Treaty of Troyes

Overview

The Treaty of Troyes is the 1420 agreement that kept Charles VI as king but made Henry V regent and heir to France.

Current Profile

The settlement arose from English conquest and Burgundian alignment after Montereau. Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Valois supplied its dynastic mechanism, while the Dauphin Charles was effectively disinherited.

Its governing design was an Anglo-French Dual Monarchy: England and France would remain separate kingdoms under one crown. The new evidence emphasizes that some French subjects accepted the arrangement through Burgundian loyalty, desire for stability, or belief that English victories expressed providence; it was not experienced only as naked foreign occupation. Continued Dauphinist resistance and Henry’s death before Charles VI made the agreement dependent on an infant heir and exposed its fragility.

Key Characteristics

• Ratified on 21 May 1420 after English-Burgundian negotiations.
• Preserved Charles VI’s title during his lifetime.
• Made Henry regent and successor to the French crown.
• Joined succession to Henry’s marriage with Catherine.
• Excluded the Dauphin Charles from inheritance.
• Designed separate kingdoms under one crown rather than formal annexation.
• Settlement with a real, if divided, base of French acceptance as well as coercive military foundations.

Evidence

• Political preconditions: 490. Hundred Years’ War: England Triumphant (Part 4) links the treaty to conquest, Montereau, and Philip the Good’s alignment.
• Constitutional terms: 490. Hundred Years’ War: England Triumphant (Part 4) specifies kingship, regency, marriage, inheritance, and disinheritance.
• Fragility: 490. Hundred Years’ War: England Triumphant (Part 4) records continued resistance and Henry’s death with a nine-month-old son.
• Contested reception: 632. Joan of Arc: Warrior Maid (Part 1) links acceptance to Burgundian alignment, hopes for order, and providential readings of English victory while preserving Dauphinist opposition.

Qualifications

The episodes present the treaty as Henry’s extraordinary high point without treating it as a settled peace. Claims about popular acceptance are selective rather than a measure of French opinion as a whole; Burgundian loyalty, practical accommodation, coercion, dynastic theory, and providential belief could overlap. Its legitimacy remained disputed, and neither source supplies a full test of its institutional viability.

What Changed

• Added the qualified French reception of Troyes through Burgundian allegiance, hopes for stability, and providential interpretation.

Relationships

• Henry V of England - regent and designated French heir.
• Charles VI of France - reigning king retained under the settlement.
• Charles VII of France - Dauphin excluded from succession.
• Catherine of Valois - bride whose marriage anchored the new dynastic line.
• Philip the Good - Burgundian ally helping make the settlement possible.
• Anglo-French Dual Monarchy - constitutional design formalized by the treaty.