Charles VII (1403-1461) was king of France from 1422 to 1461. With the aid of Joan of Arc, his armies won the Hundred Years’ War against England (1337-1453). Charles VII, a Valois king, also strengthened the French military and state.
Charles was born on Feb. 22, 1403, in Paris. His father, King Charles VI, was forced to declare King Henry V of England heir to the French throne in the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. But when Charles VI died in 1422, Charles VII declared himself king. Much of southern France recognized him as ruler. But northern France was controlled by the English, his enemies in the war. Charles could not be crowned because Reims, the city where French kings were crowned, lay in enemy territory.
In 1428, the English began a siege of Orléans, France. Joan of Arc, a young peasant woman, led French troops and ended the siege in 1429. She took Charles through enemy territory to Reims, where he was crowned that year. Joan later became a prisoner of the English, but Charles made no attempt to help her, and she was burned to death as a heretic.
Charles strengthened the French monarchy by creating a standing army and establishing a permanent tax. By 1453, the French had expelled England from all of France except the city of Calais. He died on July 22, 1461.
See also Hundred Years’ War; Joan of Arc, Saint; Orléans Reims; Valois.
