Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac

Seal of Bernard VII

Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac (1360 – 12 June 1418) was the, Count of Armagnac, and Constable of France. He was the son of John II and Jeanne de Périgord. He succeeded in Armagnac at the death of his brother, John III, in 1391. After prolonged fighting, he also became Count of Comminges in 1412.

When his brother, who claimed the Kingdom of Majorca, invaded northern Catalonia late in 1389 in an attempt to seize the kingdom's continental possessions (the County of Roussillon), Bernard commanded part of his forces.

Bernard's wife was Bonne,^[1] the daughter of John, Duke of Berry, and widow of Count Amadeus VII, Count of Savoy. He first gained influence at the French court when Louis, Duke of Orléans married Valentina Visconti, the daughter of Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan. Bernard's sister Beatrice married Valentina's brother Carlo.

After Louis's assassination in 1407, Armagnac remained attached to the cause of Orléans. He married his daughter Bonne to the young Charles, Duke of Orléans in 1410.^[2] Bernard d'Armagnac became the nominal head of the faction which opposed John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and the faction came to be called the "Armagnacs" as a consequence. (See: Armagnac (party) )

He became constable of France in 1415 and was the head of the Dauphin's government until the Burgundians triumphed in 1418. He died in the insurrection which delivered Paris to the Burgundians on 12 June 1418.^[3]

Children

• John IV, Count of Armagnac, married 1) Blanche of Brittany and 2) Isabella of Navarre
• Anne of Armagnac, married Charles II of Albret
• Bonne of Armagnac, married Charles, Duke of Orléans
• Bernard, Count of Pardiac, married Eleanor, heiress to La Marche

Notes

1. Un Seigneur Auvergnat a la Cour de Bourgogne: Renaud II, Vicomte de Murat (1405-1420), Bertrand Schnerb, Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France nuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France, (2005), 108 n16.
2. Charles d'Orleans, David V. Harrington, The Middle Ages: Dictionary of World Biography, Vol.2, (Routledge, 1998), 232.
3. Neillands, Robin, The Hundred Years War, (Routledge, 1990), 285.

External links

• Cawley, Charles, Ancestors of Bernard VII, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, retrieved August 2012 -Family tree from the Medieval Lands Project
• The Households of the Counts of Armagnac in the Late Middle Ages - abstract of a paper analyzing the household expenses of Count Bernard VII, from the Société Internationale des Médiévistes.