Charles VII

King of France (r. 1422-1461)

• Born: February 22, 1403
• Birthplace: Paris, France
• Died: July 22, 1461
• Place of death: Mehun-sur-Yèvre, France

Charles VII successfully created a strong standing army, unified most of the French nation under one king, greatly improved government administration, and established a permanent tax. He was a ruler who left a country much more powerful than it was when he assumed kingship.

Early Life

Historians agree that Charles VII was an enigmatic character. A member of the Valois Dynasty, he was the fifth son of King Charles VI and Isabella of Bavaria. In 1413, he was betrothed to Marie of Anjou, daughter of Louis II, duke of Anjou, and Yolande of Aragon. In 1417, the death of the last of his older brothers made him the dauphin (heir to the throne). The next year, when his enemies occupied Paris, he fled to Anjou, where his future mother-in-law supervised his education. He was considered a slow learner as a child.

Throughout his youth, France was in great turmoil. The duke of Burgundy and the count of Armagnac were engaged in a bitter civil war. In 1415, the king of England, Henry V, who claimed the French throne, entered into an alliance with the Burgundians and launched an invasion of the country. The Armagnacs gave their support to the French king, who was suffering increasingly from mental illness.

After Henry won the famous battle at Agincourt, he waged successful campaigns in other regions of northern France. In 1418, his Burgundian allies massacred most of the leaders of the Armagnacs.

These English victories enabled Henry to coerce Charles VI into signing the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, which disinherited the dauphin, declared Henry heir to the French throne, and announced a marriage between him and the dauphin’s sister, Catherine. The dauphin repudiated the treaty. His widowed mother-in-law, Yolande, who was now duchess of Anjou, gave him economic and military support, which allowed Charles to prevail in the battle at Baugé in 1421. About this time, his mother, Isabella, likely to gain the favor of the English, began to refer to the “so-called dauphin,” raising questions about Charles’s legitimacy.

Life’s Work

After Henry V and Charles VI died in 1422, most of northern France, which was then controlled by English and Burgundian troops, recognized the kingship of the infant son of Henry and Catherine, Henry VI. The duchy of Artois and a few regions in the east and south of the Loire River supported Charles VII as rightful king. His opponents derisively called him the king of Bourges (after his temporary residence). In this difficult period, Charles looked to the advice and support of Yolande. In 1427, she used her influence to enlist the dynamic Arthur de Richemont, the brother of the duke of Brittany, as constable of Charles’s government.

Despite Richemont’s leadership, Charles’s forces appeared unable to stop the English advance led by the duke of Bedford. In February, 1429, however, the situation changed dramatically when a peasant girl, Joan of Arc, met with Charles at Chinon and solemnly informed him that Christian saints had called her to break the English siege at Orleans. According to legend, she impressed Charles with her knowledge of some secret. Duchess Yolande strongly supported Joan and provided the finances for her battle campaign. After forcing the English to leave Orleans, Joan achieved several more military victories and successfully led a march through enemy territory to Reims, the place of Charles VII’s coronation on July 17, 1429.

With Joan’s victories, an increasing number of French regions were acknowledging Charles as legitimate king. Yet, when Joan was captured by the Burgundians in 1430, Charles did not ransom her release, although he did try to overturn the verdict later. At this time, Charles’s court had been beset by many competing factions, including a rivalry between the Armagnacs and his in-laws from the House of Anjou. A bitter feud between Richemont and Georges de La Trémoille, who had tried to block Joan’s efforts, was especially harmful. Richemont’s triumph in 1433 brought a degree of stability to the regime.

In 1435, Charles’s government negotiated with Burgundy the Treaty of Arras, which was a major turning point in the war. The new alliance shifted the balance of power fundamentally in favor of Charles VII. The next year, Richemont’s army marched triumphantly into Paris. Having consolidated his power, Charles was strong enough to challenge the Papacy, and, in 1438, he issued the pragmatic sanction of Bourges, which asserted the authority of the French king over the income and personnel of the Church in France.

One of the French government’s long-standing problems had been its inability to meet its financial obligations. When soldiers were not paid, the countryside suffered from brigandage (plundering). In 1439, the estates-general(France’s representative assembly) agreed to an apportioned direct tax, called the taille, which provided an effective, if unfair, system of taxation . In 1440, Charles’s allies defeated the Praguerie, a revolt led by the powerful nobles of the realm. Five years later, to prevent another such rebellion, Charles established France’s first standing army, called the compagnies d’ordonnance, which consisted of nine thousand mounted police on regular salary.

Charles VII’s reign saw a significant growth of commercial activity, growth that is credited usually to the work of Jacques Coeur, a banker and merchant who became the wealthiest man in France. After serving as master of the mint and steward of royal expenditures, Coeur became a member of the king’s council and supervised diplomatic missions to Rome, Italy, and Spain. In 1447, he oversaw the reform of the country’s coinage. He also loaned to Charles the money needed to defeat the English on the battlefield.

From 1444 to 1450, the young, vivacious, and beautiful Agnès Sorel (also known as Dame de Beauté) was the acknowledged mistress of the king, the first woman to hold this semiofficial position that became common among French monarchs. It was considered scandalous by many that the king had a mistress, and the relationship promoted intrigue at court. Charles provided her with wealth, lands, and castles. After giving birth to her fourth child, Sorel died of dysentery, and the enemies of Coeur spread the rumor that he had poisoned her. In 1453, a court found Coeur guilty, despite weak evidence. Although he escaped to Rome, the government confiscated much of his wealth.

For good reason, Charles VII acquired the nicknames Charles the Victorious and Charles the Well-Served. In 1450, the Battle of Formigny helped him regain control over Normandy. In 1453, the victories at Castillon and Bordeaux marked the end of the Hundred Years’ War. The only remaining territory controlled by the English was Calais. Although often a ruthless and self-serving ruler, Charles had the good sense to follow a conciliatory policy toward towns and regions that had collaborated with the English, which helped to restore peace and harmony to the country.

During the last two decades of his reign, Charles VII and his ambitious and stubborn heir, the future Louis XI , were bitterly estranged from one another. The dauphin participated in the Praguerie, and, in 1446, he conspired against Agnès Sorel. After yet another revolt, Louis was living in exile at the court of Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1461, when he was overjoyed to learn of his father’s death.

Significance

Charles VII has often been criticized as a lazy and lethargic monarch who tolerated harmful rivalries at court, especially in the early years. Some modern historians, however, have argued that Charles was an intuitive leader who skillfully neutralized competing interests. Even those who question his intelligence admit that he usually surrounded himself with competent advisers, military leaders, and administrators.

Charles VII’s reign was highly important in the history of France. Before his ascendancy, France was bitterly divided and doing poorly in the Hundred Years’ War, but by the end of his reign, the country was well on its way to becoming a unified nation with an efficient system of taxation and administration. Some historians classify Charles as a new monarch, whose reign laid the foundations for a modern national state.

Bibliography

DeVries, Kelly. Joan of Arc: A Military Leader. Stroud, England: Sutton, 1999. An interesting account of Joan’s military exploits, giving considerable information about her relationship to Charles VII.

Kerr, Albert B. Jacques Coeur: Prince of the Middle Ages. New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1971. This work includes material about Coeur’s relationship to Charles VII and discusses the death of Agnès Sorel, which ended Coeur’s career in France.

Major, J. Russell. From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles, and Estates. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. A scholarly survey of how the French political system changed from the influences of the reign of Charles VII to that of Louis XIV. The author emphasizes the importance of alliances between king and nobility.

Miskimin, Harry. Money and Power in Fifteenth Century France. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984. A scholarly study of how banking and economics had an influence on French political development during the fifteenth century.

Seward, Desmond. The Hundred Years’ War: The English in France, 1337-1453. New York: Penguin Books, 1999. An interesting and dramatic summary of the century-long conflict, focusing on major personalities such as Charles VII.

Vale, Malcolm. Charles VII. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. The standard biography in English, written by an outstanding scholar of the Middle Ages. Vale emphasizes Charles’s challenges and presents a positive interpretation of his reign.