That

15:23

day was August five, and

15:25

it was swelteringly hot. They

15:28

rode for a few quiet hours

15:31

while the sun basted down on them

15:33

from directly overhead, and

15:36

then a man appeared on the road. He

15:38

sometimes described as a leper

15:41

or a beggar, but either way,

15:43

this man jumped in front of the horses

15:46

and started waving his arms. Ride

15:49

no further, noble King, He shouted,

15:51

turned back, thou Art betrayed.

15:54

He kept repeating that over and over

15:57

again, thou Art betrayed,

16:00

thou Art betrayed. The

16:02

King's guards forced the man out

16:05

of the road and shook him off, but

16:07

the man wouldn't leave. He continued

16:09

to walk behind the horses shouting

16:12

up at the royal procession. Thou

16:14

art betrayed. The

16:16

man was mad, clearly the

16:19

king ignored him. In

16:21

fact, the king found that he could

16:23

ignore most things. In

16:25

the hot august heat, with

16:28

the gentle, lulling stride

16:30

of his horse beneath him,

16:33

the king felt himself sinking

16:35

into something of a stupor

16:37

until a crash.

16:40

A page had fallen asleep on his

16:42

horse and dropped a lance,

16:44

which struck a helmet with a loud

16:47

bang. Charles the

16:49

sixth went mad. He

16:51

pulled his sword and started

16:54

whipping it back and forth at his own

16:56

men. You're all traders,

16:58

he cried. The king stabbed

17:00

at his knights and men, flailing wildly.

17:04

By the time they were able to disarm the king,

17:06

he had already murdered one

17:09

of his own soldiers and

17:11

wounded several others. After

17:14

a few days, when the king came

17:16

to and his fever broke, he

17:18

was deeply regretful and ashamed

17:21

of what he had done. He was

17:23

haunted by it. His uncles

17:25

would take over again, just for

17:27

a bit, just until the king

17:30

was well again, if he ever

17:32

got well again, they said in private.

17:35

Just a few years later, more

17:38

of Charles's friends suffered

17:40

grim accidental deaths at

17:42

the ball of the burning Men. What

17:45

was meant to be a lighthearted romp

17:47

to lighten the king's spirits became

17:50

a living nightmare. Of

17:53

the four men who eventually died

17:55

from their burns, only one

17:57

died that evening. The other

18:00

three died slow and painful

18:02

deaths, with burns covering

18:05

most of their bodies. For

18:07

his part, the king's brother, the

18:09

Duke of Orleans, felt horribly

18:12

guilty for being the one who had held

18:14

the initial torch. The people

18:17

of France were outraged when

18:19

word of the tragedy reached them.

18:22

Was it attempted regicide? How

18:24

had anyone allowed the king to

18:26

be put in such a position of danger.

18:29

In order to appease the public, the

18:32

Duke of Orleans and several of the

18:34

king's advisers embarked on

18:36

a literal walk of shame, while

18:39

the King rode on horseback beside them

18:42

to the Notre Dame Cathedral to do

18:44

public penance. The Duke

18:46

of Orleans also paid for a chapel

18:48

to be built at a nearby monastery.

18:51

The people still loved their king, Charles

18:54

the Beloved, but he would test

18:56

that love for the rest of his reign, and

18:58

eventually he would take on a new

19:00

epithet, Charles Leafu

19:04

or Charles the Mad. For

19:13

three to five months, Charles

19:15

would be completely lucid and

19:17

sane, and then for anywhere

19:20

from three to nine months,

19:22

he would lose his tether to reality,

19:25

forgetting his own name, forgetting

19:27

he was king, unable to recognize

19:30

any of his children or his wife

19:32

Isabell. Once, when

19:34

his wife came to his bed chamber hoping

19:37

to um personally

19:39

remind her husband of who she was,

19:42

and exasperated, Charles just told

19:44

his servants to take care of whatever

19:46

it was that this woman seemed to want. He

19:49

didn't realize why that was funny,

19:53

when it wasn't indifference towards

19:55

loved ones, it was outright animosity.

19:59

The only family member he seemed able

20:01

to recognize was his sister in law,

20:04

the Duchess of Orleans. Jealous

20:06

of her relative power over the king,

20:09

the king's uncle, the Duke of Burgundy,

20:11

remember him, took advantage

20:13

of the era's superstitions

20:16

and said that the Duchess had only made

20:18

herself known to the king with sorcery.

20:21

Burgundy had her banished from

20:23

court. This

20:25

tension between Burgundy and Orleans

20:28

would become an important pattern

20:32

in King

20:34

Charles spent weeks claiming that

20:37

he was Saint George. He

20:39

ran around a lot of the time.

20:42

His staff would have to wall off entrances

20:44

to the King's residences so that

20:47

he wouldn't get lost and they wouldn't lose

20:49

track of him. In

20:51

fourteen o five, Charles

20:53

did bathe or change his clothes

20:56

for five months. It

20:58

was around this time that he saw for it from

21:00

the glass delusion, the idea

21:03

that he himself was made of

21:05

glass and that he could shatter

21:07

at any moment. He was

21:10

obsessed with protecting himself

21:12

from shattering, insisting on

21:14

having iron rods sewn

21:16

into his clothing so he could

21:18

say straight and unharmed when

21:21

he might be forced to interact with anyone,

21:25

just as it had been during his childhood.

21:28

Having no clear regent for the king

21:30

meant that the kingdom fell into

21:33

confusion and chaos, nearing

21:35

anarchy as rival factions

21:39

the Queen, the king's oldest son,

21:41

the Daufin, the Duke of Burgundy,

21:43

and the Duke of Orleans were

21:45

all vying for power. After

21:49

the Duke of Burgundy died in his sixties,

21:51

his claim to power is taken up by

21:54

his son, John the Fearless,

21:56

the new Duke of Burgundy.

22:04

In fourteen o seven, while the Queen

22:06

was recovering from an illness, the Duke

22:08

of Orleans visited her every day.

22:11

At the end of November, the Duke received

22:13

a message from the King saying

22:16

that he needed him at the palace. Immediately,

22:19

the Duke of Orleans left to go heed his

22:21

brother's request, but the

22:23

message was a fake, meant to

22:25

lure him out onto the street, where

22:28

he was attacked and killed. So

22:31

who killed the King's brother, Well,

22:35

John the Fearless, the new Duke of Burgundy

22:38

didn't really deny that he did. In

22:40

order to avenge his father's death,

22:43

the new Duke of Orleans enlisted

22:45

the support of his father in law, the Duke

22:48

of Amagnac, and thus began the

22:50

Amagnac Burgundian Civil

22:52

War. All of this

22:54

was happening at the same time as

22:57

the ongoing hundred Deer War with

22:59

England, and as a rule,

23:01

you don't want to have a civil war at

23:04

the same time you're also fighting off an external

23:06

enemy. It gets a little complicated

23:09

with the battles and rival factions,

23:11

but the cliff notes version is

23:13

that in all of the chaos, Henry

23:15

the five of Kenneth Branas Shakespeare

23:18

fame, swept into France

23:21

and won the Battle of Agincourts. In

23:23

fourteen fifteen, during

23:26

a period of lucidity, Charles

23:28

six signed the Treaty of Trois,

23:31

which named Henry the fifth as

23:33

charles successor and married

23:35

Henry to one of Charles's daughters.

23:38

In the Shakespeare version of the story, the

23:41

treaty happened right after Agincore,

23:44

but really these things are slow

23:46

and undramatic. It

23:48

was five years later. Charles

23:51

the sixth is the unnamed

23:53

French king in the Shakespeare

23:55

play, but none of Charles's madness

23:58

is referenced. Instead, if

24:00

you've read Henry five, the French

24:02

king is portrayed as just indecisive,

24:05

dominated by the overbearing presence

24:08

of his ministers and advisers.

24:11

When Charles the six finally

24:14

does die, it's met with

24:16

whales in the streets. They

24:18

cry for him in a way that they

24:20

didn't at all for his uncle's

24:23

or his brother. Even

24:25

after thirty years of madness, he

24:28

was still Charles the beloved.

24:37

That's the story of Charles the six. But

24:40

keep listening. After a brief sponsor break

24:42

to hear, a little bit of what happened in France

24:45

after his death, and a quick

24:47

personal note. If you want to support

24:49

the show, you can do so on Patreon

24:52

at patreon dot com slash

24:54

Noble Blood Tales, where I'll be

24:56

posting episode scripts and bibliographies

25:00

and announcing things like merch drops, because

25:02

guess what we're getting merch. The

25:13

Treaty of Twas made Henry the Fifth

25:15

of England next in line for the French

25:17

throne, but Henry died before

25:19

Charles did, which made Henry's

25:22

son, Henry the sixth the

25:24

next French king. Upon Charles's

25:26

death, the baby was crowned

25:28

in Paris at Notre Dame, but

25:31

Charles's son, the Dauphin, who

25:34

should have gotten the throne, didn't

25:36

take that line down. He

25:39

fought to win back his crown

25:41

from the English usurpation, and

25:44

the defa had an advantage.

25:47

You see, there was this peasant who

25:50

led a siege at Orleans

25:52

that lasted only nine days,

25:55

and then this peasant led the troops through

25:58

another handful of quick and miraculous

26:01

victories and allowed the Daufin

26:03

to make it to Rhyme, where he would be crowned

26:06

Charles the Seven. Eventually,

26:09

this peasant, who bolstered the French

26:12

troops to victory, would be captured

26:14

by the Burgundian sect of French nobles

26:17

who were allied with the English.

26:19

I told you it got a little complicated

26:21

between the Burgundians and Orleans.

26:25

After being put on trial, the

26:27

peasant was burned at the stake,

26:30

but she was later canonized

26:32

as a Catholic saint. She's

26:35

sometimes called the Maid of Orleans,

26:37

but you probably know her as

26:40

Joan of Arc. Noble

26:46

Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and

26:48

Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.

26:50

The show was written and hosted by Danis Schwartz

26:53

and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick,

26:56

Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.

26:58

Noble Blood is on Social Idea at Noble

27:00

Blood Tales, and you can learn more about

27:03

the show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com.

27:05

For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

27:08

the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

27:10

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. MHM