King John II was the ruler of France in the mid-14th Century. He is perhaps most well-known for serving an extended time in captivity in England during the Hundred Years War.

He was born on April 26, 1319, in Le Mans. The monarch at the time was Charles IV, the last of the Capetian Dynasty. Charles died in 1328, and Philip of Valois became king. This accession was a contested one, and Philip acted quickly to shore up his support, including marrying off his son John to form a political alliance.

So it was that in 1332, at age 13, John married Bonne of Bohemia, who was then 17; they had 9 children, seven of whom survived into adulthood.

Significantly, also in the year of his marriage, John gained the title of Duke of Normandy. As tensions between England and France and the Hundred Years War began, a number of Norman nobles threw in their lot with the English king, Edward III.

England won a pair of significant victories, at Crécy in 1346 and at Calais in 1347, the latter after a long siege. Owning control of the English Channel and controlling a port city on the French northwest coast, England stood ready to more easily reinforce the troops already in France. King Philip VI negotiated a truce, which came in just in time (more or less) to stop the fighting in the wake of a new threat, the Black Death. The bubonic plague cut down rich and poor alike, in great swathes across Europe. As many as one-third of the entire European population died of this dread disease. In both England and France, leaders and soldiers quite rightly looked after their own houses for a time.

One of the victims of the Black Death was John's wife, Bonne, who died in September 1349. Five months later, John married Joan I, Countess of Auvergne; they had three children, all of whom died at a very early age.

Philip VI died in August 1350, and John became king. One of John's prime opponents during his reign was another Frenchman, Charles of Navarre. (Some sources refer to John the Good and Charles the Bad.) Charles was a wealthy and powerful baron who had many supporters. In 1354, during a pause in the intercontinental fighting, he killed King John's favorite advisor, Charles de la Cerda. Going further, Charles secretly negotiated a treaty with England that would have given him half of France if he had helped England win the war. In an act of deft diplomacy, John's oldest son, Charles, convinced his father and Charles of Navarre to patch up their differences.

Fighting between England and France resumed in 1356, and the English claimed another victory. Edward, the Black Prince ranged through the French countryside, pursued by John II. The two armies met near Poitiers on Sept. 19, 1356, and the Black Prince again showed his military mettle. Again, French forces outnumbered English forces. Again, England more than made up for this deficit with the devastating power of the longbow and the cannon. King John II had left his main force of infantry behind because he wanted to catch up to Edward and thought that the main infantry, which numbered 20,000, would slow him down. After a series of attacks and counterattacks, a well timed cavalry charge by the English turned the corner on the French left and turned the struggle into a rout. The English victory was so complete that English forces captured the French king himself and several hundred members of the French aristocracy. The capture of John occurred despite the fact that he and 17 knights from his personal guard dressed exactly the same.

Edward, the Black Prince treated King John like the royalty that he was, serving him a royal meal in the Black Prince's personal tent. Then, a royal guard escorted John to England, where he was held in a series of places while the terms of his ransom were negotiated. A treaty in May 1360 set his ransom at 3 million crowns (a very large amount of money in those days).

Edward III allowed John to return to France on the promise that he would raise the necessary funds in order to pay the ransom; as proof of his commitment, John agreed that his second-oldest son, Louis of Anjou, would be a replacement hostage. Louis was kept in Calais, on English-occupied French soil, not in England itself.

After three years in captivity, Louis had had enough of being a replacement hostage and escaped. John agreed to return to England and resume his captivity. He was there for only a few months before contracting an unknown illness. He died in Savoy Palace on April 8, 1364, having never raised his ransom; he was 44. Among his achievements was the creation of the Order of the Star, in 1351.

The new king, John's oldest son, was Charles V.