6. A King Who Justly Earned the Name “The Bad”
Charles II of Navarre, AKA Charles the Bad (1332 – 1387) was a powerful French magnate, with extensive holdings in Normandy and other parts of France. From 1349, he was also the king of Navarre, a small kingdom on the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain. He was obsessed with trying to expand his tiny realm at the expense of his more powerful neighbors. He earned the epitaph “the Bad” because of his nonstop intriguing, bad faith dealings, betrayals, dishonesty, and double-crosses in his quest for a solution to the problem of big dreams coupled with little means.
During the Hundred Years War, he plotted with the English to betray France. He was arrested and imprisoned by the French King John II, AKA John the Good, when his treachery came to light. Charles escaped from prison and 1357, and began a series of intrigues with various French parties, betraying nearly all, one after the other.