v52_0972 - SPANISH LOW COUNTRIES - COUNTY OF FLANDRE - PHILIPPE LE BEAU Double briquet d'argent

SPANISH NETHERLANDS - COUNTY OF FLANDERS - PHILIP THE HANDSOME OR THE FAIR

(1482-1506)

Philippe (1478-1506), Duke of Burgundy, had inherited Flanders from his mother Marie de Bourgogne, who died in 1482. It was his father, Maximilian of Austria, who administered his possessions until the year 1494. Artois and Franche-Comté were returned to Maximilien in 1493 because Charles VIII had not married his daughter Marguerite, but Anne of Brittany. Philip married Jeanne la Folle (1479-1555), the daughter of the Catholic kings, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, in 1496. From this union was born Charles V in 1500 and Ferdinand I in 1503. Philippe became king of Spain in 1504, but died in 1506. Mad Joan, the story goes, earned her nickname there. France's deadliest enemy, Charles V, would grow up on "an empire where the sun never sets".