eldest son of Louis IX. (St. Louis), and was born in 1245. His father died during the last of his two unfortunate crusades, when besieging Tunis in the August of 1270; and in the French camp Philip was proclaimed as his successor. For two months longer the army remained in Africa; but peace having been made with the king of Tunis, the new sovereign returned to France, reaching Paris on the 21st May, 1271. His coronation at Rheims shortly followed; and Philip now directed his energies to the great object of his life, that of perfecting the work commenced by his predecessors, the more thorough subjugation of the nobles to the regal power. Circumstances largely favoured the furtherance of this design. Hardly had he been crowned when, by the death of his uncle Alphonse, he acquired the counties of Poitou, Auvergne, and Toulouse, the possessions of the latter; while events, arising out of the death of Thibaud II. at Trapani on his way from Tunis, ultimately gave Champagne and Navarre to the French crown. In 1274 Philip married Mary, daughter of the duke of Brabant. During the earlier part of his reign his chamberlain, Pierre de la Brosse, formerly barber-surgeon to St. Louis, exercised considerable influence over his royal master; but the career of that personage was cut short by the usual destiny of favourites, and his downfall in 1278 terminated with his trial and execution. In 1283 Philip engaged in hostilities with Pedro III., king of Arragon. Pope Martin IV. had deposed this sovereign, and offered his crown to Charles of Valois, Philip's second son, on condition of its being held in feudal subjection to the Holy see. By the advice of his bishops and barons Philip accepted the offer, and commenced war against Pedro. In 1285 he invaded Catalonia; but although he gained various successes, in the field, at sea he suffered every disadvantage. There the admiral, Roger de Loria, maintained the supremacy of the Arragonese flag, and thus entirely neutralized the French monarch's Catalonian invasion. Philip's army, besides, was wasting away by disease; and in such disheartening circumstances he was compelled to retrace his steps to France, himself falling a victim to fever at Perpignan on the 5th of October, 1285.—J. J.
Philip IV., surnamed the Fair, was the second son of the preceding by his first wife, Isabella of Arragon, and was born in 1268. He succeeded his father in 1285, having previously married Jeanne, princess of Navarre, through whom he acquired a right to that crown. He was engaged in war during the greater part of his reign. His great rival was Edward I. of England. In 1292 a quarrel took place between some Norman and English sailors, which led first to a kind of piratical war between the vessels of the Cinque Ports and of France, and then to a deadly quarrel between the two monarchs. Philip summoned Edward as his vassal to appear before the parliament of Paris, and the English king sent his brother Edmund to expostulate against such a summons, and to settle the grounds of dispute. It was agreed in order to avoid a war that six towns in Guienne should be delivered up to Philip; but the latter in violation of this agreement caused the entire province to be occupied by an armed force, and declared the whole of the English possessions in France forfeited on account of Edward's alleged contumacy. This treacherous proceeding immediately produced a war between the two nations. Philip entered into alliance with John Baliol of Scotland, while Edward concluded a treaty with the emperor, and with various minor continental powers. Hostilities, however, were carried on languidly and were at last terminated by a lengthened truce, which was converted into a peace by the mediation of Boniface VIII. Guienne was restored, the prince of Wales married the daughter of Philip, while Edward himself espoused that monarch's sister. But the allies on both sides were ungratefully and treacherously abandoned, without any stipulation in their favour. Scarcely had Philip become reconciled to his English rival, when a fierce dispute broke out between him and Pope Boniface. The king was excommunicated by the pontiff, and his crown offered to Albert of Austria, while on the other hand Philip protected the Colonnas the implacable enemies of Boniface, and by their assistance arrested the pope at Anagni. He was rescued, however, by the citizens and conveyed to Rome, where he soon after died of chagrin and disappointment. The count of Flanders had taken part with Edward in the war against France; and Philip, eager to gratify his resentment for this injury, invaded Flanders, imprisoned the count, and took possession of his territory. But the tyranny of John de Chatillon, whom Philip appointed governor of the newly-acquired province, roused the people to revolt, and they inflicted upon the French a signal defeat at Courtrai in 1302. Philip, determined on revenge, raised another army and marched against the victorious Flemings, whom he defeated in 1304; but unable to make any permanent impression upon them, he was fain to make peace with them, and to acknowledge the independence of their country. Philip was always in pecuniary difficulties, and the means which he employed to replenish his exchequer were frequently most unjustifiable and oppressive. He debased the coin of the kingdom, repeatedly despoiled the Jews, and ultimately banished them the country and confiscated their property, and imprisoned and robbed the Italian merchants on the most frivolous pretexts. His suppression of the great military order of the Templars, and the shocking tortures which he inflicted on many of its members, were believed to have been dictated by his avaricious desire to obtain possession of their immense estates. The latter part of Philip's life was embittered by domestic calamities and crimes, which are believed to have seriously impaired his health. He died in 1314, in the forty-seventh year of his age and thirtieth of his reign.—J. T.
Philip V., known as le Long or the Tall, the second son of Philip IV., was born in 1294, and ascended the throne in 1316. The reign of Philip V., although short and otherwise obscure, possesses one point of considerable interest—the decision of a great constitutional question by his elevation to the royal power. Philip's elder brother and predecessor, Louis X., or Louis Hutin, who died in June, 1316, having left his wife pregnant, Philip assumed the regency in behalf of the future infant. But the child, a male, died soon after its birth; and Philip immediately seized the sceptre, proclaiming himself king, to the prejudice of Jeanne of Navarre, his brother's surviving daughter by his first marriage. Op the states being assembled by Philip for the ratification of this step, he alleged to them in his favour the old German law of the Franks, which excluded daughters from the Salic law, and he maintained that the crown of France was too noble a fief pour tomber en quenouille, "to fall into hands used to the distaff"—"a feudal argument," as Michelet r emarks, "the effect of which was to ruin feudality." Properly, the text of the Salic law sanctions no such opinion; and it is only from this period that the exclusion of females carries with it the air of legal authority. The states, however, confirmed the title of Philip; and thenceforward the Salic law became firmly established as a fundamental principle of the French monarchy. The reign of Philip the Tall was disgraced by atrocious persecutions, directed partly against the Jews, partly against those afflicted with leprosy (a disease imported by the crusaders from the East), and numbers of both classes were mercilessly slain. Their spoils went to enrich the monarch's treasury; but his exactions were arrested by the hand of death. Philip expired at Longchamps, near Paris, on the 3rd of January 1322.—J. J.
Philip VI., usually called Philip of Valois, as the first king of France of the collateral branch of Valois, was the son of Charles, count of Valois, brother of Philip IV., and ascended the throne in 1328, on the death of his cousin, Charles le Bel. His first important enterprise after his coronation was to aid the count of Flanders against his disaffected subjects, the citizens of Bruges and Ypres, over whom on the 23rd August, 1328, he gained a victory at Cassel, slaying no fewer than thirteen thousand of them. At this period and for some time afterwards, the power pf the king of France was at its zenith. He had just made Flanders his dependency; the English sovereign had done him homage for his French possessions; his cousins ruled at Naples and in Hungary; he was protector of the Scottish monarch; and he was surrounded by a circle of reigning princes—those of Bohemia, Majorca, and Navarre. At his court was kept up "one constant festival, where jousts and tournaments ever went on, and the romances of chivalry. King Arthur and the Round Table, were fairly realized." But the bright prospect was ere long overclouded. Edward III. of England advanced his famous claim to the French crown, which resulted in a struggle of one hundred and twenty years' duration, and inflicted fearful miseries on France. Edward maintained that although females were excluded from the succession, their male issue might succeed, and hence that his mother Isabella, sister of the last three kings, could transmit to him her title. It was in 1337 that hostilities actually commenced between Philip and his English rival. The earlier operations of the war were not peculiarly favourable to Edward, and were closed by a year's truce in 1340. Having been resumed in 1341, they were conducted with much energy
