



Produced by David Widger





MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE

MEMOIRS OF MARGUERITE DE VALOIS



MEMOIRS OF MARGUERITE DE VALOIS QUEEN OF NAVARRE

Being Historic Memoirs of the Courts of France and Navarre



BOOK III.



HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF VALOIS.

[Author unknown]


CHARLES, COMTE DE VALOIS, was the younger brother of Philip the Fair, and
therefore uncle of the three sovereigns lately dead.  His eldest son
Philip had been appointed guardian to the Queen of Charles IV.; and when
it appeared that she had given birth to a daughter, and not a son, the
barons, joining with the notables of Paris and the, good towns met to
decide who was by right the heir to the throne, "for the twelve peers of
France said and say that the Crown of France is of such noble estate that
by no succession can it come to a woman nor to a woman's son," as
Froissart tells us.  This being their view, the baby daughter of Charles
IV. was at once set aside; and the claim of Edward III. of England, if,
indeed, he ever made it, rested on Isabella of France, his mother, sister
of the three sovereigns.  And if succession through a female had been
possible, then the daughters of those three kings had rights to be
reserved.  It was, however, clear that the throne must go to a man, and
the crown was given to Philip of Valois, founder of a new house of
sovereigns.

The new monarch was a very formidable person.  He had been a great feudal
lord,