The challenge is to set Charles II, King of the small realm of Navarre on the throne of France.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Navarre
Charles was a member of the House of Capet-Èvreux on his fathers side, the seniormost line of Capet after the Valois and was through his mother Joan II of Navarre the heir-general to Philip IV, called the Fair, and his sons. He often pointed out his parentage from two branches of the royal family, one of which, his mother's, technically gave him a superior claim to Edward III under Edward’s interpretation of the law of succession.
In addition to Navarre Charles was ruler of Èvreux, Mortain and portions of Vexin and Cotentin in Northern France. He used Navarre as nothing more than a source of troops and a source of royal status. Instead he was fixated on becoming a great magnate in France and recovering the territories of Champagne and Brie which his mother had been deprived of.
In the course of this pursuit he became infamous for his duplicity and his ruthlessness, and started as he meant to go on by assassinating the Constable of France and using the threat of an alliance with England to not only escape punishment for the murder of a hated rival, but also to enlarge his domains.
Later he attempted to turn the Dauphin against the King, and while this failed and resulted in his imprisonment he used the capture of Jean II to his advantage, first entering Paris as a King and attempting to blackmail the Dauphin into surrendering control of Normandy and the County of Champagne.
When the Kings of France and England looked set to come to an arrangement he quit the city for Normandy and emptied the prisons to create disorder.
After the Parisian Revolution he made an alliance with the rebellious mobs and then used the great peasant revolts known as the Jacquerie to unite the nobility under his banner against the rabble.
However his ambitions unravelled when he attempted to gain the support of the populace of Paris and be elected as ‘Captain of Paris’. The nobility abandoned him and after a year he was forced to make peace when faced with the threat of an English invasion of Normandy, renouncing all his gains.
Despite an attempt to gain the Duchy of Burgundy to which he had the senior claim by primogeniture and many attacks in Normandy and Gascony he was never again a serious power in France and ended his reign bereft of his Norman fiefs and reduced to a Castillian client.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Navarre
Charles was a member of the House of Capet-Èvreux on his fathers side, the seniormost line of Capet after the Valois and was through his mother Joan II of Navarre the heir-general to Philip IV, called the Fair, and his sons. He often pointed out his parentage from two branches of the royal family, one of which, his mother's, technically gave him a superior claim to Edward III under Edward’s interpretation of the law of succession.
In addition to Navarre Charles was ruler of Èvreux, Mortain and portions of Vexin and Cotentin in Northern France. He used Navarre as nothing more than a source of troops and a source of royal status. Instead he was fixated on becoming a great magnate in France and recovering the territories of Champagne and Brie which his mother had been deprived of.
In the course of this pursuit he became infamous for his duplicity and his ruthlessness, and started as he meant to go on by assassinating the Constable of France and using the threat of an alliance with England to not only escape punishment for the murder of a hated rival, but also to enlarge his domains.
Later he attempted to turn the Dauphin against the King, and while this failed and resulted in his imprisonment he used the capture of Jean II to his advantage, first entering Paris as a King and attempting to blackmail the Dauphin into surrendering control of Normandy and the County of Champagne.
When the Kings of France and England looked set to come to an arrangement he quit the city for Normandy and emptied the prisons to create disorder.
After the Parisian Revolution he made an alliance with the rebellious mobs and then used the great peasant revolts known as the Jacquerie to unite the nobility under his banner against the rabble.
However his ambitions unravelled when he attempted to gain the support of the populace of Paris and be elected as ‘Captain of Paris’. The nobility abandoned him and after a year he was forced to make peace when faced with the threat of an English invasion of Normandy, renouncing all his gains.
Despite an attempt to gain the Duchy of Burgundy to which he had the senior claim by primogeniture and many attacks in Normandy and Gascony he was never again a serious power in France and ended his reign bereft of his Norman fiefs and reduced to a Castillian client.