Philip III of France

Infobox_Monarch|name=Philip III the Bold
title=King of France (more...)


caption=Coronation of Philip III ("Grandes Chroniques de France")
reign=25 August 1270 – 5 October 1285
coronation=30 August 1271, Reims
othertitles=Count of Orléans (– 1270)
full name=
predecessor=Louis IX
successor=Philip IV
consort=Isabella of Aragon (1247-1271)
Maria of Brabant (1254-1321)
issue=Philip IV (1268-1314)
Charles, Count of Valois (1270-1325)
Louis, Count of Évreux (1276-1319)
Blanche, Duchess of Austria (1278-1305)
Margaret, Queen of England (1282-1317)
royal house=House of Capet
royal anthem =
father=Louis IX of France (1215-1270)
mother=Marguerite of Provence (1221-1295)
date of birth=birth date|1245|4|30|df=y
place of birth=Poissy
date of death=death date and age|1285|10|5|1245|4|30|df=y
place of death=Perpignan
place of burial=Initially Narbonne, later Saint Denis Basilica|

Philip III (30 April 1245 – 5 October 1285), called the Bold (French: "le Hardi"), was the King of France, succeeding his father, Louis IX, and reigning from 1270 to 1285. He was a member of the House of Capet.

Born in Poissy, to Louis IX (the later "Saint Louis") and Marguerite of Provence, Philip was prior to his accession Count of Orleans. He accompanied his father on the Eighth Crusade to Tunisia in 1270. His father died at Tunis and there Philip was declared king at the age of 25. Philip was indecisive, soft in nature, timid, and apparently crushed by the strong personalities of his parents and dominated by his father's policies. He was called "the Bold" on the basis of his abilities in combat and on horseback and not his character. He was pious, but not cultivated. He followed the dictates of others, first of Pierre de la Broce and then of his uncle Charles I of Sicily.

After his succession, he quickly set his uncle on negotiations with the emir to conclude the crusade, while he himself returned to France. A ten-year truce was concluded and Philip was crowned in France on 12 August 1271. On 21 August, his uncle, Alfonso, Count of Poitou, Toulouse, and Auvergne, died returning from the crusade in Italy. Philip inherited his counties and united them to the royal demesne. The portion of the Auvergne which he inherited became the "Terre royale d'Auvergne," later the Duchy of Auvergne. In accordance with Alfonso's wishes, the Comtat Venaissin was granted to the Pope Gregory X in 1274. Several years of negotiations yielded the Treaty of Amiens with Edward I of England in 1279. Thereby Philip restored to the English the Agenais which had fallen to him with the death of Alfonso. In 1284, Philip also inherited the counties of Perche and Alençon from his brother Pierre.

Philip all the while supported his uncle's policy in Italy. When, after the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, Peter III of Aragon invaded and took the island of Sicily, the pope, Martin IV, excommunicated the conqueror and declared his kingdom (put under the suzerainty of the pope by Peter II in 1205) forfeit. He granted Aragon to Charles, Count of Valois, Philip's son. Philip intervened in the Navarrese succession after the death of Henry I of Navarre and married his son, Philip the Fair, to the heiress of Navarre, Joan I.

In 1284, Philip and his sons entered Roussillon at the head of a large army. This war, called the Aragonese Crusade from its papal sanction, has been labelled "perhaps the most unjust, unnecessary and calamitous enterprise ever undertaken by the Capetian monarchy." [Chaytor, p 105.] On 26 June 1285, Philip the Bold entrenched himself before Gerona in an attempt to besiege it. The resistance was strong, but the city was taken on 7 September. Philip soon experienced a reversal, however, as the French camp was hit hard by an epidemic of dysentery. Philip himself was afflicted. The French retreated and were handily defeated at the Battle of the Col de Panissars. The king of France himself died at Perpignan, the capital of his ally James II of Majorca, and was buried in Narbonne. He currently lies buried with his wife Isabella of Aragon in Saint Denis Basilica in Paris.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees Philip's spirit outside the gates of Purgatory with a number of other contemporary European rulers. Dante does not name Philip directly, but refers to him as "the small-nosed" and "the father of the Pest of France."

Marriage and children

On 28 May 1262, Philip married Isabella of Aragon, daughter of James I of Aragon and his second wife Yolande of Hungary, daughter of Andrew II of Hungary, and had the following children:
#Louis (1266 – May 1276)
#Philip IV (1268 – November 29, 1314), successor as king
#Charles (March 12, 1270 – December 16, 1325), Count of Valois

After Isabella's death, he married on 21 August 1274, Marie de Brabant, daughter of Henry III of Brabant and Adelaide of Burgundy. Their children were:
#Louis (May 1276 – May 19, 1319), Count of Évreux
#Blanche (1278 – March 19, 1305, Vienna), married Rudolf III of Austria on May 25, 1300
#Margaret (1282 – February 14, 1317), married Edward I of England

Ancestors

Notes

ources

*Chaytoe, H. J. " [http://libro.uca.edu/chaytor/achistory.htm A History of Aragon and Catalonia] ". 1933.