Charles IV of France - Personality and Marriage

Personality and Marriage

Charles IV was the third son of Philip IV; like his father, Charles was known as "the fair" or "the handsome". By virtue of his mother, Joan I of Navarre's, birthright, Charles claimed the title Charles I, King of Navarre. From 1314 to his accession to the throne, he held the title of Count of La Marche, and was crowned King of France in 1322 at the cathedral in Reims. Unlike either Philip IV or Philip V, Charles is usually felt to have been a relatively conservative, "strait laced" king – he was "inclined to forms and stiff-necked in defence of his prerogatives", but disinclined either to manipulate them to his own ends or achieve wider reform.

Charles married his first wife, Blanche of Burgundy, the daughter of Otto IV, Count of Burgundy in 1308, but Blanche was caught up in the Tour de Nesle scandals of 1314 and imprisoned. After Charles assumed the throne he refused to release Blanche, their marriage was annulled and Blanche retreated to a nunnery. His second wife, Marie of Luxembourg, the daughter of Henry VII, the Holy Roman Emperor, died following a premature birth.

Charles married again in 1325, this time to Jeanne d'Évreux: Jeanne was his first cousin, and the marriage required approval from Pope John XXII. Jeanne was crowned queen the following year, in one of the better recorded French coronation ceremonies. The ceremony represented a combination of a political statement, social event and an "expensive fashion statement"; the cost of food, furs, velvets and jewellery for Charles' event in 1326 was so expensive that negotiations over the cost were still ongoing in 1329. The coronation also saw the first appearance of the latterly famous medieval cook, Guillaume Tirel, then only a junior servant.

Charles relied heavily during the first half of his reign on his uncle, Charles of Valois, for advice and to undertake key military tasks. Charles of Valois was a powerful magnate in his own right, a key advisor to Louis X, and had made a bid for the regency in 1316, initially championing Princess Joan, before finally switching sides and backing Philip V. Charles of Valois would have been aware that if Charles died without male heirs, he and his male heirs would have a good claim to the crown.