Henry IV of France

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Henry IV
King of France and Navarre

King of France
Reign 2 August 1589 – 14 May 1610
Coronation 27 February 1594
Predecessor Henry III
Successor Louis XIII
King of Navarre
Reign 9 June 1572 – 14 May 1610
Predecessor Joan III
Successor Louis II
Spouse Margaret of France
Marie de' Medici
Issue
Louis XIII
Elisabeth, Queen of Spain
Christine, Duchess of Savoy
Nicholas Henri, Duke of Orléans
Gaston, Duke of Orléans
Henrietta Maria, Queen of England and Scotland
Father Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme
Mother Joan III of Navarre
Born 13 December 1553(1553-12-13)
Pau, France
Died 14 May 1610 (aged 56)
Paris, France
Burial Saint Denis Basilica, France

Henry IV, (13 December 1553, Pau, capital of Béarn – 14 May 1610, Paris), ruled as King of France from 1589 to 1610 and, as Henry III, 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 Jeanne III of Navarre and her husband, Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme.

As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending the throne in 1589. Once crowned, he changed his faith from Calvinism to Catholicism, but 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

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 IV 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.

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")^{[citation needed]} 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.

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 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:

“ 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, 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 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.