Charles, Duke of Orléans

Charles, Duke of Orléans (French: Charles, duc d’Orléans; 24 November 1394 — 5 November 1465) was Duke of Orléans, Count of Blois and of Beaumont-sur-Ouse, and Lord of Coucy from 1407 after his father got murdered and Duke of Valois from 1406 until his death in 1465. He inherited Asti after his mother Valentina Visconti.

He is now remembered as an accomplished medieval poet, owing to the more than five hundred poems he produced, written in both French and English, during his 25 years spent as a prisoner of war (POW) and after his return to France.

Life
Accession

Charles was born in Paris in 1394 to Louis I, Duke of Orléans (son of Charles V of France) and Valentina Visconti, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan. He became the Duke at the age of thirteen after his father had been assassinated on the orders of Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy. Charles was expected to carry on his father's leadership against the Burgundians, a French faction which supported the Duke of Burgundy. The latter was never punished for his role in Louis' assassination, and Charles had to watch as his grief-stricken mother Valentina Visconti could fight to the illness for long afterwards. At her mother's deathbed, Charles and the other boys of the family were made to swear the traditional oath of vengeance (revenge) for their father's murder.

During the early years of his reign as duke, the orphaned Charles was heavily influenced by the guidance of his father-in-law, Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, for which reason Charles' faction came to be known as the Armagnacs.

Even before his father's death, he received a  pension of 12,000 livres from King Charles VI, his uncle, in 1403. In addition, his first marriage, to Isabella of Valois, widow of Richard II of England, may have brought him a dowry of 500,000 francs.

Issue

 Mother Name Birth DeathSpouse More Isabella of Valois • JoanDuchess of Alençon 13 September 1409 19 May 1432(aged 22) John II, Duke of Alençon  Marie of Cleves • MarieViscountess of Narbonne 19 December/September 1457 1493 John of Foix, Viscount of Narbonne  • Louis XIIKing of France 27 June 1462 1 January 1515 • Saint Joan of Valois (1476–1498)• Anne, Duchess of Brittany (1499–1514)• Mary Tudor (from 1514)  AnneAbbess of Fontevraud 1464 1491 None

 Notes 

References and Notes

Category:1394 births
Category:1465 deaths
Category:Counts and countesses
Category:Dukes and Duchesses of Orléans
Category:Dukes and Duchesses of Valois
Category:French poets
Category:French prisoners of war in the Hundred Years' War
Category:Heirs presumptive to the French throne
Category:House of Valois-Orléans
Category:Knights of the Golden Fleece
Category:Knights of the Order of the Porcupine
Category:People of the Hundred Years' War
Category:Prisoners in the Tower of London
Category:French people imprisoned in the United Kingdom
Category:Royal reburials
Category:Writers from Paris