With his court removed toBourges, south of theLoire river, Charles was disparagingly called the "King of Bourges", because the area around this city was one of the few remaining regions left to him. However, his political and military position improved dramatically with the emergence ofJoan of Arc as a spiritual leader in France. Joan andJean de Dunois led French troops to lift thesiege of Orléans and other besieged strategic cities on the Loire river, and to defeat the English at theBattle of Patay. With local English troops dispersed, the people of Reims switched allegiance and opened their gates, which enabled Charles VII to be crowned atReims Cathedral in 1429. Six years later, he ended the Anglo-Burgundian alliance by signing theTreaty of Arras with Burgundy, followed by therecovery of Paris in 1436 and the steady reconquest of Normandy in the 1440s using a newly organized professional army and advanced siege cannons. Following theBattle of Castillon in 1453, the French recaptured all of England's continental possessions except thePale of Calais.
The last years of Charles VII were marked by conflicts with his turbulent son, the futureLouis XI.
Born at theHôtel Saint-Pol, the royal residence in Paris, Charles was given the title ofCount of Ponthieu six months after his birth in 1403.[3] He was the eleventh child and fifth son ofCharles VI of France andIsabeau of Bavaria.[2] His four elder brothers, Charles (1386), Charles (1392–1401),Louis (1397–1415) andJohn (1398–1417) had each held the title ofDauphin of France asheirs apparent to the French throne in turn.[2] All died childless, leaving Charles with a rich inheritance of titles.[2]
Almost immediately after becoming dauphin, Charles had to face threats to his inheritance, and he was forced to flee from Paris on 29 May 1418 after the partisans ofJohn the Fearless,Duke of Burgundy, had entered the city the previous night.[4] By 1419, Charles had established his own court inBourges and aParlement inPoitiers.[4] On 11 July of that same year, Charles and John the Fearless attempted a reconciliation on a small bridge nearPouilly-le-Fort [fr], not far fromMelun where Charles was staying. They signed theTreaty of Pouilly-le-Fort in which they would share authority of the government, assist each other and not to form any treaties without the other's consent.[5] Charles and John also decided that a further meeting should take place the following 10 September. On that date, they met on the bridge atMontereau.[6] The Duke assumed that the meeting would be entirely peaceful and diplomatic; thus, he brought only a small escort with him. The Dauphin's men reacted to the Duke's arrival by attacking and killing him. Charles's level of involvement has remained uncertain to this day. Although he claimed to have been unaware of his men's intentions, this was considered unlikely by those who heard of the murder.[2] The assassination marked the end of any attempt of a reconciliation between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions, thus strengthening the position ofHenry V of England. Charles was later required by a treaty withPhilip the Good, the son of John the Fearless, to pay penance for the murder, which he never did.
At the death of Charles' father Charles VI in October 1422, the succession was cast into doubt. Under theTreaty of Troyes, signed by Charles VI on 21 May 1420, the throne would pass to Henry V or his heir. Henry had died in July 1422: his heir was the infant KingHenry VI of England, son of Henry and Charles VI's daughterCatherine of Valois. However, Frenchmen loyal to the Valois regarded the treaty as invalid on grounds of coercion and Charles VI's diminished mental capacity. Those who did not recognize the treaty and believed the Dauphin Charles to be of legitimate birth considered him the rightful heir to the throne. Those who considered Charles illegitimate recognized as the rightful heirCharles, Duke of Orléans, cousin of the Dauphin, who was in English captivity. Only the supporters of Henry VI and the Dauphin Charles were able to enlist sufficient military force to press effectively for their candidates. The English, already in control of northern France, enforced Henry's claim in the regions of France that they occupied. Northern France, including Paris, was thus ruled by an English regent, Henry V's brother,John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, based in Normandy (seeDual monarchy of England and France).
Joan of Arc at the coronation of Charles VII with her white flag
In his adolescent years, Charles was noted for his bravery and flamboyant style of leadership. At one point after becoming Dauphin, he led an army against the English dressed in the red, white, and blue that represented his family;[citation needed] his heraldic device was a mailed fist clutching a naked sword. On 25 June 1421, he tookGallardon and executed the garrison as traitors. By the end of June, he had investedChartres.[7] He then went south of the Loire River under the protection ofYolande of Aragon, known as "Queen of the Four Kingdoms" and, on 18 December 1422, married her daughter,Marie of Anjou,[8] to whom he had been engaged since December 1413 in a ceremony at theLouvre Palace.
Charles claimed the titleKing of France for himself, but failed to make any attempts to expel the English from northern France out of indecision and a sense of hopelessness.[9] Instead, he remained south of the Loire River, where he was still able to exert power, and maintained an itinerant court in theLoire Valley at castles such asChinon. He was still customarily known as the "Dauphin", or derisively as the "King ofBourges", after the town where he generally lived. Periodically, he considered flight to theIberian Peninsula, which would have allowed the English to capture even more territory in France.
Political conditions in France took a decisive turn in the year 1429 just as the prospects for the Dauphin began to look hopeless. The town ofOrléans had beenunder siege since October 1428. The English regent, theDuke of Bedford (the uncle ofHenry VI), was advancing into theDuchy of Bar, ruled by Charles's brother-in-law,René. The French lords and soldiers loyal to Charles were becoming increasingly desperate. Then in the little village ofDomrémy, on the border ofLorraine andChampagne, a teenage girl namedJoan of Arc (French:Jeanne d'Arc), demanded that the garrison commander at Vaucouleurs,Robert de Baudricourt, collect the soldiers and resources necessary to bring her to the Dauphin at Chinon,[10] stating that visions of angels and saints had given her a divine mission. Granted an escort of five veteran soldiers and a letter of referral to Charles by Lord Baudricourt, Joan rode to see Charles at Chinon. She arrived on 23 February 1429.[10]
Second-hand testimony by witnesses who were not present when Joan and the Dauphin met state Charles wanted to test her claim to be able to recognise him despite never having seen him, and so he disguised himself as one of his courtiers. He stood in their midst when Joan entered the chamber in which the court was assembled. Joan identified Charles immediately. She bowed low to him and embraced his knees, declaring "God give you a happy life, sweet King!" Despite attempts to claim that another man was in fact the king, thereafter Joan referred to him as "Dauphin" or "Noble Dauphin" until he was crowned in Reims four months later. After a private conversation between the two, Charles became inspired and filled with confidence.
After her encounter with Charles in March 1429, Joan of Arc set out to lead the French forces at Orléans. She was aided by skilled commanders such as Étienne de Vignolles, known asLa Hire, andJean Poton de Xaintrailles. They compelled the English to lift the siege on 8 May 1429, thus turning the tide of the war. The French won theBattle of Patay on 18 June, at which the English army present lost about half its troops. After pushing further into English and Burgundian-controlled territory, Charles was crowned King Charles VII of France inReims Cathedral on 17 July 1429.
Joan was later captured by Burgundian troops under John of Luxembourg at theSiege of Compiègne on 24 May 1430.[11] The Burgundians handed her over to their English allies. Tried forheresy by a court composed of pro-English clergymen such asPierre Cauchon, who had long served under English authorities,[12] she was burnt at the stake on 30 May 1431.
Nearly as important asJoan of Arc in the cause of Charles was the support of the powerful and wealthy family of his wifeMarie d'Anjou, particularly his mother-in-law, QueenYolande of Aragon. But whatever affection he may have had for his wife, or whatever gratitude he may have felt for the support of her family, the great love of Charles VII's life was his mistress,Agnès Sorel.
Charles VII and Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, then signed the 1435Treaty of Arras, by which the Burgundian faction rejected their alliance with England and became reconciled with Charles VII, just as things were going badly for their English allies. With this accomplishment, Charles attained the essential goal of ensuring that noPrince of the Blood recognisedHenry VI as King of France.[13]
Over the following two decades, the French recapturedParis from the English and eventually recovered all of France with the exception of the northern port ofCalais.
Charles's later years were marked by hostile relations with his heir,Louis, who demanded real power to accompany his position as the Dauphin. Charles consistently refused him. Accordingly, Louis stirred up dissent and fomented plots in attempts to destabilise his father's reign. He quarrelled with his father's mistress, Agnès Sorel, and on one occasion drove her with a bared sword into Charles' bed, according to one source. Eventually, in 1446, after Charles's last son, also named Charles, was born, the king banished the Dauphin to theDauphiné. The two never met again. Louis thereafter refused the king's demands to return to court, and he eventually fled to the protection of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1456.
In 1458, Charles became ill. A sore on his leg (an early symptom, perhaps, ofdiabetes or another condition) refused to heal, and the infection in it caused a serious fever. The king summoned Louis to him from his exile in Burgundy, but the Dauphin refused to come. He employed astrologers to foretell the exact hour of his father's death. The king lingered on for the next two and a half years, increasingly ill, but unwilling to die. During this time he also had to deal with the case of his rebellious vassalJohn V of Armagnac.
Finally, however, there came a point in July 1461 when the king's physicians concluded that Charles would not live past August. Ill and weary, the king became delirious, convinced that he was surrounded by traitors loyal only to his son. Under the pressure of sickness and fever, he went mad. By now another infection in his jaw had caused an abscess in his mouth. The swelling caused by this became so large that, for the last week of his life, Charles was unable to swallow food or water. Although he asked the Dauphin to come to his deathbed, Louis refused, instead waiting atAvesnes, in Burgundy, for his father to die. AtMehun-sur-Yèvre, attended by his younger son, Charles, and aware of his elder son's final betrayal, the King starved to death. He died on 22 July 1461, and was buried, at his request, beside his parents inSaint-Denis.
Although Charles VII's legacy is far overshadowed by the deeds and eventualmartyrdom of Joan of Arc and his early reign was at times marked by indecisiveness and inaction, he was responsible for successes unprecedented in the history of the Kingdom of France.[citation needed] He succeeded in what four generations of his predecessors (namely his father Charles VI, his grandfatherCharles V, his great-grandfatherJohn II and great-great grandfatherPhilip VI) failed to do – the expulsion of the English and the conclusion of theHundred Years' War.[citation needed]
Charles V had created the firststanding army in western Europe since Roman times, but the force had been disbanded in the tumultuous regency period after his death in 1380.[14] Charles VII successfully reestablished a standing army which would survive until eventually replaced with thegendarmerie system in the 17th century.
Charles married his second cousinMarie of Anjou on 18 December 1422.[15] They were both great-grandchildren of KingJohn II of France and his first wifeBonne of Bohemia through the male line. They had fourteen children:
^Durtal, the protagonist ofJoris-Karl Huysmans novelLà-bas, says of Charles VII's portrait by Foucquet (as he spells the name): "I have often paused in front of that bestial face, a face in which I can clearly distinguish the snout of a pig, the eyes of the provincial money-lender and the sanctimonious bloated lips of a prelate. The figure in Foucquet's painting resembles a debauched priest with a bad cold sunk in wine-induced self-pity!"[1]
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