Valois Dynasty

Overview

The Valois Dynasty appears as the French royal line selected after the direct Capetian male line ends, making Philip VI the French alternative to Edward III’s female-line claim.

Current Profile

The current source treats Valois less as a full dynastic profile than as the chosen political solution to the 1328 succession crisis. When Charles IV dies and his widow gives birth to a daughter, the French reject Edward III’s claim through Isabella and choose Philip of Valois.

This choice creates a durable legitimacy dispute. The episode stresses that female-line exclusion is not yet settled law in the way later Salic-law language can imply, so Valois accession becomes one source of the Hundred Years’ War rather than a neutral procedural outcome.

Key Characteristics

• Collateral French royal line chosen after direct Capetian male succession fails.
• Represented in the episode through Philip VI’s accession.
• Political answer to Edward III’s maternal Capetian claim.
• Bound to the claim that French royal succession cannot pass through women.
• Part of the legitimacy field that makes Anglo-French war possible.
• Source-bounded to the 1328 succession and 1337 war-opening context.

Evidence

• Accession context: 318: Hundred Years’ War: A Game of Thrones (Part 1) says Philip of Valois becomes Philip VI after Charles IV’s widow bears a daughter.
• Claim rejection: 318: Hundred Years’ War: A Game of Thrones (Part 1) says Edward III’s claim is rejected because it comes through a woman.
• Legal uncertainty: 318: Hundred Years’ War: A Game of Thrones (Part 1) says that exclusion was not yet fully settled law.
• War connection: 318: Hundred Years’ War: A Game of Thrones (Part 1) presents the Valois choice as one cause among several behind the Hundred Years’ War.
• French continuity: 318: Hundred Years’ War: A Game of Thrones (Part 1) places Philip VI inside a powerful French monarchy that cannot easily concede Edward’s claim.

Qualifications

This page is not a general Valois dynasty history. It records the dynasty’s role as the French succession solution and legitimacy problem in the source episode.

What Changed

• Created Valois Dynasty as the collateral royal line selected over Edward III’s claim.

Relationships

• Capetian Dynasty - direct line whose male succession failure enables Valois accession.
• Philip VI of France - Valois king at the center of the source.
• Edward III of England - rival claimant rejected in favor of Valois rule.
• France - kingdom whose succession settlement the dynasty represents.
• Capetian Succession Crisis - crisis from which Valois legitimacy emerges.
• Hundred Years’ War - conflict partly rooted in the contested Valois choice.