Charles VI became king of France in 1380 while still a child. During his minority, powerful uncles competed to control the government and its revenues. Their policies contributed to heavy taxation and urban resistance. The young king accompanied the campaign that defeated the Flemish rebels at Roosebeke in 1382, after which the crown imposed punishments and restrictions on rebellious French towns as well.

In 1388 Charles asserted personal authority and recalled experienced advisers associated with his father, Charles V. This brief period offered prospects for more orderly administration and reconciliation with England. Beginning in 1392, however, recurrent episodes of severe mental illness interrupted his ability to govern. He experienced intervals of recovery, but the uncertainty surrounding his capacity enabled rival princes to exercise power in his name. The surviving accounts do not establish a modern medical diagnosis.

Competition between the king's brother Louis, Duke of Orléans, and the Burgundian dukes increasingly dominated politics. Louis's assassination in 1407 on the orders of John the Fearless intensified the conflict that developed into the Armagnac–Burgundian civil war. Royal authority remained the prize for competing factions rather than a stable force able to restrain them. The resumption of English invasion under Henry V compounded the crisis, especially after the French defeat at Agincourt in 1415.

The murder of John the Fearless during negotiations with the dauphin in 1419 drove Burgundy into alliance with England. Under the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, Charles retained the crown for life, while Henry V married his daughter Catherine and was recognized as heir in place of the dauphin Charles. The dauphin's supporters rejected the settlement. Henry V died before Charles in 1422, leaving an infant son. Charles's own death that October therefore produced rival claims by Henry VI and the future Charles VII, continuing the struggle over French kingship.