Philip IV the Fair dies hunting

November 1314

Thrown from his horse chasing a stag in the Forest of Halatte, the iron king of France suffered a stroke and died at forty-six. He left a realm expanded, a bureaucracy strengthened, a church intimidated, Jews and Templars plundered, and three sons who would all die young and childless within fourteen years, triggering a succession crisis that ignited the Hundred Years' War.