| Henry IV | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
| Reign | 2 August 1589 – 14 May 1610 (20 years, 285 days) |
| Coronation | 27 February 1594 (aged 40) |
| Predecessor | Henry III |
| Successor | Louis XIII |
|
|
|
| Reign | 9 June 1572 – 14 May 1610 |
| Predecessor | Jeanne III |
| Successor | Louis II |
| 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 | Jeanne III of Navarre |
| Born | 13 December 1553 Pau, Kingdom of Navarre (Lower Navarre) |
| Died | 14 May 1610 (aged 56) Paris, France |
| Burial | Saint Denis Basilica, France |
Henry IV (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), Henri-Quatre, was 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.
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, thereby effectively ending 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 François Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic.[1]
He is the inspiration behind King Ferdinand of Navarre in William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.
Contents |
Henri de Bourbon was born in Pau, the capital of the French province of Béarn.[2] His parents were Queen Jeanne III and King Antoine of Navarre.[3] 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.[4]
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 18 August 1572[5] 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 promised 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 formally abjured Catholicism at Tours and rejoined the Protestant forces in the military conflict.[6]
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.[7] 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.[8] In December 1588, Henry III had Henry I of Guise murdered,[9] along with his brother, Louis Cardinal de Guise.[10] This increased the tension further and Henry III was assassinated shortly thereafter by a fanatic monk.[11]
Upon the death of Henry III on 2 August 1589, Henry of Navarre nominally became 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 sent 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.[12] Henry was victorious at Ivry and Arques, but failed to take Paris after laying siege to the city in 1590.[13]
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.[14] 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.
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"),[15][16][17] though there is some doubt whether he said this himself or the statement was attributed to him by his contemporaries.[18][19] 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.[20]
| 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 |
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 to a premature stillborn son. His marriage to Margaret was annulled in 1599, and he then married Marie de' Medici 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.[21]
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,[22] 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.[23]
The reign of Henry IV saw the continuation of the rivalry between France and the Habsburgs of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire for the mastery of Western Europe, which would only be resolved after the end of the Thirty Years' War.
During Henry's struggle for the crown, Spain had been the principal backer of the Catholic League, trying to thwart Henry. A Spanish army from the Spanish Netherlands, under Alexander Farnese intervened in 1590 against Henry and foiled his siege of Paris. Another Spanish army helped the nobles opposing Henry to win the Battle of Craon against his troops in 1592. After Henry's coronation, the war continued as an official tug-of-war between the French and Spanish states, until terminated by the Peace of Vervins in 1598.
This enabled Henry to turn his attention to Savoy, fighting a war against this duchy, that was ended by the Treaty of Lyon in 1601 which effected territorial exchanges between France and the Duchy of Savoy.
In 1609 Henry's intervention helped to settle diplomatically the War of the Jülich succession.
It was widely believed that in 1610 Henry was preparing for a war against the Holy Roman Empire, however the preparations were terminated by his assassination and the subsequent rapprochement with Spain under the regency of Marie de' Medici.
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.[25] 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.[26][27] 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.[26]
After his crowning, Henry IV continued the policy of Franco-Ottoman alliance and received an embassy from Mehmed III in 1601.[28][29] 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.[29]
In 1606–7, 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.[30]
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.[31] 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.[31][32] The second ship, onboard which was François Martin de Vitré, reached Ceylon and traded with Aceh in Sumatra, but was captured by the Dutch on the return leg at Cape Finisterre.[31][32] 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.[33]
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 and the Netherlands.[32][33][34] 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.[31] In 1609, another adventurer, Pierre-Olivier Malherbe returned from a circumnavigation and informed Henry IV of his adventures.[33] He had visited China and in India had an encounter with Akbar.[33]
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 keeps me, I will make sure 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 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. This real concern for the living conditions of the 'lowly' population – who in the final analysis provided the economic basis on which the power of the king and the great nobles rested – was perhaps without parallel among the Kings of France. It also made Henry IV extremely popular with the population.
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). He was also a great womanizer, fathering many children by a number of his mistresses.
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 which is an expression (impossible to render shortly in English) implying that he was a lively, dashing fellow, courteous, but bold and confident with women and eager to please.[35] In English he is most often referred to as Henry of Navarre.
Although he was a man of kindness, compassion and good humor, and was much loved by his people, Henry was the subject of attempts on his life by Pierre Barrière in August 1593[36] and Jean Châtel in December 1594.[37]
King Henry IV was ultimately assassinated in Paris on 14 May 1610 by a Catholic fanatic, François Ravaillac, who stabbed the king to death in Rue de la Ferronnerie, while his coach's progress was stopped by traffic congestion for the Queen's coronation ceremony,[38][39] 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.[40]
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 stands today on the Pont Neuf. A cult surrounding the personality of Henry IV emerged during the Restoration. The restored Bourbons were keen to play down 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 named Henri, in reference to his forefather Henry IV. 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 later Bourbon king).
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.
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".
The head of his embalmed body was lost after revolutionaries ransacked the Basilica of St Denis and desecrated his grave in 1793.[41] An embalmed head, reputed to be that of Henry IV, was passed among private collectors until French journalist Stephane Gabet followed leads to track down the head to 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.[42] 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, using a combination of anthropological, paleopathological, radiological, and forensic techniques.[41][43] The head had a light brown colour and excellent preservation.[41] A lesion just above the nostril, a hole in the right earlobe indicating a long-term use of an earring, and a healed facial wound, which Henry IV would have received from a previous assassination attempt by Jean Châtel in 1594, were among the identifying factors.[41][43] Radiocarbon dating gave a date of between 1450 and 1650, which fits the year of Henry IV's death, 1610.[41] 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 female-line relatives.[41] The head will be reinterred in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis after a national Mass and funeral in 2011.[43]
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 legitimate 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.
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. |
| Elisabeth, 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. |
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Henri_IV_de_France Henri IV de France] at Wikimedia Commons
|
Henry IV of France
Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty
Born: 13 December 1553 Died: 14 May 1610 |
||
| Regnal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jeanne III |
King of Navarre as Henry III 9 June 1572 – 14 May 1610 |
Succeeded by Louis XIII and II |
| Co-Prince of Andorra 9 June 1572 – 14 May 1610 |
||
| Preceded by Henry III |
King of France 2 August 1589 – 14 May 1610 |
|
| French nobility | ||
| Preceded by Antoine of Navarre |
Duke of Vendôme Duke of Beaumont Count of Marle Count of La Fère Count of Soissons 17 November 1562–1607 |
Merged into the crown |
| Preceded by Henry III of France |
Count of Diois 2 August 1589 – 27 September 1601 |
|
| Count of Provence and Forcalquier Count of Valentinois Dauphin of Viennois 2 August 1589 – 14 May 1610 |
||
| Navarrese royalty | ||
| Preceded by Jeanne III of Navarre |
Duke of Albret Count of Limoges Count of Foix Count of Armagnac Count of Comminges Count of Bigorre Count of Périgord 9 June 1572–1607 |
Merged into the crown |
| Viscount of Béarn Lord of Donezan 9 June 1572 – 14 May 1610 |
||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||