Charles III the Simple (jan 28, 898 – jun 30, 922)

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Charles was the third and posthumous son of king Louis the Stammerer by his second wife Adelaide of Paris. As a child, Charles was prevented from succeeding to the throne at the time of the death in 884 of his half-brother, king Carloman II. Instead, Frankish nobles of the realm asked his cousin, Emperor Charles the Fat, to assume the crown. He was also prevented from succeeding the unpopular Charles the Fat in 888. The nobility then elected Odo, the hero of the Siege of Paris (885–886) as the new king, although there was a faction that supported claims of Guy III of Spoleto. The young Charles was put under the protection of Ranulf II, the Duke of Aquitaine, who may have tried to claim the throne for him and in the end used the royal title himself until making peace with Odo. In 893, Charles was crowned by a faction opposed to the rule of Odo at the Reims Cathedral, becoming monarch of West Francia only after the death of Odo in 898. His first order of business was to regain Lotharingia, the cradle of the Carolingian dynasty, caught between East and West Francia. His Queen Frederuna of Lotharingia, who he had married in 907, died in 917 leaving six daughters and no sons. In 919 Charles married Eadgifu, the daughter of Edward the Elder of England, who finally bore him a son, the future King Louis IV of France. From 920 to 922, Charles the Simple was in trouble. Although he signed the Treaty of Bonn with king Henry the Fowler (Otto I's father) of East Francia in 921, he had to fight on two fronts: one against Duke Giselbert of Lotharingia and the other against Hugh the Great. Defeated, in June 922 Charles the Simple took refuge in Lotharingia, and the nobles of West Francia declared him deposed from the throne, choosing as the new King Robert, Count of Paris, brother of the late King Odo and father of Hugh the Great.

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