CHARLES V, King of France. — Son of John II the Good, he was the most prominent figure of the royal house of France in the branch of the Valois, in the 14th century. Born at Vincennes on 21 January 1337, while still young he received the government of the Dauphiné, ceded by the last dauphin of the house of La Tour du Pin to the king of France on the condition that the government should always remain in the hands of the king’s eldest son. He was therefore the first dauphin of the royal house. In 1355 he received from his father the government of the duchy of Normandy. After the battle of Poitiers, in which John II was taken prisoner by the English (1356), Charles, as dauphin, assumed the office of regent and lieutenant of the king. The political crisis that the kingdom was undergoing enabled him, at his own expense, to gain knowledge of men and to discern friends from enemies; thus, although still young, he came to a full awareness of the duties of a sovereign and to the conviction that the monarch must possess complete and absolute power. To secure support for the reorganization of the State, he convened the Estates General but had to contend with the opposition of the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, and the Parisian bourgeoisie led by the eloquent advocate Étienne Marcel. Forced to leave Paris, he found support in the provincial nobility, which meanwhile crushed the rural insurrection of the Jacquerie; with an army of nobles he re-entered Paris and restored his authority. In 1360 he negotiated with the English the Peace of Brétigny-Calais and, upon his father’s return from captivity, he restored the kingdom to him. John II died on 8 April 1364, and Charles then ascended the throne. He reigned for only sixteen years, but his reign was of great importance in the history of France.
A cultured man, he preferred a quiet life, devoted to study and meditation, to the hunts and chivalric pursuits favored by his father. He conceived of his government as necessarily absolute, tempered only by a sense of the duties of kingship and by the honest and intelligent collaboration of learned men. His program was to restore peace and order to the State, liquidating all the past conflicts and wars. The period of fruitful peace lasted, however, only until 1369. The execution of the Treaty of Calais indeed led to serious difficulties with the king of England, both because of the still outstanding payment of John II’s ransom and because of the claims of high sovereignty that the king of France made over the feudal lords of the territories occupied by the English. In 1369, therefore, war resumed. In the king’s council, the plan to invade England was discussed; then, under the command of the new constable Du Guesclin, the French armies conquered Poitou, Saintonge, and Brittany. The death of the Black Prince, the English military leader, and of the king of England weakened the war effort.
Charles V, King of France — Gift offered by Charles V to Charles IV, Emperor, and to Wenceslaus IV of Luxembourg, King of the Romans. *Les Grandes Chroniques de France*, illuminated manuscript (14th century) — Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. français 2813, f. 473.
As regards the king’s political activity in other spheres, it should be noted that Charles sought to persuade Urban V not to return to Rome but to keep the papal see in Avignon. When the schism broke out in 1378, the king first recognized Urban VI, then abandoned him and recognized the new pope of Avignon, Clement VII. He died on 16 September 1380 at Beauté-sur-Marne and was buried at Saint-Denis.