Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 13th September 1598, Philip II, King of Spain, and one-time King of England, died. He was 71 years old and worn out by the merciless workload he took on. Son of the Emperor Charles V, Philip took on half of his father’s vast territories in 1556 when Charles retired. Philip took on the mantle of King of Spain and Duke of Burgundy, as well as the territories in the New World. He was already King of Naples and King of England as the consort of Mary I. It was Philip’s destiny to rule in a time of ever-deepening divisions between Catholics and Protestants. Less pragmatic than his father, he saw his role as Catholic champion of Europe, a position that, apart from the sheer impossibility of undoing the Reformation, was never going to be supported by the French kings.

Philip scored some successes – he finally defeated the French in the Italian Wars, establishing a Spanish dominance of Italy that would last for another two hundred years. He also made possible the defeat of the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto, and incorporated Portugal under his rule. He failed, however, to maintain control of the Netherlands, or reimpose Catholicism in England. He died in his enormous palace of the Escorial, and was succeed by his son from his fourth marriage (to his niece!). His daughter by his third marriage, the Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, was named as a possible successor to her distant cousin, Elizabeth I of England.

On 12th September 1494 a son was born to the Count of Angouleme. Named François, he succeeded to the throne of France in 1515, on the death of his distant cousin and father-in-law, Louis XII. For the next thirty-two years, François would wage war against the armies of Charles, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, whose territory surrounded France on all sides. Despite a notable early success at the Battle of Marignano, France was generally the loser.

At the Battle of Pavia in 1525, Francois was captured by Charles and ransomed, for an enormous sum. During François’ reign, he presided over a Renaissance flowering in art and architecture, building and renovating some of the most beautiful chateaux on the Loire. He even patronised Leonardo da Vinci. Whilst he was fond of his first wife, Claude de Valois, he never hesitated to parade a string of mistresses. His second wife, Eleanora, the Emperor’s sister, was forced upon him and although she was treated with respect as his Queen, he had no warmth for her. As well as rivalry with the Emperor, François had a more personal relationship with Henry VIII of England. The two men, of a similar age, constantly sought to out-do each other, most spectacularly at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520.

On 11th September 1476, Marguerite of Bourbon, Duchess of Savoy, gave birth to a daughter, named Louise. Louise spent much of her childhood at court of France, before being married, aged only 11, to Charles de Valois, Count of Angouleme, a close relative of King Charles VIII. The couple began cohabiting in about 1493, and Louise had two children, Marguerite and Francois, before her husband died, leaving her a widow before she was twenty. Unusually, Louise did not remarry, but concentrated her efforts on educating her children, forming an unusually tight-knit family.

In 1515, her son Francois succeed to the French crown, there being no male heir in the senior branch of the family. Louise immediately took a central role in French politics, acting as Regent when Francois became embroiled in the Italian Wars in 1515, and again when he was held hostage in Spain after being captured after the Battle of Pavia. During the 1520s, Louise attempted to find allies against the Hapsburgs by treating with Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, but nothing came of it.

Louise was instrumental in brokering the treaty known as ‘The Ladies’ Peace’ of 1529, which was supposed to stop the interminable Valois-Hapsburg conflict. She negotiated with her sister-in-law, Marguerite of Austria, who was Regent of the Netherlands. When the male heirs of Francois died out in the 1580s, Henri of Navarre, son of her grand-daughter, Jeanne d’Abret, Queen-Regnant of Navarre, became King of France. Louise died in 1531. She was buried at St Denis.