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Was Charles VI of France Truly Mad or Misunderstood?
Few monarchs have caused so much controversy among historians as Charles VI of France (r. 1380-1422). Charles VI is perhaps most well-known for his losses during the Hundred Years’ War and for turning the tide in favor of the English. However, should we be looking at his reign in a more sympathetic light? Charles was known to suffer from “bouts of madness,” so this has to be taken into account when looking at the man behind the king. This article will explore Charles’s reign and how it transformed French history.
Early Life and Regency
Coin of Charles VI of France, 1380-1422. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Charles was born on December 3, 1368, in Paris. He was the eldest son of Charles V, King of France (r. 1364-80), and his wife, Joanna of Bourbon. He was born into the House of Valois.
Charles’s father died when he was aged eleven, and his coronation took place at Reims Cathedral on November 4, 1380. Because he was not yet old enough to rule in his own stead, he was instead classed as a minor, so he had others ruling for him until he was deemed old enough to rule by himself.
Charles’s uncles ruled France during his minority, and while the age of majority was 14 in France, Charles did not terminate the regency until he was 21 years old, eventually ruling in his own right by late 1388, eight years after he inherited the crown.
The uncles who ruled for Charles were three of his father’s brothers (John, Duke of Berry, Louis I, Duke of Anjou, and Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy), and his maternal uncle, Louis II, Duke of Bourbon.
Interestingly, Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, his maternal uncle, was relatively unimportant during the regency phase because he was not a part of the royal bloodline like the others were, and he had also shown signs of mental illness—suggesting that this was a hereditary trait that Charles would also suffer with in his later life.
Charles VI’s Mental Illness Episodes
Charles VI seized by madness in the forest, from Froissart’s Chronicles, c. 1450. Source: BnF
Charles first experienced mental illness episodes in his mid-20s, sometime in the early 1390s, shortly after he had begun to rule France in his own stead.
In 1392, Olivier de Clisson, one of Charles’s friends and advisors, was the victim of an attempted murder by a man called Pierre de Craon, who took refuge in Brittany. John, Duke of Brittany, was unwilling to hand Craon over to face the king’s justice, so Charles organized a military expedition to do so.
Contemporaries reported that Charles seemed disconnected in his speech and was in a “fever” at the start of the campaign, eventually setting off with an army on July 1, 1392. A sudden shock from the noise of a lance being dropped against a helmet almost flicked a switch in Charles’s mind, and he immediately rushed to attack his own knights.
Unfortunately, Charles killed a knight known as the “Bastard of Polignac” and several other men in the fight. He eventually fell to the ground and went into a coma. He was taken to nearby Creil Castle, where it was hoped that the “good air” would cure him from this episode.
A year later, Charles was struck with another episode when he forgot his name, did not know that he was king, and did not recognize his wife when she came to visit him.
Saint George and the Dragon, by Bernat Martorell, 1434-5. Source: RKD Images
In 1395-96, Charles claimed that he was, in fact, Saint George, once again recognizing all the men of his household, but not his wife nor his children. Charles was also reported to run wildly through the corridors of his home, sometimes smearing himself in his own faeces. To protect anyone else from seeing, the entrances were walled up.
Perhaps the most famous of Charles’s mental illness episodes was around 1405, when he refused to bathe or change his clothes for five months. In addition, he also had iron rods sewn into his clothes because he thought that he was made out of glass and would shatter if anyone else touched him. This condition came to be known as the “glass delusion.” It is easy to see why Charles was known as both Charles the Beloved and Charles the Mad.
The Regency of Isabeau
The Coronation of Charles VI, from Grande Chroniques de France, c. 1450. Source: Gallica Digital Library
From 1393, when it became apparent that Charles was unfit to rule, his wife Isabeau acted as Queen Regent of France. Philip the Bold, who had acted in Charles’s minority as regent, had a great influence on the queen, but the king’s younger brother, Louis I, Duke of Orleans, also began to have more of an influence on her. It was even rumored that he and the queen were secret lovers.
This rivalry between Philip the Bold and Louis I, Duke of Orleans, would escalate, eventually leading to outright civil war in the years to come.
The Bal des Ardents and Expulsion of the Jews
The Bal de Ardents, from Froissart’s Chronicles, c. 1470. Source: British Library
During Isabeau’s regency, on January 29, 1393, she decided to hold a masked ball, which became known as the Bal des Ardents (Ball of the Burning Men).
Dancers were invited to perform in the court, in front of Charles VI and Queen Regent Isabeau, dressed as wild men, in shaggy costumes made from linen and animal furs.
Louis I, Duke of Orleans, arrived late to this ball and used one of the torchbearer’s torches to get a look at the dancers in the dark. His torch ended up catching the costume of one of the dancers, who was immediately set on fire. Panic spread, and so did the fire.
Four of the dancers died, and many of the knights who helped to put out the flames were badly burned.
Some historians have claimed that this episode also led to debilitations in Charles VI’s mental health; in seeing something so horrifying unfold in front of his eyes, it is easy to see why this could have further damaged his mental stability.
Charles VI of France, 1450. Source: Picryl
The following year, in 1394, largely unprompted, Charles issued an edict to expel the Jews from France. He claimed that they were involved in corruption and that Christians deserved to be cleared of their debts.
The aim was to send the Jews to the frontier of the kingdom so that they could find refuge in foreign countries. This was just another sad episode in medieval Europe’s antisemitic history that proved that the Jews could be blamed as a scapegoat for any wrongdoing.
This was one of the rare popular moves by Charles VI, which was perceived well by the public—partly because many of them were indebted to the French Jews and partly because the Black Death was in living memory for many French citizens, and the Jews across Europe were blamed for it, accused of poisoning wells. For many people, this felt like justice was served against this already historically oppressed community.
The Burgundian-Armagnac Civil War
The Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War, c. 1484. Source: Gallica Digital Library
During the reign of Charles VI, the Burgundian-Armagnac War began. Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, died in April 1404. John the Fearless took over, and a feud with the Duke of Orleans (whose supporters would become the Armagnacs) escalated even further, leading to civil war.
The Duke of Orleans was murdered in Paris in 1407, and war broke out. When questioned about the murder, John the Fearless did not deny his responsibility in the murder of Orleans. Orleans’s son, Charles of Orleans, turned to his father-in-law, Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, for support against the Burgundians (John the Fearless’s faction).
This would result in one of the most bitter civil wars in French history, the Burgundian-Armagnac Civil War, which would last from 1407 until Charles’s death in 1435.
The Hundred Years’ War
The Battle of Agincourt, by Enguerrand de Monstrelet, c. 1450. Source: BnF
Obviously, the biggest war that Charles VI and his ruling faction had to contend with was the ongoing Hundred Years’ War with England, which had been raging on since the 1330s.
By 1415, feuds between the ruling Valois family and the Burgundians led to anarchy and chaos in France, something which the English king, Henry V, capitalized on at the incredible English victory at the Battle of Agincourt on October 25, 1415.
This defeat for the French was humiliating and solidified England’s position for the coming years as the most powerful force during the Hundred Years’ War.
It would go from bad to worse for Charles, however, when he was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Troyes in 1420, which acknowledged that Henry V’s heirs would succeed to the French throne as well as the English throne, while Charles’s heirs would step aside. In the treaty, Charles’s daughter Catherine was also betrothed to Henry, and she bore him a son a year later; the boy would become the future King Henry VI of England.
However, Henry V died just a few short weeks before Charles did, leaving behind the infant Henry VI, which, according to the Treaty of Troyes, meant that he would become King of France on Charles’s death.
As such, Henry’s coronation was held in Paris, but Charles’s son, who would become King Charles VII of France, never gave up his fight for the throne, and the Hundred Years’ War would once again turn in favor of the French during his reign.
Charles VI’s Death and Legacy
Charles VII, by Jean Fouquet, c. 1445-50. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Charles VI died aged 53 on October 21, 1422, in Paris. His life had been one of struggles with mental illness—possibly schizophrenia—which he may or may not have inherited from his mother’s side of the family.
His reign was a tragic one—corrupted uncles took advantage of him, and feuds between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians incapacitated the king’s reign.
In modern times, Charles would have been well looked after, possibly even cured, but unfortunately, he is only remembered for his mental illness episodes and for leading France into spiralling into civil war amidst the Hundred Years’ War.
Rulers like Charles VI need to be looked upon with empathy for their conditions for a fair assessment of their reigns: would France have fared better if he had not suffered from his mental illnesses? Undoubtedly, yes.
However, history is not a case of ifs and buts; rather, it is a case of what happened, and here’s why.
Charles VI should perhaps be more well remembered by the epithet “the Beloved” rather than the demeaning “the Mad”—but this is up to the reader to truly decide.
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