Founder of the House of Valois Cadet Branch to the House of Capet

Charles, Count of Valois, was a member of the House of Capet and founder of the House of Valois, which ruled over France from 1328. He was the fourth son of King Philip III of France and Isabella of Aragon.

Charles ruled several principalities. He held in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon (1285), and Perche. He became Count of Anjou and Maine through his first marriage to Margaret, Countess of Anjou. Through his second marriage to Catherine I, Latin Empress of Constantinople, he was titular Latin Emperor of Constantinople from 1301 to 1307, although he ruled from exile and only had authority over Crusader States in Greece.

As the grandson of King Louis IX of France, Charles of Valois was a son, brother, brother-in-law and son-in-law of kings or queens (of France, Navarre, England and Naples). His descendants, the House of Valois, would become the royal house of France three years after his death, beginning with his eldest son King Philip VI of France.

Life

Besides holding in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon and Perche, Charles became in 1290 the Count of Anjou and of Maine by his first marriage with Margaret of Anjou, the eldest daughter of King Charles II of Naples, titular King of Sicily; by a second marriage that he contracted with the heiress of Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople, last Latin emperor of Constantinople, he also had pretensions to the throne of Constantinople.

From his early years, Charles of Valois dreamed of more and sought all his life for a crown he never obtained. Starting in 1284, Pope Martin IV recognized him as King of Aragon (under the vassalage of the Holy See), as the son of his mother, Isabella of Aragon, in opposition to King Peter III of Aragon, who after the conquest of the island of Sicily was an enemy of the Papacy. Charles hence married Margaret, the daughter of the Neapolitan king, in order to re-enforce his position in Sicily which was supported by the Pope. Thanks to this Aragonese Crusade undertaken by his father King Philip III against the advice of his elder brother Philip IV, he believed he would win a kingdom and however won nothing but the ridicule of having been crowned with a cardinal's hat in 1285, which gave him the alias of the "King of the Cap." He would never dare to use the royal seal which was made on this occasion and had to renounce the title.

Amid the Gascon and Franco-Flemish Wars, Charles commanded effectively in Flanders in 1297.

Campaign in Italy and Invasion of Sicily

Dreaming of an imperial crown, in 1301 Charles married the titular empress of Constantinople, Catherine of Courtenay. The marriage drew Charles closer to the papacy, as his new marriage needed the connivance of Pope Boniface VIII. Boniface saw Charles as a potential ally and tool to further papal influence; the pope desired to re-install a Catholic ruler on the throne of the Byzantine Empire and thus revive the Latin Empire, which Charles now had a claim to. Boniface was also eager to end the nearly 20-year long war between the papacy, Angevin Naples, and Sicily, and so hoped to have Charles' army invade Sicily.

Named papal vicar, Charles of Valois led a private French army into Italy. However, he soon lost himself in the complexity of Italian politics, namely the generational feud between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Local nobles and church officials used his army as a tool against their political rivals, and men under his command massacred a crowd in Florence. When his army landed on the shores of Sicily in May 1302, it faced heavy resistance from the Sicilian population. Charles' army pushed inland, but became mired in attritional warfare in the hot Sicilian summer; after a disastrous attempt to besiege Sciacca, Charles' army found itself out of supplies and surrounded on the southern coast of Sicily. Rather than see his army destroyed, Charles negotiated the Peace of Caltabellotta with the Sicilian leadership, thus ending the war of the Vespers. The Sicilian campaign had been a disaster; Charles' battered army had been forced to evacuate the island without having fought a major battle, and the treaty ended Angevin and papal attempts to re-conquer Sicily.

Claimant to French throne

The premature death of Charles's nephew, King Louis X of France, in 1316, gave Charles hopes for a political role. However, he could not prevent his nephew (Louis X's younger brother) Philip the Tall from taking the regency while awaiting the birth of Louis's posthumous child. Louis's son died a few days after his birth, and Philip took the throne as King Philip V. Charles was initially opposed to Philip's succession, for Philip's elder brother had left behind a daughter, Joan of France, his only surviving child. However, Charles later switched sides and eventually backed his nephew Philip, probably realizing that Philip's precedent would bring him and his line closer to the throne.

Death

The Count of Valois died on 16 December 1325 at Nogent-le-Roi, leaving a son who would take the throne of France under the name of Philip VI and commence the branch of the Valois. Had he survived for three more years and outlived his nephew King Charles IV, Charles might have become king of France. Charles was buried in the now-demolished church of the Couvent des Jacobins in Paris - his effigy is now in the Basilica of St Denis.

Marriage

Charles was married three times; his first marriage in August 1290, was to Margaret, Countess of Anjou and Maine (1272-1299), daughter of King Charles II of Naples. They had six children. In 1302 he married Catherine I of Courtenay (1274-1307), titular Latin Empress of Constantinople. She was the daughter of Philip I, Emperor of Constantinople. They had four children. Finally, in 1308, he married Mahaut of Châtillon (1293-1358), daughter of Guy IV of Châtillon, Count of Saint-Pol. They had four children.