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 ordinances on every detail of war, law, and diplomacy, a man in love with regulation. But the Burgundian Wars pulled him into a grinding multi-front fight to hold Upper Alsace against the Swiss and the Lower League; after a failed siege at Neuss and defeats at Grandson and Morat, he was killed at the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. His death triggered a succession war, ended the Burgundian state, and left Mary the last of the line.