Charles, Duke of Orléans

Charles inherited the Duchy of Orléans in 1407 after his father Louis I was murdered, along with holdings that stretched from Blois to an Italian claim through his mother Valentina Visconti. Captured and held as a prisoner of war, he spent twenty-five years in English custody—a stretch that might have broken him but instead became the crucible for his work. He wrote in French and English both, producing a body of verse that survived him in remarkable volume. After his release and return to France, he kept writing. More than five hundred of his poems still exist, the output of a man who turned…