1st Valentine's Day Letter - Charles Duke of Orleans?

Question

Does anyone have any clue what poem Charles I Duke of Orleans wrote to his wife while he was in the Tower of London? It's supposed to be the first Valentine's Day Letter...around 1419 or so

Answer 1

European Valentine

A young Frenchman, Charles, Duke of Orleans, was one of the earliest creators of valentines, called "poetical or amorous addresses." From his confinement in the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, he sent several poems or rhymed love letters or "valentines" to his wife in France.

During the fifteenth century, one valentine showed a drawing of a knight and a lady, with Cupid in the act of sending an arrow to pierce the knight's heart.

During the seventeenth century people made their own valentines using original verse or poems copied from booklets with appropriate verse.

The English attitude toward St. Valentine's Day in the middle of the eighteenth century is summed up in this verse printed in Poor Robin's Almanac in 1757:

            This month bright Phoebus enters Pisces,

            The maids will have good store of kisses,

            For always when the fun comes there,

            Valentine's Day is drawing near,

            And both the men and maids incline

            To chuse them each a Valentine;

            And if a man gets one he loves,

            He gives her first a pair of gloves;

            And, by the way, remember this,

            To seal the favour with a kiss.

            This kiss begets more love, and then

            That love begets a kiss again,

            Until this trade the man doth catch,

            And then he doth propose the match,

            The woman's willing, tho' she's shy,

            She gives the man this soft reply,

            "I'll not resolve one thing or other,

            Until I first consult my mother."

            When she says so, 'tis half a grant,

            And may be taken for consent.