charters to pacify them, and he sacrifi ced Philip’s min-
ister Enguerran de Marigny and other offi cials to their
princely enemies at court. Philip used his three sons
and his daughter to advance his own goals. Isabella
married Edward II of England; Louis married Margue-
rite, daughter of the duke of Burgundy; Philip’s wife,
Jeanne, brought to the crown the county of Burgundy;
Jeanne’s mother, Mahaut of Artois, offered a dowry
of 100,000 livres to persuade Philip to accept another
daughter, Blanche, as the wife of his youngest son, the
future Charles IV. The imprisonment of Marguerite and
Blanche for adultery in 1314 was the fi rst of a series of
tragedies suffered by Philip’s direct descendants. Be-
cause of the death of Louis X’s posthumous son, John
I, the product of a second marriage, the throne passed
to Philip V (r. 1316–22); because he left no male heir,
he was succeeded by Charles IV (r. 1322–28), at whose
death without male heir the rule of the direct Capetians
ended and the crown passed to the house of Valois.
See also Boniface VIII, Pope; Clement V, Pope;
Edward I; Jeanne of Navarre
Further Reading
Bautier, Robert-Henri. “Diplomatique et histoire politique: ce que
la critique diplomatique nous apprend sur la personnalité de
Philippe le Bel.” Revue historique 259 (1978): 3–27.
Brown, Elizabeth A.R. The Monarchy of Capetian France and
Royal Ceremonial. London: Variorum, 1991.
——. Politics and Institutions in Capetian France. London:
Variorum, 1991.
Favier, Jean. Philippe le Bel Paris: Fayard, 1978.
Strayer, Joseph R. The Reign of Philip the Fair. Princeton: Princ-
eton University Press, 1980.
Elizabeth A.R. Brown
PHILIP VI (1293–1350)
First Valois king of France, 1328–50. The son of Charles
of Valois (brother of King Philip IV the Fair) and Mar-
guerite, daughter of Charles II of Naples, Philip did not
become an important fi gure until he inherited the coun-
ties of Valois, Anjou, and Maine from his father in 1325.
By that time, the reigning monarch was Philip’s fi rst
cousin Charles IV, who had no son or surviving brother.
When Charles died at the end of January 1328, he left a
pregnant queen, and the French magnates named Philip
of Valois regent, with the understanding that he would
become king if the queen gave birth to a daughter.
When a daughter was indeed born on April 1, Philip
VI became king. He was crowned at Reims late in May,
and then, at the behest of an important supporter, Louis I
of Flanders, he led a French army against Flemish rebels
and won a resounding victory at Cassel in August.
Throughout his reign, Philip VI had to maneuver
among confl icting political groupings whose ability
to cause him trouble was enhanced by the existence
of other descendants of St. Louis who might claim the
French throne. Philip IV the Fair, Louis X, and Philip
V all had grandsons who were disqualifi ed by the deci-
sion to exclude princes whose claims were through their
mothers. Two of these, Edward III of England and the
future Charles II of Navarre (r. 1349–87), presented
malcontents with attractive alternatives to whom to give
allegiance. To avoid alienating the count of Flanders and
duke of Burgundy, Philip had to rule against his friend
and cousin Robert of Artois in the disputed succession
to Artois, and Robert then gave his allegiance to Edward
III. When Philip ruled in favor of his nephew Charles
de Blois in the disputed Breton succession (1341), the
opposing claimant, Jean de Montfort, also turned to
Edward. Many nobles of the north and west felt more
closely tied to England than to the Valois, and they
disliked Philip’s queen, Jeanne of Burgundy. Perhaps
because of her infl uence, Philip tended to distrust this
important regional aristocracy and to draw a dispropor-
tionately large number of his advisers from regions like
Auvergne and Burgundy.
Amid growing discontent in the north and west,
Philip’s relations with England steadily deteriorated.
The two monarchies could not resolve differences over
Aquitaine, and Philip supported Scottish opposition to
Edward, while the latter built up an anti-Valois coalition
in the Low Countries. In 1337, the Hundred Years’ War
began, with the fi rst years marked by expensive prepara-
tions and little military action. Edward then defeated the
French fl eet at Sluys in 1340 and gained a valuable new
fi ghting front the next year with the disputed succession
in Brittany. Always short of money, Philip gave great
power to the leaders of the Chambre des Comptes, whose
aggressive fi scal measures did not produce the military
success needed to offset the antagonism they caused.
In 1345, the military situation began to deteriorate
seriously. The English victory at Auberoche that autumn
secured important gains in Aquitaine. The next year,
Edward III invaded Normandy, threatened Paris, and
then crushed Philip’s army at Crécy. In 1347, the English
in Brittany won a major victory at La Roche-Derrien,
while Philip could not save Calais from capitulating to
Edward III in August.
At the end of 1347, the Estates General convened
in Paris and demanded governmental reforms before
endorsing plans for each region to raise large taxes to
pay for an effective army. Before this initiative could
achieve results, France began to be ravaged by the Black
Death, which eventually claimed the lives of Philip’s
queen and daughter-in-law and left government and
society in disarray. The plague also produced a lull in
the war, but when he died in August 1350, Philip left
behind many problems for his son and successor, John
II the Good.PHILIP IV THE FAIR