The End of the Direct Capetian Line

Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 1768. Estimate $100.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $260. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

FRANCE, Royal. Charles IV le Bel (the Fair). 1322–1328. AR Maille blanche (1.83 g, 3h). 1st emission, 2 March 1323. + BNDICTV · SIT · nOmЄ · DNI · nRI/+ kAROLVS REX (triple pellet stops), cross pattée / + FRAИChORVm, châtel tournois; border of ten lis. Duplessy 243; Ciani 256; Roberts 2482. Good VF.

From the Leonard O. Greenfield Collection.

Though only reigning for six years, Charles IV influenced the affairs of England extensively, first by seizing English possessions in France, and then later by organizing the overthrow of the ruling English monarch, Edward II, through Edward’s wife (and Charles’s sister Isabella) and her lover, Roger Mortimer. Like his brother before him, Charles was unable to produce a male heir and the direct line of the Capetian dynasty came to an end with his death.