Sol coronat - Charles II of Navarre

Charles II of Navarre — "Charles the Bad" — was one of the most destabilizing figures in fourteenth-century France, simultaneously a major French landowner and a foreign sovereign with his own claim to the French throne. This coin circulated during decades when Charles was variously allied with the English, imprisoned by Jean II, and implicated in the murder of the Constable of France. The County of Évreux, his principal French holding, issued billon coinage under his authority throughout this turbulent period despite repeated royal confiscations and restorations of his Norman lands.

Charles died in 1387 under circumstances reported as grotesque even by medieval standards — allegedly consumed by fire when an alcohol-soaked linen wrapping, prescribed as medical treatment, ignited.