His reign marked an early high point for France during the Hundred Years' War as his armies recovered much of the territory held by the English and successfully reversed the military losses of his predecessors.

Charles overcame all of these rebellions, but in order to liberate his father, he had to conclude the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, in which he abandoned large portions of south-western France to Edward III of England and agreed to pay a huge ransom.

Furthermore, the French fleet, led by Jean de Vienne, managed to attack the English coast for the first time since the beginning of the Hundred Years' War.

[4] Humbert II, Dauphin of Viennois, ruined due to his inability to raise taxes after a crusade in the Middle East, and childless after the death of his only son, decided to sell the Dauphiné, which was a fief of the Holy Roman Empire.

In exchange, he publicly promised to respect the community charter and confirmed the liberties and franchises of Humbert II, which were summed up in a solemn statute before he signed his abdication and granted a last amnesty to all prisoners, except those facing the penalty of death.

The marriage was delayed by the death of his mother Bonne of Luxembourg and his grandmother Joan the Lame, swept away by the plague (he no longer saw them after he left for the Dauphiné).

Despite his young age, the dauphin applied to be recognized by his subjects, interceding to stop a war raging between two vassal families, and gaining experience that was very useful to him.

Charles was recalled to Paris at the death of his grandfather Philip VI and participated in the coronation of his father John the Good on 26 September 1350 in Reims.

His father, Philip VI, had lost all credibility with the disasters of Crécy, Calais, the ravages of the plague, and the monetary changes needed to support the royal finances.

The power of Navarre was such that, on 8 January 1354, he murdered with impunity his rival Charles de la Cerda (the king's favourite), and openly avowed this crime.

After a three-year break, the Hundred Years' War with England resumed in 1355, with Edward, The Black Prince, leading an English-Gascon army in a violent raid across southwestern France.

After checking an English incursion into Normandy, John led an army of about 16,000 men to the south, crossing the Loire river in September 1356 with the goal of outflanking the Prince's 8,000 soldiers at Poitiers.

Rejecting advice from one captain to surround and starve the Prince, a tactic Edward feared, John attacked the strong enemy position.

Popular opinion accused the nobles of betraying the king, while Charles and his brothers escaped blame – he was received with honor upon his return to Paris.

Furious at what they saw as poor management, many of those assembled organized into a body led by Étienne Marcel, the Provost of Merchants (a title roughly equivalent to Mayor of Paris today).

Marcel demanded the dismissal of seven royal ministers, their replacement by a Council of 28 made up of nobles, clergy and bourgeois, and the release of Charles the Bad, who had been imprisoned by John for the murder of his constable.

In an attempt to raise money, Charles tried to devalue the currency; Marcel ordered strikes, and the Dauphin was forced to cancel his plans and recall the Estates in February 1357.

Summoning a group of tradesmen, the Provost marched at the head of an army of 3,000, entered the royal palace, and had the crowd murder two of the Dauphin's marshals before his eyes.

The King signed the Treaty of London in 1359 that ceded most of western France to England and imposed a ruinous ransom of 4 million écus on the country.

The Treaty of Brétigny, signed on 8 May 1360, ceded a third of western France (mostly in Aquitaine and Gascony) to the English and lowered the King's ransom to 3 million écus.

His manner may have concealed a more emotional side; his marriage to Joan of Bourbon was considered very strong, and he made no attempt to hide his grief at her funeral or those of his children, five of whom predeceased him.

His reign was dominated by the war with the English and two major problems: recovering the territories ceded at Brétigny and ridding the land of the Tard-Venus (French for "latecomers"), mercenary companies that turned to robbery and pillage after the treaty was signed.

Nicknamed "the Black Dog of Brocéliande", du Guesclin fought the English during the Breton War of Succession and was an expert in guerrilla warfare.

In order to lure the Tard-Venus out of France, Charles first hired them for an attempted crusade into Hungary, but their reputation for brigandage preceded them, and the citizens of Strasbourg refused to let them cross the Rhine on their journey.

Charles next sent the mercenary companies (under the leadership of du Guesclin) to fight in a civil war in Castile between King Peter the Cruel and his illegitimate half-brother Henry.

In 1376, Pope Gregory XI, fearing a loss of the Papal States, decided to move his court back to Rome after nearly 70 years in Avignon.

The theology faculty of the University of Paris advised Charles not to make a hasty decision, but he recognised Clement as Pope in November and forbade any obedience to Urban.

Christine de Pizan's biography, commissioned by Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1404, is a source of most of the intimate details of the king's life of which we are aware, but also provides a moral example for his successors.

Philippe de Mézières, in his allegorical "Songe du Vieil Pèlerin", attempts to persuade the dauphin (later King Charles VI) to follow the example of his wise father, notably in piety, though also to pursue reforming zeal in all policy considerations.

Other important works commissioned for the royal library were the anonymous legal treatise "Songe du Vergier", greatly inspired by the debates of Philip IV's jurists with Pope Boniface VIII, the translations of Raol de Presles, which included St. Augustine's City of God, and the Grandes Chroniques de France edited in 1377 to emphasise the vassalage of Edward III.