Philip the Fair

When the story opens, Philip has reigned for almost thirty years. He barely speaks, stares people down and lets his ministers do the talking. Nogaret runs the trials, Marigny the money and the politics. The king decides.

Philip has three sons, Louis, Philip and Charles, all married to princesses of Burgundy and Artois, and a daughter, Isabella, who became Queen of England by marrying Edward II. The dynasty's future looks secure. That is why what comes next is so frightening.

The king has already fought Pope Boniface VIII, changed the value of the coinage and squeezed money out of Lombard bankers and Jews. To the court and the people, he is the Iron King: a man who never backs down.

In March 1314, after years of trials, Philip has grand master Jacques de Molay burned in Paris. From the flames, Molay summons the king, Pope Clement V and Nogaret before God's tribunal within a year, and curses the royal line to the thirteenth generation.

The crackdown began years earlier, on October 13, 1307, when Templars all over France were arrested the same morning. The order was rich and lent money to the crown. Under torture, many confessed to crimes they later denied. Molay was one of those who took it back, and that is what sends him to the stake.

That same year, his daughter Isabella exposes the king's daughters-in-law. Philip doesn't hesitate: he jails Marguerite and Blanche, has their lovers executed and sends Jeanne away. The crown's honor comes before his sons.

The pope dies in April, Nogaret goes too, and in November 1314 it is the king's turn, after he collapses on a hunt. Philip leaves three sons and a kingdom that will never know peace again.

Philip leaves the stage early, but his presence weighs on everything that follows. His sons take the throne one after another, and none has their father's grip. The ministers he protected are left exposed to their enemies.

With each new king the question comes back: is Molay's curse real, or just the sum of a too-powerful family's mistakes? Druon leaves it open, and so do both miniseries.

Georges Marchal played Philip in 1972 and Tchéky Karyo in 2005. The first book, The Iron King, covers his final year.