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4 days ago · Charles VI (born Dec. 3, 1368, Paris, France—died Oct. 21, 1422, Paris) was the king of France who throughout his long reign (1380–1422) remained largely a figurehead, first because he was still a boy when he took the throne and later because of his periodic fits of madness.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
In 1388, with the help of his brother, Louis of Orléans (1371–1407), he took control of the government, appointing his own advisors including some non-aristocrats. Charles VI was known both as Charles the Well-Beloved and later as Charles the Mad, since, beginning in his mid-twenties, he experienced bouts of psychosis.
Charles VI finally removed his corrupt uncles from power in 1388, taking up personal rule. He restored to power the highly competent advisors of Charles V, known as the Marmousets, [5] who ushered in a new period of high esteem for the crown. Charles VI was initially referred to as Charles the Beloved by his subjects.
Under Charles V hostilities at first obtained only between French, Anglo-Navarrais (Du Guesclin's victory at Cocherel, May 16, 1364) and Bretons. In 1369, on the pretext that Edward III had failed to observe the terms of the treaty of Bretigny, the King of France declared war against him.
- Overview
- From the Treaty of Brétigny to the accession of Henry V (1360–1413)
- Richard II and Charles VI
- Henry IV, the Armagnacs, and the Burgundians
- Agincourt and the conquest of Normandy
- Civil war in France and the accession of Charles VII
- Joan of Arc
- Treaty of Arras (1435) and Truce of Tours (1444)
- Reconquest of Maine and Normandy
Charles the Bad, who had made peace with the dauphin at Pontoise (August 1359), now rebelled anew (1364). He was defeated at Cocherel, on the banks of the Eure River (May 16, 1364), by Bertrand du Guesclin, a Breton captain to whom the French had entrusted the operation. By that time, however, John II, who had returned to London because one of his hostages had defaulted, was already dead (April 1364), and the dauphin had succeeded him as Charles V. The new king proceeded with the task of reducing disorder and misery in France. The defeat and death of Charles of Blois at the Battle of Auray (September 29, 1364) brought to an end the war in Brittany, and by the Treaty of Guérande (April 1365) John of Montfort’s son was recognized as Duke John IV. The cessation of hostilities with the English gave the French the opportunity to temporarily divert their resources from military activity to reconstruction.
Yet public opinion in France was unwilling to accept a permanent division of the country. The renunciation clause of the Treaty of Calais had never been carried out by John II, who had not completed the transfer of the territory by November 1361. Thus, Charles V was within his rights in accepting (June 30, 1368) an appeal against their duke from the Gascon nobles. Edward III held that this acceptance constituted a breach of the treaty, and hostilities were renewed. Edward’s son John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, disembarked at Calais (1369) and led a chevauchée (cavalry raid) into French territory. Sir Robert Knollys advanced toward the Île-de-France, but the new constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, destroyed part of his army at Pontvallain (December 1370). The Castilian navy, in alliance with the French, defeated an English fleet off La Rochelle (1372), and John of Gaunt conducted a more ambitious chevauchée (1373) across France from Calais to Bordeaux. In the intervals between these expeditions, the French king’s younger brother, Louis I of Anjou, and du Guesclin were carrying out, partly by warfare but mainly by diplomacy and by bribing local lords, a patient reconquest of the territories ceded in 1360.
Charles the Bad, who had made peace with the dauphin at Pontoise (August 1359), now rebelled anew (1364). He was defeated at Cocherel, on the banks of the Eure River (May 16, 1364), by Bertrand du Guesclin, a Breton captain to whom the French had entrusted the operation. By that time, however, John II, who had returned to London because one of his hostages had defaulted, was already dead (April 1364), and the dauphin had succeeded him as Charles V. The new king proceeded with the task of reducing disorder and misery in France. The defeat and death of Charles of Blois at the Battle of Auray (September 29, 1364) brought to an end the war in Brittany, and by the Treaty of Guérande (April 1365) John of Montfort’s son was recognized as Duke John IV. The cessation of hostilities with the English gave the French the opportunity to temporarily divert their resources from military activity to reconstruction.
Yet public opinion in France was unwilling to accept a permanent division of the country. The renunciation clause of the Treaty of Calais had never been carried out by John II, who had not completed the transfer of the territory by November 1361. Thus, Charles V was within his rights in accepting (June 30, 1368) an appeal against their duke from the Gascon nobles. Edward III held that this acceptance constituted a breach of the treaty, and hostilities were renewed. Edward’s son John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, disembarked at Calais (1369) and led a chevauchée (cavalry raid) into French territory. Sir Robert Knollys advanced toward the Île-de-France, but the new constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin, destroyed part of his army at Pontvallain (December 1370). The Castilian navy, in alliance with the French, defeated an English fleet off La Rochelle (1372), and John of Gaunt conducted a more ambitious chevauchée (1373) across France from Calais to Bordeaux. In the intervals between these expeditions, the French king’s younger brother, Louis I of Anjou, and du Guesclin were carrying out, partly by warfare but mainly by diplomacy and by bribing local lords, a patient reconquest of the territories ceded in 1360.
For the next few years both the English and French thrones were occupied by children: Richard II and Charles VI (son of Charles V). England was divided and weakened by the political and constitutional struggles between Richard and his opponents; this conflict was further complicated by the outbreak of first major popular rebellion in English history. A poll tax was imposed to pay for the ongoing war, and it angered workers and artisans already resentful of the Statute of Labourers (1351), a wage control mechanism that had been introduced during the labour shortage which resulted from the Black Death. Discontent grew until May 1381, when the Peasants’ Revolt erupted in southeastern England and East Anglia. The uprising was led by Wat Tyler, who marched into London with a band of Kentish rebels. On June 14, 1381, they captured the Tower of London and beheaded officials responsible for the poll tax. Richard offered concessions, and the following day the 14-year-old king met with the rebels at Smithfield. Fighting broke out during the negotiations, and Tyler was seriously wounded. He was soon captured and beheaded, and order was restored to London. It would be another 10 days before the rebellion was fully suppressed in the countryside, and the concessions offered at Smithfield were almost immediately discarded. These domestic challenges left no surplus energy for active campaigning in France.
Hundred Years’ War events
Battle of Sluys
June 24, 1340
Battle of Crécy
August 26, 1346
Unfortunately, few of Richard’s subjects shared his desire for peace. The nobility and the knights had acquired a taste for profitable chevauchées through France, while the rest of the population had absorbed the war propaganda issued in Edward III’s reign and regarded the French as responsible for all their ills. In any case, it was not long before sharp opposition to Richard II again developed, and, when John of Gaunt’s heir Henry Bolingbroke, earl of Derby, returned from banishment in June 1399 to wrest his inheritance from Richard, all the discontented rallied round him. Richard was deposed and imprisoned (he died in prison in February 1400), and Bolingbroke was proclaimed king of England as Henry IV in his stead. Though Henry legitimately sought to discredit the claims of Edward I’s descendants to the English crown, he did not hesitate to adopt Edward III’s claim to the French throne and decisively reversed the pacific policy of his predecessor.
Henry’s primary task, however, was the consolidation of his power in England, and in August 1400 he allowed Richard’s widow, Isabella, to return to France, although he kept her jewelry. Since the French king was only intermittently sane, his brother Louis, duke of Orléans, presided over the royal council. Louis tried to make trouble for Henry across the Channel by renewing the traditional support given by France to Scotland and by supporting the rebellion of the Welsh leader Owain Glyn Dŵr (Owen Glendower). Profiting from Henry’s preoccupations, Louis began the reconquest of Aquitaine. In 1405 the constable of France, Charles d’Albret, took many towns in Saintonge and Périgord while Bernard VII, count of Armagnac, was threatening Bordeaux. In 1406 the French suffered two setbacks: Louis failed to take Blaye on the Gironde River, while John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, was repulsed before Calais.
From the moment of his accession, it was clear that the new English king, Henry V, intended to act decisively on the Continent. Conversations with the emissaries of Charles VI proved fruitless because of the intransigence of Henry’s demands, and he embarked for France with his troops on August 10, 1415, landing at Le Chef-de-Caux on the estuary of the Seine. He took Harfleur (September 14) and moved toward Picardy. He awaited the arrival of the French army at Agincourt in Artois, where, on October 25, 1415, he utterly routed it. Henry failed to follow up his advantage, retiring thereafter to Calais, from which he went by ship to England. Though in no way strategically decisive, the victory at Agincourt won for Henry V the alliance of the German king Sigismund, who in August 1416 recognized his claim to the title and attributes of king of France. John the Fearless was equally impressed and, at an interview with Henry at Calais, offered not only alliance but homage.
Henry V did not return to France until 1417, and then it was to effect the methodical subjugation of Normandy town by town and district by district. Caen, Alençon and Evreux successively opened their gates to him. Meanwhile, Isabella of Bavaria, who had been imprisoned for a while by the Armagnacs, and John the Fearless joined forces at Troyes in November 1417 and there set up a rival government to that of Isabella’s own son, the dauphin Charles. After a Parisian revolt (May 1418), as a result of which the dauphin retired to Berry, John the Fearless was able to enter the capital. However, he and Isabella could oppose Henry V no more effectively than could the Armagnacs, and Henry seized Rouen (January 1419), the Pays de Caux, and the Vexin.
John the Fearless became so alarmed at the English progress that he made overtures of peace to the Armagnacs and the dauphin, but John was assassinated, on the bridge of Montereau, by the dauphin’s emissary (September 10, 1419). Thereupon his heir, Philip the Good, wishing to avenge him, allied himself (December 1419) with Henry V against the dauphin. By the Treaty of Troyes (May 21, 1420), concluded between Queen Isabella and Philip the Good—both acting for Charles VI—and King Henry, the dauphin was disinherited in favour of Henry V, who was, on June 2, 1420, to marry Catherine of Valois, one of Charles VI’s daughters. This arrangement was intended to set up a dual monarchy based on a personal union of the French and English crowns under which each of the kingdoms would retain its separate institutions and character. The dual monarchy was never achieved. In practice, France fell into three parts, controlled respectively by Henry V, the duke of Burgundy, and the dauphin. Henry’s authority was firm enough in Normandy and in Guyenne and was acknowledged in Paris and in the surrounding bailliages (administrative districts). Philip the Good retained considerable power in the Paris area and was naturally supreme in Burgundy. From his court at Bourges or at Poitiers the dauphin ruled over central France and Languedoc. The frontiers between these rival territories were never clearly delineated, being constantly altered by intermittent warfare, and allegiances did not necessarily follow the boundaries.
When the Treaty of Troyes had been signed, Henry V set about capturing the Armagnac fortresses which menaced his conquests. He seized Melun (1420), and his subordinates overran Maine and Perche. After a visit to England (January–July 1421), he returned to rout the army with which the dauphin was marching toward Paris. Subsequently Henry V took Meaux and Compiègne (May and June 1422), but he died on August 31, 1422. Thereafter the French territories of his infant successor, Henry VI, were governed by Henry V’s brother John, duke of Bedford. Charles VI died seven weeks after his son-in-law, on October 22, 1422; his long reign, which had begun auspiciously, ended in disorder and shame.
The siege of Orléans proved the turning point of the war, the event which enabled Joan of Arc to fulfill her mission and save France. A peasant girl from Domrémy in the borderland between Champagne and Lorraine, she managed to persuade Robert de Baudricourt, Charles VII’s captain at Vaucouleurs, to send her to Charles’s court at Chinon.
Joan gained the confidence of the king and his advisers and went with a small force to try to relieve Orléans. A few days after their arrival, the English raised the siege. The psychological effect of this was considerable. The morale of the French army soared, and in June 1429 the constable Richmond defeated the English in the Battle of Patay. Charles, persuaded by Joan, then went to Reims for his coronation; the city made no show of resistance and opened its gates to him. Once he was crowned and anointed (July 18, 1429), his position as legitimate king was unassailable, and the terms of the Treaty of Troyes became of no significance. Laon, Soissons, and Compiègne now acknowledged his sovereignty, but his attempt on Paris (September 8) was repulsed.
Joan’s death in no way checked the French recovery which she had inaugurated. Seeing which way the wind was now blowing, Philip the Good opened negotiations (1432) with Charles VII. The Treaty of Arras, which they signed on September 21, 1435, terminated the civil war, and Paris submitted to Charles on April 13, 1436.
Bedford died in September 1435 and was replaced as Henry VI’s lieutenant general and governor of France and Normandy by Richard, duke of York (1436–37 and 1440–45), and by Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (1437–39). Military operations continued sporadically for several years, in Bordelais and on the borders of Normandy. Charles VII was faced with the immense task of restoring order to his kingdom, and in France no less than in England royal authority was severely weakened by factions within the royal councils.
The need to renew the truce and the prospect of attaining a firm peace treaty encouraged the exchange of diplomatic envoys. Jean Jouvenel, archbishop of Reims, crossed to England in July 1445 to discuss a proposed meeting between the two kings. He obtained a promise that Henry VI would give up Maine to his father-in-law, René of Anjou. The English were slow in honouring this promise, and not until Charles VII’s army had surrounded it was Le Mans surrendered (1448).
No longer respecting the truce, the French took several towns from the English. With assistance from Francis I of Brittany, they began the reconquest of Normandy, and Charles VII made a solemn entry into Rouen, the capital, on November 20, 1449. The following spring a small English army landed at Cherbourg, recovered several fortresses in the Cotentin, but was then defeated in the Battle of Formigny on April 15, 1450. The French subsequently took Caen and brought the whole of Normandy under their control. The English reverses had considerable domestic repercussions. They were partly the cause of Suffolk’s fall from power (1450) and led to the revolt of Jack Cade and to the increase of Yorkist influence in opposition to the Lancastrian dynasty.
Charles VI brought the regency to an end in 1388, taking up personal rule. He restored to power the highly competent advisors of Charles V, known as the Marmousets , who ushered in a new period of high esteem for the crown.
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Nov 21, 2024 · Charles VI finally removed his corrupt uncles from power in 1388, taking up personal rule. He restored to power the highly competent advisors of Charles V, known as the Marmousets , [5] who ushered in a new period of high esteem for the crown.
