Louis X of France

Louis X of France, called the Quarreller, ruled France and Navarre from 1314 to 1316. His short reign and death without a surviving adult male heir helped trigger the succession disputes that ended the direct Capetian line.

In Maurice Druon’s The Iron King, in 1314 Philip IV rules France through an increasingly centralised monarchy burdened by war and debt. In Maurice Druon’s The Poisoned Crown, Druon turns Louis's sudden death into the result of Mahaut's poisoning, a fictional resolution to a death whose historical cause is uncertain, and leaves France awaiting the birth of a possible king. Other novels featuring Louis X of France include Maurice Druon’s The Strangled Queen.