Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/681

RISE OF ABSOLUTISM 625 League of the Public Welfare against him. Leading spirits in this were his own brother Charles who had so nearly sup- planted him on the throne, Charles the Bold who was al- ready the real ruler in Burgundy in place of his senile father, the Duke of Brittany, the Houses of Orleans, Anjou, Alen- con, and Bourbon, who were all offshoots of the royal family, the Dukes of Lorraine and Nemours, and the Counts of Armagnac and Saint- Pol. The league was victorious over the king chiefly because of a victory won by Charles the Bold at Montlhery, and Louis had to cede away territories and rights of the Crown to the individual members. For the public welfare they accomplished little except to appoint thirty-six reformers to remedy abuses in Church and State and to protect the people from oppression. Louis, however, soon regained complete control of the central government, and before his reign was over he had encompassed the death or imprisonment of Royal tri- nearly every member of the League of Public teTntoriaf Welfare, and had not only recovered the lands expansion alienated in 1465, but had acquired much additional terri- tory. In 1466 he took advantage of a quarrel between his brother and the Duke of Brittany to win Normandy back from both of them. When Louis told a meeting of the Estates General in 1468 that he intended to keep Normandy as a part of the royal domain, they agreed with him that the custom of granting appanages was a bad one. Indeed, the people seem to have felt little sympathy with the strug- gles of the nobles against Louis. But Charles the Bold, when he had Louis in his power at Peronne, forced the king to recompense his brother for the loss of Normandy by a grant of Champagne and Brie. Louis had come to Peronne hoping to get the better of Charles the Bold in a personal interview, and little thinking that Charles had learned of certain treacherous intrigues of his against him. The result was that Charles kept Louis a virtual prisoner until he had agreed to his demands. But Louis never let any one go whom he once had in his power, not even when he had given him a safe-conduct. He soon hoodwinked his brother