8. John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, ordered the assassination of his cousin, Louis, Duke of Orléans, before himself being assassinated by his own political enemies
John I, also known as John the Fearless, was Duke of Burgundy and the cousin of Charles VI of France during the late-14th and early-15th centuries. Inheriting the dukedom after the death of his father in 1404, John almost immediately entered into a protracted conflict with the mentally ill king’s younger brother, Louis, Duke of Orléans (also John’s cousin), as both royal relatives sought to fill the power vacuum left by the sovereign’s absence. Both men engaged in wild political dealings, including complicated webs of marriages and alliances, all of which obscured and detracted attention from the ongoing Hundred Years’ War with England.
Descending into open violence by 1407, on November 23 Louis was assassinated on the streets of Paris. John, proud of his accomplishment, openly admitted to his crime, declaring it to be a justifiable act of “tyrannicide”. Although peace was finally declared between the Burgundy and Orléans factions in 1410, John was himself assassinated in 1419. In retribution, his son, Philip the Good, allied with Henry V of England in the Hundred Years’ War between 1423 and 1435 to exact his vengeance against Charles VII, whom Philip blamed for his father’s death. Although eventually returning to the fold, the schism risked the French victory in the conflict.