The events culminating in the murder of the Bishop of Liège were, of course, purely fictitious. Scott did not hesitate to 'violate history,' as he afterward expressed it, to meet the requirements of his story. The actual murder of the Bishop occurred in 1482, fourteen years after the period of the novel and five years after the death of Charles the Bold. William de la Marck, called the 'Wild Boar of Ardennes,' wishing to place the mitre { 343} on the head of his own son, entered into a conspiracy with some of the rebellious citizens of Liège, against their Bishop, Louis de Bourbon. The latter was enticed to the edge of the town, where he was met by the fierce and bloodthirsty knight, who murdered him with his own hand and caused the body to be exposed naked in St. Lambert's Place, before the cathedral. Scott's version, never intended to be historically accurate, places the scene of the murder in the fictitious Castle of Schonwaldt, outside the city.
The description of the meeting of Louis XI and Charles the Bold at the town of Péronne and the King's imprisonment in the castle, while somewhat amplified with fictitious details, is in the essential facts quite in accord with history. Péronne is a small town of great antiquity, ninety-four miles northeast of Paris, in the Department of the Somme. Its castle still retains four conical-roofed towers in fairly good repair. On the ground floor are many dark and dismal dungeons. In one of these miserable cells Charles the Simple, in the year 929, ended his days in agony. He was confined in the tower by the treachery of Herbert, Count of Vermandois, and left there to starve to death. Adjoining this room, in what is known as the Tour Herbert, is the chamber said to have been occupied by Louis XI.
Great was the surprise and alarm among the retainers of Louis when that monarch, trusting to an exaggerated notion of his own wit and powers of persuasion, proposed to visit his most formidable adversary, Charles of Burgundy, at the town of Péronne. The latter granted the King's request for a safe-conduct, and Louis set forth in October, 1482, accompanied by a small { 344} detachment of his Scots Guard and men-at-arms, and two faithless councillors, the Constable de St. Pol and the Cardinal de La Balue. The Duke met the King outside the town and together they walked in apparent friendliness to the house of the Chamberlain, Charles apologizing for not taking the King to the castle because it was not in fit condition. Some portion of the Duke's army arrived the same day and encamped outside the walls. Learning this, the King became greatly frightened and demanded quarters in the castle--a request which Charles granted with great, but secret, glee. The next day brought forth nothing but ill-feeling and misunderstanding, which was brought to a climax by the news from Liège. It was reported that the emissaries of Louis had stirred up sedition against the Duke, and had killed the Bishop of Liège, and the Lord of Humbercourt. Charles was a man of tremendous passions and this news threw him into a fury which he made little attempt to control. His royal guest became his prisoner, the gates of the town and the castle were closed, and for a time Louis was in danger of his life at the hands of his enraged vassal. Louis, meanwhile, remained calm, making full use of his native shrewdness, keenness of penetration, and unusual cunning. By a liberal use of money, with which he had sagaciously provided himself, the Duke's servants were corrupted wherever he could hope to secure information or assistance. His craftiness, however, proved unnecessary. Charles cooled off after a day or two and realized that he could not well afford to violate his safe-conduct. Meanwhile the news from Liège turned out more favourably. The Bishop had not been slain and the revolt had been less serious than { 345} supposed. Charles, however, compelled the King to swear a new treaty, which Louis did by taking from one of his boxes a piece of the 'true cross,' a relic, formerly belonging, so it was said, to Charlemagne, which Louis regarded with great veneration. The oath upon the cross duly made, Louis accompanied his captor on an expedition against the town of Liège, the particulars of which were not essentially different from the version of Scott.