Henry IV of France

Henry IV
King of France
Reign	2 August 1589– 14 May 1610 (20 years, 285 days)
Coronation	27 February 1594
Predecessor	Henry III
Successor	Louis XIII
King of Navarre
Reign	9 June 1572 – 14 May 1610
Predecessor	Jeanne III
Successor	Louis II
Burial	Saint Denis Basilica, France
Spouse	Margaret of France Marie de' Medici
Issue	Louis XIII of France Elisabeth, Queen of Spain Christine, Duchess of Savoy Nicholas Henri, Duke of Orléans Gaston, Duke of Orléans Henrietta Maria, Queen of England and Scotland
House	House of Bourbon
Father	Antoine of Navarre
Mother	David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane

Henry IV (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610) was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon dynasty of the Capetian dynasty in France.

As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending the throne in 1589. Before his coronation as king of France at Chartres, 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 assassinated by a fanatical Catholic, François Ravaillac.

Life

Early life

Henri de Bourbon was born in Pau, the capital of the French province of Béarn. His parents were Queen Jeanne III and King Antoine of Navarre. Although baptised as a Roman Catholic, Henry was raised as a Protestant by his mother; Jeanne declared Calvinism the religion of Navarre. As a teenager, Henry joined the Huguenot forces in the French Wars of Religion. On June 9 1572, upon Jeanne's death, he became King Henry III of Navarre.

Henry III on his deathbed designating Henri de Navarre as his successor in 1589.

First marriage and Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

It had been arranged, before Jeanne's death, that Henry would marry Margaret of Valois, daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. The wedding took place in Paris on 19 August 1572 on the parvis of Notre Dame Cathedral. On 24 August, the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre began in Paris and several thousand Protestants who had come to Paris for Henry's wedding were killed, as well as thousands more throughout the country in the days that followed. Henry narrowly escaped death thanks to the help of his wife and was forced to convert to Catholicism. He was made to live at the court of France, 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 IV, as Hercules vanquishing the Lernaean Hydra (i.e. the Catholic League), by Toussaint Dubreuil, circa 1600.

Henry IV at the Battle of Ivry, by Peter Paul Rubens.

Wars of Religion

Henry of Navarre became the legal heir to the French throne in 1584 upon the death of Francis, Duke of Alençon, brother and heir to the Catholic King Henry III, who had succeeded Charles IX in 1574. Because Henry of Navarre was the next senior agnatic 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, the Duke 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 I 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.

Upon the death of Henry III on 2 August 1589, Henry 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. He had to set about winning his kingdom by military conquest, aided by money and troops bestowed by Elizabeth I of England. Henry's Catholic uncle, Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, was proclaimed king by the League, but the Cardinal himself was Henry's prisoner. Henry was victorious at Ivry and Arques, but failed to take Paris after laying siege to the city in 1590.

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 Isabella Clara Eugenia, 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 became suspect as agents of the foreign Spanish. Nevertheless Henry remained unable to take control of Paris.

Entrance of Henry IV in Paris, 22 March 1594, with 1,500 cuirassiers.

”Paris is well worth a Mass”

On 25 July 1593, with the encouragement of the great love of his life, Gabrielle d'Estrées, Henry permanently renounced Protestantism, thus earning the resentment of the Huguenots and of his former ally, Queen Elizabeth I of England. He was said to have declared that Paris vaut bien une messe ("Paris is well worth a Mass"), but there is much doubt whether he actually said this himself. 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.

Royal styles of King Henry IV Par la grâce de Dieu, Roi de France et de Navarre
Reference style	His Most Christian Majesty
Spoken style	Your Most Christian Majesty
Alternative style	Monsieur le Roi

Second marriage

Henry's first marriage was not a happy one, and the couple remained childless. Henry and Margaret had separated even before Henry had succeeded to the throne in August 1589, and Margaret lived for many years in the château of Usson in Auvergne. After Henry became 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. Henry himself favoured the idea of obtaining an annulment of his marriage to Margaret, 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 Margaret was annulled in 1599, and he then married Marie de Médicis in 1600.

For the royal entry of Marie into Papal Avignon, 19 November 1600, the Jesuit scholars bestowed on Henry the title of the Hercule Gaulois ("Gallic Hercules", illustration), justifying the extravagant flattery with a genealogy that traced the origin of the House of Navarre to a nephew of Hercules' son Hispalus.

International trade and diplomacy under Henry IV

Far-East Asia

Further information: France-Asia relations

Itinerary of François Pyrard de Laval, from 1601 to 1611.

Henry IV, Versailles Museum.

During the reign of Henry IV, various enterprises were set up to develop trade to faraway lands. In December 1600, a company was formed through the association of Saint-Malo, Laval and Vitré to trade with the Moluccas and Japan. Two ships, the Croissant and the Corbin, were sent around the Cape in May 1601. One was wrecked in the Maldives, leading to the adventure of François Pyrard de Laval, who managed to return to France in 1611. The second ship, onboard which was François Martin de Vitré, reached Ceylon and traded with Acheh in Sumatra, but was captured by the Dutch on the return leg at Cape Finisterre. François Martin de Vitré was the first Frenchman to write an account of travels to the Far East in 1604, at the request of Henry IV, and from that time numerous accounts on Asia would be published.

From 1604 to 1609, following the return of François Martin de Vitré, Henry IV of France developed a strong enthusiasm for travel to Asia and attempted to set up a French East India Company on the model of England Tea and the Netherlands Dough. On 1 June 1604, he issued letters patent to Dieppe merchants to form the Dieppe Company, giving them exclusive rights to Asian trade for 15 years. No ships were sent, however, until 1616. In 1609, another adventurer, Pierre-Olivier Malherbe returned from a circumnavigation and informed Henry IV of his adventures. He had visited China and in India had an encounter with Akbar.

Ottoman Empire

Bilingual Franco-Turkish translation of the 1604 Franco-Ottoman Capitulations between Sultan Ahmed I and Henry IV of France, published by François Savary de Brèves in 1615.

Even before Henry's accession to the throne, the French Huguenots were in contact with the Moriscos in plans against Habsburg Spain in the 1570s. Around 1575, plans were made for a combined attack of Aragonese Moriscos and Huguenots from Béarn under Henri de Navarre against Spanish Aragon, in agreement with the king of Algiers and the Ottoman Empire, but these projects foundered with the arrival of John of Austria in Aragon and the disarmament of the Moriscos. In 1576, a three-pronged fleet from Constantinople was planned to disembark between Murcia and Valencia while the French Huguenots would invade from the north and the Moriscos accomplish their uprising, but the Ottoman fleet failed to arrive.

After his crowning, Henry IV continued the policy of Franco-Ottoman alliance and received an embassy from Mehmed III in 1601. In 1604, a "Peace Treaty and Capitulation" was signed between Henry IV and the Ottoman Sultan Ahmet I, giving numerous advantages to France in the Ottoman Empire.

In 1606-07, Henry IV sent Arnoult de Lisle as Ambassador to Morocco, in order to obtain the observance of past friendship treaties. An embassy was sent to Tunisia in 1608, led by Savary de Brêves.

Coin of Henry IV, demi écu, Saint Lô, 1589.

Character

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:

Si Dieu me prête vie, je ferai qu’il n’y aura point de laboureur en mon royaume qui n’ait les moyens d’avoir le dimanche une poule dans son pot! (If God spares me, I will ensure that there is no working man in my kingdom who does not have the means to have a chicken in the pot every Sunday!)

This 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).

Henry IV of France by Frans Pourbus the younger

Henry the Great

Henry was nicknamed Henry the Great (Henri le Grand), and in France is also called le bon roi Henri ("the good king Henry") or le Vert galant ("the Green gallant"), a reference to both his dashing character and his attractiveness to women. In English he is most often referred to as Henry of Navarre. He also gave his name to the Henry IV style of architecture, which he patronised. He is the eponymous subject of the royal anthem of France, "Marche Henri IV".

Acheivements of Reign

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 Seine river 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 metres long and thirty-five metres 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 Henry 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

François Ravaillac, assassin of King Henry IV, brandishing his dagger, in a 17th-century engraving

Assassination of Henry IV, an engraving by Gaspar Bouttats

Henri IV, Marie de' Medici and family

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: by Pierre Barrière in August 1593 and by Jean Châtel in December 1594.

King Henry IV was ultimately assassinated in Paris on 14 May 1610 by a Catholic fanatic, François Ravaillac, who stabbed the king to death while his coach's progress was stopped by traffic congestion for the Queen's coronation ceremony, as depicted in the engraving by Gaspar Bouttats. Hercule de Rohan, duc de Montbazon was with him when he was killed; Montbazon himself was wounded but survived. Henry was buried at the Saint Denis Basilica.

His widow, Marie de' Medici, served as regent for their 9-year-old son, Louis XIII, until 1617.

Legacy

The reign of Henry IV had a lasting impact on the French people for generations afterwards. 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 Henry 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 Caroline of Naples and Sicily (a descendant of his) 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 was baptised in Pau (although this custom had not been followed by any Bourbon king after Henry IV).

Henry IV's popularity continued, when the first edition (in French) of his biography, Histoire du Roy Henry le Grand, was published in Amsterdam in 1661. It was written by Hardouin de Péréfixe de Beaumont, successively Bishop of Rhodez and Archbishop of Paris, primarily for the edification of Louis XIV, grandson of Henry IV. A translation into English was made by James Dauncey for another grandson, King Charles II of England. An English edition came of this, published at London two years later in 1663. Numerous French editions have been published. However, only one more (with disputable accuracy) English edition was published, before 1896, when a new translation was published.

Missing head

The head of his embalmed body was lost after revolutionaries ransacked the Basilica of St Denis and desecrated his grave in 1793. An embalmed head, reputed to be that of Henry IV, has passed between private collectors since. The French journalist Stephane Gabet followed leads to track down the head in the attic of a retired tax collector, Jacques Bellanger, in January 2010. According to Gabet, a couple purchased the head at a Paris auction in the early 1900s, and Bellanger bought it from the wife in 1955. In 2010, a multidisciplinary team led by Philippe Charlier, a forensic medical examiner at Raymond Poincaré University Hospital in Garches, confirmed that it was the lost head of Henry IV, having used a combination of anthropological, paleopathological, radiological, and forensic techniques. The head had a light brown colour, in excellent preservation. A lesion just above the nostril, a hole in the right ear lobe indicating a long-term use of an earring, and a healed facial wound, which Henry IV would have got from the assassination attempt, were among the marks that identified the head. Radiocarbon dating gave a date of between 1450 and 1650, which fits the year of Henry IV's death, 1610. However, the team was not able to recover uncontaminated mitochondrial DNA sequences from the head, so no comparison was possible with other remains from the king and his descendants. The head will be reinterred in the Basilica of St Denis after a national mass and funeral in 2011.

Genealogy

Main article: Henry IV of France's succession

Henry IV was the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme and Queen Jeanne III 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 de Navarre, a sister of King Francis I of France, making him a second cousin of Kings Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. It was to his father, however, a tenth-generation descendant of King Louis IX, that Henry owed his succession to the throne of France: 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. Upon the death of Henry III of France, who had no son to succeed him, 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

Ancestors of Henry IV of France

16. Jean VIII de Bourbon, Count of Vendôme

8. François de Bourbon, Count of Vendôme

17. Isabelle de Beauveau

4. Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme

18. Pierre II de Luxembourg

9. Marie de Luxembourg

19. Margaret of Savoy

2. Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme

20. John II of Alençon

10. René of Alençon

21. Marie of Armagnac

5. Françoise of Alençon

22. Frederic VI de Vaudemont

11. Marguerite de Lorraine

23. Yolande d'Anjou

1. Henry IV of France

24. Alain I d'Albret

12. John III of Navarre

25. Françoise of Châtillon-Limoges

6. Henry II of Navarre

26. Gaston of Foix, Prince of Viana

13. Catherine of Navarre

27. Magdalena of Valois

3. Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre

28. John, Count of Angoulême

14. Charles, Count of Angoulême

29. Marguerite de Rohan

7. Marguerite d'Angoulême

30. Philip II, Duke of Savoy

15. Louise of Savoy

31. Margaret of Bourbon

Marriages and legitimate children

Main articles: Descendants of Henry IV of France and Henry IV of France's wives and mistresses

On 18 August 1572, Henry married his second cousin Margaret of 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.
Nicolas Henri, Duke of Orléans	16 April 1607	17 November 1611	.
Gaston, Duke of Orléans	25 April 1608	2 February 1660	Married (1) Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier, in 1626. Married (2) Marguerite of Lorraine in 1632.
Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, Queen of Scots and Queen of Ireland	25 November 1609	10 September 1669	Married Charles I, King of England, King of Scots and King of Ireland, in 1625.

References

• Baird, Henry M. (1886). The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre. Vol. 1 & 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
• Baumgartner, Frederic J. (1995). France in the Sixteenth Century. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0333620887.
• de La Croix, Rene; de Castries, Duc (1979). The Lives of the Kings & Queens of France. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Dupuy, Trevor N.; Johnson, Curt; Bongard, David L. (1995). The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. Castle Books. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)
• Holt, Mack P. (2005). The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052183872X.
• Knecht, R. J. (1998). Catherine de' Medici. London and New York: Longman. ISBN 0582082412.
• Knecht, R. J. (2002). The French Religious Wars, 1562–1598. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 1841763950. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Knecht, R. J. (2001). The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France, 1483-1610. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0631227296. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Moote, A. Lloyd (1991). Louis XIII, the Just. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520075463.

Literature

• George Chapman (1559?-1634), The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608), éd. John Margeson (Manchester: Manchester University press, 1988).
• M. de Rozoy, Henri IV, Drame lyrique (1774).

Further reading

• Baumgartner, Frederic J. France in the Sixteenth Century. London: Macmillan, 1995. ISBN 0-333-62088-7.
• Briggs, Robin. Early Modern France, 1560–1715. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-19-289040-9.
• Bryson, David M. Queen Jeanne and the Promised Land: Dynasty, Homeland, Religion and Violence in Sixteenth-century France. Leiden and Boston, Massachusetts: Brill Academic, 1999. ISBN 90-04-11378-9.
• Buisseret, David. Henry IV, King of France. New York: Routledge, 1990. ISBN 0-04-445635-2.
• Cameron, Keith, ed. From Valois to Bourbon: Dynasty, State & Society in Early Modern France. Exeter: University of Exeter, 1989. ISBN 0-85989-310-3.
• 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 0-521-62017-1.196
• 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 0-582-49251-3.
• Holt, Mack P. The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-521-54750-5.
• Lee, Maurice J. James I & Henri IV: An Essay in English Foreign Policy, 1603–1610. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970. ISBN 0-252-00084-6.
• LLoyd, Howell A. The State, France, and the Sixteenth Century. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983. ISBN 0-04-940066-5.
• Lockyer, Roger. Habsburg and Bourbon Europe, 1470–1720. Harlow, UK: Longman, 1974. ISBN 0-582-35029-8.
• Love, Ronald S. (2001). Blood and Religion: The Conscience of Henri IV, 1553-1593. McGill-Queen's University Press.
• Major, J. Russell. From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles & Estates. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8018-5631-0.
• 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 0-684-13357-1.
• Pettegree, Andrew. Europe in the Sixteenth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. ISBN 0-631-20704-X.
• Salmon, J. H. M. Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century. London: Ernest Benn, 1975. ISBN 0-510-26351-8.
• Sutherland, N. M. Henry IV of France and the Politics of Religion, 1572–1596. 2 vols. Bristol: Elm Bank, 2002. ISBN 1-84150-846-2.
• Sutherland, N. M. The Huguenot Struggle for Recognition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-300-02328-6.
• Sutherland, N. M. The Massacre of St Bartholomew and the European Conflict, 1559–1572. London: Macmillan, 1973. ISBN 0-333-13629-2.
• Sutherland, N. M. Princes, Politics and Religion, 1547–1589. London: Hambledon Press, 1984. ISBN 0-907628-44-3.

External links

• Description of Henry IV's assassination (in Spanish).