The Armagnac territory extended as a strip from the Garonne to the Pyrenees. It was a fertile and well-peopled land; its principal towns were Auche, Mirande, Vic, and Lectoure.
The Armagnac family derived from a Garcias Sanchez, Duke of Gascony in the early part of the tenth century. He was nicknamed the Hunchback, and he seems to have bequeathed a moral distortion to his descendants.
John IV, Count of Armagnac, was especially associated with the castle at Bordères; and his story must now be told.
This headstrong man fell in love with his own sister, Isabella, and failing in his application to Rome for a dispensation to allow him to marry her, he forged one, and presented it to the chaplain of the castle, and demanded that he should unite them. When the priest demurred, Count John threatened to throw him headlong from the window into the river unless he obeyed. When others remonstrated, he drew his dagger on them. The cowed chaplain submitted to celebrate the incestuous nuptials.
The Pope now excommunicated the Count, and King Charles VII vainly endeavoured to recall him to a better mind; but Armagnac resisted kind instances, and defied force. Soon after he associated himself with the insurrection of the Dauphin. The Duke of Clermont was sent against him. His guilty passion had enfeebled the mind of John, and in place of resisting the invasion, he abandoned his dominions, and fled with Isabella to the protection of his relative, the King of Aragon. He was summoned by the Parliament, and having been rash enough to appear, was arrested and imprisoned. Soon after he managed to escape. The sentence of perpetual banishment was passed upon
