Charles the Bold

Charles Martin was Philip the Good's only legitimate son, raised to inherit a duchy that sat uncomfortably between France and the German lands. In 1465, still heir, he led a revolt of French vassals against his own overlord, Louis XI, in the War of the Public Weal. When he became Duke of Burgundy in 1467, he set out to bind his scattered territories into a contiguous kingdom, acquiring Guelders and Upper Alsace, marrying Margaret of York for English backing, and betrothing his only child, Mary, to Maximilian of Austria. His court glittered — manuscripts, music, rigid etiquette — and he issued…