Charles IV of France (18 June 1294-1 February 1328) was King of France from 3 January 1322 to 1 February 1328, succeeding Philip V of France and preceding Philip VI of France. Charles was the last monarch to rule over the House of Capet, which went extinct with his death.
Biography[]
Charles was born on 18 June 1294 in Clermont, Oise, France, the son of King Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre. He was the Count of La Marche before he was crowned King of France on the death of his brother Philip V of France, and he married Blanche of Burgundy in 1308. In 1314, he imprisoned her and annulled the marriage due to her adultery, and his second wife Maria de Luxembourg (daughter of Henry VII of Germany) died in childbirth. Charles relied on his uncle Charles of Valois for advice, and Charles ordered the expulsion of many Jews from France due to an alleged plot by Jews to poison France's wells during the leper scare. Charles gave money to his sister, Isabella of France, to fight against her husband Edward II of England in her 1324 invasion of England, and he mediated an end to a revolt in Flanders. Charles died in 1328 without a male heir, leading to the extinction of the House of Capet; his cousin Philip VI of France (from the House of Valois) succeeded him, while his nephew Edward III of England also claimed the French throne - these overlapping claims led to the Hundred Years' War.