PHILIPPE IV., surnamed Le Bel or "Fair," King of France, the son of Philippe III., king of France, and Isabella of Aragon, was b. at Fontainebleau in 1268, and succeeded his father in 1285. By Ids marriage with queen Joanna of Navarre, he obtained Navarre, Champagne, and Brie. For several years he carried on a struggle with the count of Flanders to obtain possession of that country, and also seized Guienne from the English: le:t was, in the end, obliged to restore Guienne and Flanders beyond the Lys. The g:•at events of Philippe's reign were his war with the papacy and the extermination of no knights templars; the former had its drigin in the attempts of the king to tax the cl3rgy as well as the laity for the heavy expenses of his numerous wars. Boniface for bade the clergy to submit to taxation, while Philippe, on his side, ordered that neither money nor valuables were to be exported, thus cutting off a main supply of papal rev enue; and on the pope's legate insolently reprimanding him, he threw him into prison. Philippe now called an assembly of states, in which deputies of towns appeared—though not for the first time—and obtained assurance of their support, even in case of excom munication and interdict. Boniface, in turn, assembled a council at Rome (1302). which supported his view, and the celebrated bull, Unam Sanetam (q.v.) was issued. Philippe caused the hull to be publicly burned, and with the consent of the states-general confis cated the of those prelates who had sided with the pope. Boniface now excom implicated him, but the king, nothing daunted, sent to Home his general, William de Nogaret, who seized and imprisoned the pope; and though he was released after a few days by a popular rising. he soon afterwards died. In 1004 Philippe obtained the eleva
tion of one of his own creatures to the papal chair as Clement. V.. on condition of his residing at Avignon, and giving up the knights templars (q.v.), In accordance with this agreement, the templars were seized (1306-14), and burned by hundreds, and their wealth appropriated by Philippe. The grandmaster, Jacques Molay, was burned Mar. 18, 1314, and when dying he summoned Philippe to compear within a year and a day, and the pope within 40 days, before the judgthent-seat of God; strange to say, both the p‘ipi and king died within the time memtioned, the latter at Fontainebleau, Nov. 29, 1314. Philippe during his whole reign steadily strove for the suppression of feudalism and the introduction of the Homan law; but while thus increasing the power of the crown, and also that of the third estate, he converted royalty, which was formerly protecting, kind, and popular to the mass of the people, into a hard, avaricious, and pitiless task-master. Under him the taxes were greatly increased, the Jews persecuted, and their properly confiscated; and when these -films were insufficient to satisfy Philippe's avarice, he caused the coinage to be greatly debased; yet lie was an able monarch, and under him France was ektended almost to its present limits on the n. and cast.