The Children of Adam and Eve

Charles VII (of France) (1403-61), king of France (1422-61), born in
Paris. He was the eldest surviving son of King Charles VI. When his father
died in 1422, the French throne did not pass to Charles but to the infant
King Henry VI of England, who was his nephew. The English inheritance had
been stipulated by the Treaty of Troyes (1420), which ended a phase of the
Hundred Years' War. Northern France was thereafter ruled by John of
Lancaster, regent for Henry, and southern France was governed by Charles,
who was called the Dauphin. During the next six years, the English,
strengthened by an alliance with Philip the Good, the powerful duke of
Burgundy, scored several major military victories. The tide of the war
changed when Joan of Arc lifted the siege of Orl?s and won the Battle of
Patay in the spring of 1429. Charles was crowned king of France on July
17, 1429, in Rheims Cathedral. In 1435, when Duke Philip abandoned the
English cause and formed an alliance with Charles, a French victory seemed
inevitable. The king entered Paris in 1436. In the following years the
English lost all their French possessions except Calais. The last Battle
of the Hundred Years' War, a disastrous defeat for the English, was fought
at Castillon (now in Gironde Department) on July 17, 1453. Charles was not
a strong monarch, but he reformed the military, instituted sound fiscal
policies, and encouraged trade. He was succeeded by his son Louis XI, who
had been in revolt against his father since 1446.