Hugh Capet

Hugh Capet was born around 941, son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and Hedwige of Saxony. Though he carried Charlemagne's blood through his paternal grandmother Béatrice of Vermandois and counted Otto the Great as an uncle, he was not Carolingian in the male line. When Louis V, the last Carolingian king, died in 987, the Frankish nobles elected Hugh to succeed him. He ruled as King of the Franks until his death on 24 October 996. The House of Capet he founded held the throne in direct line until 1328, then through cadet branches — with a Revolutionary interruption from 1792 to 1814 and a…