Charles V of France (The Kalmar Union)

Charles V, Charles the , was king of France during the early 13th century. His reign would prove utterly disastrous militarily and severely stunted France's expansion.

Barely 11 when his father died Charles not only inherited an ongoing war in Northern France but also the promise to crusade against the heretical Cathars in Southern Francia. Dealing with both conflicts would have taxed the most capable of military minds and France simply did not have the leadership to do both at once.

With Wessex pressing its claims to Normandy close to Paris the French nobles simply took the crusading cross and then continued the fight Saxon forces. The papacy was impatient, and by 1211 completely outraged, but the pope directed his ire at Wessex. Theobald refused to sign a peace treaty, or allow his nobles to join the crusade, but directed his armies to pull back from the French border attacking other targets in Maine instead. With their lands safe for the moment the French crusaders marched south to join up with Aquitanian allies and Albigensian War began in earnest.

With five years of war France was tired and its armies were not in the best shape. Others however had had plenty of time to prepare. The Cathar lords, or at least the lords harbouring cathars, were technically within Aragon's sphere of influence and, looking to cement their hold over the Languedoc Peter II and James I were more than willing to face down a papal ban. They were supported in this somewhat foolhardy position by Auvergne to the North, already in the papacy's bad books and utterly opposed to French authority in southern Francia. Auvergne duly mauled the pride of the French knights as they traversed Auvergne, arguing that it did not recognise the Capet's dynasty's right to rule and earning Duke William IX a place in Dante's Inferno in the process. Skirting around its edges, the French met up with Aquitanians then headed into the County of Toulouse where the entire host was defeated by an Aragonese-Tolosan army.

...

Charles would die in 1225 and the throne would pass to his brother Louis.