Henry IV (of France)

I

Introduction

Henry IV (of France) (1553-1610), king of France (1589-1610), who restored stability after the religious wars of the 16th century. He was the first of the Bourbon kings of France and also, as Henry III, king of Navarre (1572-1610).

Henry was born at Pau in Navarre. His father, Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme, was descended in the ninth generation from the 13th-century king of France, Louis IX. His mother, Jeanne d'Albret, was queen of Navarre and niece of King Francis I of France.

II

The Wars of Religion

Although baptized a Roman Catholic, Henry was brought up as a Calvinist by his strong-minded mother, a leader of the French Protestant (Huguenot) movement, which during the 1560s became involved in a series of civil wars with the Catholics. Henry's wedding in 1572 to Margaret of Valois, sister of the reigning monarch, Charles IX, was followed by the massacre of thousands of Huguenots (see Saint Bartholomew's Day, Massacre of). Henry saved his own life by converting to Roman Catholicism, but he remained a prisoner at court until 1576. After his escape he repudiated his conversion and assumed the leadership of the Huguenots. He was excommunicated in 1584, when he became the immediate heir to the French throne.

III

Military Leader

Henry's storming of the fortress town of Cahors in 1580 launched his career as an intrepid military leader. He won another brilliant victory at Coutras in 1587 in the war known as the War of the Three Henrys, and two years later formed an alliance with Henry III (the last French king from the Valois dynasty), against the Holy League, dominated by the Guise family. When the Valois king was murdered by a league fanatic in 1589, Henry became king of France as Henry IV.

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Backed by Spain and the pope, however, the league refused to acknowledge a Protestant as king of France, and many Catholic nobles who had served Henry III against the league deserted the royal army. Henry won victories over the league at Arques and Ivry and besieged the league stronghold, Paris, which was eventually relieved by a Spanish army from the Netherlands. Henry skillfully exploited divisions among members of the league, and in 1593 he disarmed his opponents by announcing his reconversion to Catholicism. A year later he bribed the league commander of the capital to admit his army. One by one, he defeated or bought over the magnates of the house of Guise who continued to resist. Although Henry had defeated many of his opponents, he still needed to be accepted by the papacy. He appealed to the pope to lift his excommunication. In 1595 the pope, who wanted to avoid a schism in the church, agreed to grant Henry absolution under certain conditions: the church kept all its properties and assets within France and Henry agreed to raise his heir, Louis XIII, as a Roman Catholic. In 1598, Henry made peace with the Spanish. The same year he proclaimed the Edict of Nantes, which granted partial religious freedom to the Huguenots. These acts ended all serious resistance to his reign.

IV

Henry as King

In 1599 Henry secured papal annulment of his first marriage, and the year after he married Marie de Médicis, a distant cousin of the mother of the last Valois kings. His leading minister, Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, reorganized the finances and promoted the economic recovery of France after decades of civil war. Agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce were encouraged; taxes on the peasantry were reduced; and a debt moratorium relieved pressure on the nobility. The system by which officials in finance and the judiciary purchased their offices from the Crown was formalized in 1604 by a tax on office known as the paulette. At the same time Sully substituted royal officers for those employed by local representative bodies.

In 1609 Henry began preparations to intervene in Germany against the Catholic Habsburg dynasty, a move that was opposed by some French Catholics. The king was about to join his army when he was assassinated by a Catholic extremist.

Henry IV's genial informality, bravery, gallantry, perseverance in adversity, and readiness to bend religious principle to political advantage have earned him a special place in French history. Not only did he restore order and prosperity to his ruined kingdom, but he also ensured that the monarchy would be Catholic and absolutist.

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