Your RDA of Irony

New Orleans and Salaciously Old Orleans

Today offers a surfeit of history and gossip!

January 8, 1815:  How To Make Andrew Jackson a Hero

Edward Pakenham’s watch must have been running fast. The British general evidently thought it was 1915 and that he had to slaughter his troops in as stupid a manner as possible. So, he ordered a full-frontal assault on the entrenched American positions at New Orleans. Andrew Jackson’s troops did not have machine guns but they certainly knew how to make the best use of their Kentucky long rifles . Men who can shoot a squirrel out of a tree are not likely to miss a prancing brigade in red coats.

Edward Pakenham was the brother-in-law of the Duke Wellington and actually had proved himself to be a brave and effective subordinate in the Peninsular Wars. In fact, Pakenham was leading the same troops who had performed so brilliantly in Spain, defeating larger French forces. At New Orleans, the British troops for once had the numerical advantage; they outnumbered the Americans by two-to-one. Perhaps that is why Pakenham did not bother with tactics. He assumed that his veterans would simply push the Americans aside. That was a mistake he did not live to regret; neither did a quarter of his command.

To add irony to the disaster, the battle was unnecessary. The War was over; however, the news of the Treaty of Ghent had yet to reach the opposing armies at New Orleans. Of course, the Battle of New Orleans might have taught the British military the disadvantages of a frontal assault. However, judging from the number of British War Memorials, commemorating 1914-18, that lesson was not in the syllabus at Sandhurst.

January 8, 1499:  The Strange Bedfellows of Louis XII

Let’s congratulate Louis XII and Anne of Britanny on their wedding anniversary. The customary gift (after the 75th anniversary) is formaldehyde. It was a second marriage for both, and the groom deserves special congratulations for surviving his first father-in-law: Louis XI!

One of the greatest dirty tricksters of history, the intrigues and machinations of Louis XI earned him the epithet “The Spider King“.

Louis XI was a genius at undermining his rivals, real and hypothetical. He fomented civil war in England, subsidizing the Lancasters and Tudors in their dynastic struggle that exhausted France’s oldest enemy. He undermined the Duchy of Burgundy, igniting a series of rebellions that eventually destroyed both the Duke and his vast duchy; and Louis managed to acquire many of the fragments. (He did fail to coerce the orphaned heiress of Burgundy to marry his son; she preferred the good-looking Hapsburg boy to the son of her father’s killer.)

However, his nastiest strategem was how he dealt with his second cousin, the Duke of Orleans. The Duke, the other Louis, was a virtuous and careful man, so he did nothing to justify even a suspicion of treason. Yet, his mere existence was a potential threat to the King and his young heir. If England could have dynastic wars, why not France. Louis XI wanted to eliminate even the potential for a threat. If he couldn’t blatently kill the Orleans line, he did have a way to sterilize it.

The King had a daughter Jeanne who was crippled and incapable of having children. In most cases, the handicapped children of royalty and the aristocracy were sent off to the church, where they could be forgotten. The Spider King, however, had a more practical idea. He forced the Duke of Orleans to marry Jeanne. What could the Duke do? A refusal would have been treason.

That should have been the end of the House of Orleans. When Louis XI died in 1483, he was succeeded by his son Charles VIII. Charles coerced another orphaned heiress, Anne the Duchess of Brittany, to marry him. None of their children survived 15th century medicine, however; and when Charles died in 1498, guess who succeeded him? The next in the succession was the Duke of Orleans, now Louis XII.

(So, the nastiest trick of Louis XI really didn’t work; but you have to marvel at its evil.)

The new King wanted his marriage annulled and divulged all the conjugal challenges before Pope Alexander VI. Since the Pope had six children, he saw no reason for a king to be celibate. Jeanne was obliged to announce her retirement to a convent. The now bachelor King married the widow of Charles VIII. As it turned out, Anne of Britanny had one leg shorter than the other. However, this handicap could be surmounted…ahem. Their union produced at least some healthy daughters. (Louis XII would be succeeded by his son-in-law Francis I.)

Queen Anne died in 1514, and political considerations obliged Louis XII to marry again. But this time, the middle-aged man was presented with a healthy, very pretty teenage bride: Mary, the younger sister of Henry VIII. Louis was delighted–finally. But, to quote Shakespeare, “how strange desire should so outlive capacity”! Louis was dead within four months: the diagnosis was over-exertion.

It had to be an amusing funeral. Louis definitely was laid to rest.

p.s. The teenage widow returned to England where (unprecedented in this narrative) she then married someone she actually loved. And she lived happily ever after–until she died at the age of 37. Even true love couldn’t conquer 16th century medicine.

  1. Bob Kincaid says:

    And the lesson? “Amor vincit omnia,” except 16th century medicin.

    “Laid to rest.” Ahem. Yes. Bwa-hahahahahahahaha! You, Eugene, sir, are shamless. A cad. A poltroon! And glad we are of it!

  2. Rich Greb says:

    But, Bob, does he have pillows without shams?

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