Philip VI of France
Philip VI ruled France from 1328 to 1350, the first of the Valois line, and presided over the opening disasters of the Hundred Years' War and the arrival of the Black Death. Born in 1293, he was a nephew of Philip IV and became king when Charles IV died without a son, ending the direct Capetian line after three centuries. The succession was contested. Edward III of England was Philip IV's grandson through his mother Isabella, a closer blood relationship, but the French nobility preferred a French-born male claimant and invoked the principle that the crown could not pass through a woman. Edward did homage for Gascony in 1329 and then, in 1337, after Philip declared the duchy confiscated, formally claimed the French throne. The war went badly from the start. The French fleet was destroyed at Sluys in June 1340, losing control of the Channel. At Crécy in August 1346, Philip's larger army attacked uphill in poor order; English longbowmen shot down the Genoese crossbowmen and then successive charges of French cavalry, killing much of the nobility including the blind King John of Bohemia. Calais fell after an eleven-month siege in 1347. The plague reached France in 1348 and killed perhaps a third of the population within two years. Massacres of Jews accompanied it, which Philip and the papacy both condemned without stopping. He raised the gabelle salt tax and repeatedly debased the coinage to pay for the war, which was deeply resented. He bought the Dauphiné in 1349, which gave the heir to the throne his title. He died in 1350.
- Lived: 1293 CE – 1350 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: king, head_of_state
