'Henry IV of France', also 'Henry III of Navarre' (
13 December 1553 –
14 May 1610), ruled as
King of France from
1589 to
1610 and
King of Navarre from
1572 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 his wife,
Jeanne d'Albret,
Queen regnant of
Navarre.
As a
Huguenot, Henry was involved in the
Wars of Religion before ascending to the throne in 1589. 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 gallant Green").
Genealogy
Henry IV was the son of
Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome 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). At the death of King
Henry III of France, who had no son, the crown passed to Henry IV, in application of the
Salic Law, as Henry was the descendant of the eldest surviving male line of the
Capetian dynasty. The new king, however, had to fight for some years to be recognized as the legitimate king of France by the Catholics, most of whom were opposed to his
Protestant faith.
Here is a short genealogy that explains how Henry IV descends in the male line from the Capetian Dynasty:
★ Henry IV was the 9th cousin of King
Henry II, and the
9th cousin once removed of kings
Francis II,
Charles IX, and
Henry III. He was the son of:
★
Antoine de Bourbon (
1518 –
1562), 8th cousin of kings
Charles VIII and
Francis I, who was the son of:
★
Charles IV, Duke of Bourbon (
1489 –
1537), 7th cousin of kings
Louis XI and
Louis XII, who was the son of:
★
François de Bourbon-Vendôme (
1470 –
1495), 6th cousin of King
Charles VII, who was the son of:
★
Jean de Bourbon-Vendôme (
1428 –
1477), 5th cousin of King
Charles VI, who was the son of:
★
Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme (
1376 –
1446), 4th cousin of King
Charles V, who was the son of:
★
Jean de Bourbon-La Marche (
1344 –
1393), 3rd cousin of kings
John I Posthumus and
John II, who was the son of:
★
Jacques de Bourbon-La Marche (
1315 –
1362), 2nd cousin of kings
Louis X,
Philip V,
Charles IV, and
Philip VI, who was the son of:
★
Louis I, Duke of Bourbon (
1279 –
1342), 1st cousin of King
Philip IV, who was the son of:
★
Robert, Count of Clermont (
1256 –
1317), brother of King
Philip III and son of:
★ King
Louis IX (Saint Louis) (
1214/
1215 -
1270)
Life
Although baptized 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.
On
18 August 1572, Henry married
Marguerite de Valois, sister of King
Charles IX. Henri's marriage was believed by most to be an effort to bring religious peace to the kingdom. However, leading Catholics (possibly including
Catherine de' Medici, mother of the bride) secretly planned a massacre of Protestants gathered in Paris for the wedding. In the resulting
Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, on
24 August, several thousand Protestants were killed in Paris and thousands more in the countryside. Henry narrowly escaped death by pretending to convert to Roman Catholicism. 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.
Henri 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 Henri III, who had succeeded
Charles IX in
1574. Since Henry of Navarre was a descendant of King
Louis IX, King Henry III had no choice but to recognize 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 Henri,
Duke Henri of Guise, pushed for complete suppression of the Huguenots, and had much support among Catholic extremists. In December
1588 Henri III had Henry of Guise murdered, along with his brother, Louis Cardinal de Guise. This increased the tension further, and Henri III was assassinated shortly thereafter by a fanatic monk.
On the death of Henri III in
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. Henri 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
Henri 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 Henri declared that ''Paris vaut bien une messe'' ("Paris is well worth a Mass") and permanently renounced Protestantism, thus earning the resentment of 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. The two had separated, even before Henri had succeeded to the throne, in August, 1589 and
Marguerite de Valois lived for many years in the chateau of Usson in
Auvergne. After Henry had become king, various advisers impressed upon him the desirability of providing an heir to the French Crown, in order to avoid the problem of a disputed succession. Henri himself favored the idea of obtaining an annulment of his first marriage, and taking
Gabrielle d'Estrées as a bride, who had already borne him three children. Henry's councillors strongly opposed this idea, but the matter was resolved unexpectedly by Gabrielle d'Estrées' sudden death in 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.
Henri IV proved to be a man of vision and courage. Instead of waging costly wars to suppress opposing nobles, Henri 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!''
★ ''God willing, every working man in my kingdom will have a chicken in the pot every Sunday, at the least!''
This egalitarian statement epitomizes 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.
Henri's forthright manner, physical courage and military success also contrasted dramatically with the sickly, effete langour 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, Henri IV worked through his right-hand man, the faithful
Maximilien de Bethune, duc de Sully (1560-1641), to regularize state finance, promote agriculture, drain swamps to create productive crop lands, undertake many public works, and encourage education, as with the creation of the College Royal Louis-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 1200m canal built in the park at the
Royal Chateau 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. Henri 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 Henri IV, a promoter of the arts by all classes of peoples, 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 has since become known as the 'Henri IV style'.
King Henri'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.
Death and aftermath
Although he was a man of kindness, compassion, and good humor, and was much loved by his people, he was the subject of many murder attempts (for example by
Pierre Barrière and
Jean Châtel). On
14 May 1610, King Henry IV was assassinated in Paris by
François Ravaillac, who stabbed the king to death while he rode in his coach. Henry was buried at the
Saint Denis Basilica. Henry's widow,
Marie de Médicis, served as Regent to their 9-year-old son,
Louis XIII, until
1617.
Statue of Henri IV on the Pont Neuf
The reign of Henry IV made a lasting impact on the French people for generations after. A statue of Henry was erected on the
Pont Neuf in Paris in
1614, only four years after his death. Although this statue - as well as those of all the other French kings - was destroyed during the
French Revolution, it was the first one 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 emphasized 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 baptized 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 baptized in
Pau, although this custom had not been followed by any Bourbon king after Henry IV.
Ancestors
Marriage and children
On
18 August 1572 he married
Marguerite de Valois, annulled in 1599, with no children.
He subsequently married
Marie de Médicis on
December 17 1600. There were six children from this marriage:
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|
| Louis XIII, King of France | September 27 1601 | May 14, 1643 | Married Anne of Austria (1601 - 1666) in 1615. Had issue. |
| Elizabeth, Queen of Spain | November 22, 1602 | October 6, 1644 | Married Philip IV, King of Spain (1605 - 1665) in 1615. Had issue. |
| Christine Marie, Duchess of Savoy | February 12, 1606 | December 27, 1663 | Married Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy (1587 - 1637) in 1619. Had issue. |
| Nicholas Henry, Duke of Orleans | April 16 1607 | November 17 1611 | Died young. No issue. |
| Gaston, Duke of Orleans | April 25 1608 | February 2 1660 | Married (1) Mary of Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier (1605 - 1627) in 1626. Had issue.
Married (2) Margaret of Lorraine (1615 - 1672) in 1632. Had issue. |
| Henrietta Maria, Queen of England | November 25, 1609 | September 10, 1669 | Married Charles I, King of England (1600 - 1649) in 1625. Had issue. |
Illegitimate children
Additionally, Henry IV had at least 11 illegitimate children.
[1]
By
Gabrielle d'Estrée:
By
Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil:
| Name | Birth | Legitimized | Death | Notes |
|---|
| Gaston Henri, Duc de Verneuil | 1601 | 1603 | 1682 | Married Charlotte Seguier, daughter of Pierre Séguier, Duc de Villemor. |
| Gabrielle Angelique, called Mademoiselle de Verneuil | 1603 | | 1627 | Married Bernard de Nogaret de Foix, Duc de La Valette et d'Epernon. |
By Jacqueline de Bueil, Countess de Moret (1580-1651):
| Name | Birth | Legitimized | Death | Notes |
|---|
| Antoine, Count de Moret | 1607 | 1608 | 1632 | Abbot of St. Etienne |
By Charlotte des Essarts, Countess de Romorantin:
| Name | Birth | Legitimized | Death | Notes |
|---|
| Jeanne Baptiste | 1608 | 1608 | 1670 | Abbess of Fontevrault. |
| Marie Henriette | 1609 | | 1629 | Abbess of Chelles. |
References
1. King HENRY IV "le Grand" of France (1589-1610) and Navarre (1562-1610)
Further reading
★ Buisseret, David. ''Henry IV: King of France''. New York: Routledge, 1990 (paperback, ISBN 0-04-445635-2).
★ Greengrass, Mark. ''France in the Age of Henri IV: The Struggle for Stability (Studies in modern history)''. London: Longman, 1984 (paperback, ISBN 0-582-49251-3).
★ Love, Ronald S. ''Blood and Religion: The Conscience of Henri IV''. Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGillin Queen's University Press, 2001 (hardcover, ISBN 0-7735-2124-0).
★
Mousnier, Roland. ''The Assassination of Henry IV: the Tyrannicide Problem and the Consolidation of the French Absolute Monarchy in the Early Seventeenth Century''. New York: Scribner, 1973 (ISBN 0-684-13357-1).
External links
★
Description of Henry IV's assasination (in Spanish).
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