executing several of his followers and placing him in
prison. Normandy was swept by civil war, and in Sep-
tember John and his supporters suffered devastating
defeat by the Prince of Wales near Poitiers. With John
II now a captive, the dauphin’s weakened government
faced a large array of critics, some of whom demanded
the release of Charles the Bad.
Released by his friends in November 1357, Charles
resumed his role as a leader of forces opposed to the
crown, yet within a year his position had eroded. Nobles
in particular and reformers generally became attracted
to the dauphin’s camp after the hostility of the Pari-
sians toward nobles drove a wedge between noble and
bourgeois reformers. Charles the Bad became suspect
because he cooperated with the Parisians and because
his negotiations with the English indicated an interest
in partitioning France. He and his supporters failed to
prevent the release of John II via the Treaty of Brétigny.
An uneasy peace with John ended when the king be-
stowed Burgundy on his son Philip the Bold in 1363.
Charles asserted a claim to Burgundy, and with the new
hostilities thousands of unemployed soldiers (routiers)
claimed to be fi ghting in his name.
At the end of 1363, the Estates General of northern
France established a tax to support a regular salaried
army. In the spring of 1364, as Charles V was succeeding
John II on the French throne, this new army, commanded
by Bertrand du Guesclin, won a crushing victory over
the forces of Charles the Bad at Cocherel in Normandy.
This campaign broke the power of the Navarrese party
in Normandy and around Paris. Charles was forced to
accept the southern barony of Montpellier and relinquish
some of his family’s Norman strongholds.
After this time, Charles played a diminished role in
French politics, although a scandal came to light in 1378
that implicated him in plots against the crown. With the
dissidents who formerly supported him now fi rmly in
the royal camp, Charles was restricted to his role as ruler
of a minor Spanish kingdom.
See also Charles V the Wise; Guesclin, Bertrand du;
John II the Good
Further Reading
Bessen, David M. Charles of Navarre and John II: Disloyalty
in Northern France 1350–1360. Diss. University of Toronto,
1983.
Cazelles, Raymond. Société politique, noblesse et couronne sous
Jean le Bon et Charles V. Geneva: Droz, 1982.
Henneman, John Bell. Royal Taxation in Fourteenth Century
France: The Captivity and Ransom of John II 1356–1370.
Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976.
Secousse, Denis F. Recueil de pièces servant de preuves aux
Mémoires sur les troubles excités en France par Charles
II dit le Mauvais, roi de Navarre et comte d’Évreux. Paris:
Durand, 1755.
John Bell Henneman, Jr.
CHARLES IV (1316–1378)
Emperor Charles IV (r. 1346–1378) was born in Prague,
May 14, 1316, the eldest son of John of Luxembourg
and Elizabeth of Bohemia. He was baptized under
the name of Wenceslas, following the tradition of the
Premyslid (Bohemian) dynasty. At the age of seven he
was sent to Paris to be educated at the court of Charles
IV of France. At his confi rmation Wenceslas was given
the name of Charles. In Paris he met the Benedictine
abbot Pierre Roger de Fécamp, later Pope Clement VI,
whose sermons made a major impact on young Charles’s
spiritual development. He also studied briefl y at the
University of Paris.
Following campaigns in Italy to secure Luxembourg
interests (1331–1333), Charles administered the king-
dom of Bohemia during his father’s absence. During
his stay in Bohemia (1334–1336) Charles retrieved
mortgaged crown lands and negotiated two very im-
portant treaties with Poland (Trencin and Visegrád).
These treaties established one of the basic aspects of
Charles’s foreign policy: the abandonment of military
expansion in favor of a policy based on treaties and
alliances. Charles consistently aimed to maintain the
balance of power between Poland, Hungary, the Teu-
tonic Knights, the Habsburg dominions, and his own
Bohemian crown lands.
In 1340, when his father became blind, Charles as-
sumed control over the Luxembourg domains, opening
the way for his eventual acquisition of the imperial
throne. Emperor Louis the Bavarian’s policies, par-
ticularly his attempts to obtain Tyrol and his renewed
confl icts with the papacy, had aroused the enmity of the
other German princes. In 1344 an assembly of princes
demanded that Louis do suffi cient penance to lift the ban
of excommunication within two years or face deposition.
When Louis failed to do so, the electors met, declared
Louis deposed, and elected Charles as emperor on July
1, 1346. Charles’s uncle, Archbishop Baldwin of Trier,
played a leading role in the negotiations with the princes
and the papacy that led to the election.
Initially, Charles’s position was rather weak. Because
of his support from Clement VI, he was identifi ed by
some as yet another “clergy king” (Pfaffenkönig). Many
bishops and nearly all the imperial cities remained loyal
to Louis. Worse for Charles, shortly after his election, he
lost a good number of supporters, including his father
blind King John, who died fi ghting for the French at
Crècy (August 26, 1346). Civil war was prevented when
Louis the Bavarian died bear hunting in October 1347.
Although supporters of the Wittelsbach dynasty elected
Günther of Schwarzburg king of Germany in January
1349, he was dead by the end of summer.
Prague served as the political, cultural, and spiritual
center of Charles’s domain. The city had already risen
to prominence under the Premyslid rulers, but had suf-CHARLES II THE BAD