Henry IV of France

Henry IV ( December 13 , 1553 - May 14 , 1610 ) was King of France from 1589 -1610, the first of the Bourbon kings of France . He was the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome and Jeanne d'Albret , Queen of Navarre. Henry was born in Pau , Pyrénées-Atlantiques , in the southwest of France.

On August 18 1572 Henry married Marguerite de Valois , sister of the then King Charles IX . In the same year he became king Henry III of Navarre , succeeding his mother Jeanne d'Albret, who had brought him up as a Huguenot . Jeanne herself was also a Protestant, and had declared Calvinism the religion of Navarre. Henry's marriage was part of a plan to help quell the French Wars of Religion . As part of this plan, he was forcedto convert to Roman Catholicism on February 5 , 1576 , and kept in confinement, but later that year hegained his freedom and resumed Protestantism.

He became the legal heir to the French throne upon the death in 1584 of François, Dukeof Alençon, brother and heir to King Henri III , who hadsucceeded 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. ( Saliclaw disinherited the king's sisters and all others who could claim descent by distaff line.) In December 1588 King Henry IIIhad the Duke of Guise and that man's brother the Cardinal, murdered. Henry had to flee Paris and joined forces with Henri ofNavarre, but died shortly thereafter. On the death of the king in 1589, Henri of Navarre became nominally the king of France. Butthe Catholic League , strengthened by supportfrom outside, especially from Spain, was strong enough to force him to the south, and he had to set about winning his kingdom bymilitary conquest. He was victorious at Ivry and Arques, but failed totake Paris.

With the encouragement of the great love of his life, Gabrielle d'Estrée , on July 25 , 1593 he declared that Paris vaut bien une messe (Paris was worth a Mass) and permanently renouncedProtestantism. His entrance into the Roman CatholicChurch 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 February 27 , 1594 . In 1598 ,however, he declared the Edict of Nantes , which gave circumscribedtoleration to the Huguenots .

Henry's first marriage was not a happy one, and the couple remained childless. Even before Henry had succeeded to the thronein August, 1589 the two had separated, and Marguerite deValois lived for many years in the chateau of Usson in Auvergne . After Henryhad become king various advisers impressed upon him the desirability of providing an heir to the French Crown in order to avoidthe problem of a disputed succession. Henry himself favored the idea of obtaining an annulment of his first marriage and taking Gabrielle d'Estrée as a bride, who had already borne himthree children. Henry's councillors strongly opposed this idea, but the matter was resolved unexpectedly by Gabrielle d'Estrée'ssudden death in April 1599, after she had given birth prematurely to a stillborn son.

Henry IV proved to be a man of vision and courage. Instead of waging costly war to suppress opposing nobles, Henri simply paidthem off. As king, he adopted policies and undertook projects to improve the lives of all subjects that would make him one of thecountry's most popular rulers ever.

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 publicworks, and encourage education as with the creation of the College Royal Louis-Le-Grand in La Fleche (today Prytanee Militaire de la Fleche ). He and Sully protected forests from further desecration,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 fishedtoday), and ordered the planting of pines, elms and fruit trees.

The king renewed Paris as a great city with the Pont Neuf , which still standstoday, 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 he added the Grande Galerie to the Louvre . More than a quarter of a mile long and one hundred feet wide, this huge addition wasbuilt along the bank of the Seine River and at the time was the longest edifice of its kind in the world. King Henri IV, apromoter of the arts by all classes of peoples, invited hundreds of artists and craftsmen to live and work on thebuilding’s lower floors. This tradition continued for another two hundred years until Emperor Napoleon I banned it.

King Henri's vision extended beyond France and he financed the expeditions of Samuel de Champlain to North America that saw France lay claim to Canada .

Although he was a man of kindness, compassion, and good humor, and much loved by his people, King Henri IV was assassinated on 14 May , 1610 in Paris, by a fanatic called François Ravaillac , and was buried at Saint Denis Basilica . His widow, Marie de Médicis , served as Regent to their 9-year-old son, Louis XIII until 1617 .

While the rest of France marks the end of monarchist rule each year on Bastille Day , in Henri's birthplace of Pau, his reign as king of France is celebrated.

Marriages

On August 18 , 1572 , he married, firstly, Marguerite de Valois , annulled in 1599, with nochildren.

On December 17 , 1600 , he married,secondly, Marie de Médicis with six children:

Children

1. Louis XIII ( September 27 , 1601 - May 14 , 1643 )
2. Elisabeth deFrance ( November 22 , 1602 - October 6 , 1644 ) - married Philip IV of Spain on November 25 , 1615 in Bordeaux
3. Christine ( February 12 , 1606 - December 27 , 1663 )
4. Nicholas ( April 16 , 1607 - November 17 , 1611 )
5. Gaston, Duke of Orleans ( April 25 , 1608 - February 2 , 1660 )
6. Henriette-Marie ( November 25 , 1609 - September 10 , 1669 ) - married Charles I of England on May 11 , 1625 by proxy

External link

• Biography