Charles VIII of France

Charles VIII
16th-century portrait
King of France (more...)
Reign	30 August 1483 – 7 April 1498
Coronation	30 May 1484 (Reims)
Predecessor	Louis XI
Successor	Louis XII
Regent	Anne of France and Peter II, Duke of Bourbon (1483–1491)
Born	30 June 1470 Château d'Amboise, France
Died	7 April 1498(1498-04-07) (aged 27) Château d'Amboise, France
Burial	1 May 1498 Saint Denis Basilica (body) Notre-Dame de Cléry Basilica, Cléry-Saint-André (heart)
Spouse	Anne, Duchess of Brittany ​ ​ (m. 1491)​
Issue more...	Charles Orlando, Dauphin of France
House	Valois
Father	Louis XI of France
Mother	Charlotte of Savoy
Signature

Charles VIII, called the Affable (French: l'Affable; 30 June 1470 – 7 April 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13. His elder sister Anne acted as regent jointly with her husband Peter II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491, when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Anne's regency, the great lords rebelled against royal centralisation efforts in a conflict known as the Mad War (1485–1488), which resulted in a victory for the royal government.

In a remarkable stroke of audacity, Charles married Anne of Brittany in 1491 after she had already been married by proxy to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in a ceremony of questionable validity. Preoccupied by the problematic succession in the Kingdom of Hungary, Maximilian failed to press his claim. Upon his marriage, Charles became administrator of Brittany and established a personal union that enabled France to avoid total encirclement by Habsburg territories.

To secure his rights to the Neapolitan throne that René of Anjou had left to his father, Charles made a series of concessions to neighbouring monarchs and, due to his revolutionary artillery, conquered the Italian peninsula without much opposition. A coalition formed against the French invasion of 1494–98 attempted to stop Charles' army at Fornovo, but failed and Charles marched his army back to France.

Charles died in 1498 after accidentally striking his head on the lintel of a door at the Château d'Amboise, his place of birth. Since he had no male heir, he was succeeded by his second cousin once removed and brother-in-law at the time, Louis XII, from the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois.