Valois

Related Category: French History: Biographies

(välwä´), royal house of France that ruled from 1328 to 1589. At the death of Charles IV, the last of the direct Capetians, the Valois dynasty came to the throne in the person of Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois and grandson of Philip III. The direct Valois line ended (1498) with Charles VIII; the dynasty was continued by Louis XII (Valois-Orléans) and, after his death (1515), by the Valois-Angoulême line, of which Francis I was the first to rule. At the death of Henry III (1589), the house of Bourbon, descending from a younger son of Louis IX, succeeded to the throne in the person of Henry IV.