Group items tagged

On the death of his elder brother in April 1417, Charles became dauphin (heir to the throne) at the age of 14. He was named lieutenant general of the kingdom, but his mother left Paris and allied herself with John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy.

There he put himself at the head of the Armagnac party (rivals of the Burgundians) and at the end of 1418 assumed the title of regent for the deranged Charles VI.

Faced with the threat of the English, who had invaded France, and the demands of the English king, Henry V, who claimed the French crown, Charles attempted to reconcile his differences with the Duke of Burgundy.

In 1420 the Treaty of Troyes recognized Henry V as heir to the French throne, excluding Charles. Charles’s supporters, however, included not only the Armagnacs but also the “party of the King,” which backed his claim to the succession.

On the death of his father on Oct. 21, 1422, Charles assumed the title of king of France. His worst difficulties were of a financial nature: the taxes voted by the States General (representative assembly) were insufficient for his needs

Joan of Arc, the visionary peasant girl from Lorraine, travelled across the country to fortify the King’s intentions to fight for France. He received her at Chinon in February 1429. She restored the French army’s confidence, and they liberated Orléans. On July 17, after a victorious journey with his army, Charles was crowned at Reims

the King condemned the murder of Philip’s father, and the Duke recognized Charles as his sovereign. A new phase then opened up in Charles’s life.

The power of the nobility was lessened by his reforms; encouraged by the Duke of Burgundy—and especially by Charles’s son, the dauphin Louis (later King Louis XI)—they formed a coalition against the King (the Praguerie).

Philip of Burgundy dreamed of dominating France, and the Dauphin, who was approaching 40, had difficulty in concealing his impatience to reign.

Charles VII’s reign was one of the most important in the history of the French monarchy. Although France had lost the economic prosperity and commercial importance it had enjoyed in the preceding centuries and the great nobles had become independent during the long partisan struggles of the Hundred Years’ War period, Charles was able to begin the work of reunifying the kingdom by rallying the peoples’ loyalty to himself as the legitimate king.

John found himself involved in French affairs and was in part responsible for provoking a civil war in France with a rival house, headed by his first cousin, the King’s younger brother, Louis, duc d’Orléans. Each man sought control of the mad king Charles VI and his queen and of the capital Paris.

the notorious murder by Duke John of his cousin by hired assassins in 1407 enabled John to subdue Paris and the crown

During the five years between 1413 and 1418, in which the Armagnacs succeeded in driving the Burgundians out of Paris, the internal situation in France was further complicated by a new English invasion led by the ambitious king, Henry V.

John turned instead to the Armagnacs, in the hopes of arranging a truce or even making a firm peace settlement with their youthful leader, the dauphin Charles (the future Charles VII), in an alliance against the English.

John the Fearless was struck down and killed during a dispute started by the Armagnacs, a political assassination that contemporary evidence shows was almost certainly carefully premeditated.