Charles VI, King of France ¹

  General Notes:

Charles VI (3 December 1368 \endash 21 October 1422), called the Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé) and the Mad (French: le Fol or le Fou), was King of France for 42 years from 1380 to his death in 1422, the fourth from the House of Valois.

Charles VI was only 11 when he inherited the throne in the midst of the Hundred Years' War. The government was entrusted to his four uncles, the dukes of Burgundy, Berry, Anjou, and Bourbon. Although the royal age of majority was fixed at 14, the dukes maintained their grip on Charles until he took power at the age of 21. During the rule of his uncles, the financial resources of the kingdom, painstakingly built up by his father, Charles V, were squandered for the personal profit of the dukes, whose interests were frequently divergent or even opposed. As royal funds drained, new taxes had to be raised, which caused several revolts.

In 1388 Charles VI dismissed his uncles and brought back to power his father's former advisers. Political and economic conditions in the kingdom improved significantly, and Charles earned the epithet "the Beloved". But in August 1392 en route to Brittany with his army in the forest of Le Mans, Charles suddenly went mad and slew four knights and almost killed his brother, Louis I, Duke of Orléans.[1]

From then on, Charles' bouts of insanity became more frequent and of longer duration. During these attacks, he had delusions, believing he was made of glass or denying he had a wife and children.[1] He could also attack servants or run until exhaustion, wailing that he was threatened by his enemies. Between crises, there were intervals of months during which Charles (now "the Mad") was relatively sane.[1] However, unable to concentrate or make decisions, political power was effectively exercised by his relatives (the princes of blood) and other leading French nobles, whose rivalries and disputes would cause much chaos and conflict in France.

A fierce struggle for power developed between the king's brother, Louis of Orléans, and cousin, John of Burgundy. When John instigated the murder of Louis in 1407, the conflict degenerated into a civil war between John's supporters \endash the Burgundians \endash and opponents \endash the Armagnacs. Both sides offered large parts of France to the English (who were still nominally at war with the Valois monarchy) in exchange for their support. John of Burgundy himself was assassinated (1419), with Charles VI's son, heir, and namesake, Charles, being involved. In retaliation, John's son, Philip of Burgundy, led Charles VI to sign the infamous Treaty of Troyes (1420), which disinherited his offspring and recognized King Henry V of England as his legitimate successor on the throne of France.

When Charles VI died, the succession was claimed both by the King of England and by the disinherited younger Charles, who found the Valois cause in a desperate situation.

Charles married Isabeau of Bavaria Queen of France in 1385. (Isabeau of Bavaria Queen of France was born about 1370 and died on 24 Sep 1435 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.)