Charles of Valois (12 March 1270 – 16 December 1325), the fourth son of King Philip III of France and Isabella of Aragon, was a member of the House of Capet and founder of the House of Valois, whose rule over France would start in 1328. Charles ruled several principalities. He held in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon (1285), and Perche. Through his marriage to his first wife, Margaret, Countess of Anjou and Maine, he became Count of Anjou and Maine. Through his marriage to his second wife, Catherine I of Courtenay, Empress of Constantinople, he was titular Latin Emperor of Constantinople from 1301 to 1307, although he ruled from exile and only had authority over Crusader States in Greece. As the grandson of King Louis IX of France, Charles of Valois was a son, brother, brother-in-law and son-in-law of kings or queens (of France, Navarre, England and Naples). His descendants, the House of Valois, would become the royal house of France three years after his death, beginning with his eldest son King Philip VI of France. Life Besides holding in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon and Perche, Charles became in 1290 the Count of Anjou and of Maine by his first marriage with Margaret of Anjou, the eldest daughter of King Charles II of Naples, titular King of Sicily; by a second marriage that he contracted with the heiress of Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople, last Latin emperor of Constantinople, he also had pretensions to the throne of Constantinople. From his early years, Charles of Valois dreamed of more and sought all his life for a crown he never obtained. Starting in 1284, Pope Martin IV recognized him as King of Aragon (under the vassalage of the Holy See), as the son of his mother, Isabella of Aragon, in opposition to King Peter III of Aragon, who after the conquest of the island of Sicily was an enemy of the Papacy. Charles hence married Margaret, the daughter of the Neapolitan king, in order to re-enforce his position in Sicily which was supported by the Pope. Thanks to this Aragonese Crusade undertaken by his father King Philip III against the advice of his elder brother Philip the Fair, he believed he would win a kingdom and however won nothing but the ridicule of having been crowned with a cardinal's hat in 1285, which gave him the alias of