harles VII (1403-61), called the
Victorious, King of France, crowned in 1422, after the death of
his father, Charles VI, in spite of the treaty of Troyes. Charles
made little headway against the English till the advent in 1429,
of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. With their disastrous defeat
at the siege of Castillon in 1453, the end of the Hundred Years’
War may be said to have come, and England retained Calais only of
her French possessions. A great stain on Charles’s fame was
his cowardly surrender of Joan of Arc to the English. See Du
Fresne de Beaucourt’s Histoire de Charles VII. [World
Wide Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1935]
Ruled France 1422 to 1461. Had two other daughters (infant
deaths?). [GADD.GED]
Charles VII (of France) (1403-61), king of France (1422-61),
born in Paris. He was the eldest surviving son of King Charles VI.
When his father died in 1422, the French throne did not pass to
Charles but to the infant King Henry VI of England, who was his
nephew. The English inheritance had been stipulated by the Treaty
of Troyes (1420), which ended a phase of the Hundred Years' War.
Northern France was thereafter ruled by John of Lancaster, regent
for Henry, and southern France was governed by Charles, who was
called the Dauphin. During the next six years, the English,
strengthened by an alliance with Philip the Good, the powerful
duke of Bourgogne, scored several major military victories. The
tide of the war changed when Joan of Arc lifted the siege of Orléans
and won the Battle of Patay in the spring of 1429. Charles was
crowned king of France on July 17, 1429, in Reims Cathedral. In
1435, when Duke Philip abandoned the English cause and formed an
alliance with Charles, a French victory seemed inevitable. The
king entered Paris in 1436. In the following years the English
lost all their French possessions except Calais. The last battle
of the Hundred Years' War, a disastrous defeat for the English,
was fought at Castillon (now in Gironde Department) on July 17,
1453. Charles was not a strong monarch, but he reformed the
military, instituted sound fiscal policies, and encouraged trade.
He was succeeded by his son Louis XI, who had been in revolt
against his father since 1446. [Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia]
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