Charles VII of France

Early Life and Family Origins

Charles was born on 22 February 1403 at the royal residence of the Hôtel Saint-Pol in Paris.^[2][5] He was the eleventh child and fifth son of King Charles VI of France and Queen Isabeau of Bavaria.^[1] Within his first year, he received the title of Count of Ponthieu.^[5] As a younger son preceded by several brothers, he was not originally expected to inherit the crown of France, and his probable destiny was to hold an appanage for which he would render homage to the sovereign. France was already shaken by the Hundred Years' War against the English royal dynasty, and from 1407 onward the kingdom was further destabilized by the outbreak of civil war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians.^[6][7]

The young Charles was drawn into the dynastic rivalry between the houses of Anjou and Burgundy. On 20 November 1413, Duke Louis II of Anjou, who was a cousin of King Charles VI and titular king of Naples, broke the prospective marriage contract between his son Louis and Catherine of Burgundy, daughter of Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy.^[8] Louis II did so out of loyalty to the Valois dynasty and because of his disagreement with John the Fearless, who had orchestrated the murder of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, in November 1407.^[8] To consolidate his alliance with the Valois crown, Louis II betrothed his nine-year-old daughter, Marie of Anjou, to the ten-year-old Charles of Ponthieu at the Louvre Palace on 18 December 1413.^[9][10]

Following the Cabochien revolt in Paris during 1413, Marie's mother, Yolande of Aragon, Duchess of Anjou, refused to leave the betrothed children in the capital where the royal residents at the Hôtel Saint-Pol were threatened by Burgundian violence.^[11] Yolande took Charles and Marie to Anjou on 5 February 1414.^[11] Charles subsequently stayed in Tours from October to December 1414, and in mid-January 1415 his future in-laws took him to the Château de Tarascon in Provence.^[11][12] He returned to Anjou late in 1415, having received lessons from accomplished tutors and acquiring an education compared to that of his ancestor Charles V.^[11][12]

Charles's four older brothers died childless in early life, shifting the line of succession.^[1] Charles (1386) died in infancy, and a second Charles (1392–1401) died at the age of nine.^[1] Louis, Duke of Guyenne (1397–1415), had assumed governmental responsibilities at age sixteen during the Estates-General of January 1413 under the influence of his mother and John the Fearless, but he opposed the Cabochien insurgents alongside the Armagnacs.^[13] Charles of Ponthieu was named captain of the Château de Vincennes on 1 November 1415, following the French defeat at Agincourt. Louis died on 18 December 1415, whereupon John, Duke of Touraine (1398–1417), became Dauphin.^[13] John resided in Hainaut with his father-in-law Count William IV of Hainaut.^[13] While waiting at Compiègne for negotiations regarding his entry into Paris, John fell ill and died on 5 April 1417.^[14] His death left Charles as the sole surviving son and heir apparent.^[1][14]

Dauphin and Civil War

Upon his brother John's death on 5 April 1417, the fourteen-year-old Charles became Dauphin of Viennois and inherited the duchies of Touraine and Berry as well as the county of Poitiers.^[1][14] Following the death of his prospective father-in-law Louis II of Anjou on 29 April 1417, Charles assumed the presidency of the regency council. Queen Isabeau claimed sole direction of the regency under the influence of John the Fearless; in response, the Dauphin and his Armagnac advisers sent her under guard to Tours, an action she did not forgive. In May 1417, Charles was appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom to act in his father's stead during periods of mental incapacitation. In December 1417, John the Fearless liberated Isabeau from Tours, established her at Troyes, and issued a manifesto claiming full governmental powers.

Flight from Paris and Refuge at Bourges

During the night of 28 to 29 May 1418, Burgundian forces under Jean de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam entered Paris.^[15][16] Tanneguy du Chastel, provost of Paris, accompanied by crown officers including Guillaume d'Avaugour, went to the Hôtel Saint-Pol, woke the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, wrapped him in a robe, and carried him to the fortress of the Bastille Saint-Antoine.^[16][17] From there, Charles was escorted out of the capital toward Melun.^[16] The Burgundians carried out killings in the city, executing Chancellor Henri de Marle, Constable Bernard VII of Armagnac, and approximately 2,500 of their supporters.^[18][19] Charles established his residence at Bourges, the administrative seat of his duchy of Berry, and took leadership of the Armagnac cause.^[20][21]

In Bourges, Charles set up a parallel royal government, installing his own Parlement in Poitiers and a Chamber of Accounts in Bourges.^[21][22][23] His enemies mockingly called him the 'King of Bourges'.^[24] Supported by feudal magnates, Charles mounted operations in the Loire basin and central France, bringing towns such as Tours, Melun, Meaux, Compiègne, and Montereau under his authority.^[25] During operations at Tours, he formally proclaimed himself Regent of France, asserting sovereign authority on the basis of his father's incapacity and captivity under the Burgundians.^[25][26]

Treaties of Saint-Maur and Pouilly-le-Fort

Surrounded in the capital region by Armagnac forces, John the Fearless pursued a diplomatic settlement.^[27] On 16 September 1418, he concluded the Treaty of Saint-Maur with Queen Isabeau and Duke John V of Brittany. The agreement offered pardon to the Armagnacs while alleging that they had poisoned the previous dauphins, Louis and John, and held Charles hostage in Bourges with the intent of delivering him to the English. Duke John V traveled to Saumur on 22 September 1418 to present the treaty to Charles.^[27] Assisted by counselors such as Jean Louvet, the Dauphin refused to ratify the proposal or repudiate his supporters.^[27]

As King Henry V of England advanced through Normandy, John the Fearless sought direct accommodation with the Dauphin to confront the English forces.^[27][28] Charles and John met on 8 July 1419 near Melun and concluded a preliminary agreement on 11 July at a bridge near Pouilly-le-Fort, known as the Treaty of Pouilly-le-Fort or the Peace of Le Ponceau.^[29] Both parties agreed to share governmental authority, aid each other against the English, and refrain from separate treaties.^[29] The Dauphin's advisers swore oaths on relics before Burgundian prelates to seal the pact, and a second meeting was arranged to finalize terms.^[29]

Assassination at Montereau

On 10 September 1419, Charles and John the Fearless met on the bridge over the Yonne River at Montereau-Fault-Yonne.^[7][30] An enclosed barrier was constructed in the center of the bridge, and each prince entered with an escort of ten armed men while their main forces remained on opposite riverbanks. A heated argument arose regarding whether Burgundian garrisons had been withdrawn as agreed at Pouilly. The Dauphin's men attacked and killed John the Fearless.^[1] Among them was Tanneguy du Chastel, who took a gesture by the duke for an attempted attack and struck him with his axe between the neck and shoulder.^[1][31][32] Charles maintained that he had been unaware of his men's lethal intentions, but Burgundians regarded the killing as premeditated.^[1][7] The assassination hardened factional divisions and ended prospects for Armagnac-Burgundian reconciliation.^[1][7][33] Popular tradition recorded that the event left Charles with an enduring aversion to crossing bridges.^[32]

Treaty of Troyes and Disinheritance

Following his father's death, the new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, formed an alliance with King Henry V of England.^[7][28][33] On 21 May 1420, Queen Isabeau, acting on behalf of the mentally impaired Charles VI, joined Philip the Good and Henry V in signing the Treaty of Troyes.^[7][34] The treaty disinherited the Dauphin Charles on grounds of alleged crimes and illegitimacy, capitalizing on longstanding court rumors regarding Isabeau's extramarital affairs, particularly with the late Louis, Duke of Orléans.^[7][35] The treaty designated Henry V as regent of France and heir to the French crown, stipulating his marriage to Charles's sister Catherine of Valois, which took place at Troyes on 2 June 1420.^[7]

The Dauphin rejected the Treaty of Troyes, arguing that the French crown was inalienable and that his father lacked the mental capacity to surrender it.^[34] Contemporary writer Alain Chartier described the disordered state of the kingdom in his work Le Quadrilogue invectif, likening France to a rudderless ship and an unbridled horse.^[36] In 1421, Henry V had the Parlement of Paris declare Charles stripped of all titles and rights to the throne.^[7] Charles's modern biographers, such as Malcolm Vale, note that there is no concrete evidence that Charles was not Charles VI's biological son, attributing the rumors to political disinheritance strategies.^[35]

The King of Bourges

In the summer of 1421, Charles conducted military operations in the Perche and invested Chartres, but he withdrew south across the Loire upon the approach of Henry V.^[37][38] Henry V died at Vincennes on 31 August 1422, and Charles VI died at the Hôtel Saint-Pol on 21 October 1422.^[39][40] The English party proclaimed Henry V's infant son, Henry VI, as King of France and England, placing the administration of northern France under Henry V's brother, John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford.^[39][40] Charles proclaimed himself King of France as Charles VII on 30 October 1422 in Bourges.^[24] Another account places the proclamation at Mehun-sur-Yèvre.^[40] Because Reims remained under Anglo-Burgundian control, he could not receive the traditional coronation and anointing with the holy ampulla.^[41]

Military Setbacks and Alliances

Between 1422 and 1425, Charles consolidated authority over central and southern territories, holding Berry, Touraine, Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge, Auvergne, Limousin, Lyon, Dauphiné, Languedoc, Agenais, Rouergue, and Quercy, while retaining influence in Anjou, Maine, the Bourbonnais, and the Orléanais.^[7] Royal forces suffered significant military defeats against Anglo-Burgundian armies at Cravant on 31 July 1423 and at Verneuil on 17 August 1424, leaving royal field armies severely weakened and confining Charles's power south of the Loire.^[42]

To secure external military manpower, Charles dispatched embassies to foreign courts.^[43] In 1419, an embassy to Scotland led by the Sieur de Plusquallec secured approximately 6,000 Scottish troops under John Stewart, Earl of Buchan.^[44][45] Although some French captains criticized the Scots, calling them sheep-eaters and wine-skins, the Scottish forces secured a notable victory over an English army at the Battle of Baugé in March 1421, during which Henry V's brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence, was killed.^[44][45] Charles rewarded Buchan by appointing him Constable of France.^[45] Charles also employed troops and captains from Castile, Lombardy, Genoa, and Switzerland to reinforce his positions.^[43]

Seeking diplomatic support after the defeat at Verneuil, Charles turned to his mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, who advocated a rapprochement with the Duchy of Brittany.^[46][47] In March 1425, Charles appointed Arthur de Richemont, younger brother of Duke John V of Brittany and brother-in-law to Philip the Good, as Constable of France.^[48][49] To satisfy the requirements of Brittany and Burgundy, Charles dismissed several longtime Armagnac advisers from his council who were linked to the Montereau assassination or the rival Penthièvre faction, including Tanneguy du Chastel, Jean Louvet, Robert Le Maçon, Béraud d'Auvergne, Hardouin de Maillé, and Pierre Frotier.^[49][50] John V paid temporary homage to Charles, but renewed ties with England in September 1427.^[49] Richemont subsequently fell from favor and was displaced at court by Georges de La Trémoille, initiating a period of factional instability around the king.^[49]

The Campaign of Joan of Arc

By 1428, English forces under Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury, launched an offensive toward the Loire, capturing towns in the Gâtinais and placing Orléans under siege in October.^[51] Orléans was the most important city in the defense of central France.^[52] The Duke of Bedford advanced toward the Duchy of Bar, and the French position appeared increasingly untenable.^[53]

Arrival at Chinon and Relief of Orléans

In early 1429, Joan of Arc, a peasant girl from Domrémy on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne, declared that celestial visions had charged her with relieving Orléans and bringing Charles to Reims for coronation.^[53][54] Having obtained an escort and credentials from Robert de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs, she rode to Chinon.^[51][53] When she arrived, Charles tested her by mingling with his courtiers in plain clothing.^[51][54][55] Joan approached him directly, addressed him as Dauphin, and held a private conference with him.^[54][55] According to court testimonies from Simon Charles and her confessor Jean Pasquerel, Joan revealed a private secret to the king that gave him confidence in her divine mission and his own legitimacy.^[55][56] After passing several tests, she was allowed to help lead the fighting at Orléans.^[54][57]

Charles provided Joan with troops, armor, and supplies, sending her to Orléans alongside experienced commanders including Jean de Dunois, Étienne de Vignolles (known as La Hire), and Jean Poton de Xaintrailles.^[54] On 8 May 1429, after several engagements against the English siege bastilles, the English lifted the siege.^[54] The French forces then conducted the Loire campaign, winning victories at Jargeau on 11 to 12 June, Meung-sur-Loire on 14 June, and Beaugency on 15 June.^[54] On 18 June 1429, French troops defeated the retreating English field army at the Battle of Patay, capturing John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and dispersing the remaining English forces in the region.^[54]

Coronation at Reims and Aftermath

Joan persuaded Charles to undertake an expedition through Anglo-Burgundian territory to Reims.^[54][57] The towns along the route, including Troyes and Châlons, opened their gates without sustained resistance.^[41] On 17 July 1429, Charles was anointed and crowned King of France in Reims Cathedral by Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Reims and Chancellor of France, in the presence of Joan of Arc.^[54] Louis I of Bourbon-Vendôme represented one of the lay peers at the coronation.^[58] The coronation confirmed Charles's status under traditional religious forms, strengthening his political standing across the kingdom.^[54]

Following the coronation, royal forces secured Compiègne, Soissons, and Beauvais, but court factions led by Georges de La Trémoille and Regnault de Chartres favored diplomatic accommodation with Philip the Good over continuous offensive warfare.^[59] An assault on Paris on 8 September 1429 failed, and Charles withdrew his army back to the Loire.^[59] Joan went to Compiègne without consulting Charles and was captured there on 24 May 1430 by Burgundian troops under John of Luxembourg during the siege of the town.^[59][60] The Burgundians delivered her to the English for a financial ransom.^[60][61] Tried for heresy before an ecclesiastical court in Rouen headed by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, she was condemned and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431.^[59][62] Charles took no public steps to ransom or rescue her, drawing criticism from contemporary observers and later historians, although some accounts suggest informal retaliatory warnings were conveyed to the Burgundians.^[28][59][63]

In response to the Reims coronation, the English government held a Paris coronation for ten-year-old Henry VI on 16 December 1431 at Notre-Dame Cathedral, officiated by Cardinal Henry Beaufort.^[64] The event drew limited attendance from the French higher nobility and prelates. After Charles recovered Rouen in 1449, he initiated an official inquiry into Joan of Arc's trial.^[65] Following petitions from Joan's family and an investigation supervised by Papal Inquisitor Jean Bréhal, the Holy See formally overturned the 1431 sentence on 7 July 1456, declaring Joan's conviction null and rehabilitating her memory.^[66]

Diplomatic Realignment and Reconquest

In December 1431, Charles's representatives negotiated a general truce with Philip the Good, neutralizing Burgundian military participation alongside the English. In June 1433, Arthur de Richemont and his allies removed Georges de La Trémoille from the royal council, allowing more consistent administrative leadership under Richemont, Yolande of Aragon, and Charles of Anjou.^[42] In January 1435, formal negotiations opened between French and Burgundian delegations.^[67] On 5 August 1435, a peace conference between France, Burgundy and England opened at Arras.^[67][68] Charles's delegation included the Duke of Bourbon and Constable Richemont, together with the Count of Vendôme and Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Reims.^[67][69] The English delegation, refusing to abandon the claim of Henry VI to the French crown, withdrew on 6 September, and the Duke of Bedford died in Rouen on 14 September 1435.^[41][67]

Treaty of Arras and Recovery of Paris

On 21 September 1435, Charles VII and Philip the Good concluded the Treaty of Arras, which was proclaimed in the church of Saint-Waast and ended the civil war that had divided Armagnacs and Burgundians since 1407.^[67][69] Charles apologized through a legal representative, Jean Tudert, for the 1419 murder of John the Fearless, stating that he had lacked the maturity and understanding to prevent it.^[28][67] Charles recognized Philip's sovereign authority over Burgundy, exempted him personally from feudal homage, and ceded the counties of Auxerre and Mâcon along with several Somme towns, including Amiens, Abbeville, and Saint-Quentin.^[67][69][70] In exchange, Philip recognized Charles as King of France, ending princely support for Henry VI's claim and isolating the English diplomatically.^[67][68][69]

With the English isolated, unrest spread in occupied Paris. In April 1436, Constable Richemont advanced toward the capital, and on 13 April sympathetic citizens opened the city gates to royal forces.^[68][71] The English garrison surrendered the Bastille four days later, and Richemont declared a general amnesty for political offenses committed under the occupation.^[41] Charles directed operations in the Île-de-France, retook Montereau in October 1437, and made his formal ceremonial entry into Paris on 12 November 1437, receiving the keys to the city.^[72][73] Pontoise was recaptured in 1441.^[41][74]

The Truce of Tours and Lorraine Expeditions

Prolonged warfare caused severe economic disruption, depopulation, and famine across northern France, while demobilized mercenary bands known as Écorcheurs (flayers) looted provinces in central and southern France.^[75][76] In May 1444, English envoys led by William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, met French negotiators and concluded the Truce of Tours, establishing a twenty-two-month cessation of hostilities that was repeatedly renewed until 1449.^[41][68][77] The agreement was sealed by the engagement of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Duke René of Anjou and niece to Queen Marie; Suffolk agreed to waive a dowry and promised the restoration of Maine to the French crown.^[41][77][78]

During the truce, Charles utilized unemployed mercenary companies by sending them on external military campaigns.^[79] In response to a request for military assistance against the Old Swiss Confederacy from German King Frederick III, the Dauphin Louis led approximately 25,000 troops through Alsace, engaging a Swiss detachment of 1,500 men at the Battle of Saint Jakob an der Birs near Basel on 26 August 1444.^[79] Simultaneously, Charles conducted an expedition into Lorraine between September 1444 and April 1445, intervening in disputes concerning René of Anjou, laying siege to Metz, and occupying Épinal in March 1445.^[80][81] Through these campaigns Charles rid himself of the unemployed mercenary companies, and many of the unwanted mercenaries were killed.^[79]

Reconquest of Normandy and Guyenne

In March 1448, Jean de Dunois captured Le Mans after English authorities delayed the surrender of Maine. On 24 March 1449, an English-employed mercenary seized the Breton town of Fougères, providing Charles with grounds to declare the truce broken on 17 July 1449.^[41][68] Three royal army columns led by the Count of Saint-Pol, Jean de Dunois, Pierre de Brézé, and Duke Francis I of Brittany invaded Normandy. Rouen surrendered on 1 November 1449, and Charles entered the city in procession on 10 November. An English relief army under Sir Thomas Kyriell landed at Cherbourg in March 1450, but was defeated on 15 April 1450 at the Battle of Formigny by forces under Constable Richemont and Pierre de Brézé.^[68] Caen capitulated on 1 July 1450, and Cherbourg followed on 12 August 1450, clearing Normandy of English troops.^[41]

In 1451, French forces turned toward Guyenne, where English rule had persisted for three centuries.^[4] Dunois advanced into the region, taking Bergerac and Jonzac before securing the surrender of Bordeaux on 24 June 1451 and Bayonne on 20 August 1451.^[41] Heavy royal taxation and trade disruption alienated Bordeaux's merchant class, who sent appeals to London for military assistance.^[4][82] In October 1452, veteran commander John Talbot landed in the Médoc with an English expeditionary force and entered Bordeaux without resistance.^[82] Charles organized reinforcements and deployed royal artillery organized by the brothers Jean and Gaspard Bureau.^[4][82][83]

On 17 July 1453, the armies met at the Battle of Castillon.^[4] French field fortifications and artillery directed by the Bureau brothers broke the English assault; Talbot and his son were killed, and the English army collapsed with heavy casualties.^[4][82] French forces besieged Bordeaux, which capitulated on 19 October 1453 under terms negotiated by Admiral Jean V de Bueil, paying a fine of 100,000 écus.^[4][41] Castillon concluded military engagements in the Hundred Years' War.^[3][4] England retained only the Pale of Calais on continental soil, which remained under English control until 1558.^[4] The Wars of the Roses (1453–1483) in England prevented any English attempt to recover the lost territories.^[4][41][68]

In diplomatic developments following the war, the Republic of Genoa, threatened by Alfonso V of Aragon, placed itself under Charles VII's sovereignty in May 1458.^[84] The territory was administered as a French possession by Governor John II of Lorraine until Genoese resistance ended French rule in March 1461.^[84][85]

State-Building and Institutional Reforms

The successful expulsion of the English accompanied extensive administrative, fiscal, and institutional reorganizations that strengthened the centralized authority of the French crown over the feudal nobility.^[72][86][87] Through these measures, Charles VII established institutional foundations that modern historians view as laying the groundwork for the early modern absolute monarchy in France.^[86][88]

Military Reforms and Standing Army

At the Estates-General of Orléans on 2 November 1439, Charles issued a royal ordinance establishing the crown's exclusive right to raise and maintain armed forces, banning private armies and unauthorized military recruitment by feudal lords.^[75] On 26 May 1445, he established the French army with the companies of ordonnance, the first permanent military institution.^[83][89]

To supplement the cavalry with infantry, Charles issued an ordinance on 28 April 1448 establishing the francs-archers (free archers).^[75][90][91] Every parish or group of fifty hearths was required to equip, arm, and maintain one trained archer who was granted exemption from the taille in return for mandatory military readiness.^[90][91] Under the administration of Jean Bureau, Grand Master of Artillery, the royal army expanded and standardized its gunpowder siege trains, utilizing cast bronze and iron cannons that proved decisive at Formigny, Castillon, and during numerous sieges in Normandy and Guyenne.^[82][90][92]

Financial Administration and Taxation

To support permanent military expenditures, Charles centralized and regularized state revenues.^[93] The 1439 ordinance established the royal taille as a direct, unified, and annual tax levied directly by royal officials, bypassing seigneurial consent.^[93] The crown also systematized indirect taxes, including the gabelle (salt tax), aides, and customs duties.^[86][93] Because the Estates-General granted annual fiscal authority, the king ceased convening the national assembly regularly after 1439, ruling through executive decrees.^[93] Philippe de Commines later estimated that over half of the crown's annual revenue of 1,800,000 francs was allocated directly to the standing army.^[75]

The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges

In ecclesiastical affairs, Charles capitalized on the conflict between Pope Eugene IV and the Council of Basel.^[94] On 7 July 1438, after consulting a national synod of French prelates and theologians at the Sainte-Chapelle in Bourges, Charles promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges.^[68][94] Incorporating the conciliarist decrees of Basel, the document asserted the supremacy of ecumenical councils over papal authority, suppressed the payment of annates and other ecclesiastical levies to Rome, and restored cathedral chapters' rights to elect bishops and abbots, while granting the French crown decisive influence over nominations and ecclesiastical benefices.^[68][94] The enactment created a Gallican national Catholic church that was relatively independent of the Holy See and was to be largely under the French king's control, especially in matters of appointments.^[94]

Judicial and Customary Law Reforms

Charles carried out reforms in the judiciary.^[41][72] After the recovery of Paris, he merged the supreme court established in Poitiers during his exile with the Parlement of Paris into a new institution.^[72] He reorganized provincial judicial bodies, creating the Parlement of Toulouse in 1443 and establishing regional parlements in Bordeaux and Grenoble.^[41] In April 1454, Charles issued the Ordinance of Montils-lès-Tours, which mandated that all regional customary laws across France be documented, checked, and codified in the vernacular under royal supervision, establishing the crown as the central source of legal validation.^[41][95]

In higher education, Charles founded the University of Poitiers in 1431 and 1432 with papal authorization from Eugene IV, training legal and administrative personnel to staff the growing royal civil service.^[41]

The Praguerie and Noble Unrest

The crown's military and taxation monopolies prompted armed resistance from the high aristocracy, who resented the loss of their traditional feudal privileges.^[28] In early 1440, a noble conspiracy known as the Praguerie, named in reference to the contemporary Hussite rebellions in Prague, erupted against Charles VII.^[41] The revolt was led by Duke Charles I of Bourbon, Duke John II of Alençon, and Count John IV of Armagnac, joined by Georges de La Trémoille and the sixteen-year-old Dauphin Louis, who was discontented with his lack of independent political authority.^[41]

The rebel lords intended to place Charles under guardianship and establish the Dauphin as regent.^[41] Charles acted against the uprising in Poitou, supported by Constable Richemont and Charles of Anjou.^[41] The rebel forces were forced back into the Bourbonnais when the 'thirteen good towns' of Auvergne, including Riom, Issoire, and Brioude, refused to open their gates to the insurgents.^[41] Charles defeated the rebel forces by 19 July 1440 and concluded the Treaty of Cusset on 24 July.^[41] He granted pardons and pensions to the rebel princes, but assigned the Dauphin to the local administration of the Dauphiné to distance him from the court.^[41]

Subsequent aristocratic opposition was systematically curtailed.^[41] In 1442, an assembly of dissatisfied princes at Nevers, organized by Charles of Orléans and Philip the Good, was neutralized by diplomatic concessions.^[41] In 1443, the Dauphin subdued John IV of Armagnac, imprisoning him at Carcassonne.^[41] When John's successor, John V of Armagnac, rebelled and asserted claims to Comminges in 1454, royal forces invaded his territories in 1455, forcing him to flee to Catalonia; his lands were confiscated by the crown in 1460.^[41] In May 1456, John II, Duke of Alençon, was arrested for treasonous correspondence with the English government; tried before the Court of Peers in 1458, he was sentenced to death, though Charles commuted the penalty to life imprisonment.^[41]

Court Life and Advisers

Charles's administration was distinguished by the employment of talented counselors, military commanders, and financiers drawn from the middle nobility, merchant families, and the administrative class.^[28] He was also known as 'the Well-Served' (le Bien-Servi).^[1][2][96]

Counselors and Military Captains

Prominent political advisers included Chancellor Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins, Archbishop Regnault de Chartres, Guillaume Cousinot, and Robert Le Maçon.^[41] Key military commanders who directed royal armies during the reconquest included Jean de Dunois (the Bastard of Orléans), Arthur de Richemont, Étienne de Vignolles (La Hire), Jean Poton de Xaintrailles, Pierre de Brézé, and the artillery masters Jean and Gaspard Bureau.^[4][28][82]

Jacques Cœur

Jacques Cœur opened a trade route from France to the Levant.^[97] Cœur was a merchant who financed Charles's campaigns.^[28] On 31 July 1451, Cœur was arrested on a charge, probably the result of an intrigue, of poisoning Agnès Sorel, accompanied by allegations of counterfeiting, embezzlement, and exporting silver.^[41]

Agnès Sorel and Court Mistresses

Around 1443, Charles entered into a relationship with Agnès Sorel, a lady-in-waiting to Duchess Isabella of Lorraine.^[98] Charles recognized her as the first officially acknowledged royal mistress (maîtresse-en-titre) in French history, granting her the estate of Beauté-sur-Marne, where she was titled the 'Dame de Beauté'.^[98][99] Contemporary observers, including Jean Juvénal des Ursins and Thomas Basin, credited Sorel with encouraging Charles toward more vigorous political and military action.^[41][98] Sorel bore Charles four daughters, three of whom were formally legitimized and provided with marriages into noble houses: Marie, Charlotte, and Jeanne.^{[98][100][101]} Agnès Sorel died on 9 February 1450 at the manor of Le Mesnil near Jumièges Abbey shortly after childbirth.^[98] Antoinette de Maignelais, a cousin of Agnès Sorel, was also among the king's mistresses.^[102]

Personality, Physical Appearance, and Health

Contemporaries presented differing portraits of Charles VII.^[103] Burgundian chronicler Georges Chastellain described him as changeable, suspicious, and prone to casting aside favorites once their influence grew, though he acknowledged his administrative endurance.^[49][103] In contrast, citizens of Châlons in 1429 praised his gentleness, piety, and comprehension, while Bishop Jean Juvénal des Ursins noted that his rule was just and orderly.^[104][105] Charles spoke fluent Latin, showed competence in history and theological texts, and played the harp, while displaying little enthusiasm for hunting or military tournaments.^{[40][105][106]} His early life experiences fostered persistent apprehensions: after an entire wooden floor collapsed under him at La Roche-Guyon in 1422, he developed a lifelong phobia of walking on wooden floorboards, and the murder of John the Fearless left him suspicious of crossing bridges.^[107] At meals, the sight of unfamiliar persons made him visibly unsettled.^[40][107]

Physically, Chastellain described Charles as lean, with an awkward gait and bowed legs, which the king disguised by wearing long, flowing tunics.^[108] Portraits, such as that by Jean Fouquet, depict him with somber, contemplative features.^[109] From about 1455, Charles felt increasingly ill, and from 1458 he suffered from a mouth infection that made eating difficult.^[110] In his final months, a severe abscess developed in his jaw, causing extensive swelling in his mouth and throat that prevented him from swallowing food or water.^[110]

Final Years and Death

Charles's last decade was consumed by bitter hostility with his eldest son, the Dauphin Louis.^[110] Louis repeatedly demanded more real power, which Charles always refused.^[42] Louis also conspired against Agnès Sorel and Pierre de Brézé.^[111] In 1446, after the birth of the king's youngest son, Charles, the future Duke of Berry, the king banished Louis to the Dauphiné.^[42] Father and son never met again.^[42] In the Dauphiné, Louis governed autonomously, and in March 1451 he married Charlotte of Savoy against the king's explicit prohibition.^[42][111] When royal troops under the Count of Dammartin marched into the Dauphiné in August 1456, Louis fled to Brabant to seek asylum under Philip the Good.^[41] Charles commented on the Burgundian duke's action by stating that his cousin was sheltering a fox that would eventually eat his chickens.^[112]

During his final illness at the Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre in July 1461, Charles became delirious, convinced that court attendants were plotting with the Dauphin to poison him.^[41][110] Unable to eat due to the swelling of the mouth abscess and weakened by fever, Charles died of malnutrition and infection on 22 July 1461 at the age of fifty-eight, attended by his younger son, Charles.^[41][110]

Funeral and Tomb

During the transport of the king's body to Saint-Denis, the cortege halted at La Croix aux Fiens because Parisian salt-measurers refused to carry the bier further without receiving an customary payment of ten Paris pounds; the master of the horse pledged the sum from his own purse to resume the procession.^[113] Charles was buried on 7 August 1461 in the Basilica of Saint-Denis beside his parents. His tomb in the Caroline Chapel of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, completed between 1464 and 1465, held effigies of Charles and Queen Marie d'Anjou attributed to the sculptor Michel Colombe, on a black marble base with two white marble columns beside the effigies.

During the French Revolution, his tomb was destroyed between 5 and 8 August 1793, when the effigies of Charles VII and Marie were broken with sledgehammers; on 17 October 1793 his grave was opened and his remains were buried in a mass grave outside the church. Alexandre Lenoir saved the busts of the effigies and had what could be recovered taken to the reserves of the Musée des Monuments Français. After restoration in the 19th century, the two busts were returned to Saint-Denis in the late 1990s, where they stand on facing columns next to the tomb of Charles VI and Isabeau of Bavaria.

Legacy and Cultural Depictions

Although historically overshadowed by the popular narrative of Joan of Arc and criticized by 19th-century historians for early hesitancy and the abandonment of Joan, Charles VII accomplished the reunification of France and the end of the Hundred Years' War.^[1][3][87] He established a permanent standing military, consolidated direct national taxation, codified regional customary laws, and asserted crown authority over the church through Gallican policies.^{[41][90][91][114]} In The Prince, political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli commended Charles VII for creating the first standing army since antiquity, remarking that if his military institutions had been maintained and developed by his successors, France would have been invincible.^[114][115]

Charles VII has been portrayed in numerous literary, theatrical, and cinematic works. He appears as the Dauphin in William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1, and in theatrical works by George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan), Jean Anouilh (The Lark), and Maxwell Anderson (Joan of Lorraine). He is featured in 19th-century operas, including Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans and César Cui's The Saracen. In cinema and television, Charles has been depicted by actors including Raymond Hatton (1916), Jean Debucourt (1929), Gustaf Gründgens (1935), José Ferrer (1948), Richard Widmark (1957), Daniel Gélin (1977), John Malkovich (1999), Neil Patrick Harris (1999), and Fabrice Luchini (2019).

Marriage and Issue

Charles VII was betrothed on 18 December 1413 and married Marie of Anjou in 1422.^[9][10][116] Marie, daughter of Louis II of Anjou and Yolande of Aragon, was his second cousin, both being great-grandchildren of King John II of France.^[117] Marie remained devoted to Charles throughout their thirty-nine-year marriage, despite his official relations with royal mistresses.^[41] She bore him fourteen children:^[117]

Legitimate Children

Charles and Marie's children included: Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), who succeeded his father as King of France; John (born and died 19 September 1426); Radegonde (born 1425 or August 1428, died 19 March 1444 or 1445), betrothed to Archduke Sigismund of Austria; Catherine (1428 – 13 July or 13 September 1446), married Charles the Bold, future Duke of Burgundy; James (1432 – 2 March 1437); Yolande (23 September 1434 – 28 or 29 August 1478), married Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy, and served as regent of Savoy; Joan (4 May 1435 – 4 May 1482), married John II, Duke of Bourbon; Philip (4 February 1436 – 11 June or 2 July 1436); Margaret (May 1437 – 24 July 1438); Joanna (7 September 1438 – 26 December 1446), twin of Marie; Marie (7 September 1438 – 14 February 1439), twin of Joanna; Isabella (born 1441, died in infancy); Magdalena (1 December 1443 – 21 or 24 January 1495), married Gaston of Foix, Prince of Viana, and served as regent of Navarre; and Charles (26 or 28 December 1446 – 24 May 1472), Duke of Berry, Normandy, and Guyenne, who died without legitimate issue.^{[118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125]}

Illegitimate Issue

By his official mistress Agnès Sorel, Charles had four daughters, three of whom reached adulthood and were legitimized as daughters of France: Marie Marguerite (born 1444, died 1473), married Olivier de Coëtivy, Count of Taillebourg and Seneschal of Guyenne; Charlotte (c.^[98][100] 1446 – 31 May or 15 June 1477), married Jacques de Brézé, Count of Maulévrier, whose son Louis de Brézé later married Diane de Poitiers; Jeanne (1448 – after 1467), married Antoine de Bueil, Count of Sancerre; and a fourth daughter, born on 3 February 1450 at the manor of Le Mesnil, who died in infancy.^[98][101]

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