CHARLES OF VALOIS

(1270-1325). Father of King Philip VI. The third son of Philip III, Charles became associated with the county of Valois in northern France, which he received as an apanage in 1285. His territorial interests and ambitions, however, extended over a much larger area. In 1282, Peter III of Aragon had invaded Sicily, which was ruled by Charles’s granduncle, Charles I of Anjou. The ensuing diplomatic crisis pitted the papacy and the French crown against Aragon in a war (1285) that has been called a crusade. To cement the papal-French alliance, Charles of Valois was to receive the crown of Aragon. French defeat in the war rendered his claim to the title empty, but his renunciation of it in 1295 required considerable diplomatic maneuvering, including the release of Charles II of Anjou, then a hostage in Aragon (1288). In 1290, Charles of Valois married his first wife, Marguerite, the daughter of Charles II, through whom he received the counties of Anjou and Maine.

In the course of his career, Charles also laid claim to the Byzantine empire (since 1261 again in the hands of the Greeks) and put himself forward for the imperial title in Germany. Active militarily on behalf of Pope Boniface VIII in northern Italy, he managed to overcome Florentine resistance to the pope, but his Italian expedition was cut short in 1301, when his brother, Philip IV of France, came into conflict with Boniface. He served Philip in his wars, commanding forces in Guyenne in 1295 and in Flanders in the 1290s and the first two decades of the 14th century.

After the death of Philip IV in 1314, Charles of Valois became a principal counselor to the new king, Louis X (r. 1314-16), and was instrumental in the execution of Enguerran de Marigny, his late brother’s financial adviser. Less intimate with Louis X’s brother and successor, Philip V (r. 1316-22), he reemerged as a close adviser to the youngest of his nephews, Charles IV (r. 1322-28). In his later years, Charles of Valois seems to have been deeply drawn to the idea of mounting a crusade and pledged in 1323, at age fifty-three, to undertake one. His plans were thwarted first by the king’s difficult negotiations with the pope on how to finance an expedition and then by Anglo-French hostilities.

Charles appears to have been a literate and cultured prince who patronized a number of authors and may have been an author of verses himself, but it was in politics that he wanted to make his mark. Although he was the son and brother of kings, the uncle of three kings, and the father of Philip VI, who established the Valois line on the French throne, Charles himself, despite his many claims, died in December 1325 without ever gaining a royal title.

William Chester Jordan

[See also: ANJOU, HOUSES OF; PHILIP IV THE FAIR: VALOIS DYNASTY]

Petit, Joseph. Charles de Valois (1270-1325). Paris: Picard, 1900.