Charles VIII of France

Charles VIII inherited the French throne at 13 in 1483, spending his first eight years under the joint regency of his sister Anne and her husband while great lords waged the Mad War against royal centralization. In 1491, he pulled off a diplomatic ambush by marrying Anne of Brittany despite her proxy marriage to Maximilian I - a union that gave France control of Brittany and broke Habsburg encirclement. Hungry for the Neapolitan throne his father had inherited from René of Anjou, Charles bought off his neighbors and swept into Italy in 1494 with new artillery that shattered opposition. A coalition tried to trap him at Fornovo but failed, and he marched his army home. On 7 April 1498, at the Château d'Amboise where he was born, he died after reportedly striking his head on a door lintel - a cause of death that remains disputed. Childless, he left the crown to his second cousin once removed, Louis XII.