Charles, the Count of Charolais, began to take a more dominant role in the Burgundian court after the forced reconciliation with his father, Philip the Good, in January 1464. By midway through the next year Charles had ejected the pro-French members of the Duke’s inner sanctum and was finally able to convince his father that it was time to check Louis XI’s expansion into the Burgundian realm. He was given command of his father’s military, joined up with a bunch of French nobility and went to war in France in the so-called League of the Public Weal. Charles and Louis would meet in an indecisive battle at Montlhery in July, 1465, and although both men would claim victory, the battle greatly enhanced Charles’ reputation and earned him the moniker history would remember him by: Charles le Téméraire, Charles the Bold. Conflicting reports about the outcome of Montlhery would reach the Low Countries, and after wrongly hearing that Charles had been slain, a rowdy mob in Dinant, Liége, would hang an effigy of the Count and generally cause a ruckus by hurling outrageous insults about Charles’ mother Isabella. Fired up by this assault on his family’s honour, Charles would take his armies back into the Low Countries and eventually unleash such cruel vengeance on the town that people looking at its remains would say “Cy fust Dinant”, “Dynant was…”. Charles the Bold was giving the people of the Low Countries a sneak peak into his style of leadership, and this new era would begin in June, 1467, when Philip the Good would finally die.

With thanks to Diane Frendak and Berry Wiersum for their Patreon support.

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