Tour de Nesle Affair : Margaret’s Royal Sex Scandal
The tower which stands on the left bank of the Seine, facing the fortress of the Louvre, was it the setting for the criminal and misguided loves of Joan of Navarre, wife of Philip the Fair?
Because legend has transformed the virtuous queen and benefactor of the University of Paris into an insatiable and murderous lover. Luring students into the Nesle’s Tower (Tower of Lust) to sate her overwhelming instincts, she then threw them into the river. François Villon in his Ballade des dames du temps jadis described how Buridan, who tried to keep his students away from the Queen's murderous appetite, nearly drowned. In order for the legend to take shape, it was necessary to draw on a true episode in history, that of the adulterous loves of Philip the Fair's daughters-in-law.
Princesses with light manners
The marriage of the three sons of Philip the Fair will not be happy. On September 23, 1305, Louis the Stubborn married Margaret of Burgundy, shortly after his brothers Philip the Tall and the future Charles IV in turn married the two daughters of Otto IV and cousins of Margaret, Joan and Blanche of Burgundy. Margaret is the first to turn away from her husband. Eager for pleasures and amusements, she is so bored with a difficult-natured husband that she takes a knight of the king's hotel, Philip of Aulnay, as her lover, and trains her cousins to follow her example. Blanche forms a relationship with Walter of Aulnay, Philip's brother, also a knight.
Joan II wisely steers clear of these perilous adventures. She knows everything, but says nothing. Likewise, at court many people, starting with the servants, are aware of Margaret and Blanche's misconduct. But no one denounces them.
Fooled husbands
If the king's sons know nothing about their conjugal misfortune, their sister Isabella, married to the King of England, discovers the affair during a stay at the French court in May 1314. It seems that she recognized on the Aulnay brothers the richly decorated purses that she had given to her sisters-in-law. She informed her father of her suspicions, who immediately ordered the arrest of the Aulnay brothers, Margaret and Blanche, as well as that of Joan, who was then held guilty. All quickly confess, except Joan, who continues to proclaim her innocence.
An exemplary punishment
With their heads shaved, their bodies clad in a coarse robe, Margaret and Blanche are led to the fortress of Château Gaillard, in Normandy. Margaret, the most guilty, is locked at the top of a tower in a freezing room where she never stops crying and proclaiming her repentance. She did not withstand the onslaught of cold and died in the winter of 1315. Blanche was placed on a lower floor in a better sheltered room.
In 1322, the Pope announced the annulment of her marriage, and three years later, she was transferred to the Abbey of Maubuisson, where she passed away in 1326. Joan, finally, was locked up in the fortress of Dourdan. With the help of her mother, she manages to have an investigation opened and to demonstrate that her only fault is not to have denounced her only sister. In November 1314, just before the death of Philip the Fair, her innocence was recognized and solemnly proclaimed by the Parliament of Paris. She immediately resumed her place with her husband.
The punishment inflicted on the Aulnay brothers is of exemplary cruelty, it is that which punishes the crimes of lèse-majesté. Nothing can excuse their betrayal. In May 1314, following an expeditious judgment, they were tortured in Pontoise. After being flayed alive and having their genitals amputated, they are dragged by horses and then hung from a gallows. Margaret's porter is hanged by their side.
So great a severity towards the protagonists of this sad story is matched only by the peril in which the crown found itself. That kings deceive queens is in the order of things. But the licentious conduct of a queen or a princess can only raise doubts about the legitimacy of the heirs to the throne and endanger even the hereditary principle of the monarchy.
