Charles VII (oct 23, 1422 – jul 22, 1461)

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son of Charles VI. Won back his throne from Henry VI with support of Joan of Arc. Married to Marie d'Anjou; her support as well as that of her mother Yolande d'Aragon were crucial to his reclaiming the throne (he had been sent by his mother Isabeau to Yolande as a child so he would be safe and live to adulthood amid the turmoil in France, unlike his older brothers). Charles was forced to flee Paris and the partisans of John the Fearless of Burgundy in 1418 and established his own court in Bourges. John was assassinated in 1419 by Charles's men and his son Philip the Good took power. Charles was disinherited by the Treaty of Troyes signed by his father (influenced by Burgundy in 1420. Upon his father's death in 1422, Charles remained south of the Loire River with Yolande and married her daughter Marie d'Anjou in July. Northern France, including Paris, was ruled by an English regent, Henry V's brother, John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, based in Normandy. In 1429, Joan of Arc finally turned the tide and helped Charles to be crowned at Reims. Charles and Philip the Good then signed the 1435 Treaty of Arras, by which the Burgundian faction rejected their English alliance and became reconciled with Charles VII, just as things were going badly for their English allies. Over the following two decades, the French recaptured Paris from the English and eventually recovered all of France with the exception of the northern port of Calais. The last years of Charles VII were marked by conflicts with his turbulent son, the future Louis XI of France, who demanded real power to accompany his position as the Dauphin.

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