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Henry IV of France
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Henry de Bourbon, (Pau, 13 December 1553 – Paris, 14 May 1610), ruled as Henry III, King of Navarre, from 1572 to 1610, and as Henry IV, King of France, from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France. His parents were Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, and Jeanne d'Albret.
As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending the throne in 1589. Before his coronation as king of France, he changed his faith from Calvinism to Catholicism, and in 1598 he enacted the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed religious liberties to the Protestants and thereby effectively ended the civil war.
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Timeline
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1553 Born
1553 Born
1569 September - Huguenot forces under Coligny and 15 year-old Prince Henry of Navarre besiege Poitiers
1572 Wedding in Paris of the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre with Marguerite de France, sister of King Charles, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.
1584 With the death of the Duc d'Anjou, the Huguenot Henry of Navarre becomes heir-presumptive to the throne of Fran
1587 Battle of Coutras - Huguenot forces under Henry of Navarre defeat Royalist forces under Anne, Duc de Joyeuse, favorite of King Henry. Joyeuse is killed.
1589 Rebellion of the Catholic League against King Henry III of France, in revenge for his murder of Duke Henry of Guise. They proclaim the deposition of the King, and acclaim the imprisoned Cardinal de Bourbon as the rightful King of France, calling him Charles X. The King makes peace with his old rival, Henry of Navarre, and together they besiege Paris.
1589 Henry III of France is murdered by a fanatical Catholic monk. Henry of Navarre proclaims himself as King Henry IV of France. As many of the late King's troops refuse to support a Protestant, Henry is forced to give up the siege of Paris.
1590 Battle of Ivry - Henry IV of France again defeats the forces of the Catholic League under the Duc de Mayenne.
1590 August - Unsuccessful siege of Paris by Henry IV of France. Henry is forced to raise the siege when the Duke of Parma comes to its relief with a Spanish army.
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Encyclopedia
Henry de Bourbon, (Pau, 13 December 1553 – Paris, 14 May 1610), ruled as Henry III, King of Navarre, from 1572 to 1610, and as Henry IV, King of France, from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France. His parents were Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, and Jeanne d'Albret.
As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending the throne in 1589. Before his coronation as king of France, he changed his faith from Calvinism to Catholicism, and in 1598 he enacted the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed religious liberties to the Protestants and thereby effectively ended the civil war. One of the most popular French kings, both during and after his reign, Henry showed great care for the welfare of his subjects and displayed an unusual religious tolerance for the time. He was murdered by a fanatical Catholic, François Ravaillac.
Henry was nicknamed Henry the Great (Henri le Grand), and in France is sometimes called le bon roi Henri ("good king Henry") or le Vert galant ("the green gallant"), a reference to his constant womanising. He also gave his name to the Henry IV style of architecture, which he patronised.
Life
Henri de Bourbon was born in Pau, the capital of the French province of Béarn. Although baptised as a Roman Catholic, Henry was raised as a Protestant by his mother Jeanne d'Albret; Jeanne declared Calvinism the religion of Navarre. As a teenager, Henry joined the Huguenot forces in the French Wars of Religion. On 9 June 1572, upon Jeanne's death, he became King Henry III of Navarre.
It had been arranged, before Jeanne's death, that Henry would marry Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. The wedding took place in Paris on 19 August 1572. It was for that reason that Henry was in Paris during the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, on 24 August, when several thousand Protestants were killed in Paris and thousands more throughout the country. Henry narrowly escaped death thanks to the help of his wife. He was kept in confinement, but escaped in early 1576; on 5 February of that year, he abjured Catholicism at Tours and rejoined the Protestant forces in the military conflict.
Henry of Navarre became the legal heir to the French throne upon the death in 1584 of François, Duke of Alençon, brother and heir to the Catholic King Henry III, who had succeeded Charles IX in 1574. Because Henry of Navarre was a descendant of King Louis IX, King Henry III had no choice but to recognise him as the legitimate successor. Salic law disinherited the king's sisters and all others who could claim descent by the distaff line. However, since Henry of Navarre was a Huguenot, this set off the War of the Three Henries phase of the French Wars of Religion. The third Henry, Duke Henry of Guise, pushed for complete suppression of the Huguenots, and had much support among Catholic loyalists. This set off a series of campaigns and counter-campaigns culminating in the battle of Coutras In December 1588, Henry III had Henry of Guise murdered, along with his brother, Louis Cardinal de Guise. This increased the tension further, and Henry III was assassinated shortly thereafter by a fanatic monk.
, Saint Lô, 1589.]]
On the death of Henry III on 2 August 1589, Henri of Navarre nominally became the king of France. But the Catholic League, strengthened by support from outside, especially from Spain, was strong enough to force him to the south, and he had to set about winning his kingdom by military conquest, aided by money and troops bestowed by Elizabeth I of England. The League proclaimed Henry's Catholic uncle Charles, the Cardinal de Bourbon, King as Charles X, but the Cardinal himself was Henry's prisoner. Henry was victorious at Ivry and Arques, but failed to take Paris.
After the death of the old Cardinal in 1590, the League could not agree on a new candidate. While some supported various Guise candidates, the strongest candidate was probably Infanta Isabella, the daughter of Philip II of Spain, whose mother Elisabeth had been the eldest daughter of Henry II of France. The prominence of her candidacy hurt the League, which thus became suspect as agents of the foreign Spanish, but nevertheless Henry remained unable to take control of Paris.
With the encouragement of the great love of his life, Gabrielle d'Estrées, on 25 July 1593 Henry declared that Paris vaut bien une messe ("Paris is well worth a mass") and permanently renounced Protestantism, thus earning the resentment of the Huguenots and his former ally, Queen Elizabeth. However, his entrance into the Roman Catholic Church secured for him the allegiance of the vast majority of his subjects, and he was crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Chartres on 27 February 1594. In 1598, however, he declared the Edict of Nantes, which gave circumscribed toleration to the Huguenots.
Henry's first marriage was not a happy one, and the couple remained childless. Henry and Marguerite had separated, even before Henry had succeeded to the throne in August 1589, and Marguerite lived for many years in the château of Usson in Auvergne. After Henry had become king of France, it was of the utmost importance that he provide an heir to the crown in order to avoid the problem of a disputed succession. Henri himself favoured the idea of obtaining an annulment of his marriage to Marguerite, and taking as a bride Gabrielle d'Estrées, who had already borne him three children. Henry's councilors strongly opposed this idea, but the matter was resolved unexpectedly by Gabrielle's sudden death in the early hours of 10 April 1599, after she had given birth prematurely to a stillborn son. His marriage to Marguerite was annulled in 1599, and he then married Marie de Médicis in 1600.
Henry IV proved to be a man of vision and courage. Instead of waging costly wars to suppress opposing nobles, Henry simply paid them off. As king, he adopted policies and undertook projects to improve the lives of all subjects, which made him one of the country's most popular rulers ever.
A declaration often attributed to him is:
This egalitarian statement epitomises the peace and relative prosperity Henry brought to France after decades of religious war, and demonstrates how well he understood the plight of the French worker or peasant farmer. Never before had a French ruler even considered the importance of a chicken or the burden of taxation on his subjects, nor would one again until the French Revolution. After generations of domination by the extravagant Valois dynasty, which had caused the French people to pay to the point of starvation for the royal family's luxuries and intrigue, Navarre's charisma won the day.
Henry's forthright manner, physical courage and military successes also contrasted dramatically with the sickly, effete languor of the last tubercular Valois kings, as evinced by his blunt assertion that he ruled with "weapon in hand and arse in the saddle" (on a le bras armé et le cul sur la selle).
During his reign, Henry IV worked through his faithful right-hand man, the minister Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully (1560-1641), to regularise state finance, promote agriculture, drain swamps to create productive crop lands, undertake many public works, and encourage education, as with the creation of the Collège Royal Henri-le-Grand in La Flèche (today Prytanée Militaire de la Flèche). He and Sully protected forests from further devastation, built a new system of tree-lined highways, and constructed new bridges and canals. He had a 1200 m canal built in the park at the royal Château at Fontainebleau (which can be fished today), and ordered the planting of pines, elms and fruit trees.
The king renewed Paris as a great city, with the Pont Neuf, which still stands today, constructed over the River Seine to connect the Right and Left Banks of the city. Henry IV also had the Place Royale built (since 1800 known as Place des Vosges), and added the Grande Galerie to the Louvre. More than 400 meters long and thirty-five meters wide, this huge addition was built along the bank of the Seine River, and at the time was the longest edifice of its kind in the world. King Henry IV, a promoter of the arts by all classes of people, invited hundreds of artists and craftsmen to live and work on the building’s lower floors. This tradition continued for another two hundred years, until Emperor Napoleon I banned it. The art and architecture of his reign have since become known as the Henri IV style.
King Henry's vision extended beyond France, and he financed several expeditions of Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts and Samuel de Champlain to North America that saw France lay claim to Canada.
Assassination and aftermath
Although he was a man of kindness, compassion, and good humor, and was much loved by his people, Henry was the subject of several murder attempts (for example by Pierre Barrière and Jean Châtel). On 14 May 1610, King Henry IV was assassinated in Paris by a fanatically passionate Catholic, François Ravaillac, who stabbed the king to death while he rode in his coach. Henry was buried at the Saint Denis Basilica. His widow, Marie de Médicis, served as Regent to their 9-year-old son, Louis XIII, until 1617.
The reign of Henry IV made a lasting impact on the French people living there for generations after. A statue of him was built in his honor at the Pont Neuf in 1614, only four years after his death. Although this statue - as well as those of all the other French kings - was torn down during the French Revolution, it was the first to be rebuilt, in 1818, and it still stands today on the Pont Neuf. A cult surrounding the personality of Henri IV emerged during the Restoration. The restored Bourbons were keen to downplay the contested reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, and instead emphasised the reign of the benevolent Henry IV. The song Vive Henri IV ("Long Live Henry IV") was used during the Restoration as an unofficial anthem of France, played in the absence of the king. In addition, when Princess Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies gave birth to a male heir to the throne of France, seven months after the assassination of her husband Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry by a Republican fanatic, the boy was conspicuously called Henri in reference to his forefather Henry IV (see Henri, comte de Chambord). The boy was also baptised in the traditional way of Béarn/Navarre, with a spoon of Jurançon wine and some garlic, as had been done when Henry IV had been baptised in Pau, although this custom had not been followed by any Bourbon king after Henry IV.
Genealogy
Henry IV was the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme and Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. He was born in the Château de Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the southwest of France (former province of Béarn). Henry's mother was the daughter of Marguerite d'Angoulême, a sister of King Francis I of France, making him a second cousin of Kings Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. However, it was to his father, a tenth-generation descendant of King Louis IX, that Henry owed his succession to the French throne: in application of the Salic Law, which disregarded all female lines, Henry was the senior descendant of the senior surviving male line of the Capetian dynasty. At the death of Henry III of France, who had no son, the crown passed to Henry IV. The new king, however, had to fight for some years to be recognised as the legitimate king of France by the Catholics, who were opposed to his Protestant faith.
Ancestors
Marriages and legitimate children
On 18 August 1572, Henry married his second cousin Marguerite de Valois; their childless marriage was annulled in 1599. His subsequent marriage to Marie de' Medici on 17 December 1600 produced six children:
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|
| Louis XIII, King of France | 27 September 1601 | 14 May 1643 | Married Anne of Austria in 1615. | | Elizabeth, Queen of Spain | 22 November 1602 | 6 October 1644 | Married Philip IV, King of Spain in 1615. | | Christine Marie, Duchess of Savoy | 12 February 1606 | 27 December 1663 | Married Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy in 1619. | | Nicholas Henri de France, duc d'Orléans | 16 April 1607 | 17 November 1611 | . | | Gaston, Duke of Orleans | 25 April 1608 | 2 February 1660 | Married (1) Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier in 1626.
Married (2) Margaret of Lorraine in 1632. | | Henrietta Maria, Queen of England | 25 November 1609 | 10 September 1669 | Married Charles I, King of England in 1625. | |
Bibliography
- Baumgartner, Frederic J. France in the Sixteenth Century. London: Macmillan, 1995. ISBN 0333620887.
- Briggs, Robin. Early Modern France, 1560–1715. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. ISBN 0192890409.
- Bryson, David M. Queen Jeanne and the Promised Land: Dynasty, Homeland, Religion and Violence in Sixteenth-century France. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill Academic, 1999. ISBN 9004113789.
- Buisseret, David. Henry IV, King of France. New York: Routledge, 1990. ISBN 0044456352.
- Cameron, Keith, ed. From Valois to Bourbon: Dynasty, State & Society in Early Modern France. Exeter: University of Exeter, 1989. ISBN 0859893103.
- Finley-Croswhite, S. Annette. Henry IV and the Towns: The Pursuit of Legitimacy in French Urban Society, 1589–1610. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0521620171.196
- Frieda, Leonie. Catherine de Medici. London: Phoenix, 2005. ISBN 0173820390.
- Greengrass, Mark. France in the Age of Henri IV: The Struggle for Stability. London: Longman, 1984. ISBN 0582492513.
- Holt, Mack P. The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 9780521547505.
- Knecht, R. J. Catherine de' Medici. London and New York: Longman, 1998. ISBN 0582082412.
- Knecht, R. J. The French Religious Wars, 1562–1598. Oxford: Osprey, 2002. ISBN 1841763950.
- Knecht, R. J. The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France, 1483-1610. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. ISBN 0631227296.
- Lee, Maurice J. James I & Henri IV: An Essay in English Foreign Policy, 1603–1610. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970. ISBN 0252000846.
- LLoyd, Howell A. The State, France, and the Sixteenth Century. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983. ISBN 0049400665.
- Lockyer, Roger. Habsburg and Bourbon Europe, 1470–1720. Harlow, UK: Longman, 1974. ISBN 0582350298.*Major, J. Russell. From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles & Estates. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. ISBN 0801856310.
- Moote, A. Lloyd. Louis XIII, the Just. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. ISBN 0520075463.
- Mousnier, Roland. The Assassination of Henry IV: The Tyrannicide Problem and the Consolidation of the French Absolute Monarchy in the Early Seventeenth Century. Translated by Joan Spencer. London: Faber and Faber, 1973. ISBN 0684133571.
- Pettegree, Andrew. Europe in the Sixteenth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. ISBN 063120704X.
- Salmon, J. H. M. Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century. London: Ernest Benn, 1975. ISBN 0510263518.
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