Mehmed II - Ottoman sultan

Mehmed II (1432-1481 CE), also known as Mehmed the

Conqueror, was the seventh and among the greatest sultans
of the Ottoman Empire. His conquests consolidated
Ottoman rule in Anatolia and the Balkans, and he most
famously triumphed in conquering the
prized city of Constantinople, transforming it into the
administrative center, cultural hub, and capital of his
growing empire. His victories would mark the end of
the Byzantine Empire and usher a new era of Ottoman
dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Early years and first reign

Mehmed was the fourth son of Murad II by Hümâ Hâtûn, an enslaved girl in Murad’s harem. At
the age of 12 he was sent, as tradition required, to Manisa (Magnesia) with his two tutors. The
same year, his father set him on the throne at Edirne and abdicated. During his first reign
(August 1444–May 1446), Mehmed had to face grave external and internal crises. The king
of Hungary, the pope, the Byzantine Empire, and Venice all eager to take advantage of the
accession of a child to the Ottoman throne—succeeded in organizing a Crusade. Edirne was the
scene of violent rivalry between the powerful grand vizier Çandarlı Halil, on the one hand, and
the viziers Zaganos and Şihâbeddin, on the other, who
claimed that they were protecting the rights of the child
sultan. In September 1444 the army of the Crusaders
crossed the Danube. In Edirne this news triggered
a massacre of the Christian-influenced Ḥurūfī sect and
conjured up an atmosphere of panic and arson. When the
Crusaders laid siege to Varna, the reigning sultan’s father
was urged to come back from retirement in Bursa and lead
the army. The Ottoman victory at Varna under Murad II (November 10, 1444) put an end to the
crises. Mehmed II, who had stayed in Edirne, maintained the throne, and after the battle his
father retired to Manisa. Zaganos and Şihâbeddin then began to incite the child sultan to
undertake the capture of Constantinople, but Çandarlı engineered a revolt of the Janissaries and
called Murad II back to Edirne to resume the throne (May 1446). Mehmed was sent once more to
Manisa with Zaganos and Şihâbeddin, newly appointed as his tutors. There Mehmed continued
to consider himself the legal sultan.
Second accession in 1451
had had to consent to a three-day sack of the city, but, before the evening of the first day after its
capture, he countermanded his order. Entering the city at the head of a procession, he went strain
on his father’s death, Mehmed ascended the throne for the second time in Edirne (February 18,
1451). His mind was filled with the idea of the capture of Constantinople. Europe and
Byzantium, remembering his former reign, were then not concerned much about his plans.
Neither was his authority firmly established
within the empire. But he was not long in
showing his stature by severely punishing the
Janissaries who had dared to threaten him over
the delay of the customary gift of accession.
Yet he reinforced this military organization,
which was destined to be the instrument of his
future conquests. He devoted the utmost care
to all the necessary diplomatic and military
preparations for the capture of Constantinople. To keep Venice and Hungary neutral, he signed
peace treaties favourable to them. He spent the year 1452 mainly in building the fortress of
Boğazkesen (later Rumeli Hisarı) for the control of the Bosporus, in building a fleet of 31
galleys, and in casting new cannon of large calibre. He made the Hungarian master gunsmith,
Urban, cast guns of a size unknown as yet even in Europe. Meanwhile, the grand vizier Çandarlı
argued against the enterprise and during the siege of Constantinople (April 6–May 29, 1453), the
opposing views were voiced in two war councils convened at critical moments. Zaganos
vehemently rejected the proposal to raise the siege. He was given the task of preparing the last
great assault. The commander in chief, Mehmed II himself, on the day of the attack personally
directed the operations against the breach opened in the city wall by his cannon. The day after
the capture of the city, Çandarlı was arrested and soon afterward was executed in Edirne. He was
replaced by Zaganos, who had become Mehmed’s father-in-law. Mehmed ht to Hagia
Sophia and converted it into a mosque. Afterward he established charitable foundations and
provided 14,000 gold ducats per annum for the upkeep and service of the mosque.
One of the tasks on which Mehmed II set his heart was the restoration of the city, now popularly
called Istanbul, as a worthy capital of a worldwide empire. To encourage the return of the Greeks
and the Genoese of Galata (the trading quarter of the city), who had fled, he returned their houses
and provided them with guarantees of safety. In order to repopulate the city, he deported Muslim
and Christian groups in Anatolia and the Balkans and forced them to settle in Constantinople. He
restored the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate (January 6, 1454) and established a Jewish grand rabbi
and an Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) patriarch in the city. In addition, he founded, and
encouraged his viziers to found, a number of Muslim institutions and commercial installations in
the main districts of Constantinople. From these nuclei, the metropolis developed rapidly.
According to a survey carried out in 1478, there were then in Constantinople and neighbouring
Galata 16,324 households and 3,927 shops. Fifty years later, Constantinople had become the
largest city in Europe.

Mehmed’s empire

The capture of Constantinople bestowed on Mehmed incomparable glory and prestige and

immense authority in his own country, so that he began to look upon himself as the heir of the
Roman Caesars and the champion of Islam in holy war. It is not true that he had preconceived
plans for his conquests, but it is certain that he was intent upon resurrecting the Eastern Roman
Empire and upon extending it to its widest historic limits. His victory over the Turkmen
leader Uzun Ḥasan at the Battle of Bashkent in Erzincan (August 11, 1473) marked in Mehmed’s
life a turning point as important as the capture of Constantinople, and it sealed his domination
over Anatolia and the Balkans.

Mehmed had assumed the title of Kayser-i Rum (Roman Caesar) and, at the same time,
described himself as “the lord of the two lands and the two seas” (Anatolia and the Balkans,
the Aegean and Black seas), a designation that reflected his idea of the empire. During the
quarter-century after the fall of Constantinople, he undertook a series of campaigns or
expeditions in the Balkans, Hungary, Walachia, Moldavia, Anatolia, the island of Rhodes, and
even as far as the Crimean Peninsula and Otranto in southern Italy. This last enterprise (1480)
indicated that he intended to invade Italy in a new attempt at founding a world empire. The
following spring, having just begun a new campaign in Anatolia, he died 15.5 miles (25 km)
from Constantinople. Gout, from which he had suffered for some time, in his last days tortured
him grievously, but there are indications that he was poisoned.
During the autocrat’s last years, his relations with his eldest son Bayezid became very strained,
as Bayezid did not always obey his orders. Mehmed’s financial measures resulted, toward the
end of his reign, in widespread discontent throughout the country, especially when he distributed
as military fiefs about 20,000 villages and farms that had previously belonged to pious
foundations or the landed gentry. Thus, at his death, the malcontents placed Bayezid on the
throne, discarding the sultan’s favourite son, Cem (Jem), and initiated a reaction against
Mehmed’s policies.

Conquests
Conquest of Constantinople

The Ottoman Empire at the beginning of Mehmed II's second reign.

Roumeli Hissar Castle, built by Sultan Mehmed II between 1451 and 1452, before the Fall of
Constantinople.

When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451. he devoted himself to strengthening the
Ottoman navy and made preparations for an attack on Constantinople. In the narrow Bosphorus
Straits, the fortress Anadoluhisarı had been built by his great-grandfather Bayezid I on the Asian
side; Mehmed erected an even stronger fortress called Rumelihisarı on the European side, and
thus gained complete control of the strait. Having completed his fortresses, Mehmed proceeded
to levy a toll on ships passing within reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel ignoring signals to
stop was sunk with a single shot and all the surviving sailors beheaded, except for the captain,
who was impaled and mounted as a human scarecrow as a warning to further sailors on the strait.
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, the companion and standard bearer of the Islamic prophet Muhammad,
had died during the first Siege of Constantinople (674–678). As Mehmed II's army approached
Constantinople, Mehmed's sheikh Akshamsaddin discovered the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari.
After the conquest, Mehmed built Eyüp Sultan Mosque at the site to emphasize the importance
of the conquest to the Islamic world and highlight his role as ghazi.
In 1453 Mehmed commenced the siege of Constantinople with an army between 80,000 and
200,000 troops, an artillery train of over seventy large field pieces, and a navy of 320 vessels, the
bulk of them transports and storeships. The city was surrounded by sea and land; the fleet at the
entrance of the Bosphorus stretched from shore to shore in the form of a crescent, to intercept or
repel any assistance for Constantinople from the sea.[13] In early April, the Siege of
Constantinople began. At first, the city's walls held off the Turks, even though Mehmed's army
used the new bombard designed by Orban, a giant cannon similar to the Dardanelles Gun. The
harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain and defended by twenty-eight warships.
On 22 April, Mehmed transported his lighter warships overland, around
the Genoese colony of Galata, and into the Golden Horn's northern shore; eighty galleys were
transported from the Bosphorus after paving a route, little over one mile, with wood. Thus, the
Byzantines stretched their troops over a longer portion of the walls. About a month later,
Constantinople fell, on 29 May, following a fifty-seven-day siege. After this conquest, Mehmed
moved the Ottoman capital from Adrianople to Constantinople.
When Sultan Mehmed II stepped into the ruins of the Boukoleon, known to the Ottomans and
Persians as the Palace of the Caesars, probably built over a thousand years before by Theodosius
II, he uttered the famous lines of Saadi:The spider is curtain-bearer in the palace of Chosroes,
The owl sounds the relief in the castle of Afrasiyab.Some Muslim scholars claimed that
a hadith in Musnad Ahmad referred specifically to Mehmed's conquest of Constantinople, seeing
it as the fulfillment of a prophecy and a sign of the approaching apocalypse.

The entry of Sultan Mehmed II into Constantinople, painting by Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)

After the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of caesar of the Roman
Empire (Qayser-i Rûm), based on the assertion that Constantinople had been the seat and capital
of the Roman Empire since 330 AD, and whoever possessed the Imperial capital was the ruler of
the Empire. The contemporary scholar George of Trebizond supported his claim. The claim was
not recognized by the Catholic Church and most of, if not all, Western Europe, but was
recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Mehmed had installed Gennadius Scholarius, a
staunch antagonist of the West, as the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople with all the
ceremonial elements, ethnarch (or milletbashi) status and rights of property that made him the
second largest landlord in the said empire by the sultan himself in 1454, and in turn Gennadius II
recognized Mehmed the Conqueror as successor to the throne.
Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos died without producing an heir, and had Constantinople not
fallen to the Ottomans he likely would have been succeeded by the sons of his deceased elder
brother. Those children were taken into the palace service of Mehmed after the fall of
Constantinople. The oldest boy, renamed Has Murad, became a personal favorite of Mehmed and
served as beylerbey of the Balkans. The younger son, renamed Mesih Pasha, became admiral of
the Ottoman fleet and sanjak-bey of the Gallipoli. He eventually served twice as Grand
Vizier under Mehmed's son, Bayezid II.
After the fall of Constantinople, Mehmed would also go on to conquer the Despotate of Morea in
the Peloponnese in 1460, and the Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia in 1461. The last
two vestiges of Byzantine rule were thus absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of
Constantinople bestowed immense glory and prestige on the country. There is some historical
evidence that, 10 years after the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed II visited the site
of Troy and boasted that he had avenged the Trojans by conquering the Greeks (Byzantines).
Conquest of Serbia (1454–1459)
Further information: List of campaigns of Mehmed the Conqueror and Ottoman Serbia

Ottoman miniature of the Siege of Belgrade, 1456

Mehmed II's first campaigns after Constantinople were in the direction of Serbia, which had been
an Ottoman vassal state since the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. The Ottoman ruler had a connection
with the Serbian Despotate – one of Murad II's wives was Mara Branković – and he used that
fact to claim some Serbian islands. That Đurađ Branković had recently made an alliance with the
Hungarians, and had paid the tribute irregularly, may have been important considerations. When
Serbia refused these demands, the Ottoman army set out from Edirne towards Serbia in
1454. Smederevo was besieged, as was Novo Brdo, the most important Serbian metal mining
and smelting center. Ottomans and Hungarians fought during the years till 1456.
The Ottoman army advanced as far as Belgrade, where it attempted but failed to conquer the city
from John Hunyadi at the Siege of Belgrade, on 14 July 1456. A period of relative peace ensued
in the region until the Fall of Belgrade in 1521, during the reign of Mehmed's great-grandson,
known as Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The sultan retreated to Edirne, and Đurađ
Branković regained possession of some parts of Serbia. Before the end of the year, however, the
79-year-old Branković died. Serbian independence survived him for only two years, when the
Ottoman Empire formally annexed his lands following dissension among his widow and three
remaining sons. Lazar, the youngest, poisoned his mother and exiled his brothers, but he died
soon afterwards. In the continuing turmoil the oldest brother Stefan Branković gained the throne
but was ousted in March 1459. After that the Serbian throne was offered to Stephen Tomašević,
the future king of Bosnia, which infuriated Sultan Mehmed. He sent his army, which
captured Smederevo in June 1459, ending the existence of the Serbian Despotate.
Conquest of Morea (1458–1460)

15th century portrait of Mehmet II (1432-1481), showing Italian influence

The Despotate of the Morea bordered the southern Ottoman Balkans. The Ottomans had already
invaded the region under Murad II, destroying the Byzantine defenses – the Hexamilion wall – at
the Isthmus of Corinth in 1446. Before the final siege of Constantinople Mehmed ordered
Ottoman troops to attack the Morea. The despots, Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas
Palaiologos, brothers of the last emperor, failed to send any aid. Their own incompetence
resulted in an Albanian-Greek revolt against them, during which they invited in Ottoman troops
to help put down the revolt. At this time, a number of influential Moreote Greeks and Albanians
made private peace with Mehmed. After more years of incompetent rule by the despots, their
failure to pay their annual tribute to the Sultan, and finally their own revolt against Ottoman rule,
Mehmed entered the Morea in May 1460. The capital Mistra fell exactly seven years after
Constantinople, on 29 May 1460. Demetrios ended up a prisoner of the Ottomans and his
younger brother Thomas fled. By the end of the summer, the Ottomans had achieved the
submission of virtually all cities possessed by the Greeks.
A few holdouts remained for a time. The island of Monemvasia refused to surrender, and it was
ruled for a brief time by a Catalan corsair. When the population drove him out, they obtained the
consent of Thomas to submit to the Pope's protection before the end of 1460. The Mani
Peninsula, on the Morea's south end, resisted under a loose coalition of local clans, and the area
then came under the rule of Venice. The last holdout was Salmeniko, in the Morea's
northwest. Graitzas Palaiologos was the military commander there, stationed at Salmeniko
Castle (also known as Castle Orgia). While the town eventually surrendered, Graitzas and his
garrison and some town residents held out in the castle until July 1461, when they escaped and
reached Venetian territory.
Conquest of Trebizond (1460–1461)
Emperors of Trebizond formed alliances through royal marriages with various Muslim rulers.
Emperor John IV of Trebizond married his daughter to the son of his brother-in-law, Uzun
Hasan, khan of the Ak Koyunlu, in return for his promise to defend Trebizond. He also secured
promises of support from the Turkish beys of Sinope and Karamania, and from the king and
princes of Georgia. The Ottomans were motivated to capture Trebizond or to get an annual
tribute. In the time of Murad II, they first attempted to take the capital by sea in 1442, but high
surf made the landings difficult and the attempt was repulsed. While Mehmed II was away laying
siege to Belgrade in 1456, the Ottoman governor of Amasya attacked Trebizond, and although he
was defeated, he took many prisoners and extracted a heavy tribute.
After John's death in 1459, his brother David came to power and intrigued with various
European powers for help against the Ottomans, speaking of wild schemes that included the
conquest of Jerusalem. Mehmed II eventually heard of these intrigues and was further provoked
to action by David's demand that Mehmed remit the tribute imposed on his brother.
Mehmed the Conqueror's response came in the summer of 1461. He led a sizable army
from Bursa by land and the Ottoman navy by sea, first to Sinope, joining forces with Ismail's
brother Ahmed (the Red). He captured Sinope and ended the official reign of the Jandarid
dynasty, although he appointed Ahmed as the governor of Kastamonu and Sinope, only to revoke
the appointment the same year. Various other members of the Jandarid dynasty were offered
important functions throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire. During the march to
Trebizond, Uzun Hasan sent his mother Sara Khatun as an ambassador; while they were
climbing the steep heights of Zigana on foot, she asked Sultan Mehmed why he was undergoing
such hardship for the sake of Trebizond. Mehmed replied:
Mother, in my hand is the sword of Islam, without this hardship I should not deserve the name
of ghazi, and today and tomorrow I should have to cover my face in shame before Allah.
Having isolated Trebizond, Mehmed quickly swept down upon it before the inhabitants knew he
was coming, and he placed it under siege. The city held out for a month before the emperor
David surrendered on 15 August 1461.
Submission of Wallachia (1459–1462)

Portrait of Vlad (Dracula) the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia, 1460

The Night Attack of Târgovişte, which resulted in the victory of Vlad (Dracula) the Impaler.
The Ottomans since the early 15th century tried to bring Wallachia (Ottoman Turkish: ‫)واالچیا‬
under their control by putting their own candidate on the throne, but each attempt ended in
failure. The Ottomans regarded Wallachia as a buffer zone between them and the Kingdom of
Hungary and for a yearly tribute did not meddle in their internal affairs. The two primary Balkan
powers, Hungary and the Ottomans, maintained an enduring struggle to make Wallachia their
own vassal. To prevent Wallachia from falling into the Hungarian fold, the Ottomans freed
young Vlad III (Dracula), who had spent four years as a prisoner of Murad, together with his
brother Radu, so that Vlad could claim the throne of Wallachia. His rule was short-lived,
however, as Hunyadi invaded Wallachia and restored his ally Vladislav II, of the Dănești clan, to
the throne.
Vlad III Dracula fled to Moldavia, where he lived under the protection of his uncle, Bogdan II. In
October 1451, Bogdan was assassinated and Vlad fled to Hungary. Impressed by Vlad's vast
knowledge of the mindset and inner workings of the Ottoman Empire, as well as his hatred
towards the Turks and new Sultan Mehmed II, Hunyadi reconciled with his former enemy and
tried to make Vlad III his own adviser, but Vlad refused.
In 1456, three years after the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople, they threatened Hungary
by besieging Belgrade. Hunyadi began a concerted counter-attack in Serbia: while he himself
moved into Serbia and relieved the siege (before dying of the plague), Vlad III Dracula led his
own contingent into Wallachia, reconquered his native land, and killed Vladislav II.
In 1459, Mehmed II sent envoys to Vlad to urge him to pay a delayed tribute of 10,000 ducats
and 500 recruits into the Ottoman forces. Vlad III Dracula refused and had the Ottoman envoys
killed by nailing their turbans to their heads, on the pretext that they had refused to raise their
"hats" to him, as they only removed their headgear before God.
Meanwhile, the Sultan sent the Bey of Nicopolis, Hamza Pasha, to make peace and, if necessary,
eliminate Vlad III. Vlad III set an ambush; the Ottomans were surrounded and almost all of them
caught and impaled, with Hamza Pasha impaled on the highest stake, as befit his rank.
In the winter of 1462, Vlad III crossed the Danube and scorched the entire Bulgarian land in the
area between Serbia and the Black Sea. Allegedly disguising himself as a Turkish Sipahi and
utilizing his command of the Turkish language and customs, Vlad III infiltrated Ottoman camps,
ambushed, massacred or captured several Ottoman forces. In a letter to Corvinus dated 2
February, he wrote:
I have killed peasants’ men and women, old and young, who lived at Oblucitza and Novoselo,
where the Danube flows into the sea, up to Rahova, which is located near Chilia, from the lower
Danube up to such places as Samovit and Ghighen. We killed 23,884 Turks without counting
those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers.... Thus,
your highness, you must know that I have broken the peace with him [Mehmed II].
Mehmed II abandoned his siege of Corinth to launch a punitive attack against Vlad III in
Wallachia[40] but suffered many casualties in a surprise night attack led by Vlad III Dracula, who
was apparently bent on personally killing the Sultan. It is said that when the forces of Mehmed
the Conqueror and Radu the Handsome came to Târgoviste, they saw so many Turks impaled
around the city that, appalled by the sight, Mehmed considered withdrawing but was convinced
by his commanders to stay. However, Vlad's policy of staunch resistance against the Ottomans
was not a popular one, and he was betrayed by the boyars's (local aristocracy) appeasing faction,
most of them also pro-Dăneşti (a rival princely branch). His best friend and ally Stephen III of
Moldavia, who had promised to help him, seized the chance and instead attacked him trying to
take back the Fortress of Chilia. Vlad III had to retreat to the mountains. After this, the Ottomans
captured the Wallachian capital Târgoviște and Mehmed II withdrew, having left Radu as ruler
of Wallachia. Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey, who served with distinction and wiped out a force 6,000
Wallachians and deposited 2,000 of their heads at the feet of Mehmed II, was also reinstated, as a
reward, in his old gubernatorial post in Thessaly. [42] Vlad eventually escaped to Hungary, where
he was imprisoned on a false accusation of treason against his overlord, Matthias Corvinus.
Conquest of Bosnia (1463)

Mehmed II's ahidnâme to the Catholic monks of the recently conquered Bosnia issued in 1463,
granting them full religious freedom and protection.
The despot of Serbia, Lazar Branković, died in 1458, and a civil war broke out among his heirs
that resulted in the Ottoman conquest of Serbia in 1459/1460. Stephen Tomašević, son of the
king of Bosnia, tried to bring Serbia under his control, but Ottoman expeditions forced him to
give up his plan and Stephen fled to Bosnia, seeking refuge at the court of his father. After some
battles, Bosnia became tributary kingdom to the Ottomans.
On 10 July 1461, Stephen Thomas died, and Stephen Tomašević succeeded him as King of
Bosnia. In 1461, Stephen Tomašević made an alliance with the Hungarians and asked Pope Pius
II for help in the face of an impending Ottoman invasion. In 1463, after a dispute over the tribute
paid annually by the Bosnian Kingdom to the Ottomans, he sent for help from the Venetians.
However, none ever reached Bosnia. In 1463, Sultan Mehmed II led an army into the country.
The royal city of Bobovac soon fell, leaving Stephen Tomašević to retreat to Jajce and later
to Ključ. Mehmed invaded Bosnia and conquered it very quickly, executing Stephen Tomašević
and his uncle Radivoj. Bosnia officially fell in 1463 and became the westernmost province of the
Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman-Venetian War (1463–1479)
Main article: Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479)

Scene depicts the fifth and greatest assault upon the Shkodra Castle by Ottoman forces in
the Siege of Shkodra, 1478–79
According to the Byzantine historian Michael Critobulus, hostilities broke out after an Albanian
slave of the Ottoman commander of Athens fled to the Venetian fortress of Coron (Koroni) with
100,000 silver aspers from his master's treasure. The fugitive then converted to Christianity, so
Ottoman demands for his rendition were refused by the Venetian authorities.[44] Using this as a
pretext in November 1462, the Ottoman commander in central Greece, Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey,
attacked and nearly succeeded in taking the strategically important Venetian fortress of Lepanto
(Nafpaktos). On 3 April 1463, however, the governor of the Morea, Isa Beg, took the Venetian-
held town of Argos by treason.
The new alliance launched a two-pronged offensive against the Ottomans: a Venetian army,
under the Captain General of the Sea Alvise Loredan, landed in the Morea, while Matthias
Corvinus invaded Bosnia. At the same time, Pius II began assembling an army at Ancona,
hoping to lead it in person. Negotiations were also begun with other rivals of the Ottomans, such
as Karamanids, Uzun Hassan and the Crimean Khanate.
In early August, the Venetians retook Argos and refortified the Isthmus of Corinth, restoring
the Hexamilion wall and equipping it with many cannons.9 They then proceeded to besiege the
fortress of the Acrocorinth, which controlled the northwestern Peloponnese. The Venetians
engaged in repeated clashes with the defenders and with Ömer Bey's forces, until they suffered a
major defeat on 20 October and were then forced to lift the siege and retreat to the Hexamilion
and to Nauplia (Nafplion). In Bosnia, Matthias Corvinus seized over sixty fortified places and
succeeded in taking its capital, Jajce, after a 3-month siege, on 16 December.
Ottoman reaction was swift and decisive: Mehmed II dispatched his Grand Vizier, Mahmud
Pasha Angelović, with an army against the Venetians. To confront the Venetian fleet, which had
taken station outside the entrance of the Dardanelles Straits, the Sultan further ordered the
creation of the new shipyard of Kadirga Limani in the Golden Horn (named after the "kadirga"
type of galley), and of two forts to guard the Straits, Kilidulbahr and Sultaniye. The Morean
campaign was swiftly victorious for the Ottomans; they razed the Hexamilion, and advanced into
the Morea. Argos fell, and several forts and localities that had recognized Venetian authority
reverted to their Ottoman allegiance.
Sultan Mehmed II, who was following Mahmud Pasha with another army to reinforce him, had
reached Zeitounion (Lamia) before being apprised of his Vizier's success. Immediately, he turned
his men north, towards Bosnia. However, the Sultan's attempt to retake Jajce in July and August
1464 failed, with the Ottomans retreating hastily in the face of Corvinus' approaching army. A
new Ottoman army under Mahmud Pasha then forced Corvinus to withdraw, but Jajce was not
retaken for many years after. However, the death of Pope Pius II on 15 August in Ancona spelled
the end of the Crusade.
In the meantime, the Venetian Republic had appointed Sigismondo Malatesta for the upcoming
campaign of 1464. He launched attacks against Ottoman forts and engaged in a failed siege
of Mistra in August through October. Small-scale warfare continued on both sides, with raids
and counter-raids, but a shortage of manpower and money meant that the Venetians remained
largely confined to their fortified bases, while Ömer Bey's army roamed the countryside.
In the Aegean, the Venetians tried to take Lesbos in the spring of 1464, and besieged the
capital Mytilene for six weeks, until the arrival of an Ottoman fleet under Mahmud Pasha on 18
May forced them to withdraw. Another attempt to capture the island shortly after also failed. The
Venetian navy spent the remainder of the year in ultimately fruitless demonstrations of force
before the Dardanelles. In early 1465, Mehmed II sent peace feelers to the Venetian Senate;
distrusting the Sultan's motives, these were rejected.
In April 1466, the Venetian war effort was reinvigorated under Vettore Cappello: the fleet took
the northern Aegean islands of Imbros, Thasos, and Samothrace, and then sailed into the Saronic
Gulf. On 12 July, Cappello landed at Piraeus and marched against Athens, the Ottomans' major
regional base. He failed to take the Acropolis and was forced to retreat to Patras, the capital of
Peloponnese and the seat of the Ottoman bey, which was being besieged by a joint force of
Venetians and Greeks. Before Cappello could arrive, and as the city seemed on the verge of
falling, Ömer Bey suddenly appeared with 12,000 cavalry and drove the outnumbered besiegers
off. Six hundred Venetians and a hundred Greeks were taken prisoner out of a force of 2,000,
while Barbarigo himself was killed. Cappello, who arrived some days later, attacked the
Ottomans but was heavily defeated. Demoralized, he returned to Negroponte with the remains of
his army. There Cappello fell ill and died on 13 March 1467. In 1470 Mehmed personally led an
Ottoman army to besiege Negroponte. The Venetian relief navy was defeated and Negroponte
was captured.
In spring 1466, Sultan Mehmed marched with a large army against the Albanians. Under their
leader, Skanderbeg, they had long resisted the Ottomans, and had repeatedly sought assistance
from Italy. Mehmed II responded by marching again against Albania but was unsuccessful. The
winter brought an outbreak of plague, which would recur annually and sap the strength of the
local resistance. Skanderbeg himself died of malaria in the Venetian stronghold of Lissus
(Lezhë), ending the ability of Venice to use the Albanian lords for its own advantage. After
Skanderbeg died, some Venetian-controlled northern Albanian garrisons continued to hold
territories coveted by the Ottomans, such as Žabljak Crnojevića, Drisht, Lezhë, and Shkodra –
the most significant. Mehmed II sent his armies to take Shkodra in 1474 but failed. Then he went
personally to lead the siege of Shkodra of 1478–79. The Venetians and Shkodrans resisted the
assaults and continued to hold the fortress until Venice ceded Shkodra to the Ottoman Empire in
the Treaty of Constantinople as a condition of ending the war.
The agreement was established as a result of the Ottomans having reached the outskirts
of Venice. Based on the terms of the treaty, the Venetians were allowed to keep Ulcinj, Antivan,
and Durrës. However, they ceded Shkodra, which had been under Ottoman siege for many
months, as well as other territories on the Dalmatian coastline, and they relinquished control of
the Greek islands of Negroponte (Euboea) and Lemnos. Moreover, the Venetians were forced to
pay 100,000 ducat indemnity and agreed to a tribute of around 10,000 ducats per year in order to
acquire trading privileges in the Black Sea. As a result of this treaty, Venice acquired a
weakened position in the Levant.
Anatolian conquests (1464–1473)

Mehmed's Fetihname (Declaration of conquest) after the Battle of Otlukbeli

During the post-Seljuks era in the second half of the middle ages,
numerous Turkmen principalities collectively known as Anatolian beyliks emerged in
Anatolia. Karamanids initially centred around the modern provinces of Karaman and Konya, the
most important power in Anatolia. But towards the end of the 14th century, Ottomans began to
dominate on most of Anatolia, reducing the Karaman influence and prestige.
İbrahim II of Karaman was the ruler of Karaman, and during his last years, his sons began
struggling for the throne. His heir apparent was İshak of Karaman, the governor of Silifke.
But Pir Ahmet, a younger son, declared himself as the bey of Karaman in Konya. İbrahim
escaped to a small city in western territories where he died in 1464. The competing claims to the
throne resulted in an interregnum in the beylik. Nevertheless, with the help of Uzun Hasan, the
sultan of the Akkoyunlu (White Sheep) Turkmens, İshak was able to ascend to the throne. His
reign was short, however, as Pir Ahmet appealed to Sultan Mehmed II for help, offering
Mehmed some territory that İshak refused to cede. With Ottoman help, Pir Ahmet defeated İshak
in the battle of Dağpazarı. İshak had to be content with Silifke up to an unknown date. Pir Ahmet
kept his promise and ceded a part of the beylik to the Ottomans, but he was uneasy about the
loss. So, during the Ottoman campaign in the West, he recaptured his former territory. Mehmed
returned, however, and captured both Karaman (Larende) and Konya in 1466. Pir Ahmet barely
escaped to the East. A few years later, Ottoman vizier (later grand vizier) Gedik Ahmet
Pasha captured the coastal region of the beylik.
Pir Ahmet as well as his brother Kasım escaped to Uzun Hasan's territory. This gave Uzun Hasan
a chance to interfere. In 1472, the Akkoyunlu army invaded and raided most of Anatolia (this
was the reason behind the Battle of Otlukbeli in 1473). But then Mehmed led a successful
campaign against Uzun Hasan in 1473 that resulted in the decisive victory of the Ottoman
Empire in the Battle of Otlukbeli. Before that, Pir Ahmet with Akkoyunlu help had captured
Karaman. However, Pir Ahmet couldn't enjoy another term. Because immediately after the
capture of Karaman, the Akkoyunlu army was defeated by the Ottomans near Beyşehir and Pir
Ahmet had to escape once more. Although he tried to continue his struggle, he learned that his
family members had been transferred to İstanbul by Gedik Ahmet Pasha, so he finally gave up.
Demoralized, he escaped to Akkoyunlu territory where he was given a tımar (fief) in Bayburt.
He died in 1474.
Uniting the Anatolian beyliks was first accomplished by Sultan Bayezid I, more than fifty years
before Mehmed II but after the destructive Battle of Ankara in 1402, the newly formed
unification was gone. Mehmed II recovered Ottoman power over the other Turkish states, and
these conquests allowed him to push further into Europe.
Another important political entity that shaped the Eastern policy of Mehmed II were the White
Sheep Turcomans. Under the leadership of Uzun Hasan, this kingdom gained power in the East;
but because of their strong relations with the Christian powers like the Empire of Trebizond and
the Republic of Venice, and the alliance between the Turcomans and the Karamanid tribe,
Mehmed saw them as a threat to his own power.
War with Moldavia (1475–1476)
Mehmed the Second, portrait by Paolo Veronese
In 1456, Peter III Aaron agreed to pay the Ottomans an annual tribute of 2,000 gold ducats to
ensure his southern borders, thus becoming the first Moldavian ruler to accept the Turkish
demands.[64] His successor Stephen the Great rejected Ottoman suzerainty and a series of fierce
wars ensued.[65] Stephen tried to bring Wallachia under his sphere of influence and so supported
his own choice for the Wallachian throne. This resulted in an enduring struggle between different
Wallachian rulers backed by Hungarians, Ottomans, and Stephen. An Ottoman army under
Hadim Pasha (governor of Rumelia) was sent in 1475 to punish Stephen for his meddling in
Wallachia; however, the Ottomans suffered a great defeat at the Battle of Vaslui. Stephen
inflicted a decisive defeat on the Ottomans, described as "the greatest ever secured by the Cross
against Islam, with casualties, according to Venetian and Polish records, reaching beyond 40,000
on the Ottoman side. Mara Brankovic (Mara Hatun), the former younger wife of Murad II, told a
Venetian envoy that the invasion had been worst ever defeat for the Ottomans. Stephen was later
awarded the title "Athleta Christi" (Champion of Christ) by Pope Sixtus IV, who referred to him
as "verus christianae fidei athleta" ("the true defender of the Christian faith"). Mehmed II
assembled a large army and entered Moldavia in June 1476. Meanwhile, groups of Tartars from
the Crimean Khanate (the Ottomans' recent ally) were sent to attack Moldavia. Romanian
sources may state that they were repelled. [66] Other sources state that joint Ottoman and Crimean
Tartar forces "occupied Bessarabia and took Akkerman, gaining control of the southern mouth of
the Danube. Stephan tried to avoid open battle with the Ottomans by following a scorched-earth
policy".
Finally, Stephen faced the Ottomans in battle. The Moldavians luring the main Ottoman forces
into a forest that was set on fire, causing some casualties. According to another battle
description, the defending Moldavian forces repelled several Ottoman attacks with steady fire
from hand-guns. The attacking Turkish Janissaries were forced to crouch on their stomachs
instead of charging headlong into the defenders positions. Seeing the imminent defeat of his
forces, Mehmed charged with his personal guard against the Moldavians, managing to rally the
Janissaries, and turning the tide of the battle. Turkish Janissaries penetrated inside the forest and
engaged the defenders in man-to-man fighting.
The Moldavian army was utterly defeated (casualties were very high on both sides), and
the chronicles say that the entire battlefield was covered with the bones of the dead, a probable
source for the toponym (Valea Albă is Romanian and Akdere Turkish for "The White Valley").
Stephen the Great retreated into the north-western part of Moldavia or even into the Polish
Kingdom and began forming another army. The Ottomans were unable to conquer any of the
major Moldavian strongholds (Suceava, Neamț, Hotin) and were constantly harassed by small
scale Moldavians attacks. Soon they were also confronted with starvation, a situation made
worse by an outbreak of the plague, and the Ottoman army returned to Ottoman lands. The threat
of Stephen to Wallachia continued for decades. That very same year Stephen helped his
cousin Vlad the Impaler return to the throne of Wallachia for the third and final time. Even after
Vlad's untimely death several months later Stephen continued to support, with force of arms, a
variety of contenders to the Wallachian throne succeeding after Mehmet's death to instate Vlad
Călugărul, half-brother to Vlad the Impaler, for a period of 13 years from 1482 to 1495.
Conquest of Albania (1466–1478)

Portrait of Skanderbeg, prince of League of Lezhë

Skanderbeg, a member of the Albanian nobility and a former member of the Ottoman ruling
elite, led Skanderbeg's rebellion against the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe.
Skanderbeg, son of Gjon Kastrioti (who had joined the unsuccessful Albanian revolt of 1432–
1436), united the Albanian principalities in a military and diplomatic alliance, the League of
Lezhë, in 1444. Mehmed II was never successful in his efforts to subjugate Albania while
Skanderbeg was alive, even though he twice (1466 and 1467) led the Ottoman armies himself
against Krujë. After Skanderbeg died in 1468, the Albanians couldn't find a leader to replace
him, and Mehmed II eventually conquered Krujë and Albania in 1478.
In spring 1466, Sultan Mehmed marched with a large army against Skanderbeg and the
Albanians. Skanderbeg had repeatedly sought assistance from Italy, [45] and believed that the
ongoing Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479) offered a golden opportunity to reassert Albanian
independence; for the Venetians, the Albanians provided a useful cover to the Venetian coastal
holdings of Durrës (Italian: Durazzo) and Shkodër (Scutari). The major result of this campaign
was the construction of the fortress of Elbasan, allegedly within just 25 days. This strategically
sited fortress, at the lowlands near the end of the old Via Egnatia, cut Albania effectively in half,
isolating Skanderbeg's base in the northern highlands from the Venetian holdings in the
south. However, following the Sultan's withdrawal Skanderbeg himself spent the winter in Italy,
seeking aid. On his return in early 1467, his forces sallied from the highlands, defeated Ballaban
Pasha, and lifted the siege of the fortress of Croia (Krujë); they also attacked Elbasan but failed
to capture it. Mehmed II responded by marching again against Albania. He energetically pursued
the attacks against the Albanian strongholds, while sending detachments to raid the Venetian
possessions to keep them isolated. The Ottomans failed again to take Croia, and they failed to
subjugate the country. However, the winter brought an outbreak of plague, which would recur
annually and sap the strength of the local resistance. Skanderbeg himself died of malaria in the
Venetian stronghold of Lissus (Lezhë), ending the ability of Venice to use the Albanian lords for
its own advantage. The Albanians were left to their own devices and were gradually subdued
over the next decade.
After Skanderbeg died, Mehmed II personally led the siege of Shkodra in 1478–79, of which
early Ottoman chronicler Aşıkpaşazade (1400–81) wrote, "All the conquests of Sultan Mehmed
were fulfilled with the seizure of Shkodra. The Venetians and Shkodrans resisted the assaults and
continued to hold the fortress until Venice ceded Shkodra to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of
Constantinople as a condition of ending the war.
Crimean policy (1475)
Main article: Crimean Khanate
A number of Turkic peoples, collectively known as the Crimean Tatars, had been inhabiting the
peninsula since the early Middle Ages. After the destruction of the Golden
Horde by Timur earlier in the 15th century, the Crimean Tatars founded an independent Crimean
Khanate under Hacı I Girya, a descendant of Genghis Khan.
The Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes that stretched from the Kuban to the Dniester River,
but they were unable to take control over the commercial Genoese towns called Gazaria
(Genoese colonies), which had been under Genoese control since 1357. After the conquest of
Constantinople, Genoese communications were disrupted, and when the Crimean Tatars asked
for help from the Ottomans, they responded with an invasion of the Genoese towns, led by Gedik
Ahmed Pasha in 1475, bringing Kaffa and the other trading towns under their control. After the
capture of the Genoese towns, the Ottoman Sultan held Meñli I Giray captive, later releasing him
in return for accepting Ottoman suzerainty over the Crimean Khans and allowing them to rule
as tributary princes of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Crimean khans still had a large amount
of autonomy from the Ottoman Empire, while the Ottomans directly controlled the southern
coast.
Expedition to Italy (1480)

Main article: Ottoman invasion of Otranto

A bronze medal of Mehmed II the Conqueror by Bertoldo di Giovanni, 1480

Portrait of Mehmed and a person believed to be either his son Cem or Ishak Bey Kraloğlu, 1481.
An Ottoman army under Gedik Ahmed Pasha invaded Italy in 1480, capturing Otranto. Because
of lack of food, Gedik Ahmed Pasha returned with most of his troops to Albania, leaving a
garrison of 800 infantry and 500 cavalries behind to defend Otranto in Italy. It was assumed he
would return after the winter. Since it was only 28 years after the fall of Constantinople, there
was some fear that Rome would suffer the same fate. Plans were made for the Pope and citizens
of Rome to evacuate the city. Pope Sixtus IV repeated his 1481 call for a crusade. Several Italian
city-states, Hungary, and France responded positively to the appeal. The Republic of Venice did
not, however, as it had signed an expensive peace treaty with the Ottomans in 1479.
In 1481 king Ferdinand I of Naples raised an army to be led by his son Alphonso II of Naples. A
contingent of troops was provided by king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. The city was besieged
starting 1 May 1481. After the death of Mehmed on 3 May, ensuing quarrels about his
succession possibly prevented the Ottomans from sending reinforcements to Otranto. So, the
Turkish occupation of Otranto ended by negotiation with the Christian forces, permitting the
Turks to withdraw to Albania, and Otranto was retaken by Papal forces in 1481.
Return to Constantinople (1453–1478)
Further information: History of Istanbul
Historical photo of Fatih Mosque, built by order of Sultan Mehmed II in Constantinople, the
first imperial mosque built in the city after the Ottoman conquest.
After conquering Constantinople, when Mehmed II finally entered the city through what is now
known as the Topkapi Gate, he immediately rode his horse to the Hagia Sophia, where he
ordered the building to be protected. He ordered that an imam meet him there in order to chant
the Muslim Creed: "I testify that there is no god but Allah. I testify that Muhammad is the
messenger of Allah." The Orthodox cathedral was transformed into a Muslim mosque through
a charitable trust, solidifying Islamic rule in Constantinople.
Mehmed's main concern with Constantinople was with rebuilding the city's defenses and
repopulation. Building projects were commenced immediately after the conquest, which included
the repair of the walls, construction of the citadel, a remarkable hospital with students and
medical staff, a large cultural complex, two sets of barracks for the jannisaries, a tophane gun
foundry outside Galata and building a new palace. To encourage the return of the Greeks and the
Genoese who had fled from Galata, the trading quarter of the city, he returned their houses and
provided them with guarantees of safety. Mehmed issued orders across his empire that Muslims,
Christians, and Jews should resettle in the City demanding that five thousand households needed
to be transferred to Constantinople by September. From all over the Islamic empire, prisoners of
war and deported people were sent to the city; these people were called "Sürgün" in Turkish
(Greek: σουργούνιδες sourgounides; "immigrants").
Mehmed restored the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate (6 January 1454), monk
Gennadios being appointed as the first Orthodox Patriarch and established a Jewish Grand
Rabbinate (Ḥakham Bashi) and the prestigious Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in the
capital, as part of the millet system. In addition he founded, and encouraged his viziers to found,
a number of Muslim institutions and commercial installations in the main districts of
Constantinople, such as the Rum Mehmed Pasha Mosque built by the Grand Vizier Rum
Mehmed Pasha. From these nuclei, the metropolis developed rapidly. According to a survey
carried out in 1478, there were then in Constantinople and neighboring Galata 16,324
households, 3,927 shops, and an estimated population of 80,000. The population was about 60%
Muslim, 20% Christian, and 10% Jewish.
By the end of his reign, Mehmed's ambitious rebuilding program had changed the city into a
thriving imperial capital. According to the contemporary Ottoman historian Neşri, "Sultan
Mehmed created all of Istanbul". Fifty years later, Constantinople had again become the largest
city in Europe.
Two centuries later, the well-known Ottoman itinerant Evliya Çelebi gave a list of groups
introduced into the city with their respective origins. Even today, many quarters of Istanbul, such
as Aksaray and Çarşamba, bear the names of the places of origin of their inhabitants. However,
many people escaped again from the city, and there were several outbreaks of plague, so that in
1459 Mehmed allowed the deported Greeks to come back to the city. This measure apparently
had no great success, since French voyager Pierre Gilles writes in the middle of the 16th century
that the Greek population of Constantinople was unable to name any of the ancient Byzantine
churches that had been transformed into mosques or abandoned. This shows that the population
substitution had been total

Battle
In the 15th century, Constantinople’s walls were widely recognized as the most formidable in all
of Europe. The land walls spanned 4 miles (6.5 km) and consisted of a double line
of ramparts with a moat on the outside; the higher of the two stood as high as 40 feet (12 metres)
with a base as much as 16 feet (5 metres) thick. These walls had never been breached in the
thousand years since their construction. An adjoining sea wall ran along the Golden Horn and the
Sea of Marmara, the latter section being 20 feet (6 metres) high and 5 miles (8 km) long. When
combined with a large metal chain that had been drawn across the Golden Horn, Constantine was
confident that the city’s defenses could repel a naval assault and withstand Mehmed’s land forces
until relief came from Christian Europe. However, Constantine’s capacity to defend his city was
hampered by his small fighting force. Eyewitness Jacopo Tedaldi estimates a presence of 30,000
to 35,000 armed civilians and only 6,000 to 7,000 trained soldiers. Giustiniani intended to
concentrate most of these men at the land walls to the north and west, the centre of which he
observed to be the most vulnerable section of the city. A small fleet of naval and armed merchant
vessels were also stationed in the Golden Horn to defend the chain. However, without outside
support, Constantinople’s defenders would be spread thin.

The Ottoman besiegers vastly outnumbered the Byzantines and their allies. Between 60,000 and
80,000 soldiers fought on land, accompanied by 69 cannons. Baltaoğlu Süleyman Bey
commanded a fleet stationed at Diplokionion with an estimated 31 large and midsize warships
alongside nearly 100 smaller boats and transports. Mehmed’s strategy was straightforward: he
would use his fleet and siege lines to blockade Constantinople on all sides while relentlessly
battering the walls of the city with cannon. He hoped to breach them or otherwise force a
surrender before a Christian relief force could arrive.
On April 6 the Ottomans began their artillery barrage and brought down a section of the wall.
They mounted a frontal assault of the land walls on April 7, but the Byzantines repelled them and
were able to repair the defenses. After pausing to reposition his cannon, Mehmed reopened fire
and thereafter maintained daily bombardment.

On April 12 the sultan dispatched a contingent of troops to subdue two nearby Byzantine forts
and ordered Baltaoğlu to rush the chain. The fleet was twice driven back, and Baltaoğlu retreated
to Diplokionion until the night of the 17th, when he moved to capture the Princes
Islands southeast of the city at the same time that Mehmed’s land regiments assaulted the
Mesoteichon section of the wall. Constantinople’s defenders once again held their ground,
however, and Baltaoğlu’s success at the islands was irreparably marred by the revelation that
three relief ships from the pope and one large Byzantine vessel had nearly reached the city
unhindered. The Ottoman galleys were too short to capture the tall European warships, and, with
the help of the Golden Horn fleet, the warships safely sailed past the chain. Upon hearing of his
navy’s defeat, Mehmed stripped Baltaoğlu of his rank and arranged for his replacement.

Mehmed was determined to take the Golden Horn and pressure the Byzantines into submission.
He angled one of his cannons such that it could strike the defenders of the chain and then began
to construct an oiled wooden ramp upon which he intended to portage his smaller vessels from
the Bosporus to the Golden Horn. By April 22 the ships had circumvented the chain in this way
and, barring the chain itself, seized control of all the waters surrounding the city. The defenders
attempted to attack the remainder of the Ottoman fleet in the Bosporus, but they were defeated.

Having encircled Constantinople in full, Mehmed continued his artillery barrage of the land
walls through May 29. The Ottoman cannon created several breaches, but most were too narrow
to send troops through. The city’s defenders continued to repair the walls at night and reinforced
areas at the damaged Gate of St. Romanus and the Blachernae sector. In the early hours of May
29, Ottoman labourers filled the moat surrounding the city. Just before dawn, the sultan launched
a coordinated artillery, infantry, and naval assault on Constantinople. Two attempts to rush the
Gate of St. Romanus and the Blachernae walls were met with fierce resistance, and the Ottoman
soldiers were forced to fall back. Mehmed ordered a third attack on the gate, this time with one
of his own palace regiments of 3,000 Janissaries. A small group reached the top of a tower
through another gate but were nearly eliminated by the defenders until Giustiniani was
mortally wounded by Ottoman gunfire while on the ramparts. He was carried to the rear, and his
absence sowed confusion and lowered morale among the ranks. This allowed the sultan to send
in another Janissary regiment and take the inner wall at the Gate of St. Romanus.
Istanbul: Hagia Sophia
A rout of the defenders ensued, with many of the Venetian and Genoese fighters retreating to
their ships in the Golden Horn. Emperor Constantine XI is reported to have been killed while
either fighting near the breach or fleeing to an escape boat. Although the sultan attempted to
prevent a total sack of the city, he permitted an initial period of looting that saw the destruction
of many Orthodox churches. When most of Constantinople was secure, Mehmed himself rode
through the streets of the city to the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the largest in all of
Christendom, and converted it into the mosque Ayasofya. He stopped to pray and then demanded
that all further looting cease immediately. The sultan thus completed his conquest of the
Byzantine capital.

Achievements

The conqueror reorganized the Ottoman government and, for the first time, codified the criminal
law and the laws relating to his subjects in one code, whereas the constitution was elaborated in
another, the two codes forming the nucleus of all subsequent legislation. In the utterly autocratic
personality of the conqueror, the classical image of an Ottoman padishah (emperor) was born. He
punished with the utmost severity those who resisted his decrees and laws, and even his Ottoman
contemporaries considered him excessively hard.

Nevertheless, Mehmed may be considered the most broad-minded and freethinking of the
Ottoman sultans. After the fall of Constantinople, he gathered Italian humanists and Greek
scholars at his court; he caused the patriarch Gennadius II Scholarios to write a credo of the
Christian faith and had it translated into Turkish; he collected in his palace a library of works in
Greek and Latin. He called Gentile Bellini from Venice to decorate the walls of his palace with
frescoes as well as to paint his portrait (now in the National Gallery, London). Around the
grand mosque that he constructed, he erected eight colleges, which, for nearly a century, kept
their rank as the highest teaching institutions of the Islamic sciences in the empire. At times, he
assembled the ʿulamāʾ, or learned Muslim teachers, and caused them to discuss theological
problems in his presence. In his reign, mathematics, astronomy, and Muslim theology reached
their highest level among the Ottomans. And Mehmed himself left a divan (a collection of poems
in the traditional style of classical Ottoman literature).

Legacy
Throughout his reign, Mehmed II enacted sweeping administrative changes, reorganization of
military forces, ambitious construction projects, and broad conquests, leaving his successors an
empire to be reckoned with, but he was also known as a benefactor of artists and authors. He
read classical Greek and Roman literature as a child and continued to collect and read relevant
manuscripts throughout his reign as sultan. He supported dozens of poets, writers, and scholars,
and invited philosophers, astronomers, and painters from across Europe and the Middle East to
his court. John Freely describes his court's opulence as:
Both the sultan and the greatest of his grand vezirs were men
of culture and patrons of the arts, and the Conqueror's court in
Istanbul rivalled in its brilliance that of Western princes of the
European Renaissance. (119)

During his reign, he also undertook many bold architectural

undertakings, which included repairing his new capital's
broken infrastructure, building the lavish Topkapı Palace, the
Grand Bazar, and overseeing the construction of several
mosques built in his honor, the most famous of those
being Fatih Camii (Mosque of the Conquerer). It is said that
when he entered the city of Athens after its conquest, he ordered the renovation of all ancient
buildings that were deteriorated by the elements.

Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople earned him the title Fatih (conquerer) by his subjects.
Contrary to popular belief, Constantinople's name was not changed to Istanbul by Mehmed; it
was referred to by the Ottomans as Konstantiniyye, derived from the Arabic name of the city.
Istanbul was the Turkish colloquial pronunciation that was officially adopted by the Republic
of Turkey after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Government Administration & Religious Affairs

Mehmed II made huge strides towards centralizing Ottoman rule and expanding the role of the
sultan. He consolidated his power through weakening and redelegating the roles and
responsibilities of high-ranking officials who would also be bound to the sultan through political
marriages. Wealth and land from the aristocrats were redistributed to Mehmed's slave class,
giving him a reliable and loyal base and having the additional benefit of a check on the power of
any conspiring nobles. Mehmed and his imperial council convened in regular meetings known as
the Divan, named after the floor-level couches adorning the room.

One development during Mehmed's reign, which is more famously attributed to future Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566 CE), is the compilation of law codes, replacing vague
progenitors. These secular law codes, known as kanun, dealt with topics
such as the power structure of the government and taxation of subjects and
were carefully formulated not to clash with religious law (şeriat).

Mehmed's administration had a moderately hands-off approach regarding

religious affairs. Non-Muslim populations living in the Ottoman Empire
were allowed to practice their faith freely but were required to pay a special
tax called  cizye. Furthermore, seeking to legitimize his rule over the largely
Eastern Orthodox minority, Mehmed appointed religious leaders aligned
with his self-interests such as the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadious
Scolarious (1454-1464 CE) and gave them wide-reaching authority over
their religious adherents.

Gennadious Scholarios and Mehmed II

18th-century CE Greek iconographer (Public Domain)

Fall of Constantinople,
 May 29, 1453, conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire. The
dwindling Byzantine Empire came to an end when the Ottomans breached Constantinople’s
ancient land wall after besieging the city for 55 days. Mehmed surrounded Constantinople from
land and sea while employing cannon to maintain a constant barrage of the
city’s formidable walls. The fall of the city removed what was once a powerful defense for
Christian Europe against Muslim invasion, allowing for uninterrupted Ottoman expansion into
eastern Europe.

Lessons Learned

The territorial extent of the Ottoman Empire upon the death of Mehmed II.
Some sources indicate that Mehmed had a passion for his hostage and favourite, Radu the
Fair. Young men condemned to death were spared and added to Mehmed's seraglio if he found
them attractive, and the Porte went to great lengths to procure young noblemen for him.
Mehmed had a strong interest in ancient Greek and medieval Byzantine civilization. His heroes
were Achilles and Alexander the Great and he could discuss Christian religion with some
authority. He was reputed to be fluent in several languages,
including Turkish, Serbian, Arabic, Persian, Greek and Latin.+
At times, he assembled the Ulama, or learned Muslim teachers, and caused them to discuss
theological problems in his presence. During his reign, mathematics, astronomy, and theology
reached their highest level among the Ottomans. His social circle included a number of
humanists and sages such as Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli of Ancona, Benedetto Dei of Florence
and Michael Critobulus of Imbros, who mentions Mehmed as a Philhellene thanks to his interest
in Grecian antiquities and relics. It was on his orders that the Parthenon and other Athenian
monuments were spared destruction. Besides, Mehmed II himself was a poet writing under the
name "Avni" (the helper, the helpful one) and he left a classical diwan poetry collection.
Later Conquests & Death

Soon after Constantinople fell, the Genoese colony city of Pera (now known as Galata)
surrendered peacefully. With his dream of conquering Constantinople realized, Mehmed set his
sights on new targets. In the spring of 1454 CE, he began a campaign in Serbia to annex
territories under the Hungarian sphere of influence. Mehmed's made limited progress, the city of
Novo Brdo, famous for its rare ore deposits, was captured, but the campaign was called off after
Hungarian forces began mobilizing near the border.

Mehmed would make several more incursions into Serbia, during which his first major defeat
was dealt in the Siege of Belgrade in July of 1456 CE. However, Mehmed's final attempt in
subjugating Serbia was successful when in 1459 CE, the Ottomans took control of the fortress of
Smederevo. The rulers of the now-dissolved Despotate Serbia were exiled, and the frontier
territory near the Hungarians was stabilized.

In the years following his success in Serbia, Mehmed began absorbing Byzantine remnant states
in Greece, and the Black Sea coast. He conquered Attica in early 1459 CE, and in May of 1460
CE, he dispatched a force to intervene in a civil war in Morea. With these conquests, only a
small strip of land on the Black Sea coast controlled by the Empire of Trebizond remained as
the last vestige of Byzantine rule in the region.

Map of Eastern Mediterranean in 1450 CE

MapMaster (CC BY-SA)

Trebizond and its surrounding region were conquered in 1461 CE, and this expansion eastward
brought the Ottomans bumping heads with the remaining Anatolian Beyliks. Much like the
situation in Morea that prompted Mehmed's intervention, the Karamanids, too, were plunged in a
civil war. Mehmed's conquest of Karamanid territory brought another powerful eastern
neighbor, the Akkoyunlu Confederation, into conflict with the Ottomans. The clashes would
continue for decades until, in 1501 CE, Mehmed's son and successor Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-
1512 CE) would defeat them.

Perhaps the most noteworthy of Mehmed's conflicts after the conquest of Constantinople was in
Wallachia, where his struggles reining in the ruthless prince Vlad III would serve as a possible
inspiration for the settings of the novel Dracula (1897 CE) written by Bram Stoker. Vlad led
Wallachian resistance against Mehmed's forces and was known for his cruel methods of
execution, massacring entire populations of settlements standing in his way, earning him the
name Vlad the Impaler. His notoriety would spread across + and he would eventually be captured
and imprisoned by the Hungarians. He would be released sometime later, only to perish in battle
in 1476 CE.

The final years of Mehmed's reign would be marked by continuous conflict. Invigorated by their
past successes, the Ottomans would wage a long war against the Venetians (1463-1479 CE), over
their holdings in Southern Greece and the surrounding islands. The war would also spill over into
Albania when legendary Albanian resistance leader Skanderbeg (1444-1478 CE) seeking to keep
Albanian independence from the ever-expanding Ottomans secured an alliance with the
Venetians. However, these wars would conclude in a strategic victory for the Ottomans. After
seizing Venetian possessions in the Aegean and their defeat at the key fortress of Negroponte,
their presence in the region was greatly diminished. Skanderbeg died in 1478 CE, after resisting
the Ottomans for decades. His death would leave a power vacuum in Albania, and contributed to
the cascade of events that would eventually lead to the eventual conquest of Albania by the
Ottomans. In the spring of 1481 CE, Mehmed led a new expedition with his army. During the
march, he fell ill, and on 3 May 1481 CE, he passed away. Mehmed's eldest son Bayezid II
would succeed him as sultan.

Centralization of government
Medal of Mehmet II, with mention "Emperor of Byzantium" ("Byzantii Imperatoris 1481"),
made by Costanzo da Ferrara (1450-1524).
Mehmed the Conqueror consolidated power by building his imperial court, the divan, with
officials who would be solely loyal to him and allow him greater autonomy and authority. Under
previous sultans the divan had been filled with members of aristocratic families that sometimes-
had other interests and loyalties than that of the sultan. Mehmed the Conqueror transitioned the
empire away from the Ghazi mentality that emphasizes ancient traditions and ceremonies in
governance[90] and moved the empire towards a centralized bureaucracy largely made of officials
of devşirme background. Additionally, Mehmed the Conqueror took the step of converting the
religious scholars who were part of the Ottoman madrasas into salaried employees of the
Ottoman bureaucracy who were loyal to him. This centralization was possible and formalized
through a kanunname, issued during 1477–1481, which for the first time listed the chief officials
in the Ottoman government, their roles and responsibilities, salaries, protocol and punishments,
as well as how they related to each other and the sultan.
Once Mehmed had created an Ottoman bureaucracy and transformed the empire from a frontier
society to a centralized government, he took care to appoint officials who would help him
implement his agenda. His first grand vizier was Zaganos Pasha, who was of devşirme
background as opposed to an aristocrat, and Zaganos Pasha's successor, Mahmud Pasha
Angelović, was also of devşirme background. Mehmed was the first sultan who was able to
codify and implement kanunname solely based on his own independent authority. Additionally,
Mehmed was able to later implement kanunname that went against previous tradition or
precedent. This was monumental in an empire that was so steeped in tradition and could be slow
to change or adapt. Having viziers and other officials who were loyal to Mehmed was an
essential part of this government because he transferred more power to the viziers than previous
sultans had. He delegated significant powers and functions of government to his viziers as part of
his new policy of imperial seclusions. A wall was built around the palace as an element of the
more closed era, and unlike previous sultans Mehmed was no longer accessible to the public or
even lower officials. His viziers directed the military and met foreign ambassadors, two essential
parts of governing especially with his numerous military campaigns. One such notable
ambassador was Kinsman Karabœcu Pasha (Turkish: "Karaböcü Kuzen Paşa"), who came from a
rooted family of spies, which enabled him to play a notable role in Mehmed's campaign of
conquering Constantinople.

Patronage of Renaissance artists

Portrait of Mehmed, by Nakkaş Sinan Bey (Topkapı Palace albums)

Aside from his efforts to expand Ottoman dominion throughout the Eastern Mediterranean,
Mehmed II also cultivated a large collection of Western art and literature, many of which were
produced by Renaissance artists. From a young age, Mehmed had shown interest in Renaissance
art and Classical literature and histories, with his school books having caricaturistic illustrations
of ancient coins and portraiture sketched in distinctly European styles. Furthermore, he
reportedly had two tutors, one trained in Greek and another in Latin, who read him Classical
histories including those of Laertius, Livy, and Herodotus in the days leading up to the fall of
Constantinople.
From early on in his reign, Mehmed invested in the patronage of Italian Renaissance artists. His
first documented request in 1461 was a commission from artist Matteo de' Pasti, who resided in
the court of the lord of Rimini, Sigismondo Malatesta. This first attempt was unsuccessful,
though, as Pasti was arrested in Crete by Venetian authorities accusing him of being an Ottoman
spy. Later attempts would prove more fruitful, with some notable artists including Costanzo da
Ferrara and Gentile Bellini both being invited to the Ottoman court.
Aside from his patronage of Renaissance artists, Mehmed was also an avid scholar of
contemporary and Classical literature and history. This interest culminated in Mehmed's work on
building a massive multilingual library that contained over 8000 manuscripts in Persian,
Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Latin, and Greek, among other languages. Of note in this large
collection was Mehmed's Greek scriptorium, which included copies of Arrians’ Anabasis of
Alexander the Great and Homer's Iliad. His interest in Classical works extended in many
directions, including the patronage of the Greek writer Kritiboulos of Imbros, who produced the
Greek manuscript History of Mehmed the Conqueror, alongside his efforts to salvage and rebind
Greek manuscripts acquired after his conquest of Constantinople.
Historians believe that Mehmed's widespread cultural and artistic tastes, especially those aimed
towards the West, served various important diplomatic and administrative functions. His
patronage of Renaissance artists has been interpreted as a method of diplomacy with other
influential Mediterranean states, significantly many Italian states including the Kingdom of
Naples and the Republic of Florence. Furthermore, historians speculate that his Greek
scriptorium was used to educate Greek chancellery officials in an attempt to reintegrate former
Byzantine diplomatic channels with several Italian states that conducted their correspondences in
Greek. Importantly, historians also assert that Mehmed's vast collection of art and literature
worked towards promoting his imperial authority and legitimacy, especially in his newly
conquered lands. This was accomplished through various means, including the invocation of
Mehmed's image as an Oriental neo-Alexandrian figure, which is seen through shared helmet
ornaments in depictions of Mehmed and Alexander on medallion portraits produced during
Mehmed's reign, as well as being a leitmotiv in Kritiboulous’ work. Additionally, his
commissioning of Renaissance artwork was, itself, possibly an attempt to break down Western-
Oriental cultural binaries in order for Mehmed to present himself as a Western-oriented ruler,
among the ranks of contemporary European Christian monarchs.
Mehmed's affinity towards the Renaissance arts, and his strong initiative in its creation and
collection, did not have a large base of support within his own court. One of the many opponents
to Mehmed's collection was his own son and future Sultan, Bayezid II, who was backed by
powerful religious and Turkish factions in his opposition. Upon his accession, Bayezid II sold
Mehmed's collection of portraits and disposed of his statuary.

Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc pronounced. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of
France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her
insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of
France during the Hundred Years' War. Stating that she
was acting under divine guidance, she became a military
leader who transcended gender roles and gained
recognition as a savior of France.

Joan was born to a propertied peasant family

at Domrémy in northeast France. In 1428, she requested to
be taken to Charles, later testifying that she was guided by
visions from the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret,
and Saint Catherine to help him save France from English
domination.
Convinced of her devotion and purity, Charles sent Joan,
who was about seventeen years old, to the siege of Orléans
as part of a relief army. She arrived at the city in April
1429, wielding her banner and bringing hope to the demoralized French army. Nine days after
her arrival, the English abandoned the siege. Joan encouraged the French to aggressively pursue
the English during the Loire Campaign, which culminated in another decisive victory at Patay,
opening the way for the French army to advance on Reims unopposed, where Charles was
crowned as the King of France with Joan at his side. These victories boosted French morale,
paving the way for their final triumph in the Hundred Years' War several decades later.
After Charles's coronation, Joan participated in the unsuccessful siege of Paris in September
1429 and the failed siege of La Charité in November. Her role in these defeats reduced the
court's faith in her. In early 1430, Joan organized a company of volunteers to relieve Compiègne,
which had been besieged by the Burgundians—French allies of the English. She was captured by
Burgundian troops on 23 May. After trying unsuccessfully to escape, she was handed to the
English in November. She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy,
which included blaspheming by wearing men's clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic,
and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. She was declared
guilty and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen.
In 1456, an inquisitorial court reinvestigated Joan's trial and overturned the verdict, declaring
that it was tainted by deceit and procedural errors. Joan has been revered as a martyr, and viewed
as an obedient daughter of the Roman Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of
freedom and independence. After the French Revolution, she became a national symbol of
France. In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church and, two years later,
was declared one of the patron saints of France. She is portrayed in numerous cultural works,
including literature, paintings, sculptures, and music.

Birth
Joan of Arc was born around 1412 in Domrémy, a small village in the Meuse valley now in
the Vosges department in the north-east of France. Her date of birth is unknown and her
statements about her age were vague. Her parents were Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée. Joan
had three brothers and a sister. Her father was a peasant farmer with about 50 acres (20 ha) of
land, and he supplemented the family income as a village official, collecting taxes and heading
the local watch.

She was born during the Hundred Years' War between England and France, that had begun in
1337 over the status of English territories in France and English claims to the French
throne. Nearly all the fighting had taken place in France, devastating its economy. At the time of
Joan's birth, France was divided politically. The French king Charles VI had recurring bouts of
mental illness and was often unable to rule; his brother Louis, Duke of Orléans, and his
cousin John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, quarreled over the regency of France. In 1407, the
Duke of Burgundy ordered the assassination of the Duke of Orléans, precipitating a civil
war. Charles of Orléans succeeded his father as duke at the age of thirteen, and was placed in the
custody of Bernard, Count of Armagnac; his supporters became known as "Armagnacs", while
supporters of the Duke of Burgundy became known as "Burgundians". The future French
king Charles VII had assumed the title of Dauphin (heir to the throne) after the deaths of his four
older brothers, and was associated with the Armagnacs.[26]
Henry V of England exploited France's internal divisions when he invaded in 1415. The
Burgundians took Paris in 1418. In 1419, the Dauphin offered a truce to negotiate peace with the
Duke of Burgundy, but the duke was assassinated by Charles's Armagnac partisans during the
negotiations. The new duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, allied with the English. Charles VI
accused the Dauphin of murdering the Duke of Burgundy and declared him unfit to inherit the
French throne. During a period of illness, Charles's wife Isabeau of Bavaria stood in for him and
signed the Treaty of Troyes, which gave their daughter Catherine of Valois in marriage to Henry
V, granted the succession of the French throne to their heirs, and effectively disinherited the
Dauphin. This caused rumors that the Dauphin was not King Charles VI's son, but the offspring
of an adulterous affair between Isabeau and the murdered duke of Orléans. In 1422, Henry V and
Charles VI died within two months of each other; the 9-month-old Henry VI of England was the
nominal heir of the Anglo-French dual monarchy as agreed in the treaty, but the Dauphin also
claimed the French throne.

Early life
In her youth, Joan did household chores, spun wool, helped her father in the fields and looked
after their animals. Her mother provided Joan's religious education. Much of Domrémy lay in
the Duchy of Bar, whose precise feudal status was unclear; though surrounded by pro-
Burgundian lands, its people were loyal to the Armagnac cause. By 1419, the war had affected
the area, and in 1425, Domrémy was attacked and cattle were stolen. This led to a sentiment
among villagers that the English must be expelled from France to achieve peace. Joan had her
first vision after this raid.
Joan later testified that when she was thirteen, around 1425, a figure she identified as Saint
Michael surrounded by angels appeared to her in the garden. After this vision, she said she wept
because she wanted them to take her with them. Throughout her life, she had visions of St.
Michael, a patron saint of the Domrémy area who was seen as a defender of France. She stated
that she had these visions frequently and that she often had them when the church bells were
rung.[48] Her visions also included St. Margaret and St. Catherine; although Joan never specified,
they were probably Margaret of Antioch and Catherine of Alexandria—those most known in the
area. Both were known as virgin saints who strove against powerful enemies, were tortured
and martyred for their beliefs, and preserved their virtue to the death. Joan testified that she
swore a vow of virginity to these voices. When a young man from her village alleged that she
had broken a promise of marriage, Joan stated that she had made him no promises, and his case
was dismissed by an ecclesiastical court.
During Joan's youth, a prophecy circulating in the French countryside, based on the visions
of Marie Robine of Avignon, promised an armed virgin would come forth to save
France. Another prophecy, attributed to Merlin, stated that a virgin carrying a banner would put
an end to France's suffering. Joan implied she was this promised maiden, reminding the people
around her that there was a saying that France would be destroyed by a woman but would be
restored by a virgin. In May 1428, she asked her uncle to take her to the nearby town
of Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, for an
armed escort to the Armagnac court at Chinon. Baudricourt harshly refused and sent her
home. In July, Domrémy was raided by Burgundian forces which set fire to the town, destroyed
the crops, and forced Joan, her family and the other townspeople to flee. She returned to
Vaucouleurs in January 1429. Her petition was refused again, but by this time she had gained the
support of two of Baudricourt's soldiers, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. Meanwhile,
she was summoned to Nancy under safe conduct by Charles II, Duke of Lorraine, who had heard
about Joan during her stay at Vaucouleurs. The duke was ill and thought she might have
supernatural powers that could cure him. She offered no cures, but reprimanded him for living
with his mistress.
Henry V's brothers, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford and Humphrey, Duke of
Gloucester had continued the English conquest of France. Most of northern France, Paris, and
parts of southwestern France were under Anglo-Burgundian control. The Burgundians
controlled Reims, the traditional site for the coronation of French kings; Charles had not yet
been crowned, and doing so at Reims would help legitimize his claim to the throne. In July 1428,
the English had started to surround Orléans, and had nearly isolated it from the rest of Charles's
territory by capturing many of the smaller bridge towns on the Loire River. Orléans was
strategically important as the last obstacle to an assault on the remainder of Charles's
territory. According to Joan's later testimony, it was around this period that her visions told her
to leave Domrémy to help the Dauphin Charles. Baudricourt agreed to a third meeting with Joan
in February 1429, around the time the English captured an Armagnac relief convoy at the Battle
of the Herrings during the Siege of Orléans. Their conversations, along with Metz and
Poulengy's support, convinced Baudricourt to allow her to go to Chinon for an audience with the
Dauphin. Joan traveled with an escort of six soldiers. Before leaving, Joan put on men's
clothes, which were provided by her escorts and the people of Vaucouleurs. She continued to
wear men's clothes for the remainder of her life.

Chinon
Charles VII met Joan for the first time at the Royal Court in Chinon in late February or early
March 1429, when she was seventeen and he was twenty-six. She told him that she had come to
raise the siege of Orléans and to lead him to Reims for his coronation. They had a private
exchange that made a strong impression on Charles; Jean Pasquerel, Joan's confessor, later
testified that Joan told him she had reassured the Dauphin that he was Charles VI's son and
legitimate king.
Charles and his council needed more assurance, and sent Joan to Poitiers to be examined by a
council of theologians, who declared that she was a good person and a good Catholic. They did
not render a decision on the source of Joan's inspiration, but agreed that sending her to Orléans
could be useful to the king and would test if her inspiration was of divine origin. Joan was then
sent to Tours to be physically examined by women directed by Charles's mother-in-law Yolande
of Aragon, who verified her virginity. This was to establish if she could indeed be the prophesied
virgin savior of France, to show the purity of her devotion, and to ensure she had not consorted
with the Devil.
The dauphin, reassured by the results of these tests, commissioned plate armor for her. She
designed her own banner, and had a sword brought to her from under the altar in the church
at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois. Around this time, she began calling herself "Joan the Maiden",
emphasizing her virginity as a sign of her mission.
Before Joan's arrival at Chinon, the Armagnac strategic situation was bad but not hopeless. The
Armagnac forces were prepared to endure a prolonged siege at Orléans, the Burgundians had
recently withdrawn from the siege due to disagreements about territory, and the English were
debating whether to continue. Nonetheless, after almost a century of war, the Armagnacs were
demoralized. Once Joan joined the Dauphin's cause, her personality began to raise their
spirits inspiring devotion and the hope of divine assistance. Her belief in the divine origin of her
mission turned the longstanding Anglo-French conflict over inheritance into a religious
war. Before beginning the journey to Orléans, Joan dictated a letter to the Duke of Bedford
warning him that she was sent by God to drive him out of France.
Military Champing
In the last week of April 1429, Joan set out from Blois as part of an army carrying supplies for
the relief of Orléans. She arrived there on 29 April and met the commander Jean de Dunois,
the Bastard of Orléans. Orléans was not completely cut off, and
Dunois got her into the city, where she was greeted
enthusiastically. Joan was initially treated as a figurehead to raise
morale, flying her banner on the battlefield. She was not given any
formal command or included in military councils, but quickly
gained the support of the Armagnac troops. She always seemed to
be present where the fighting was most intense, she frequently
stayed with the front ranks, and she gave them a sense she was
fighting for their salvation. Armagnac commanders would
sometimes accept the advice she gave them, such as deciding what
position to attack, when to continue an assault, and how to place
artillery.
On 4 May, the Armagnacs went on the offensive, attacking the outlying bastille de Saint-
Loup (fortress of Saint Loup). Once Joan learned of the attack, she rode out with her banner to
the site of the battle, a mile east of Orléans. She arrived as the Armagnac soldiers were retreating
after a failed assault. Her appearance rallied the soldiers, who attacked again and took the
fortress. On 5 May, no combat occurred since it was Ascension Thursday, a feast day. She
dictated another letter to the English warning them to leave France, and had it tied to
a bolt which was fired by a crossbowman.
The Armagnacs resumed their offensive on 6 May, capturing Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which the
English had deserted. The Armagnac commanders wanted to stop, but Joan encouraged them to
launch an assault on les Augustin’s, an English fortress built around a monastery. After its
capture, the Armagnac commanders wanted to consolidate their gains, but Joan again argued for
continuing the offensive. On the morning of 7 May, the Armagnacs attacked the main English
stronghold, les Tourelles. Joan was wounded by an arrow between the neck and shoulder while
holding her banner in the trench on the south bank of the river, but later returned to encourage
the final assault that took the fortress. The English retreated from Orléans on 8 May, ending the
siege.
At Chinon, Joan had declared that she was sent by God. At Poitiers, when she was asked to show
a sign demonstrating this claim, she replied that it would be given if she were brought to Orléans.
The lifting of the siege was interpreted by many people to be that sign. Prominent clergy such
as Jacques Gélu, Archbishop of Embrun, and the theologian Jean Gerson wrote treatises in
support of Joan after this victory. In contrast, the English saw the ability of this peasant girl to
defeat their armies as proof she was possessed by the Devil.
Loire Campaign
After the success at Orléans, Joan insisted that the Armagnac forces should advance promptly
toward Reims to crown the Dauphin. Charles allowed her to accompany the army under the
command of John II, Duke of Alençon, who collaboratively worked with Joan and regularly
heeded her advice. Before advancing toward Reims, the Armagnacs needed to recapture the
bridge towns along the Loire: Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire, and Beaugency. This would clear the
way for Charles and his entourage, who would have to cross the Loire near Orléans to get from
Chinon to Reims.
The campaign to clear the Loire towns began on 11 June when the Armagnac forces led by
Alençon and Joan arrived at Jargeau and forced the English to withdraw inside the town's walls.
Joan sent a message to the English to surrender; they refused and she advocated for a direct
assault on the walls the next day. By the end of the day, the town was taken. The Armagnac took
few prisoners and many of the English who surrendered were killed. During this campaign, Joan
continued to serve in the thick of battle. She began scaling a siege ladder with her banner in hand
but before she could climb the wall, she was struck by a stone which split her helmet.
Alençon and Joan's army advanced on Meung-sur-Loire. On 15 June, they took control of the
town's bridge, and the English garrison withdrew to a castle on the Loire's north bank. Most of
the army continued on the south bank of the Loire to besiege the castle at Beaugency.
Meanwhile, the English army from Paris under the command of Sir John Fastolf had linked up
with the garrison in Meung and traveled along the north bank of the Loire to relieve
Beaugency. Unaware of this, the English garrison at Beaugency surrendered on 18 June. The
main English army retreated toward Paris; Joan urged the Armagnacs to pursue them, and the
two armies clashed at the Battle of Patay later that day. The English had prepared their forces to
ambush an Armagnac attack with hidden archers, but the Armagnac vanguard detected and
scattered them. A rout ensued that decimated the English army. Fastolf escaped with a small
band of soldiers, but many of the English leaders were captured. Joan arrived at the battlefield
too late to participate in the decisive action, but her encouragement to pursue the English had
made the victory possible
Coronation and siege of Paris
After the destruction of the English army at Patay, some Armagnac leaders argued for an
invasion of English-held Normandy, but Joan remained insistent that Charles must be
crowned. The Dauphin agreed, and the army left Gien on 29 June to march on Reims. The
advance was nearly unopposed. The Burgundian-held town of Auxerre surrendered on 3 July
after three days of negotiations, and other towns in the army's path returned to Armagnac
allegiance without resistance. Troyes, which had a small garrison of English and Burgundian
troops, was the only one to resist. After four days of negotiation, Joan ordered the soldiers to fill
the city's moat with wood and directed the placement of artillery. Fearing an assault, Troyes
negotiated a surrender.
Reims opened its gates on 16 July 1429. Charles, Joan, and the army entered in the evening, and
Charles's consecration took place the following morning. Joan was given a place of honor at the
ceremony, and announced that God's will had been fulfilled.
After the consecration, the royal court negotiated a truce of fifteen days with the Duke of
Burgundy, who promised he would try to arrange the transfer of Paris to the Armagnacs while
continuing negotiations for a definitive peace. At the end of the truce, Burgundy reneged on his
promise. Joan and the Duke of Alençon favored a quick march on Paris, but divisions in
Charles's court and continued peace negotiations with Burgundy led to a slow advance.

As the Armagnac army approached Paris, many of the towns along the way surrendered without
a fight. On 15 August, the English forces under the Duke of Bedford confronted the Armagnacs
near Montépilloy in a fortified position that the Armagnac commanders thought was too strong
to assault. Joan rode out in front of the English positions to try to provoke them to attack. They
refused, resulting in a standoff. The English retreated the following day. The Armagnacs
continued their advance and launched an assault on Paris on 8 September. During the fighting,
Joan was wounded in the leg by a crossbow bolt. She remained in a trench beneath the city walls
until she was rescued after nightfall. The Armagnacs had suffered 1,500 casualties. The
following morning, Charles ordered an end to the assault. Joan was displeased and argued that
the attack should be continued. She and Alençon had made fresh plans to attack Paris, but
Charles dismantled a bridge approaching Paris that was necessary for the attack and the
Armagnac army had to retreat.
After the defeat at Paris, Joan's role in the French court diminished. Her aggressive independence
did not agree with the court's emphasis on finding a diplomatic solution with Burgundy, and her
role in the defeat at Paris reduced the court's faith in her. After the defeat, scholars at
the University of Paris argued that she failed to take Paris because her inspiration was not
divine. In September, Charles disbanded the army, and Joan was not allowed to work with the
Duke of Alençon again.

Campaign against Perrinet Gressart

In October, Joan was sent as part of a force to attack the territory of Perrinet Gressart [fr], a
mercenary who had served the Burgundians and English. The army besieged Saint-Pierre-le-
Moûtier, which fell after Joan encouraged a direct assault on
4 November. The army then tried unsuccessfully to take La-
Charité-sur-Loire in November and December and had to
abandon their artillery during the retreat. This defeat further
diminished Joan's reputation.
Joan returned to court at the end of December, where she
learned that she and her family had been ennobled by
Charles as a reward for her services to him and the
kingdom. Before the September attack on Paris, Charles had
negotiated a four-month truce with the Burgundians, which
was extended until Easter 1430. During this truce, the
French court had no need for Joan.

Public heresy was a capital crime, in which an unrepentant or relapsed heretic could be given
over to the judgment of the secular courts and punished by death. Having signed the abjuration,
Joan was no longer an unrepentant heretic, but could be executed if convicted of relapsing into
heresy.
As part of her abjuration, Joan was required to renounce wearing men's clothes.She exchanged
her clothes for a woman's dress and allowed her head to be shaved. She was returned to her cell
and kept in chains instead of being transferred to an ecclesiastical prison. Witnesses at the
rehabilitation trial stated that Joan was subjected to mistreatment and rape attempts, including
one by an English noble, and that guards placed men's clothes in her cell, forcing her to wear
them. Cauchon was notified that Joan had resumed wearing male clothing. He sent clerics to
admonish her to remain in submission, but the English prevented them from visiting her.

Miniature of Joan's Execution from The Vigils of King Charles VII, anonymous

(1484, Bibliothèque nationale de France)
On 28 May, Cauchon went to Joan's cell, along with several other clerics. According to the trial
record, Joan said that she had gone back to wearing men's clothes because it was more fitting that
she dress like a man while being held with male guards, and that the judges had broken their
promise to let her go to mass and to release her from her chains. She stated that if they fulfilled
their promises and placed her in a decent prison, she would be obedient. When Cauchon asked
about her visions, Joan stated that the voices had blamed her for abjuring out of fear, and that she
would not deny them again. As Joan's abjuration had required her to deny her visions, this was
sufficient to convict her of relapsing into heresy and to condemn her to death. The next day,
forty-two assessors were summoned to decide Joan's fate. Two recommended that she be
abandoned to the secular courts immediately; the rest recommended that the abjuration be read to
her again and explained. In the end, they voted unanimously that Joan was a relapsed heretic, and
should be abandoned to the secular power, the English, for punishment.
At about the age of nineteen, Joan was executed on 30 May 1431. In the morning, she was
allowed to receive the sacraments despite court process requiring they be denied to heretics. She
was then taken to Rouen's Vieux-Marché (Old Marketplace), where she was publicly read her
sentence of condemnation. At this point, she should have been turned over to the appropriate
authority, the bailiff of Rouen, for secular sentencing, but instead was delivered directly to the
English and tied to a tall plastered pillar for execution by burning. She asked to view a cross as
she died, and was given one an English soldier made from a stick, which she kissed and placed
next to her chest.+ A processional crucifix was fetched from the church of Saint-Saveur. She
embraced it before her hands were bound, and it was held before her eyes during her
execution. After her death, her remains were thrown into the Seine River

Visions

Jeanne d'Arc écoutant les voix by Eugène Thirion (1876, Notre Dame Church, Ville de Chatou)
Joan's visions played an important role in her condemnation, and her admission that she had
returned to heeding them led to her execution. Theologians of the era believed that visions could
have a supernatural source. The assessors at her trial focused on determining the specific source
of Joan's visions, using an ecclesiastical form of discretio spirituum (discernment of
spirits). Because she was accused of heresy, they sought to show that her visions were false. The
rehabilitation trial nullified Joan's sentence, but did not declare her visions authentic. In
1894, Pope Leo XIII pronounced that Joan's mission was divinely inspired.
Modern scholars have discussed possible neurological and psychiatric causes for her visions. Her
visions have been described as hallucinations arising from epilepsy or a temporal
lobe tuberculoma. Others have implicated ergot poisoning, schizophrenia, delusional disorder, or
creative psychopathy induced by her early childhood rearing. One of the Promoters of the
Faith at her 1903 canonization trial argued that her visions may have been manifestations
of hysteria. Other scholars argue that Joan created some of the visions' specific details in
response to the demands of the interrogators at her trial.

Many of these explanations have been challenged; [g] the trial records designed to demonstrate
that Joan was guilty of heresy are unlikely to provide the objective descriptions of symptoms
needed to support a medical diagnosis. Joan's firm belief in the divinity of her visions
strengthened her confidence, enabled her to trust herself, and gave her hope during her capture
and trial.
Military leader and symbol of France
Joan of Arc, statue by Denis Foyatier (1855, Orléans)
Joan's reputation as a military leader who helped drive the English from France began to form
before her death. Just after Charles's coronation, Christine de Pizan wrote the poem Ditié de
Jehanne D'Arc, celebrating Joan as a supporter of Charles sent by Divine Providence; the poem
captured the "surge of optimism" and "sense of wonder and gratitude" that "swept through the
whole of the French" after the triumph at Orléans, according to Kennedy and Varty (1977). As
early as 1429, Orléans began holding a celebration in honor of the raising of the siege on 8 May.
After Joan's execution, her role in the Orléans victory encouraged popular support for her
rehabilitation. Joan became a central part of the annual celebration, and by 1435 a play, Mistère
du siège d'Orléans (Mystery of the Siege of Orléans), portrayed her as the vehicle of the divine
will that liberated Orléans. The Orléans festival celebrating Joan continues in modern times.
Less than a decade after her rehabilitation trial, Pope Pius II wrote a brief biography describing
her as the maid who saved the kingdom of France. Louis XII commissioned a full-length
biography of her around 1500.
Joan's early legacy was closely associated with the divine right of the monarchy to rule
France. During the French Revolution, her reputation came into question because of her
association with the monarchy and religion, and the festival in her honor held at Orléans was
suspended in 1793. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte authorized its renewal and the creation of a
new statue of Joan at Orléans, stating: "The illustrious Joan ... proved that there is no miracle
which French genius cannot accomplish when national independence is threatened."
Since then, she has become a prominent symbol as the defender of the French nation. After the
French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, Joan became a rallying point for a new crusade to
reclaim Lorraine, the province of her birth. The Third Republic held a patriotic civic holiday in
her honor, on 8 May to celebrate her victory at Orléans. A series of French warships have been
named for her. During World War I, her image was used to inspire victory. In World War II, all
sides of the French cause appealed to her legacy: she was a symbol for Philippe Pétain in Vichy
France, a model for Charles de Gaulle's leadership of the Free French, and an example for
the Communist resistance. More recently, her association with the monarchy and national
liberation has made her a symbol for the French far right, including the monarchist
movement Action Française and the National Front Party. Joan's image has been used by the
entire spectrum of French politics, and she is an important reference in political dialogue about
French identity and unity.

Saint and heroic woman

Illustration by Albert Lynch (1903, in Figaro Illustré magazine)

Joan is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. She was viewed as a religious figure in Orléans
after the siege was lifted and an annual panegyric was pronounced there on her behalf until the
1800s. In 1849, the Bishop of Orlėans Félix Dupanloup delivered an oration that attracted
international attention,9 and in 1869 petitioned Rome to begin beatification proceedings. She
was beatified by Pope Pius X in 1909, and canonized on 16 May 1920 by Pope Benedict
XV. Her feast day is 30 May, the anniversary of her execution. In an apostolic letter, Pope Pius
XI declared Joan one of the patron saints of France on 2 March 1922.

Joan was canonized as a Virgin, not as a Christian martyr because she had been put to death by a
canonically constituted court, which did not execute for her faith in Christ, but for her private
revelation. Nevertheless, she has been popularly venerated as a martyr since her death: one who
suffered for her modesty and purity, her country, and the strength of her convictions. Joan is
also remembered as a visionary in the Church of England with a commemoration on 30
May. She is revered in the pantheon of the Cao Dai religion.
While Joan was alive, she was already being compared to biblical women heroes, such
as Esther, Judith, and Deborah. Her claim of virginity, which signified her virtue and
sincerity, was upheld by women of status from both the Armagnac and Burgundian-English sides
of the Hundred Years' War: Yolande of Aragon, Charles's mother-in-law, and Anne of
Burgundy, Duchess of Bedford.
Joan has been described as a model of an autonomous woman who challenged traditions of
masculinity and femininity to be heard as an individual in a patriarchal culture setting her own
course by heeding the voices of her visions. She fulfilled the traditionally male role of a military
leader,] while maintaining her status as a valiant woman. Merging qualities associated with both
genders, Joan has inspired numerous artistic and cultural works for many centuries. In the
nineteenth century, hundreds of works of art about her including biographies, plays, and musical
scores—were created in France, and her story became popular as an artistic subject in Europe
and North America. By the 1960s, she was the topic of thousands of books. Her legacy has
become global, and inspires novels, plays, poems, operas, films, paintings, children's books,
advertising, computer games, comics and popular culture across the world

Joan of Arc’s Military Successes and Failures

Joan of Arc was an aggressive military commander who always opted for offense instead of
defense. In thirteen known engagements, her troops were victorious nine times. At least thirty
different cities, towns, and villages surrendered without a fight when she approached with her
army. Personally, she was a skilled horseman and swordsman, but tactically, she knew how to
direct armies and place gunpowder artillery. She was successful when she had the troops and the
cannons to either match or overpower her opponents, but when she fought in overwhelming
circumstances, she could not pull off a brilliant victory. In fact, the lack of cannons to match her
opponents attributed directly to all four of her losses. Historians have penned thousands of books
that focus on this teenager's gender, her influence on the Hundred Years War, and her
canonization, but this paper aims to examine Joan's contribution to the battlefield. While Joan's
aggressive approach to war and her skill with artillery made her a formidable opponent, they
were also her greatest weakness and led to her eventual capture.

Joan's Inspiration and Intimidation

Historians have debated Joan's contributions for centuries. Bernard Montgomery fenced his
opinion by stating that he never determined "whether Joan had any God-given military ability
herself or whether she was merely a tool in the hands of the French generals."15 By "tool,"
Montgomery meant that Joan merely inspired men to fight and contributed little else. It is true
that Joan inspired. In most of her engagements, she carried a white banner that depicted Jesus,
the Virgin Mary, and two angels. This banner was easily recognizable by the French and their
opponents. Circumstances--whether they were miraculous or just great war stories--showed that
her aggressive approach inspired the French and frightened the English. While trying to lift the
siege at Orléans, there were several instances where Joan inspired the troops to press their fight
in the midst of panic. On May 4, the French attacked an English fortification without Joan. As
she rushed to the frontlines, "she found many wounded, which distressed her greatly."16 Seeing
the gruesome sight of retreating, wounded troops must have discouraged her as it would any
soldier, but she pressed on and pushed the French to continue their attack. They took the fort and
"many English were killed."17 During an attack on another English fort outside Orléans, an
arrow hit Joan above the breast in plain sight of everyone in the battle. While Joan had her
wounds dressed, the French, who had been attacking all day long, faltered. As her troops were
retreating, Joan returned, stuck her banner on the edge of the ditch surrounding the fort, and
declared, "[T]here should be no retreat."18 Both the French and English soldiers who previously
thought she was dead--or at least mortally wounded--were shocked. The French gained courage
and attacked; the English were afraid and fled. Joan's troops took the fort with little resistance.
Most of the English drowned in their retreat when they crowded a weak bridge that collapsed
over the Loire River. There is precedence for a military commander encouraging troops with his
mere presence at the front lines. Julius Caesar bragged how his presence at a battle in Gaul gave
"fresh heart and hope" to his troops and "each man wanted to do his best under the eyes of his
commander-in-chief."19 Joan with her banner had a stronger effect, because she not only
brought courage to her men, but she also instilled fear in her opponents. At Montépilloy, an
open-field battle, Joan struggled to get the English and the Burgundians to leave their defensive
positions. Joan rode out and taunted her opponents, but the commander would not order an attack
"for he feared that his army would be demoralized at the sight of Joan's banner."20
This intimidation factor followed Joan from May through September 1429, where more than
thirty cities surrendered without a fight. These cities, however, had more to fear than Joan's
banner. By July, the French had killed upwards of 3,500 English troops.21 Before Joan fought
her first battle, she sent a letter to the English demanding that they surrender all their French
cities and leave the continent. Those that did "not obey, I shall have them all killed."22 These
were not empty threats. At the Siege of Jargeau, 700 English troops defended the town for two
days. After the first night of fighting, Joan demanded the town's capitulation or "you will be
massacred."23 The English refused and Joan's cannons bombarded the town. Eventually, the
French assaulted the walls and killed as many as 1,100 people, which means the dead included
English troops and French civilians.24 This was not the only incident of massacres that Joan left
in her trail and word of these events surely preceded her throughout France. Joan and her banner
inspired her troops and struck fear in her enemies, but the massacres certainly aided her in the
thirty-plus bloodless capitulations.

Joan's Aggressiveness

Regardless of Joan's troop strength or supplies, she remained aggressive. Even before moving
into Burgundy to assault Saint-Pierre-le Moûtier and La Charité, she ignored warnings about the
coming winter.36 This aggressiveness served her well on June 18, 1429, at the Battle of Patay
where she pushed her commanders to pursue the English. After several successful sieges, the
French rode their momentum to gain the open-field victory, an arena where the English were
previously dominant. Again, at Lagny on March 29, 1430, Joan's cavalry charged a force of 300-
400 Burgundians three times, putting most "to the sword" and capturing the rest.37 A month and
a half later at Choisy-au-Bac, Joan led several assaults against Burgundians, but their cannons
were too powerful and she retreated. Finally, on the morning of May 23, Joan arrived at
Compiégne. The Burgundians arrived with a force that "to this date, there was no power with a
stronger or more numerous gunpowder arsenal."38 Joan aggressively led her cavalry out in a
charge. After some skirmishes, the Burgundians captured her. These last two battles show how
Joan's aggressiveness worked against her. She appeared to have no notion of defense when she
entered Compiégne, because she immediately charged out of the city when the Burgundians
arrived. Compiégne was not a weak city and its citizens possessed a defensive mentality. They
had gone as far as to knock down towers that got in the way of their cannons. In fact, after the
summer, the Burgundians gave up the siege and abandoned most of their artillery in the
retreat.39 The city successfully defended itself, but because Joan opted for offense instead of
defense, she became a captive on the first day of the siege.
Joan of Arc was inspirational for her troops and she possessed military skills that helped the
French accomplish some much-needed victories over the English. Focusing solely on Joan's
inspirational qualities serves both admirers and skeptics. The admirers are able to glorify her
accomplishments and gloss over her failures as nothing more than an ungrateful King tossing
aside a gift from God. Skeptics are able to view Joan as nothing more than a "tool" used by
military commanders who did all the real strategizing. This argument is insufficient, because it
ignores essential facts. For one, Joan still had victories even after the King dissolved her army
and the most experienced commanders were no longer at her side. Second, Joan's aggressive
approach remained the same. The Battle of Lagny featured the same cavalry charge approach as
the Battle of Patay. The successful siege of Saint-Pierre-le Moûtier featured the same cannon-
intensive assault as the successful sieges of Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency. These victories had
eluded the French for nearly fifteen years as the English and the Burgundian allies rarely saw
defeat. Yet with Joan, the French army of thousands finally experienced major victories and even
when the King dissolved her army, Joan still had victories with only a few hundred troops.
Although her career was short, her understanding of artillery and her aggressive approach to
battles garnered nine victories to her name. Her ability to intimidate with her mystique,
overwhelming victories, and massacres resulted in dozens of cities surrendering without a fight.
Yet, with all her martial ability, she had her weaknesses. She was too dependent on artillery and
she never fought defensively, and as a result, she lost four battles, the fourth of which was her
last.

Henry V: The Warrior-Prince

One of the most renowned kings in English history, Henry V (1387-

1422) led two successful invasions of France, cheering his
outnumbered troops to victory at the 1415 Battle of Agincourt and
eventually securing full control of the French throne. His portrayal
in three of Shakespeare’s histories made him a paragon of English spirit and chivalry
—though his wartime actions reveal a more ruthless approach.

Leader’s Vision:
In presenting the figure of its heroic yet ruthless protagonist, Henry V’s predominant concern is
the nature of leadership and its relationship to morality. The play proposes that the qualities that
define a good ruler are not necessarily the same qualities that define a good person. Henry is an
extraordinarily good leader: he is intelligent, focused, and inspiring to his men. He uses any and
all resources at his disposal to ensure that he achieves his goals. Shakespeare presents Henry’s
charismatic ability to connect with his subjects and motivate them to embrace and achieve his
goals as the fundamental criterion of good leadership, making Henry seem the epitome of a good
leader. By inspiring his men to win the Battle of Agincourt despite overwhelming odds, Henry
achieves heroic status. But in becoming a great king, Henry is forced to act in a way that, were
he a common man, might seem immoral and even unforgivable. In order to strengthen the
stability of his throne, Henry betrays friends such as Falstaff, and he puts other friends to death
in order to uphold the law. While it is difficult to fault Henry for having Scrope killed, since
Scrope was plotting to assassinate him, Henry’s cruel punishment of Bardolph is less
understandable, as is his willingness to threaten the gruesome murder of the children of Harfleur
in order to persuade the governor to surrender. Henry talks of favoring peace, but once his mind
is settled on a course of action, he is willing to condone and even create massive and unprovoked
violence in order to achieve his goal.

Early life

Henry was born in August of 1386 (or 1387) at Monmouth Castle on the Welsh border.
His father, Henry of Bolingbroke, deposed his cousin Richard II in 1399. With Henry
IV’s ascension, the younger Henry became Prince of Wales and spent eight years
leading armies against the rebellious Welsh ruler Owain Glyndwr. In 1403 Henry
fought alongside his father against their former ally Henry “Hotspur” Percy in the
Battle of Shrewsbury. During the battle, the younger Henry was hit in the face with an
arrow but was saved by the daring surgical removal of the arrowhead. Henry was the
eldest son of Henry, earl of Derby (afterward Henry IV), by Mary de Bohun. On his father’s
exile in 1398, Richard II took the boy into his own charge, treated him kindly, and knighted him
in 1399. Henry’s uncle, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, seems to have been responsible
for his training, and, despite his early entry into public life, he was well educated by the
standards of his time. He grew up fond of music and reading and became the first English king
who could both read and write with ease in the vernacular tongue. On October 15, 1399, after his
father had become king, Henry was created earl of Chester, duke of Cornwall, and prince of
Wales, and soon afterward, duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster. From October 1400 the
administration of Wales was conducted in his name, and in 1403 he took over actual command
of the war against the Welsh rebels, a struggle that absorbed much of his restless energy until
1408. Thereafter he began to demand a voice in government and a place on the council, in
opposition to his ailing father and Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury. The stories of
Prince Henry’s reckless and dissolute youth, immortalized by Shakespeare, and of the sudden
change that overtook him when he became king, have been traced back to within 20 years of his
death and cannot be dismissed as pure fabrication. This does not involve accepting them in the
exaggerated versions of the Elizabethan playwrights, to which the known facts of his conduct in
war and council provide a general contradiction. Probably they represent no more than the
natural ebullience of a young man whose energies found insufficient constructive outlet. The
most famous incident, his quarrel with the chief justice, Sir William Gascoigne, was a Tudor
invention, first related in 1531.

Henry succeeded his father on March 21, 1413. In the early years of his reign his position was
threatened by an abortive Lollard rising (January 1414) and by a conspiracy (July 1415) of
Richard of York, earl of Cambridge, and Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham, in favour of Edmund
Mortimer, earl of March. On each occasion Henry was forewarned and the opposition was
suppressed without mercy. Neither incident long distracted him from his chief concern: his
ambitious policy toward France. Not content with a demand for possession of Aquitaine and
other lands ceded by the French at the Treaty of Calais (1360), he also laid claim to Normandy,
Touraine, and Maine (the former Angevin holdings) and to parts of France that had never been in
English hands. Although such demands were unlikely to be conceded even by the distracted
government of France under King Charles VI, Henry seems to have convinced himself that his
claims were just and not a merely cynical cover for calculated aggression. Yet if “the way of
justice” failed, he was ready to turn to “the way of force,” and warlike preparations were well
advanced long before the negotiations with Charles, initiated during the reign of Richard II, were
finally broken off in June 1415.

Marriage
After his father became king, it was suggested that Henry marry the widow of Richard
II, Isabella of Valois, but this had been refused. After this, there were negotiations to arrange a
marriage with Catherine of Pomerania, Countess Palatine of Neumarkt for three years, between
1401 and 1404, but it ultimately failed.
In 1420 Henry V married Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France and younger
sister of Isabella of Valois. Her dowry, upon the agreement between the two kingdoms, was
600,000 crowns.[41] Together the couple had one child, Henry.[34] Upon Henry V's death, the
infant prince became King Henry VI of England.
Early military career and role in Government
The Welsh revolt of Owain Glyndŵr absorbed Henry's energies until 1408. Then, as a result of
the king's ill health, Henry began to take a wider share in politics. From January 1410, helped by
his uncles Henry and Thomas Beaufort, legitimised sons of John of Gaunt, he had practical
control of the government. Both in foreign and domestic policy he differed from the king, who
discharged his son from the council in November 1411. The quarrel of father and son was
political only, though it is probable that the Beauforts had discussed the abdication of Henry IV.
Their opponents certainly endeavoured to defame Prince Henry.
It may be that the tradition of Henry's riotous youth, immortalised by Shakespeare, is partly due
to political enmity. Henry's record of involvement in war and politics, even in his youth,
disproves this tradition. The most famous incident, his quarrel with the chief justice, has no
contemporary authority and was first related by Sir Thomas Elyot in 1531.
The story of Falstaff originated in Henry's early friendship with Sir John Oldcastle, a supporter
of the Lollards. Shakespeare's Falstaff was originally named "Oldcastle," following his main
source, The Famous Victories of Henry V. Oldcastle's descendants objected, and the name was
changed (the character became a composite of several real persons, including Sir John Fastolf).
That friendship, and the prince's political opposition to Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of
Canterbury, perhaps encouraged Lollard hopes. If so, their disappointment may account for the
statements of ecclesiastical writers like Thomas Walsingham that Henry, on becoming king, was
suddenly changed into a new man.

Arms
Henry's arms as Prince of Wales were those of the kingdom, differenced by a label argent of
three points. Upon his accession, he inherited use of the arms of the kingdom undifferenced.


 Henry's achievement as Prince of Wales
 

Royal achievement as king.

A Pious King Prepares for War

Henry IV died in 1413, and the 26-year-old prince took the throne as Henry V.
Conspiracies soon arose among his onetime friends to unseat him in favor of Richard
II’s heir Edmund Mortimer. In 1415 Henry executed Lord Scrope and the earl of
Cambridge, the leading plotters, Meanwhile, Henry was making demands of France—
first for the return of Aquitaine to England in fulfillment of a 1360 treaty, then for a
2-million-crown payment, then for the king’s daughter Catherine’s hand in marriage.
In 1415 Henry gathered his army and sailed for France. and defeated a rebellion led by
his old associate John Oldcastle (the model for Shakespeare’s Falstaff).

Reign

After Henry IV died on 20 March 1413, Henry V succeeded him and was crowned on 9 April
1413 at Westminster Abbey. The ceremony was marked by a terrible snowstorm, but the
common people were undecided as to whether it was a good or bad omen. Henry was described
as having been "very tall (6ft 3 in), slim, with dark hair cropped in a ring above the ears, and
clean-shaven". His complexion was ruddy, the face lean with a prominent and pointed nose.
Depending on his mood, his eyes "flashed from the mildness of a doves to the brilliance of a
lion's".

A gold noble coin of Henry V
Henry tackled all of the domestic policies together and gradually built on them a wider policy.
From the first, he made it clear that he would rule England as the head of a united nation. He let
past differences be forgotten –the late Richard II was honourably re-interred; the young Edmund
Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, was taken into favour; the heirs of those who had suffered under
the last reign were restored gradually to their titles and estates. Yet, where Henry saw a grave
domestic danger, he acted firmly and ruthlessly, such as the Lollard discontent in January 1414
and including the execution by burning of Henry's old friend Sir John Oldcastle in 1417 to "nip
the movement in the bud" and make his own position as ruler secure.

English chancery hand. Facsimile of letter from Henry, 1418

Henry's reign was generally free from serious trouble at home. The exception was
the Southampton Plot in favour of Mortimer, involving Henry, Baron Scrope, and Richard, Earl
of Cambridge (grandfather of the future King Edward IV), in July 1415. Mortimer himself
remained loyal to the King.Starting in August 1417, Henry promoted the use of the English
language in government and his reign marks the appearance of Chancery Standard English as
well as the adoption of English as the language of record within government. He was the first
king to use English in his personal correspondence since the Norman conquest 350 years earlier.
Portrait of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, 1433
Henry could now turn his attention to foreign affairs. A writer of the next generation was the first
to allege that Henry was encouraged by ecclesiastical statesmen to enter into the French war as a
means of diverting attention from home troubles. This story seems to have no foundation. Old
commercial disputes and the support the French had lent to Owain Glyndŵr were used as an
excuse for war, while the disordered state of France afforded no security for peace. King Charles
VI of France was prone to mental illness; at times he thought he was made of glass, and his
eldest surviving son was an unpromising prospect. However, it was the old dynastic claim to the
throne of France, first pursued by Edward III of England, that justified war with France in
English opinion.
Following the Battle of Agincourt, King Sigismund of Hungary (later Holy Roman Emperor)
made a visit to Henry in hopes of making peace between England and France. His goal was to
persuade Henry to modify his demands against the French. Henry lavishly entertained him and
even had him enrolled in the Order of the Garter. Sigismund, in turn, inducted Henry into
the Order of the Dragon. Henry had intended to crusade for the order after uniting the English
and French thrones, but he died before fulfilling his plans. Sigismund left England several
months later, having signed the Treaty of Canterbury acknowledging English claims to France.
The French wars

Battle of Agincourt
Henry V’s true genius is revealed in the planning and execution of his subsequent campaigns for
the conquest of France. Before hostilities began, his diplomatic skill was exerted in an effort to
secure the support or at least the neutrality of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. His attempts
to deprive France of maritime assistance show an awareness of the importance of sea
power unusual in medieval kings, and after the Battle of the Seine (August 1416), England’s
naval mastery of the Channel was not seriously disputed. At home, Henry turned to the
systematic financing of his projected invasion, partly through large-scale borrowing, partly
through parliamentary taxation, the generosity of which reflects his success in arousing national
enthusiasm for the war. Henry began the struggle with the wholehearted support of the magnates
and the backing of a united nation. His military strategy was conceived with equal ability. It
stands in marked contrast with the haphazard and spasmodic operations of the English in France
in the previous century. His main objective, to which the winning of battles was largely
irrelevant, was the systematic reduction of the great towns and fortresses of northern France.
These, kept as headquarters of permanent English garrisons, would become focal points for the
subjection of the surrounding countryside; behind the soldiers were to come administrators and
tax collectors, who would make the war pay for itself. Despite the forethought and grasp this
plan displayed, its execution took longer than Henry had anticipated. It absorbed his energies for
seven years and brought him to an early grave. His first campaign brought the capture of
Harfleur (September 1415) and the great victory of Agincourt (October 25, 1415). This
resounding triumph made Henry the diplomatic arbiter of Europe: it won him a visit (1416) from
the Holy Roman emperor Sigismund, with whom he made a treaty of alliance at Canterbury
(1416) and whose influence was used to detach Genoa from its naval alliance with France. The
cooperation of the two rulers led directly to the ending of the papal schism through the election
of Martin V (1417), an objective that Henry had much at heart. Thereafter he returned to the
long, grim war of sieges and the gradual conquest of Normandy. Rouen, the capital of northern
France, surrendered in January 1419, and the murder of Duke John of Burgundy in September
1419 brought him the Burgundian alliance. These successes forced the French to agree to
the Treaty of Troyes on May 21, 1420. Henry was recognized as heir to the French throne and
regent of France, and Catherine, the daughter of Charles, was married to him on June 2. He was
now at the height of his power, but his triumph was short-lived. His health grew worse at the
sieges of Melun and Meaux, and he died of camp fever at the château of Vincennes in 1422.

Character and ability of Henry V

Henry’s character is by no means wholly admirable. Hard and domineering, he was intolerant of
opposition and could be ruthless and cruel in pursuit of his policy. His lack of chivalrous
qualities deprives him of any claim to be regarded as “the typical medieval hero.” Yet
contemporaries united in praising his love of justice, and even French writers of his own day
admired him as a brave, loyal, and upright man, an honorable fighter, and a commanding
personality in whom there was little of the mean and the paltry. Although personally lacking in
warmth, he had the capacity to inspire devotion in others, and he possessed high qualities of
leadership. His piety was genuine, and on his deathbed, he expressed a last wish that he might
live to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in a new crusade. In respect of ability, he must rank high
among English kings. His achievement was remarkable: it has been rightly observed that “he
found a nation weak and drifting and after nine years left it dominant in Europe.” The tragedy of
his reign was that he used his great gifts not for constructive reform at home but to commit his
country to a dubious foreign war. His premature death made success abroad unlikely and
condemned England to a long, difficult minority rule by his successor.

Diplomacy
Command of the sea was secured by driving the Genoese allies of the French out of the English
Channel. While Henry was occupied with peace negotiations in 1416, a French and Genoese
fleet surrounded the harbour at the English-garrisoned Harfleur. A French land force also
besieged the town. In March 1416 a raiding force of soldiers under the Earl of Dorset, Thomas
Beaufort, was attacked and narrowly escaped defeat at the Battle of Valmont after a
counterattack by the garrison of Harfleur. To relieve the town, Henry sent his brother, John,
Duke of Bedford, who raised a fleet and set sail from Beachy Head on 14 August. The Franco-
Genoese fleet was defeated the following day after the gruelling seven-hour Battle of the
Seine and Harfleur was relieved. Diplomacy successfully detached Emperor Sigismund from
supporting France, and the Treaty of Canterbury—also signed in August 1416—confirmed a
short-lived alliance between England and the Holy Roman Empire.

1417–20 campaign and 1421 campaign

Late 15th-century depiction of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Valois. British Library, London.

With those two potential enemies gone, and after two years of patient preparation following the
Battle of Agincourt, Henry renewed the war on a larger scale in 1417. After taking Caen, he
quickly conquered Lower Normandy and Rouen was cut off from Paris and besieged. This
siege has cast an even darker shadow on the reputation of the king, along with his order to slay
the French prisoners at Agincourt. Rouen, starving and unable to support the women and
children of the town, forced them out through the gates believing that Henry would allow them
to pass through his army unmolested. However, Henry refused to allow this, and the expelled
women and children died of starvation in the ditches surrounding the town. The French were
paralysed by the disputes between Burgundians and Armagnacs. Henry skilfully played one
against the other without relaxing his warlike approach.
In January 1419, Rouen fell. Those Norman French who had resisted were severely
punished: Alain Blanchard, who had hanged English prisoners from the walls of Rouen, was
summarily executed; Robert de Livet, Canon of Rouen, who had excommunicated the English
king, was packed off to England and imprisoned for five years.
By August, the English were outside the walls of Paris. The intrigues of the French parties
culminated in the assassination of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, by Dauphin Charles's
partisans at Montereau-Fault-Yonne on 10 September. Philip the Good, the new duke, and the
French court threw themselves into Henry's arms. After six months of negotiation, the Treaty of
Troyes recognised Henry as the heir and regent of France. On 2 June 1420 at Troyes Cathedral,
he married Catherine of Valois, the French king's daughter. They had only one son, Henry, born
on 6 December 1421 at Windsor Castle. From June to July 1420, King Henry's army besieged
and took the military fortress castle at Montereau-Fault-Yonne close to Paris. He besieged and
captured Melun in November 1420, returning to England shortly thereafter. In 1428, Charles VII
retook Montereau, to once again see the English take it over within a short time. Finally, on 10
October 1437, Charles VII was victorious in regaining Montereau-Fault-Yonne.
While Henry was in England, his brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, led the English forces in
France. On 22 March 1421, Thomas led the English to a disastrous defeat at the Battle of
Baugé against a Franco-Scottish army. The duke was killed in the battle. On 10 June, Henry
sailed back to France to retrieve the situation. It was to be his last military campaign. From July
to August, Henry's forces besieged and captured Dreux, thus relieving allied forces at Chartres.
On 6 October, his forces laid siege to Meaux, capturing it on 11 May 1422.
Role as a Leader:
“Henry V as a Model for a King, Citizen, and Common Man,” effective leaders should be people
who are respected, revered, and inspirational for the future generations. For Shakespeare to
present Henry V realistically, he required a large quantity of in-depth research into English
history. According to Burrus, no other character had more research put into his development than
Henry V. Thanks to Shakespeare's effort, we can see firsthand what an effective leader
resembles. Henry’s morals are what we should use to model our lives (Burrus, par. 1).
     When an individual is placed into a position of leadership, he or she could reflect on the way
Henry V acted. Proving to be a superior military leader as well as politically ingenious were two
actions that allowed him to become a role model for the future monarchs of England (Burrus,
par.     Henry’s compassion can be compared to that of Grant when General George Pickett
visited him. Grant responded to the apparent need of a fellow General by saying, “Pickett, it
seems funny doesn’t it, that I should have money to offer, but how much do you need?” (Pickett,
89-93). Although showing compassion to all mankind is a good quality, having a little extra
when there is a conflict or crisis happening can be a window through which to shine one’s
effectiveness.
     Henry shows this kind of compassion also while dealing with the up-coming battle with
Hotspur and his family by sending a message to Hotspur, pleading for the stop of senseless
bloodshed and loss of life.

Legacy
Henry VI was less than a year old when he took the English and French thrones. By
the time he was deposed in 1461, he had lost most of the French territories his father
had won and England was riven by the War of the Roses.

Lessons Learned:

England's King Henry brought to the field only 5,000 or 6,000 men, while the French force
numbered 20,000-30,000. As Shakespeare's soldier Exeter exclaimed in anguish, "There's five to
one; besides, they all are fresh."

The odds become more stunning when you realize the French knights were better rested, better
fed, better equipped, and healthier. Plus, they were fighting on their own territory.

The night before the battle, the English camp lay stone quiet, fearful, with men kneeling and
making their final confessions to the priests before they died. The French camp sounded like
Mardi Gras as knights threw dice to see who would get which prisoners

Death
Henry V died on 31 August 1422 at the Château de Vincennes. The commonly held view is that
Henry V contracted dysentery in the period just after the Siege of Meaux, which ended on 9 May
1422. However, the symptoms and severity of dysentery present themselves fairly quickly and he
seems to have been healthy in the weeks following the siege. At the time speculative causes of
his illness also included smallpox, the bacterial infection erysipelas and even leprosy. But there
is no doubt he had contracted a serious illness sometime between May and June. Recovering at
the castle of Vincennes, by the end of June it seems he was well enough to lead his forces with
the intent of engaging the Dauphinist forces at Cosne-sur-Loire. At the outset he would have
been riding in full armour, probably in blistering heat, as the summer of 1422 was extremely hot.
He was struck down again, with a debilitating fever, possibly heatstroke, or a relapse of his
previous illness. Whatever the cause or causes, he would not recover from this final bout of
illness. For a few short weeks he was carried around in a litter, and his enemies having retreated,
he decided to return to Paris. One story has of him trying, one last time, to mount a horse
at Charenton and failing. He was taken back to Vincennes, around 10 August, where he died
some weeks later. He was 35 years old and had reigned for nine years. Shortly before his death,
Henry V named his brother, John, Duke of Bedford, regent of France in the name of his son,
Henry VI of England, then only a few months old. Henry V did not live to be crowned King of
France himself, as he might confidently have expected after the Treaty of Troyes, because
Charles VI, to whom he had been named heir, survived him by two months.
Henry's comrade-in-arms and Lord Steward, John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley, brought Henry's
body back to England and bore the royal standard at his funeral. Henry V was buried in
Westminster Abbey on 7 November 1422. An exhumation in 1953, in which it appeared that
Henry V shared a grave with Richard Courtenay, led to speculation that Henry and Courtenay
had been lovers. However, Courtenay's grave was found in the base of Henry's chantry,
perchance disturbed when the king's memorial was built. Henry's last will and codicils, which
gave specific instructions on how he should be buried, made no mention of a co-burial with
anyone else.

Drawbacks:

It is entirely possible that Henry died just at the right time for his legend to remain, and that
another nine years would have tarnished it greatly. The goodwill and support of the English
people were definitely wavering by 1422 as the money was drying up and Parliament had mixed
feelings towards Henry's seizure of the crown of France. The English people wanted a strong,
successful king, but they were concerned about his level of interest in France and they certainly
didn't want to pay for a prolonged conflict there.

Ultimately, history's view of Henry is colored by the Treaty of Troyes. On the one hand, Troyes
established Henry as the heir to France. However, Henry's rival heir, the Dauphin retained strong
support and rejected the treaty. Troyes thus committed Henry to a long and expensive war
against a faction who still controlled roughly half of France, a war which might take decades
before the treaty could be enforced and for which his resources were running out. The task of
properly establishing the Lancastrians as dual kings of England and France was probably
impossible, but many also consider the dynamic and determined Henry as one of the few people
able to do it.

Henry's personality undermines his reputation. His confidence was part of an iron will and
fanatical determination that hints at a cold, aloof character masked by the glow of victories.
Henry seems to have focused on his rights and goals above those of his kingdom. As prince,
Henry pushed for greater power and, as an ailing king, his last will made no provision for the
care of the kingdom after his death. Instead, he spent his energies arranging twenty-thousand
masses to be performed in his honor. At the time of his death, Henry had been growing more
intolerant of enemies, ordering ever more savage reprisals and forms of war and may have been
becoming increasingly autocratic.
Charles VI, The Mad King of France

Charles VI (3 December 1368 – 21 October

1422), called The Beloved (French: le Bien-
Aimé) and The Mad (French: le Fol or le
Fou), was King of France from 1380 to his
death. He was a member of the House of
Valois.Charles VI was only 11 when he
inherited the throne in the midst of the
Hundred Years' War. The government was
entrusted to his four uncles: Philip the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy; John, Duke of Berry;
Louis I, Duke of Anjou; and Louis II, Duke
of Bourbon. Although the royal age of
majority was fixed at 14, the dukes
maintained their grip on Charles until he took
power at the age of 21. During the rule of his
uncles, the financial resources of the
kingdom, painstakingly built up by his father,
Charles V, were squandered for the personal profit of the dukes, whose interests were frequently
divergent or even opposed. As royal funds drained, new taxes had to be raised, which caused
several revolts. In 1388 Charles VI dismissed his uncles and brought back to power his father's
former advisers, known as the Marmosets. Political and economic conditions in the kingdom
improved significantly, and Charles earned the epithet "the Beloved". But in August 1392 end
route to Brittany with his army in the forest of Le Mans, Charles suddenly went mad and slew
four knights and almost killed his brother, Louis of Orléans. From then on, Charles' bouts of
insanity became more frequent and of longer duration. During these attacks, he had delusions,
believing he was made of glass or denying he had a wife and children. He could also attack
servants or run until exhaustion, wailing that he was threatened by his enemies. Between crises,
there were intervals of months during which Charles was relatively sane. However, unable to
concentrate or make decisions, political power was taken away from him by the princes of the
blood, which would cause much chaos and conflict in France. A fierce struggle for power
developed between Louis of Orléans, the king's brother, and John the Fearless, Duke of
Burgundy, the son of Philip the Bold. When John instigated the murder of Louis in November
1407, the conflict degenerated into a civil war between the Armagnacs (supporters of the House
of Valois) and the Burgundians. John offered large parts of France to King Henry V of England,
who was still at war with the Valois monarchy, in exchange for his support. After the
assassination of John, the Fearless, his son Philip the Good led Charles the Mad to sign the
infamous Treaty of Troyes (1420), which disinherited his offspring and recognized Henry V as
his legitimate successor on the throne of France. When Charles VI died, he was succeeded by his
son Charles VII, who found the Valois cause in a desperate situation.

Leader’s Vision:
Charles VI ended up being one of the worst kings in France’s history—but to his credit, he didn’t
really seem to want to be king in the first place. Charles could have taken his rightful place as
king when he was 14 years old, but he didn’t. He’d rather hunt and joust and enjoy life than be a
boring old king. He let his uncles keep on running France into the ground while he galivanted
about.

Finally, when he was 21, enough was enough. He terminated the regency and took over the
kingdom himself—and he made a surprising decision right out of the gate. After a decade of
selfish dukes treating running the kingdom like a game, Charles brought back all of his father’s
old advisors. His father who, you’ll remember, was actually a great king. With these keen old
political minds, Charles actually improved life in France for the first time in years.
It was this period when Charles earned his nickname—well, his first nickname. “Charles the
Mad” came later.

Early Life
Charles was born in Paris, in the royal residence of the Hôtel Saint-Pol, on 3 December 1368, the
son of the king of France Charles V, of the House of Valois, and of Joan of Bourbon. As heir to
the French throne, his older brothers having died before he was born, Charles had the title
Dauphin of France. At his father's death on 16 September 1380, he inherited the throne of
France. His coronation took place on 4 November 1380, at Reims Cathedral. Although the royal
age of majority was 14 (the "age of accountability" under Roman Catholic canon law), Charles
did not terminate the regency and take personal rule until 1388.
He married Isabeau of Bavaria on 17 July 1385, when he was 17 and she was 14 (and considered
an adult at the time). Isabeau had 12 children, most of whom died young. Isabeau's first child,
named Charles, was born in 1386, and was Dauphin of Viennois (heir apparent), but survived
only 3 months. Her second child, Joan, was born on 14 June 1388, but died in 1390. Her third
child, Isabella, was born in 1389. She was married to Richard II, King of England in 1396, at the
age of 6, and became Queen of England. Richard died in 1400 and they had no children.
Richard's successor, Henry IV, wanted Isabella to then marry his son, 14-year-old future king
Henry V, but she refused. She married again in 1406, this time to her cousin, Charles, Duke of
Orléans, at the age of 17. She died in childbirth at the age of 19.

Isabeau's fourth child, Joan, was born in 1391, and was married to John VI, Duke of Brittany in
1396, at an age of 5; they had children. Isabeau's fifth child born in 1392 was also named
Charles, and was Dauphin. Charles VI then became insane. The young Charles was betrothed to
Margaret of Burgundy in 1396, but died at the age of 9. Isabeau's sixth child, Mary, was born in
1393. She was never married, and had no children. Isabeau's seventh child, Michelle, was born in
1395. She was engaged to Philip, son of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, in 1404 (both
were then aged 8) and they were married in 1409, aged 14. She had one child who died in
infancy, before she died in 1422, aged 27.

Isabeau's eighth child, Louis, was born in 1397, and was also Dauphin. He was married to the
Margaret of Burgundy who had been betrothed to brother Charles, but they did not have any
children before he died in 1415, aged 18.

Isabeau's ninth child, John, was born in 1398, and was also Dauphin from 1415, after the death
of his brother Louis. He was married to Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut in 1415, when aged 17,
but they did not have any children before he died in 1417, aged 19. Isabeau's tenth child,
Catherine, was born in 1401. She was married firstly to Henry V, King of England in 1420, and
they had one child, who became Henry VI of England. Henry V died suddenly in 1422.
Catherine may then have secretly married Owen Tudor in 1429, and she also had children with
him. She died in 1438, aged 37.

Isabeau's eleventh child, also named Charles, was born in 1403. In 1413, Queen Isabeau and
Yolande of Aragon finalized a marriage contract between Charles and Yolande's daughter Marie
of Anjou, Charles' second cousin. Dauphin Louis and then Dauphin John died while in the care
of John the Fearless, the Duke of Burgundy and regent for the insane King Charles. Yolande
became the protectress of Charles, who became the new Dauphin in 1417. She refused Queen
Isabeau's orders to return Charles to the French Court, reportedly replying, "We have not
nurtured and cherished this one for you to make him die like his brothers or to go mad like his
father, or to become English like you. I keep him for my own. Come and take him away, if you
dare." After the death of Charles VI in 1422, the English regents claimed the crown of France for
Henry VI, then aged 1, according to the terms of the Treaty of Troyes. However, Charles, aged
19, repudiated the treaty and claimed and became King of France, as Charles VII, sparking fresh
fighting with the English. He married Marie of Anjou in 1422, and they had many children, most
of which died at a very early age. He died in 1461, the longest living descendant of Isabeau.
Isabeau's twelfth and the last child, Philip, was born in 1407, but died shortly after.

Regency
Charles VI was only 11 years old when he was crowned King of France. Although Charles was
entitled to rule personally from the age of 14, the dukes maintained their grip on power until
Charles terminated the regency at the age of 21.
During his minority, France was ruled by Charles' uncles, as regents. The regents were Philip the
Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Louis I, Duke of Anjou, John, Duke of Berry, and Louis II, Duke of
Bourbon, Charles VI's maternal uncle. Philip took the dominant role during the regency. Louis of
Anjou was fighting for his claim to the Kingdom of Naples after 1382, dying in 1384, John of
Berry was interested mainly in the Languedoc, and not particularly interested in politics; whilst
Louis of Bourbon was a largely unimportant figure, due to his personality (he showed signs of
mental instability) and his status (since he was not the son of a king).
During the rule of his uncles, the financial resources of the kingdom, painstakingly built up by
his father Charles V, were squandered for the personal profit of the dukes, whose interests were
frequently divergent or even opposing. During that time, the power of the royal administration
was strengthened and taxes re-established. The latter policy represented a reversal of the
deathbed decision of the king's father Charles V to repeal taxes, and led to tax revolts, known as
the Harelle. Increased tax revenues were needed to support the self-serving policies of the king's
uncles, whose interests were frequently in conflict with those of the crown and with each other.
The Battle of Roosebeke (1382), for example, brilliantly won by the royal troops, was prosecuted
solely for the benefit of Philip of Burgundy. The treasury surplus carefully accumulated by
Charles V was quickly squandered.
Charles VI brought the regency to an end in
1388, taking up personal rule. He restored to
power the highly-competent advisors of
Charles V, known as the Marmousets, who
ushered in a new period of high esteem for the
crown. Charles VI was widely referred to
as Charles the Beloved by his subjects.
Mental illness
As the years went by, the people who had once called him Charles the Beloved started
whispering another name: Charles the Mad. His mental illness came and went, so that you could
never quite tell what kind of king you were going to get. During one period, he couldn’t even
remember his own name, and had no idea he was king. The glory days of his early reign quickly
faded into the rearview. When Charles VI fell, he fell fast. For a time, people called Charles both
“The Beloved” and “The Mad,” but eventually, they used the former less and less and the latter
more and more. He infamously began running wildly through the hallways of his Parisian palace
in various states of
dress/undress. At a certain
point, his advisors had to wall
up the entrances to the palace,
lest the king run straight out
into the streets

The king continued to suffer

from periods of mental illness
throughout his life. During one attack in 1393, he could not remember his name and did not
know he was king. When his wife came to visit, he asked his servants who she was and ordered
them to take care of what she required so that she would leave him alone. During an episode in
1395–96 he claimed he was Saint George and that his coat of arms was a lion with a sword thrust
through it. At this time, he recognized all the officers of his household, but did not know his wife
nor his children. Sometimes he ran wildly through the corridors of his Parisian residence, the
Hôtel Saint-Pol, and to keep him inside, the entrances were walled up. In 1405, he refused to
bathe or change his clothes for five months. His later psychotic episodes were not described in
detail, perhaps because of the similarity of his behavior and delusions. Pope Pius II, who was
born during the reign of Charles VI, wrote in his Commentaries that there were times when
Charles thought that he was made of glass, and this caused him to protect himself in various
ways so that he would not break. He reportedly had iron rods sewn in his clothes, so that he
would not shatter if he came into contact with another person. This condition has come to be
known as glass delusion.
Charles VI's secretary, Pierre Salmon, spent much time in discussions with the king while he was
suffering from his intermittent psychosis. In an effort to find a cure for the king's illness, stabilize
the turbulent political situation, and secure his own future, Salmon supervised the production of
two distinct versions of the beautifully illuminated guidebooks to good kingship known as Pierre
Salmon's Dialogues.
Expulsion of the Jews, 1394
On 17 September 1394, Charles suddenly
published an ordinance in which he
declared, in substance, that for a long time
he had been taking note of the many
complaints provoked by the excesses and
misdemeanors that the Jews had
committed against Christians, and that the
prosecutors, having made several
investigations, had discovered many
violations by the Jews of the agreement
they had made with him. Therefore, he decreed, as an irrevocable law and statute, that
thenceforth no Jew should dwell in his domains ("Ordonnances", vii. 675). According to the
Religieux de St. Denis, the king signed this decree at the instance of the queen ("Chron. de
Charles VI." ii. 119). The decree was not immediately enforced, a respite being granted to the
Jews in order that they might sell their property and pay their debts. Those indebted to them were
enjoined to redeem their obligations within a set time, otherwise their pledges held in pawn were
to be sold by the Jews. The provost was to escort the Jews to the frontier of the kingdom.
Subsequently, the king released the Christians from their debts.

Struggles for power

With Charles VI mentally ill, from 1393 his wife Isabeau presided over a regency counsel, on
which sat the grandees of the kingdom. Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who acted as regent
during the king's minority (from 1380 to 1388), was a great influence on the queen (he had
organized the royal marriage during his regency). Influence progressively shifted to Louis I,
Duke of Orléans, the king's brother, another contender for power, and it was suspected, the
queen's lover. Charles VI's other uncles were less influential during the regency: Louis II of
Naples was still engaged managing the Kingdom of Naples, and John, Duke of Berry, served as a
mediator between the Orléans party (what would become the Armagnacs) and the Burgundy
party (Bourguignons). The rivalry would increase bit by bit and in the end result in outright civil
war.
The new regents dismissed the various advisers and officials Charles had appointed. On the
death of Philip, the Bold in April 1404, his son John the Fearless took over the political aims of
his father, and the feud with Louis escalated. John, who was less linked to Isabeau, again lost
influence at court.
Wars with Burgundy and England
In 1407, Louis of Orléans was murdered in the rue Vieille du Temple in Paris. John did not deny
responsibility, claiming that Louis was a tyrant who squandered money. Louis' son Charles, the
new Duke of Orléans, turned to his father-in-law, Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, for support
against John the Fearless. This resulted in the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War, which lasted
from 1407 until 1435, beyond Charles' reign, though the war with the English was still in
progress.
With the English taking over much of the country, John the Fearless sought to end the feud with
the royal family by negotiating with the Dauphin Charles, the king's heir. They met at the bridge
at Montereau on 10 September 1419, but during the meeting, John was killed by Tanneguy du
Chastel, a follower of the Dauphin. John's successor, Philip the Good, the new Duke of
Burgundy, threw in his lot with the English.

The English invasion and death

Charles VI's reign was marked by the continuing conflict with the English, known as the
Hundred Years' War. An early attempt at peace occurred in 1396 when Charles' daughter, the
almost seven-year-old Isabella of Valois, married the 29-year-old Richard II of England. By
1415, however, the feud between the French royal family and the House of Burgundy led to
chaos and anarchy throughout France that Henry V of England was eager to take advantage of.
Henry led an invasion that culminated in the defeat of the French army at the Battle of Agincourt
in October.

In 1420, the Treaty of Troyes was an agreement signed by Henry V of England and Charles VI
of France, recognizing Henry as Charles' successor, and stipulating that Henry's heirs would
succeed him on the throne of France. It disinherited the Dauphin Charles (with further claim, in
1421, that the young Charles was illegitimate). It also betrothed Charles VI's daughter, Catherine
of Valois, to Henry V (see English Kings of France). The treaty disinheriting the Dauphin of
France in favor of the English crown was a blatant act against the interests of France. The
Dauphin sealed his fate, in the eyes of the mad king, when he declared himself regent, seized
royal authority, and refused to obey the king's order to return to Paris. When the Treaty of Troyes
was finalized in May 1420, the Dauphin Charles was only 17 years old.
Charles VI died on 21 October 1422 in Paris, at the Hôtel Saint-Pol. He was interred in Saint
Denis Basilica, where his wife Isabeau of Bavaria would join him after her death in September
1435.
Upon the death of Charles VI, his infant grandson, who had become King Henry VI of England
at the death of his own father in August 1422, was, according to the Treaty of Troyes, also King
of France, and his coronation as such took place at the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on 26
December 1431. In the meantime, the Dauphin Charles, who had settled in Bourges, Paris being
occupied by the English-Bourguignons since 29 May 1418, had to wait the arrival of Joan of Arc
to be taken to the cathedral of Reims for his coronation as Charles VII, King of France on 17
July 1429. During his reign, Charles VII, the (disinherited) son of Charles VI, became known as
"Charles the Victorious".