January 5th in history

I hope the new year is getting off to a good start for all of my Facebook friends and readers. A cartoon in my local paper aptly summed up the almost universal opinion of 2016. It showed the old year popping up in Hell and explaining to the Devil, “Well, it was either this or the Witness Protection Program.” Now on to January 5th, which was a busy day in history.
Richard, Earl of Cornwall and later Holy Roman Emperor, younger brother of Henry III and a major character in Falls the Shadow, was born on this date in 1209.
In 1463, the French poet Francois Villon, as celebrated for his poetry as he was notorious for his wild life, was banished from his beloved Paris for 10 years. He was a thief, once was sentenced to be hanged for killing a priest in a tavern brawl, and ran up quite a “rap sheet” in his 32 years. We actually don’t know how old he was when he died, but he was 32 when he disappeared from Paris and was never heard from again.
In 1465, another French poet died. Unlike Francois Villon, who’d been born into poverty, Charles, the Duke of Orleans, came from the upper classes. His first wife was a queen, his cousin Isabelle of Valois, widow of Richard II; Isabelle had been a child bride, but she remained very loyal to Richard and refused to consider a marriage to the future Henry V, son of the man she saw as a usurper, Henry IV. Henry IV eventually allowed her to return to France, where she wed Charles, but sadly, died in childbirth, at only 19. Charles fought at Agincourt and was found alive after the battle, buried under a pile of bodies. He would spend the next 25 years as a prisoner of the English. He was treated fairly leniently, but 25 years! During his captivity, he wrote most of his poems, which understandably had a melancholy tone. He was finally freed in 1440, returned to France, and wed for the third time. He appeared in the classic novel, In a Dark Wood Wandering, by Hella Haasse, and he is also a major character in Margaret Frazer’s mystery, The Maiden’s Tale.
On January 5th, 1477, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was slain at the battle of Nancy. His body was not found until days later, partially eaten by wolves or other scavengers. Charles was the husband of Margaret of York, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, and appears in one scene in Sunne. He was known as Charles the Bold or Charles the Rash. I favor the latter, for he had a talent for making enemies and showed increasingly poor judgment in his last years.
On January 5th, 1589, the controversial French queen, Catherine de Medici, died, at age 69. Catherine is given a three-dimensional portrayal in C.W. Gortner’s novel, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici.
Lastly, on January 5th, 1592, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan was born. His fame rests today on the splendid mausoleum he built as a tribute to his beloved wife, Muntaz-I-Mahal. We know it today as the Taj Mahal, surely one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Shah Jahan had planned to build an identical tomb for himself, only in black marble, but his son did not inherit his father’s romantic streak and he did not honor Shah’s dying wishes.