VALOIS. HOUSE OF. a branch of the CAPETIAN dynasty (q.v.) which possessed ,the throne of France front 13'27 till 1589, originated in the person of Charles, second son of king Philippe III. (le hardi), who obtained in 1285 the county of Valois in appanage from his father. Previously, the county of Valais had been possessed by a cadet branch of rent house of Vermandois; but ou the union of the heiress of Vermandois with count the great, the younger son of king Henry I., and the failure of their descend ants in the end of the 12th c., the Vermandois possessions, including Valois, were annexed to the French crown, till again separated in 1285, as above mentioned. But Philippe IV., the elder brother of Charles, having left three sons, who reigned in suc cession, and died without issue male, the succession fell, by the Salle law, to the eldest son of Charles, who accordingly ascended the throne as PHILIPPE VI. (q.v.). The ele vation of the house of Valois to the throne of France gave rise to long and bloody wars with Edward III. of England, who claimed the crown through his mother, Isabel. the daughter of Philippe IV., insisting that the Salle law only prohibited the "succession" of females, and did not deny their capacity for transmitting a claim to the crown. But if Eduard III.'s argument had been sound, it would have destroyed his rival's claim without benefiting himself, for the real heirs to the throne would have then been the Navarrese royal family, who were descended from the eldest daughter of Louis X. Edward, nevertheless, assumed the title of Icing of France, an example followed by all his successors till George III., and maintained his claims by force of arms till, by the mediation of the pope, a partition of the kingdom was effected. The French crown fell, by regular succession of son to father, to •OHN THE GOOD (1350-64), CHARLES V. (1304 80), CuAnt,Es VI. (13804422), CHARLES VII. (1422-hi), Lotus XI. (1461-83), and CHARLES VIII. (1483-98). under the first four of whom the contest with England was carried on with spirit, at first to the advantage of the English, but latterly of the French, who, under Charles VII., succeeded in drking the English from all their strongholds,
Calais alone excepted Charles VIII. having died without leaving male issue the crown fell to the representative of the nearest collateral male line—that is, to Louis, son of Charles, duke of Orleans, and grandson of Louis, duke of Orleans, the younger brother of Charles VI., who ascended the throne as Louis-XII. (1498-1515), the first of the Valois Orleans regime; but he also dying,without male issue. the succession devolved upon the descendants of his uncle, count Jean of Angouleme, whose grandson, FRANCIS I (1515 47), next obtained the scepter, which he transmitted to his son, HENRY II. (1547-59). Henry's three sons, FRANCIS II. (1559-60), IX. (1560-74), and HENnv III. (1574-89), occupied the throne in succession; hut none of them leaving lawful male heirs, and all the collateral male lines proceeding from Philippe III. having become extinct,•the crown passed to the house of Bourbon (q.v.), which was descended from his younger brother Robert.
The most distinguished cadet branches of the royal line of Valois were, the ducal' family of Anjou, which longcontested with the Ara,gonese royal family the possession of Naples; the last and most celebrated ducal house of Burgundy; and the illegitimate line of Dumois and Longueville, which was so productive of eminent warriors and daring The Valois monarchs of the elder line were a succession of able rulers, who, by valor and policy, wrrsted France front the hands of the English, and fi•tnly established the royal authority over their powerful, proud, and turbulent nobility; those of the younger, or Valois-Orleans and Valois-Orleans-Angouleme lines were, with the single exception of Francis I., a series of weak princes, under whose feeble rule the country was distracted by contests for power between rival nobles, and religious dissensions among the peo ple at large, though, owing to the number of able men on whom devolved the cares of government, the country suffered less from the incapacity of its monarchs than might have been expected.