Philip V of France

Philip V was the second son of Philip IV, granted Poitiers while his elder brother Louis X took the throne. When Louis died in 1316 leaving a daughter and a pregnant queen, Philip claimed the regency. The queen bore a son proclaimed John I, but the boy lived four days. Philip crowned himself immediately at Reims, then fought off the claim of Louis's daughter Joan - citing her youth, her mother's adultery scandal in the Tour de Nesle Affair, and a fresh ruling from the Estates General that women had no place in the line. The precedent held. As king he created an independent Court of Finances, standardized weights and measures, imposed a single currency. He patched relations with Flanders, sparred with Edward II of England over homage, and watched a popular crusade that began in Normandy in 1320 devolve into a rampage against Jews, lepers, and royal officials. He married Joan II of Burgundy in 1307 and fathered four daughters, no sons. Dysentery killed him in 1322; his younger brother Charles IV inherited what he had fought to keep.