Louis was certainly close to the queen and benefited from the benevolence of his brother the king, whenever he was out of crisis he thus succeeded in ousting the Burgundians on the counsel. Moreover, and even if it was only a rumor, this seducer was the queen's lover and – as Burgundian propaganda ran – the real father of Charles, the heir apparent (the future Charles VII). The king's brother, Louis of Orléans, "who whinnied like a stallion after almost all the beautiful women", is accused of having wanted to seduce or worse, "esforcier", Margaret of Bavaria, the duchess of Burgundy. See also: Assassination of Louis I, Duke of Orléans The quarrel at first respected all forms of courtesy: John the Fearless adopted the nettle as his emblem, whilst Louis of Orléans chose the gnarled stick and the duke of Burgundy the plane or rabot (distributing "rabotures", or badges, to his supporters). What is more, it seems he wanted to let the Anglo-French truce break down, even so far as provoking Henry IV of England to a duel, which John the Fearless could not allow, since Flemish industry depended totally on imported English wool and would have been ruined by an embargo on English goods.
The duke of Orléans, son-in-law of John Galéas Visconti and holding the title for more or less hypothetical fiefdoms in the peninsula, wanted to let Charles VI intervene militarily in his favor. While Louis of Orléans, getting 90% of his income from the royal treasury, bought lands and strongholds in the eastern marches of the kingdom that the Burgundians considered their private hunting ground, John the Fearless (lacking the fiery prestige of his father) saw royal largess towards him drying up (Philip received 200,000 livres per year, but John had to satisfy himself with 37,000). To oppose the territorial expansion of the dukedom of Burgundy (whose possessions included Flanders), the duke of Orléans acquired Luxembourg in 1402.
The other uncles of Charles VI were less influential during the regency, Louis II of Naples was otherwise engaged managing the kingdom of Naples and John, Duke of Berry, served as a mediator between the Orléans party (what would become the Armagnacs) and the Burgundy party, whose rivalry would increase bit by bit and in the end, result in a true civil war. On the death of Philip the Bold, his son John the Fearless (who was less linked to Isabeau) again lost influence at court. This influence progressively shifted to Louis I, Duke of Orléans, the king's brother, and it was suspected, the queen's lover. The uncle of Charles VI, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who acted as regent during the king's minority (from 1380 to 1388), was a great influence on the queen (he had organized the royal marriage during his regency). With Charles VI mentally ill, from 1393, his wife Isabeau of Bavaria presided over a regency counsel, on which sat the grandees of the kingdom. Louis of Orléans unveiling a mistress - Eugène Delacroix In the same way, the Western Schism induced the election of an Armagnac-backed antipope based at Avignon, Pope Clement VII, opposed by the English-backed pope of Rome, Pope Urban VI. The Burgundians were in favour of the English model (the more so since Flanders, whose cloth merchants were the main market for English wool, belonged to the duchy of Burgundy), while the Armagnacs defended the French model. On the one hand was France, very strong in agriculture, with a strong feudal and religious system, and on the other was England, a country whose rainy climate favoured pasture and sheep-farming and where artisans, the middle classes and cities were important. The war's causes are rooted in the reign of Charles VI of France and a confrontation between two different economic, social and religious systems.
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