French Kings and Emperors

The history of the kings of Western Europe could be traced all the way back in
Charlemagne’s era, the first emperor in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire,
and he was connected to every European royal house that came after him. Most importantly, he
was considered to be the first true French monarchs, as well as the first German monarch, who
would eventually be known as Holy Roman Emperors. During Charlemagne’s reign, he was
known as the King of the Franks, and not the King of France or the Holy Roman Emperor. He
was a Frank, and belonged to the Carolingian dynasty, named after his grandfather, Charles
Martel. But before them, there were the Merovingians, who established and united the Franks.
Starting off, Charlemagne succeeded his father Pepin in the year 768. Over the next few
decades, he greatly focused on Frankish territorial expansion, conquering the Saxons and
Bavarians to the east as well as the Lombards to the south in modern-day Italy.

Meanwhile, in Constantinople, there was the first ever Roman Empress, Irene of Athens.
This put Charlemagne as the male ruler over Rome and much of Western Europe. Therefore, in
800 AD, the Pope crowned Charlemagne as emperor, signaling that he was now the true
successor of Augustus Caesar, and not Irene of Athens. The idea was that the emperorship
would permanently transfer from Constantinople over to Rome. But in reality, what happened
was that Europe ended up with 2 emperors again.

Initially, the plan was for Charlemagne to divide his empire into 3 parts for his 3
eldest sons. But only the youngest son outlived him, and therefore that son became Emperor
Louis I, the start of the trend of French monarchs being named Louis. When he passed away,
the empire finally divided into 3, which became known as West, Middle, and East Francia. The
eldest son received the title of Emperor and the region of Middle Francia, which included parts
of modern-day Italy, Germany, as well as the Low Countries. The other two sons received the
regions of West and East Francia respectively, with West Francia corresponding with modern-
day France and Spain, and East Francia corresponding with the Holy Roman Empire, which
became part of the modern-day countries in Central Europe. But we are only dealing with
France, so we’re only going to keep track of the West Frankish monarchs.
 So that side started with Charles II “the Bald”, and he received the title of Emperor, since
Middle Francia ran out of male heirs after just 1 generation. But when he passed away, the
emperorship didn’t pass to his son, it’s only the territory of West Francia which was passed.
The emperorship went over to a relative in East Francia, known as Charles the Fat. Back in
West Francia, we had Louis II, who didn’t reign long, followed by his 2 sons, Louis III and
Carloman II. But when Carloman II passed away, his younger brother Charles III was too
young to claim the throne, so Charles the Fat ended up as regent over West Francia, as well as
ruler over in East Francia. This would be the last time that all of Francia was united under a
single ruler. But, by this point, the nobility in Western Europe had grown very powerful. So
powerful that they eventually had Charles the Fat deposed and decided to elect new kings
instead. In West Francia, they elected a king from the Robertian dynasty, King Odo. But when
Odo passed away, the throne passed back to the Carolingians, because Charles the Simple had
grown old enough to rule under his own right.

But things would go back and forth for a while, because they went with an elective
monarchy, so Charles the Simple was replaced with Robert I, Odo’s brother, who passed the
throne to his son-in-law, King Rudolph. But when Rudolph passed away, Hugh the Great had
a strong claim to the throne, but instead of claiming the throne for himself, he decided to support
the son of Charles the Simple, who eventually became Louis IV. This way, Hugh was able to
gain the position of being the power behind the throne. He even married the sister of Holy
Roman Emperor Otto the Great to cement his position. Then throne continued to descend through
Lothair and through to Louis V. But eventually, the Robertians would be kings again, since the
Carolingians had ran out of male heirs, and the nobles elected Hugh’s son, also named Hugh,
king, thus establishing the House of Capet, after his nickname.

The house of Capet would continue to rule for over 800 years, which was the longest
ever in European royal history. But note that the House of Capet was a branch of the
Robertian dynasty. Hugh was followed by his son Robert II, followed by his 2nd son, Henry I,
who married Anne of Kiev. Note that Henry’s brother Robert became the progenitor of the
House of Burgundy, a branch of the Capet dynasty who would go on to rule over Portugal for
244 years.
 Back in France, there were many father-son successions, with each king having a nice
long reign of 20+ years each, which helped to cement the dynasty. Louis VII was the first
French king to participate in one of the crusades. At that time, he was married to Eleanor of
Aquitaine, but later their marriage was annulled and Eleanor married King Henry II of
England, which started England’s rule on the continent and the creation of the Angevin Empire.
Every king from Charles the Bald all the way to Louis VII were technically kings of West
Francia. But Philip II was the first to officially use the title “King of France”. He was also able
to recapture the territory that had been in control of the Angevin kings of England. In fact,
during Philip’s reign, his son (the future King Louis VIII) was entitled King of England for a
brief moment. He was later known as Louis the Lion, as well as the father of Louis IX, also
known as Saint Louis, being the only French king to be sainted. He was also the namesake of
the US city of St. Louis.

His younger brother, Charles, also became a king, not of France, but of Sicily. His
descendants were part of the House of Anjou and that branch of the Capet dynasty would
continue to rule in Hungary as well. St. Louis was followed by Philip III. His younger brother
named Robert married Beatrice, named Bourbon. Their son became the first Duke of Bourbon,
and it would be from him that the house of Bourbon would later descend. Philip III was
followed by his son Philip IV, who married the Queen Regnant of Navarre and therefore when
she passed away, his son Louis became the King of Navarre. So the next 4 kings of France
after Philip, namely Louis X, John I, Philip V, as well as Charles IV, were all kings of
Navarre. But this was where 400+ years of father-son succession came to an end.

Louis X passed away young, leaving his son John, who was born 5 months later, as
king. But King John lived for only 5 days, leaving his uncle Philip as Philip V. But then Philip
passed away childless, and Charles IV also passed away heirless. This created a crisis, because
France followed agnatic primogeniture, in which only male heirs could inherit. But there was
some debate over whether that male had to come from a strict agnatic line of the family, or
whether a male from a female-line could inherit. The 4 French kings who was also King of
Navarre had a sister named Isabella, who had married Edward II of England. They had a son,
who became Edward III, who was the closest agnatic relative of King Philip IV of France. After
Charles passed away, Edward should’ve been the legitimate French monarch.
 But there was one other candidate. Philip IV had had a brother, who had a son, who
was the closest relative from an agnatic line. That individual was Philip VI from the House of
Valois, a branch of the House of Capet. The conflict between these 2 contenders over who was
the rightful French king is what started the 100 Years War between France and England. This
is why, from this point on, the English royal coat of arms incorporated the fleur-de-lis all the
way until 1801, during the French Revolution. The throne passed to Philip VI, John II, Charles
V and his son Charles VI of France. Anyway, the war between England and France lasted
116 years and in the end, France and the House of Valois emerged victorious, thanks in part
to Joan of Arc. By that time, Charles VII was king. He was then followed by Louis XI and
Charles VIII. He came to the throne when he was just 13 and passed away in his 20s
without any sons, brothers, or even uncles to inherit. So at that point, the throne jumped straight
to another branch of the Valois dynasty and Louis XII was crowned king. He had been
married with Charles’s sister Joan. But when Louis became king, he had that marriage
annulled and he married Charles’s widow instead, who happened to be the duchess regnant of
Brittany.

By this point, France was pretty much engaged in the Italian wars, a rivalry between
the House of Valois and the House of Habsburg. Soon after he became king, Louis XII captured
the Italian city of Milan and he claimed the title “Duke of Milan” based on the fact that his
grandmother was the daughter of the 1st Duke of Milan. He was able to hold on to Milan for
13 years, until the Italians captured it back. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any sons
and therefore the throne passed to his 1st cousin once removed, King Francis I, who ended up
becoming the main rival of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V during the Italian Wars.

It was during Francis’s reign that Jacques Cartier discovered Canada and claimed the
area for France, naming it “New France”. He therefore is sometimes considered the first
Canadian monarch, even though Canada didn’t actually exist back then, and at that time was
populated by independent First Nations groups. Francis married the duchess regnant of Brittany,
and so through this marriage, the heir to the French throne became Duke of Brittany, officially
making Brittany a part of France and ending its previous independence. That king was Henry
II of France and he married a member of the Medici family. Three of their sons would go on to
become king and would be the last three Valois kings.
 Francis II was the 1st husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, but he passed away when he
was just 16. Then Charles IX inherited the throne and France descended into civil war between
Catholics and Protestants. During the war, Charles passed away and Henry need to return to
France and renounce his claim to the Polish throne. But there was a civil war and Henry III
became the first French king to be assassinated, as well as the last Valois king.

Then the throne passed to the House of Bourbon, a junior branch of the House of Capet,
and so the next king, Henry IV was still a legitimate agnatic descendant of Hugh Capet. His
mother had been the queen regnant of Navarre, so before he became King of France, he had been
King of Navarre for a while. But at this point, Lower Navarre had merged with France. But
the thing about Henry IV was that he was originally Protestant, which was a problem between
the French people at the time. Even though he had converted to Catholicism, there were a lot of
assassination attempts on him, and one was successful. So his son Louis XIII succeeded Henry,
initially under the regency of his mother, the 2nd of the 2 Medici queens of France.

It was under the rule of Louis XIII and PM Cardinal Richelieu that France became an
absolute monarchy, which peaked during the reign of Louis XIV, who was the longest reigning
monarch in history, at 72 years in total, even surpassing the reign of Her Late Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II. At that time, there were lots of wars to attempt to curb his power. He lived
so long that he outlived his son and grandson. And so when he passed away, the throne passed
to his great-grandson Louis XV. Louis XV became the 2nd longest-reigning French king, with
a reign of 58 years, but during his reign, the stage was set for the French Revolution, in which
France decided to abolish the monarchy. This occurred during the reign of his son Louis XVI
and his consort Marie Antoinette, who got guillotined and thus started the period for the First
French Republic.

They had a son, who was numbered Louis XVII, who died in captivity. But, the First
Republic didn’t last long, and the republic soon became an empire, ruled by Napoleon
Bonaparte, who went to conquer most of Europe. But eventually, he was defeated by the
European powers and France decided to restore the Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVIII’s
rule, who was succeeded by a 3rd brother, Charles X. By that time, a second French Revolution
happened. But it didn’t result in a republic. Instead, it resulted in a constitutional monarchy,
not an absolute one. Charles was replaced by Louis Philippe from the House of Orléans.
 But then, a 3rd French Revolution started and The Second French Republic was
established under the presidency of Napoleon’s nephew. Eventually, the republic became an empire
and the president became Emperor Napoleon III, Napoleon II being the son of Napoleon who
kind of reigned for 2 weeks. Then came the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, which France lost.
At that time, France decided to become a republic for good, establishing the Third Republic, which
was followed by the Fourth Republic and the Fifth Republic, which is the form of government
currently in use by the French people today.