The Terrible Death Of A Rebel Knight
Philip was a prince and didn't want to recognize his uncle as suzerain. The times of beautiful ladies and knights without fear and reproach were not as we imagine them. Here is one of the real stories
The nuns secretly passed down this story of the terrible death and miracle. Their books were burned many times, but they rewrote them because they remembered them by heart.
One day, a poor monk came to the monastery's abbess and told her of his miraculous salvation thanks to the portrait of a saint man from their family he had on his neck and how things had happened. He confessed that the abbess was his relative and hoped to find his daughter in this monastery.
This is the story I want to tell you today.
Read this article first: Once Upon a Time, a Brave Count Built a Fortress
I have not found any portrait of Philip. This is his cousin, a few years younger than him. So we can imagine more or less what he was like.
Img. from Wikipedia
A cadet branch of the Savoy family were lords of Piedmont. Since one of them (Philip's grandfather) had married the princess of Acaja from Greece, he and his sons became princes of Acaja.
The warlords spent their lives waging wars here and there, trying to increase their territories and titles. The economy in their households worked simply: vassals had to pay their lords a portion of what they collected from their subjects. Philip's father, James, did the same. He was a vassal of the main branch of Savoy and had to pay his share to the lord.
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But the main branch of Savoy was in France. And James, in Italy, did not like the idea of submission.
And so this story begins in 1356.
James lost his battle for Piedmont against his cousin Amadeus VI of Savoy, who held him prisoner for three years, but then it seems that they got along and James was released from his prison. Not only did he accept subjugation, but he also had to marry a woman who Amadeus told him. With this woman, he had two sons.
Philip was the firstborn son of James, and his father had designated him as heir to everything he had. But Philip rebelled, as his father, and his uncle had a new problem to solve in Italy. It was so important that he gave up his ventures in Greece and returned to Piedmont.
Firstly, James had to rewrite his will in favor of his young children, saying that the firstborn was ungrateful and a traitor, appointing his wife and uncle as regents until they came of age. Strangely, after a couple of months, 42 years old, James suddenly dies…
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Philip did not have his troops and had to hire mercenaries who misbehaved on the prince's territories. When Amedeo arrived with the troops, he had to hide in his castle in Fossano.
After visiting Fossano and the castle, I couldn't understand: how Amadeus managed to capture his nephew if the castle was impregnable. Nobody in Fossano could answer me. But I found an article telling an interesting story that Amedeus invited Philip to fight in a tournament. Philip hesitated for a long time, and in the end, he didn't show up to fight.
In the end, Philip surrendered and was taken to another castle, in Avigliana.
Amadeus probably understood that his nephew, who was almost 30 years old, would not change, somehow he had to be eliminated. James's last wife helped him. She wrote a letter where she accused Philipp of everything and more. And — what a surprise! — Amadeus believed her. He organized a tribunal that convicted his nephew.
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The chronicler writes that Philip died soon after from longing for his lost titles, since there was no official death sentence. Others say things went a little differently. December 21, 1368, Philip was drowned in the lake of Avigliana.
But in 1418 a poor monk knocked on the door of the monastery. He proved to the abbess of the Savoy family that he was Philip who had miraculously escaped death and that he was looking for his daughter who had become a nun to pray for her father.
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The monk recalled how the miracle of his salvation had happened. On his neck, he had a portrait of their relative, a Saint named Umberto. At the moment when he was thrown into the icy water of the lake and was about to drown, Umberto appeared to him and brought him to safety.
This monk died later in this monastery. His daughter, a nun Philippina was the one who predicted the apparition of Our Lady in Fatima.
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