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He was the first Bourbon king of France, who restored stability after the
religious wars of the 16th century.
His father was descended in the ninth generation from the 13th-century
king of France, Louis IX. His mother was queen of Navarre and niece of
King Francis I of France.
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, sist
of the reigning monarch, Charles IX, was followed by the Massacre of Saint
Bartholomew's Day, in which thousands of Huguenots were slain on the
king's order (see Saint Bartholomew' 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 Huguenot movement. Although he accepted h
unwilling wife at his court in Navarre, neither respected the marriage
vows.
Military Leader
Henry's storming of the fortress town of Cahors in 1580 launched his
career as an intrepid military leader. In many subsequent battles his
white plume was to be found wherever the fighting was fiercest. He won
another brilliant victory at Coutras in 1587, and two years later formed
an alliance with Charles IX's successor, Henry III, against the Catholic
League, which was dominated by the Guise family. When Henry III (the la
king of the Valois dynasty) was murdered by a league fanatic in 1589, t
Huguenot leader, who was next in line for the throne, proclaimed himself
king as Henry IV.
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 victori
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 the leaguers, a
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. In 1595, when he officially
declared war on Spain, the pope granted him absolution. He could no longer
rely on the Huguenots, who drove a hard bargain to secure a new edict of
toleration. This was granted at Nantes in 1598, and it was followed by a
peace treaty with Spain. After that, serious resistance to his rule ended.
Henry as King
In 1599 Henry secured papal annulment of his first marriage, and the ye
after he married Marie de Mdicis, a distant cousin of the mother of the
last Valois kings. His leading minister, Maximilien de Bthune, duc de
Sully, reorganized the finances and promoted the economic recovery of
France after decades of civil war. Agriculture, manufacturing, and
commerce were encouraged, the burden of taxation upon the peasantry
reduced, and the nobility relieved from the pressure of debt by declari
a moratorium. The system by which officials in finance and the judiciary
purchased their offices from the Crown was formalized in 1604 by a t
office known as the paulette. At the same time Sully pursued a policy of
substituting royal officers for those employed by local representative
bodies. Until 1609 these measures were accompanied by an external policy
of peace. In that year 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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Hamm Family History (We are all related)
1553 - 1610 (56 years)
