| Notes |
- When Charles IV dies, at the age of thirty-four in 1328, he has
been three times married but he has no son. Since the death of Hugh
Capet in 996 there has always been a son (or very occasionally a
brother) to inherit the French crown. In the present generation the
pattern is broken. Charles IV succeeds two elder brothers (Louis X and
Philip V), and he leaves two daughters - one of them born
posthumously.
The claim of Charles's elder daughter is rejected on the grounds of
her sex, even though the Salic law is not yet officially enshrined in
the French system. A great assembly of feudal magnates is charged with
deciding who is the rightful heir.
The closest male relative of Charles IV is his nephew Edward, the
son of Charles's sister Isabella. There is a certain logical objection
to Edward's inheritance; if the crown may not be inherited by a woman,
it would seem inconsistent for it to be inherited through a woman.
There is another factor which the chronicles of the time imply to
be an even more powerful obstacle. Edward is now Edward III, king of
England. France does not want an English king.
In the circumstances it is not surprising that the assembly awards
the crown to a more distant relation. Philip of Valois is only a
cousin of Charles IV, but his descent is all-male and all-French (he
is the son of a younger brother of Charles's father, Philip IV).
The Valois prince is crowned king at Reims in May 1328 as Philip
VI, beginning a new (though closely related) line on the French
throne. The dynasty's first reign is a difficult one. It includes the
human and economic disaster of the Black Death. And the disputed
succession brings on the long-drawn-out conflict known as the Hundred
Years' War.
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1320 - 1401 (81 years)