The Children of Adam and Eve

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 andniece 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, sister 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 acceptedhis 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 atCoutras 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 last King of the Valois dynasty) was murdered by a leaguefanatic in 1589, the 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 victories over the league at Arquesand 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, and in 1593 he disarmed his opponents by announcing hisreconversion 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 declaredwar 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 year after he married Marie de M?cis, a distant cousin of the mother of the last Valois Kings. His leading minister, Maximilien de B?une, duc de Sully, reorganized the financesand 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 bydeclaring a moratorium. The system by which officials in finance and the judiciary purchased their offices from the Crown was formalized in 1604 by a tax on office known as the Paulette. At the same time Sully pursued a policy of substitutingroyal 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, amove 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 hisruined Kingdom but he also ensured that the monarchy would be Catholic and absolutist.