The alleged affair that sparked a century-long war

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” wrote William Shakespeare. For three young women in the early 1300s, being the daughter-in-law of a king could be just as taxing, especially when the ruler was the ruthless Philip IV of France.

Like many kings before him, Philip IV was focused on the question of his succession. His dynasty, the Capets, had ruled France since the 900s, and to ensure its survival, Philippe had arranged strategic marriages for his children to ensure alliances and heirs.

His three sons married French nobles and his daughter, Isabella, married King Edward II of England. But all his projects collapsed in 1314, when his children and their wives were engulfed in the affair of the Tour de Nesle. The scandal not only led to the torture, imprisonment and possible murder of one of the princesses; it also led to a succession crisis in France which sparked the ruinous Hundred Years' War.

(How Joan of Arc turned the tide during the Hundred Years' War.)

Illicit affairs

The wives of King Philip's three adult sons were from the neighboring region of Burgundy. Louis (the future Louis X) marries Marguerite, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Philippe (the future Philippe V) married Jeanne, daughter of the Count of Burgundy. Finally, Charles (the future Charles IV) married Joan's sister, Blanche of Burgundy.

Only one of these marriages is recorded as happy. Even by the standards of dynastic marriage, Margaret's union with Louis was cold. Charles was authoritarian with Blanche. Only Jeanne seemed to have been married to Philippe, a bond which would later spare her from the miserable fate of her sisters-in-law.

The scandal began in 1313 when Isabella, the daughter of King Philip, visited Paris with her infant son, the future Edward III of England. Several chronicles describe a puppet show during which Isabelle offered embroidered silk purses to her three sisters-in-law, Margaret, Blanche and Joan.

During a later visit to the house, Isabelle noticed that two knights accompanying her sisters-in-law, the brothers Philippe and Gautier d'Aunay, were carrying these purses on their belts. It is said that Isabella considered these purses a sign of an illicit affair between the knights and her sisters-in-law, and she alerted her father in 1314.

The handbags alone were unlikely to be sufficient evidence of adultery. In the Middle Ages, when women gave such gifts to knights as favors, it was a practice often seen as a display of affection. But the king would need stronger evidence than that.

Philip IV ordered the men to spy on his daughters-in-law and the two knights. Very quickly, he learned that the three women were meeting the two men at the Tour de Nesle, a guard tower on the Seine in central Paris. All three princesses were seen coming and going at the tower, but only two of them – Margaret and Blanche – had any relations with the knights.