[3][4] The Sicilian campaign had been a disaster; Charles' battered army had been forced to evacuate the island without having fought a major battle, and the treaty ended Angevin and papal attempts to re-conquer Sicily.

Indeed, Philip promised to help his brother and gave assurances that he would do so by offering him some money, but in reality, he was too enmeshed in the war with Flanders which was at a critical point as the French had suffered a major disaster at the battle of Courtrai in 1302 to seriously consider a crusader expedition to Byzantium, not least his conflict with pope Boniface VIII which erupted in 1302.

[5] Boniface VIII's publication of the bull Unam Sanctam in November 1302 which asserted the papal supremacy precipitated the crisis with the king of France.

Following the publication of the bull Philip IV went on to publish a series of forged letters dated on 5 December to induce the national feeling of the French clergy and people.

Some two years later in January 1305 the couple, Charles of Valois and Catherine of Courtenay confirmed Hugh V, Duke of Burgundy as in possession of the kingdom of Thessalonica.

A profound discrepancy of objectives surfaces here which meant that the pope had to be convinces for such a crucial shift to take the stead of the primary enterprise, the recapture of Jerusalem.

The situation took a decisive turn in January 1305 with the election of Pope Clement V, who, as a French himself, was well disposed towards the royal house of France and eager to restore good relations with Philip IV and his family.

With a rather positive climate of peace and cooperation with Philip IV, Clement V and Charles of Valois expedited things in approximately two years time and the crusade now seemed more than merely plausible.

Suffice here to note that the stance of emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos who repudiated the Union of the churches that had been proclaimed at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, offered the necessary justification to set in motion the papal propaganda machinery.

Clement V mediated to Venice by writing to Doge Pietro Gradenigo, exhorting him to help Charles and tried to lure him into the latter's project by offering the privileges of the crusaders should they participate.

Genoa's interest by this time and on the face of its imperiled position in the East by the Catalan Company had been inseparable from those of the empire of Constantinople, so the decline of Charles' request in 1306 was the only possible stance.

[9] The European alliances notwithstanding, Charles of Valois tried to secure backing for his plans from various powers in the East, that is the Catalan Company which was a redoubtable army to be reckoned with as time and again it had proved.

This development conditioned the attitude of the Serbs, who under their king Stephen Uroš II Milutin established connections with Charles of Valois that culminated in the treaty of Lys on March 27, of 1308.

Last in this broader scheme of allies to enter were the malcontents in the empire of Constantinople, genuine unionists, enemies of Andronikos II and men who feared more the Turks than they did the French.

[7] Understandably, the prime concern behind those figures' action was to find an able defender for the Asia Minor front against Turkish aggressiveness, and their best possible candidate at that particular time was apparently Charles of Valois.

However, after 1308 there was a diminution of diplomatic activity and gradual abandonment of his plans of conquest, which in part was owed to the candidature he was offered for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire after the German king's assassination in 1308.

Besides, the death of wife Catherine of Courtenay in the same year played substantial role and along with a number of events that had occurred in the meantime weighted heavy towards the abort of the plan.

Charles's brother King Philip IV, who did not wish to take the risk himself of a check and probably thought that a French puppet on the imperial throne would be a good thing for France, encouraged him.

Charles is a major character in Les Rois maudits (The Accursed Kings), a series of French historical novels by Maurice Druon.