In 1111 Robert II died, and Charles's cousin
Baldwin VII of Flanders became count. Charles was a close adviser to the new count (who was several years younger), who around 1118 arranged Charles's marriage to the heiress of the count of
Amiens,
Margaret of Clermont, daughter of
Renaud II, Count of Clermont. The childless count Baldwin VII was wounded fighting at the
Battle of Bures-en-Brai in September 1118, and he designated Charles as his successor before he died on 17 July 1119. In 1125, he was also considered a candidate for the election of
King of the Romans after the death of
Henry V, but rejected the offer. During the famine that struck Flanders in that same year, Charles ordered
legumes to be planted on his own estates and given away to the starving. He often stated, according to Galbert of Bruges, that it was better for the rich of Flanders to drink only water than for a single poor person to die of starvation. He distributed bread to the poor en masse and also launched a draconian crackdown against the very common business practice of buying up and hoarding grain and other food supplies during famine to drastically drive up the price and only much later selling it off at an enormous profit. For example, Charles expelled all the Jews from Flanders, attributing allegedly similar activities by Jewish merchants as a cause of additional suffering. Meanwhile, at the urging of his advisers, the count launched legal proceedings to reduce the extremely wealthy, politically connected, and demonstrably
non-Jewish Erembald family, who were heavily engaged in these same disreputable business activities and many others like them, to the status of
serfs. As a result, Bertulf, the head of the Erembald family, a
Roman Catholic priest and provost of the
Church of St. Donatian, masterminded a
regime change conspiracy to
assassinate Charles, replace him with his more pliable kinsman William of Ypres, and execute all of the Erembald family's opponents among the Count's advisors. ==Death==