Henri IV of France

b. 1553 Pau; d. (assassinated) 1610

King of France and Navarre, born in the castle of Pau, the son of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne d'Albret, the heiress of Navarre. He was educated as a Calvinist, and after 1569 was recognised as the Huguenot leader of France. Henri fought at Jarnac, and led the Protestants in the religious wars raging in France at this time. In 1572 he married Margaret of Valois, the sister of the King of France, but within a week followed the Massacre of St Bartholomew. Henri temporarily renounced his religion and escaped to Alençon, where he repudiated that renunciation and again put himself at the head of the Protestants (1576).

Later, Henri III recognised Henri as his successor, and on the death of the King in 1589 Henri of Navarre became nominally 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. He was victorious at Ivry and Arques, but failed to take Paris. In 1593, however, declaring that 'Paris was worth a Mass', he permanently renounced Protestantism and his entrance into the Catholic Church secured for him the allegiance of the vast majority of his subjects, whilst the Edict of Nantes (1598) gave complete toleration to his former co-religionists, the Huguenots.

The Peace of Vervins ended the war with Spain, and Henri was at last free to turn to the internal affairs of the country. With his minister, Sully, he reformed the finances of the country, centralised the government and, above all, reduced the power of the nobles. Commerce and trade received great impetus, and the national debt was much reduced. Just after the coronation of his second queen, Marie de Médici, and while he was on the point of setting out to fight in Germany, he was assassinated by a religious fanatic. His popularity and ability were considerable; and his notoriously lax private life did not prevent him from being one of France's most outstanding rulers.

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