Agnès Sorel

Agnès Sorel was a French court figure who became the acknowledged mistress of Charles VII during the final phase of the Hundred Years’ War. Probably born around 1422 into a minor noble family, she entered the service of Isabelle of Lorraine before joining the French royal household. By the mid-1440s her relationship with Charles was public, unusually prominent for a royal mistress, and she received estates, jewels and the seigneury of Beauté-sur-Marne.

Sorel’s position gave her unusual visibility and access at court, although claims that she directed royal policy are difficult to prove. She bore Charles several daughters who were later legitimised and married into the nobility. In 1450, while pregnant and travelling to join the king in Normandy, she died suddenly at Jumièges. Modern examination of her remains found severe mercury poisoning, but whether this reflected deliberate poisoning, medical treatment or another source remains disputed.

In G. P. R. James’ Agnes Sorel, set in France during the 1440s, Agnes Sorel places the celebrated favourite of Charles VII inside the political recovery of the French monarchy during the later Hundred Years’ War. In Deryn Lake’s The King’s Women, Agnès Sorel enters the later part of Charles VII’s story as his royal mistress, one of the women whose personal relationships shape the king’s fortunes during the closing stages of the Hundred Years’ War.