Nicholas Henry Duke Of ORLEANS

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Henry III Of Navarre

Notes:

Henry IV (French: Henri IV; December 13, 1553 ? May 14, 1610), was the first monarch of the Bourbon dynasty in France.

As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending to the throne; to become king he converted to Catholicism and in 1598 promulgated 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, FranÁois 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").
Although baptized 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. In 1572, upon Jeanne's death, he became King Henry III of Navarre.

On 18 August 1572, Henry married Marguerite de Valois, sister of King Charles IX. Henry's marriage was believed by most to be an effort to bring religious peace to the kingdom. However, leading Catholics (possibly including Catherine de Medicis, mother of the bride) secretly planned a massacre of Protestants gathered in Paris for the wedding. In the resulting Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, on 24 August, several thousand Protestants were killed in Paris and thousands more in the countryside. Henry escaped death only by pretending to convert to Roman Catholicism. 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 FranÁois, Duke of AlenÁon, brother and heir to the Catholic King Henry III, who had succeeded 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. 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 Henrys 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 extremists. 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 in 1589, Henry 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, 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'EstrÈes, on 25 July 1593 Henry declared that Paris vaut bien une messe ("Paris is well worth a Mass") and permanently renounced Protestantism, thus earning the resentment of 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.

Monarchical Styles of
King Henry IV
Par la gr‚ce 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. The two had separated, even before Henry had succeeded to the throne, in August, 1589 and Marguerite de Valois lived for many years in the chateau of Usson in Auvergne. After Henry had become king, various advisers impressed upon him the desirability of providing an heir to the French Crown, in order to avoid the problem of a disputed succession. Henry himself favored the idea of obtaining an annulment of his first marriage, and taking Gabrielle d'EstrÈes as a bride, who had already borne him three children. Henry's councillors strongly opposed this idea, but the matter was resolved unexpectedly by Gabrielle d'EstrÈes' sudden death in 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 MÈdicis 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 prÍte 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, every working man in my kingdom will have a chicken in the pot every Sunday, at the least!
This egalitarian statement epitomizes 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 success also contrasted dramatically with the sickly, effete langour 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 armÈ et le cul sur la selle).

During his reign, Henry 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 public works, and encourage education, as with the creation of the College Royal Louis-Le-Grand in La FlËche (today PrytanÈe Militaire de la FlËche). 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 1200m canal built in the park at the Royal Chateau at Fontainebleau (which can be fished today), and ordered the planting of pines, elms and fruit trees.

Statue of Henry IV on the Pont NeufThe 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 Gallerie 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 peoples, 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 has since become known as the Henry 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.

Death and aftermath
Although he was a man of kindness, compassion, and good humor, and was much loved by his people[citation needed], he was the subject of many murder attempts (for example by Pierre BarriËre and Jean Ch‚tel). On 14 May 1610, King Henry IV was assassinated in Paris by FranÁois Ravaillac, who stabbed the king to death while he rode in his coach. Henry was buried at the Saint Denis Basilica. Henry's widow, Marie de MÈdicis, served as Regent to their 9-year-old son, Louis XIII, until 1617.

The reign of Henry IV made a lasting impact on the French people for generations after. A statue of Henry was erected on the Pont Neuf in Paris in 1614, only four years after his death. Although this statue - as well as those of all the other French kings - was destroyed during the French Revolution, it was the first one to be rebuilt, in 1818, and it still stands today on the Pont Neuf. A cult surrounding the personality of Henri IV emerged during the Restoration. The restored Bourbons were keen to downplay the contested reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, and instead emphasized the reign of the benevolent Henry IV. The song Vive Henri IV ("Long Live Henry IV") was used during the Restoration, as an unofficial anthem of France, played in the absence of the king. In addition, when Princess Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies gave birth to a male heir to the throne of France, seven months after the assassination of her husband Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry by a Republican fanatic, the boy was conspicuously called Henri in reference to his forefather Henry IV (see Henri, comte de Chambord). The boy was also baptized in the traditional way of BÈarn/Navarre, with a spoon of vinegar and some garlic, as had been done when Henry IV had been baptized in Pau, although this custom had not been followed by any Bourbon king after Henry IV.

Today, while the rest of France marks the end of monarchist rule each year on Bastille Day, in Henry's birthplace of Pau, his reign as king of France is celebrated. It is a testament to the people's love and affection for Henry IV, whom the French people call 'le Grand' or 'The Great'.

Additionally, Henry IV had at least 11 illegitimate children. [1]

By Gabrielle d'EstrÈe:

CÈsar de Bourbon, Duke of VendÙme b.1594 1596(ligitimized) d.1665 married FranÁoise of Mercoeur and had issue.
In 1626, he participated in a plot against Cardinal Richelieu. He was captured and held in prison for three years. In 1641 he was accused of conspiracy again and this time fled to England.

Catherine-Henriette de Bourbon b.1596 1598(legitimized) d,1663 married Charles of Guise-Lorraine, Duke of Elbeuf.
Alexandre, Chevalier de VendÙme b.1598 1599(legitimized) d.1629

By Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil:

Gaston Henri, Duc de Verneuil b.1601 1603(legitimized) d.1682 Married Charlotte Seguier, daughter of Pierre SÈguier, Duc de Villemor.
Gabrielle Angelique, called Mademoiselle de Verneuil b.1603 d. 1627 Married Bernard de Nogaret de Foix, Duc de La Valette et d'Epernon.

By Jacqueline de Bueil, Countess de Moret (1580-1651):

Antoine, Count de Moret b.1607 1608(legitimed) d.1632 Abbot of St. Etienne

By Charlotte des Essarts, Countess de Romorantin:

Jeanne Baptiste b.1608 1608(legitimized) d. 1670 Abbess of Fontevrault.
Marie Henriette b.1609 d.1629 Abbess of Chelles.

Henry married Maria DE'MEDICI in Oct 1600. Maria (daughter of Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco DE'MEDICI, I and Johanna Of AUSTRIA) was born on 26 Apr 1573 in Florence; died on 03 Jul 1642 in Cologne. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Marie de' Medici [1] (April 26, 1573, Florence ? July 3, 1642, Cologne), born in Italy as Maria de' Medici, was queen consort of France under the French name Marie de MÈdicis. She was the second wife of King Henry IV of France, of the Bourbon branch of the kings of France. Later she was the regent for her son King Louis XIII of France
Born in Florence, Italy, she was the daughter of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and of Johanna, archduchess of Austria (1548 ? 1578). Her maternal grandparents were Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anne of Bohemia. Anne was a daughter of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and his wife Anne de Foix.

Uncommonly pretty in her youth, in October 1600 she married Henri IV of France, following the annulment of his marriage to Marguerite de Valois. She brought as part of her dowry 600,000 crowns. Her eldest son, the future King Louis XIII, was born at Fontainebleau the following year.

Infighting, unhappy marriage
The marriage was not a successful one. The queen feuded with Henri's mistresses, in language that shocked French courtiers. Her largest infighting was with her husband's leading mistress, Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, whom he had promised he would marry following the death of his former official mistress, Gabrielle d'EstrÈes. When he failed to do so, and instead married Marie, the result was constant bickering and political intrigues behind the scenes. Although the king could have easily banished his mistress, supporting his queen, he never did so. She, in turn, showed great sympathy and support to her husband's banished ex-wife, Margaret of Valois, prompting Henri to allow her back into the realm.

During her husband's lifetime Marie showed little sign of political taste or ability. Hours after Henri's assassination in 1610 she was confirmed as Regent by the Parlement of Paris. She banished from the court his mistress, Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues. However, not very bright, extremely stubborn, and growing obese, she was soon entirely under the influence of her unscrupulous Italian favourite, Concino Concini, who was created Marquis d'Ancre and Marshal of France.

They dismissed Henri IV's able minister the duc de Sully. Through Concini and the Regent, Italian representatives of the Roman Catholic Church hoped to force the suppression of Protestantism in France. Half Habsburg herself, she abandoned the traditional anti-Habsburg French policy. Throwing her support with Spain, she arranged the marriage of both the future king Louis and his sister Elizabeth to members of the Spanish Habsburg royal family.

Politics
Under the regent's lax and capricious rule, the princes of the blood and the great nobles of the kingdom revolted, and the queen, too weak to assert her authority, consented (15 May 1614) to buy off the discontented princes. The opposition was led by Henri de Bourbon-CondÈ, Duc d'Enghien, who pressured Marie into convoking the Estates General (1614-15), the last time they would meet in France until the opening events of the French Revolution.

In 1616 her policy was strengthened by the accession to her councils of Richelieu, who had come to the fore at the meeting of the Estates General. However, in 1617 her son Louis XIII, already several years into his legal majority, asserted his authority. The king effectively overturned the pro-Hapsburg, pro-Spanish policy by ordering the assassination of Concini, exiling the Queen to the Ch‚teau Blois and appointing Richelieu to his bishopric.

After two years of virtual imprisonment "in the wilderness" as she put it, she escaped from Blois in the night of 21/22 February 1619 and became the figurehead of a new aristocratic revolt headed by Gaston d'Orleans, which Louis' forces easily dispersed. Through the mediation of Richelieu the king was reconciled with his mother, who was allowed to hold a small court at Angers. She resumed her place in the royal council in 1621.

Coronation of Marie de' Medici in St. Denis (detail), Paris, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1622-1625The portrait by Rubens (above right) was painted at this time. Marie rebuilt the Luxembourg Palace (Palais du Luxembourg) in Paris, with an extravagantly flattering cycle of paintings by Rubens as part of the luxurious decor (left).

After the death of his favorite, the duke of Luynes, Louis turned increasingly for guidance to Richelieu. Marie de Medici's attempts to displace Richelieu ultimately led to her attempted coup; for a single day, the journÈe des dupes, 12 November 1630, she seemed to have succeeded; but the triumph of Richelieu was followed by her exile to CompiËgne in 1630, from where she escaped to Brussels in 1631 and Amsterdam in 1638.

Her entry into Amsterdam was considered a triumph by the Dutch, as her visit lent official recognition to the newly formed Dutch Republic. Spectacular displays (by Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert) and water pageants took place in the city?s harbor in celebration of her visit. There was a procession led by two mounted trumpeters; a large temporary structure erected on an artificial island in the Amstel River was built especially for the festival. The structure was designed to display a series of dramatic tableaux in tribute to her once she set foot on the floating island and entered its pavilion. Afterwards she was offered an Indonesian rice table by the burgomaster Albert Burgh. He also sold her a famous rosary, captured in Brazil, which she would like to have. The visit prompted Caspar Barlaeus to write his Medicea hospes ("The Medicean Guest") (1638).

Marie subsequently travelled to Cologne, where she died in 1642, scheming against Richelieu to the end.

HonorÈ de Balzac encapsulated the Romantic generation's negative view:

"Marie de' Medici, all of whose actions were prejudicial to France, has escaped the shame which ought to cover her name. Marie de' Medici wasted the wealth amassed by Henri IV; she never purged herself of the charge of having known of the king's assassination; her intimate was d'…pernon, who did not ward off Ravaillac's blow, and who was proved to have known the murderer personally for a long time. Marie's conduct was such that she forced her son to banish her from France, where she was encouraging her other son, Gaston, to rebel; and the victory Richelieu at last won over her (on the Day of the Dupes) was due solely to the discovery the cardinal made, and imparted to Louis XIII, of secret documents relating to the death of Henri IV." ? Essay "Catherine de Medicis".