King of France, and the first to be called by that title (1165–1223)
The king who stopped calling himself ruler of the Franks and started using "King of France" — a shift that stuck. Philip II crushed the Angevin Empire at Bouvines in 1214, forced England's barons into revolt, and turned France into the wealthiest power in Europe by boxing in his nobles and building walls around Paris.
Born late to Louis VII in 1165, Philip was nicknamed Dieudonné — "God-given" — for arriving when his father had nearly given up on a son. He took the throne at fifteen in 1180 and spent decades locked in struggle with the Plantagenets, the English dynasty that controlled more of France than he did. In 1214 he broke them at Bouvines, a single battle that killed the Angevin Empire and left John of England so weakened his barons forced Magna Carta on him the next year. Philip never rode south for the Albigensian Crusade, but he let his vassals go, and their work opened France's path toward the Me…
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