[2] During the Praguerie he served with the king's forces against those of the rebel nobles and the dauphin (heir apparent) Louis XI, who would bear a lasting grudge against him.

He was granted the title of Count of Évreux in 1441 for his role in the strategic maneuvers during Charles VII's Siege of Pontoise, which finally expelled the English from Île-de-France.

He fought in Normandy from 1450 to 1451 and became grand seneschal of the province,[2] after the death of Agnès Sorel and the consequent decline of his influence at court.

He made an ineffective raid on the English coast at Sandwich in 1457,[4] possibly at the instigation of his first cousin Margaret of Anjou, a supporter of the House of Lancaster in the War of the Roses who had previously sought his intervention to restrict the movements of Richard Neville.

Charles restricted involvement in the conflict until the Lancastrian loss at Towton, after which he allowed De Brézé a freer hand.

His forces seized Jersey in the Channel Islands in May 1461, but he was stripped of his offices and imprisoned in Loches castle upon the succession to the French throne of Louis XI, who distrusted his father's former close advisors.

[6] The same year, his son Jacques married Louis's half-sister, Charlotte de Valois, daughter of Agnès Sorel.