him, they had been forced to wait until Charles the Simple, "with Arnulf, the only remaining member of the royal house," should be of an age to ascend the throne, which his brothers, Louis III and Carloman, had occupied. He added that by conferring power on him they had merely observed the principle almost universally known, by virtue of which royalty, among the Franks, had not ceased to be hereditary. Consequently he entreated King Arnulf to interfere for the maintenance of this principle, and not to permit that usurpers should prevail against "those to whom the royal power was due by reason of their birth."
In 987 these principles were far from being forgotten. Adalbero, Hugh Capet himself, according to a contemporary historian, Richer, monk of St Remi at Rheims, declared that "if Louis of divine memory, son of Lothair, had left children, it would have been fitting that they should have succeeded him." Nor shall we find the rights of Charles of Lorraine, brother of King Lothair, denied in principle, and in order to eliminate them it was necessary to have recourse to the argument that Charles by his conduct had rendered himself unworthy to reign.
Another principle had indeed been gradually developing, to the prejudice of hereditary right, namely, that the king, having as his function to defend the kingdom against enemies from without, and to preserve peace and concord within it, ought to be chosen by reason of his capacity. We have seen[1] that Archbishop Fulk himself had deliberately set aside Charles the Simple in 888, "because he was still too young both in body and mind, and consequently unfit to govern." In the same way, the historian Richer makes Adalbero say "that only a man distinguished for valour, wisdom and honour should be put at the head of the kingdom." And in fact, since the death of Charles the Fat, the Carolingians had more than once been supplanted by kings unconnected with their house.
Now even before the succession fell vacant, there was a personage in the kingdom who, as Gerbert wrote in 985, although under the nominal king was in fact the real king. This personage was the Duke of the Franks, Hugh Capet, son of Hugh the Great. With singular skill and perseverance, Hugh the Great, and afterwards Hugh Capet had never in fact ceased to extend through the kingdom, if not their direct domination, at least their preponderating influence. We have seen how, at the accession of Louis IV, Hugh the Great had attempted to act the part of regent of the kingdom. In a charter of the year 936 Louis himself declares that he acts "by the counsel of his well-beloved Hugh, duke of the Franks, who in all our kingdoms holds the first place after me." This guardianship had soon become burdensome to the young king who had freed himself from it, but Hugh had none the less manoeuvred very adroitly to increase his prestige. Having lost his wife, Eadhild, sister
- ↑ See supra, p. 71.
