Charles I: Did you mean...?

Ship Money was a tax applied by medieval monarchs to English coastal communities to pay for ships for the Royal Navy and so ward off pirates and enemies of the state. During the reign of Charles I of England (r. 1625-1649), the tax was used...

The Great Northern War took place from 1700 to 1721 and was fought between Russia and Sweden during the reign of Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great). One of the key causes of the war was Peter the Great’s desire to have territory on the Baltic...

Charles VI's fit of madness in the forest of Le Mans, illumination on parchment by an unknown artist included in Jean Froissart's treatise Froissart's Chronicles, c. 1475. King Charles VI of France experiences his first psychotic break in...

The Château d'Amboise, located in the Loire Valley, in central France, was built over several centuries and was the centre of royal power during the Renaissance (from the 15th to the early 17th century). Witness to the heyday of the French...

The Exorcism of Charles VI's Madness, oil on canvas painting by François-Auguste Biard, 1839. King Charles VI of France is shown in the foreground, overcome with mental illness, and leans on his mistress, Odette de Champdivers, whose expression...

A 19th century CE portrait by Charles de Steuben of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia, r. 875-877 CE. (Palace of Versailles, France)

Charles VI (1368-1422), King of France, oil on canvas painting by Gillot Saint-Evre, 1837. Commissioned by King Louis Philippe I in 1837, the painting is part of the Portraits of the Kings of France series in the Palace of Versailles. Charles...

The coronation of Charles VI of France, illumination on parchment by Jean Fouquet, in Grandes Chroniques de France, c. 1455-1460. Charles VI was crowned King of France in 1380, at the age of 11, by the Archbishop Richard Picque in Rheims...

Charles XII, oil on canvas from the workshop of the French artist Hyacinthe Rigaud. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Charles XII was famous throughout Europe. Everyone wanted his portrait. This has been added in the studio of the French court...

An illustration of the English pirate Charles Vane, active in the Caribbean and off the east coast of North America in the Golden Age of Piracy. Vane was tried and hanged in Jamaica in 1720. (From an early edition of A General History of...