The direct line of the House of Capet came to an end in 1328, when the three sons of Philip IV (reigned 1285–1314) all failed to produce surviving male heirs to the French throne.

Royal power would pass on, in 1589, to another Capetian branch, the House of Bourbon, descended from the youngest son of Louis IX (reigned 1226–1270).

[1] The first Capetian monarch was Hugh Capet (c.939–996), a Frankish nobleman from the Île-de-France, who, following the death of Louis V (c.967–987) – the last Carolingian king – secured the throne of France by election.

The House of Capet was, however, fortunate enough to have the support of the Church, and – with the exception of Philip I, Louis IX and the short-lived John I – were able to avoid the problems of underaged kingship.

Louis VIII (1187–1226) – the eldest son and heir of Philip Augustus – married Blanche of Castile (1188–1252), a granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England.

More importantly for his dynasty, he would during his brief reign (1223–1226) conquer Poitou, and some of the lands of the Pays d'Oc, declared forfeit from their former owners by the pope as part of the Albigensian Crusade.

She had originally been chosen by her grandmother, Eleanor, to marry the French heir, considered a more suitable queen than her sister Urraca; as regent, she proved this to be so, being associated in the kingship not only during her son's minority, but even after he came into his own.

At the death of Louis IX (who shortly after was set upon the road to beatification), France under the Capetians stood as the pre-eminent power in Western Europe.

More importantly to French history, he summoned the first Estates General – in 1302 – and in 1295 established the so-called "Auld Alliance" with the Scots, at the time resisting English domination.

Having been informed that his daughters-in-law were engaging in adultery with two knights – according to some sources, he was told this by his own daughter, Isabella – he allegedly caught two of them in the act in 1313, and had all three shut up in royal prisons.

Margaret (1290–1315), the wife of his eldest son and heir apparent, Louis X and I (1289–1316), had borne her husband only a daughter at this time, and the paternity of this girl, Joan, was with her mother's adultery now suspect.

Charles IV swiftly divorced his adulterous wife, Blanche of Burgundy (c. 1296–1326) (sister of Countess Joan), who had given him no surviving children, and who had been locked up since 1313; in her place, he married Marie of Luxembourg (1304–1324), a daughter of Emperor Henry VII (c. 1275–1313).

Of Charles IV's children, only Blanche (1328–1382) – the youngest, the baby whose birth marked the end of the House of Capet – survived childhood.