The Dauphin
In the years 1415 and 1417, the two oldest surviving sons of Charles VI of France died in quick succession: first Louis, then Jean. Both brothers had been in the care of the Duke of Burgundy. Yolande was the protectress of her son-in-law, Charles, who became the new Dauphin. She refused Queen Isabeau's orders to return Charles to the French Court, reportedly replying, "We have not nurtured and cherished this one for you to make him die like his brothers or to go mad like his father, or to become English like you. I keep him for my own. Come and take him away, if you dare."
On 29 April 1417, Louis II of Anjou died of illness, leaving Yolande, at age 33, in control of the House of Anjou. She acted as regent for her son because of his youth. She also had the fate of the French royal house of Valois in her hands. Her young son-in-law, the Dauphin Charles, was exceptionally vulnerable to the designs of the English King, Henry V, and to his older cousin, John the Fearless, the Duke of Burgundy. Charles' nearest older relatives, the Dukes of Orléans and of Bourbon, had been made prisoners at the Battle of Agincourt and were held captive by the English. With his mother, Queen Isabeau, and the Duke of Burgundy allied with the English, Charles had no resources to support him other than those of the House of Anjou and the smaller House of Armagnac.
Following the assassination of John the Fearless at Montereau in 1419, his son Philip the Good succeeded him as Duke of Burgundy. With Henry V of England, he forced the Treaty of Troyes (21 May 1420) on the mentally-ill King Charles VI. The treaty designated Henry as "Regent of France" and heir to the French throne. Following this, the Dauphin Charles was declared disinherited in 1421. When both Henry V of England and Charles VI of France died in 1422 (on 31 August and 21 October, respectively), the Dauphin Charles, at age 19, legitimately became Charles VII of France. Charles' title was challenged by the English and their Burgundian allies, who supported the candidacy of Henry VI of England, the infant son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois, Charles' own sister, as king of France. This set the stage for the last phase of the Hundred Years' War: the "War of Charles VII".
In this struggle, Yolande played a prominent role in surrounding the young Valois king with advisors and servants associated with the House of Anjou. She maneuvered John VI, Duke of Brittany, into breaking an alliance with the English, and was responsible for a soldier from the Breton ducal family, Arthur de Richemont, becoming Constable of France in 1425. Yolande's early and strong support of Joan of Arc, when others had doubts, suggests her possible larger role in orchestrating Joan's appearance on the scene. Yolande unquestionably practiced realistic politics. Using the Constable de Richemont, Yolande was behind the forceful removal of several of Charles VII's less desirable advisors. The worst, La Trémoille, was attacked and forced from the court in 1433. Yolande was not averse to recruiting beautiful women and coaching them to become the mistresses of influential men who would spy on them on her behalf. She had a network of such women in the courts of Lorraine, Burgundy, Brittany, and her son-in-law.
The contemporary chronicler Jean Juvenal des Ursins (1433–44), Bishop of Beauvais, described Yolande as "the prettiest woman in the kingdom." Bourdigné, chronicler of the house of Anjou, says of her: "She who was said to be the wisest and most beautiful princess in Christendom." Later, King Louis XI of France recalled that his grandmother had "a man's heart in a woman's body." A twentieth-century French author, Jehanne d'Orliac, wrote one of the few works specifically on Yolande, and noted that the duchess remains unappreciated for her genius and influence in the reign of Charles VII. "She is mentioned in passing because she is the pivot of all important events for forty-two years in France", while "Joan was in the public eye only eleven months."
Yolande retired to Angers, and then to Saumur, where she died at the Château de Tuce-de-Saumur on 14 December 1443.
Read more about this topic: Yolande Of Aragon