The disrupted youth of Henri IV started in Pau (South West of France). Born in 1553 and assassinated in Paris in 1610, aged 57. He was first King of Navarre under the name of Henri III of Navarre (1572-1610), then King of France under the name of Henri IV of France and Navarre (1589-1610), which earned him the dual title of King of France and Navarre.

The disrupted youth of Henri IV, a turbulent and full life whose story continues long after his death

But the story of Henri IV is particularly rich in events. It was the birth of the Reformed religion, which threw France into civil wars. It was also the period when successive kings would die without heirs, making Henri IV the sole legal heir to the French throne. It was also a time when Henri IV was Protestant, and many in France could not tolerate a non-Catholic king. Last but not least, it was a period when assassinations in the world of high nobility and kings were commonplace.

It was in this disorganized and dangerous world that Henri IV had to navigate, rebuild France, wage war and finally die at just 57 under the knife of the parricide Ravaillac. He was a great king, perhaps the greatest ever to leave his mark on France in such a short space of time.

But the personal story of Henri IV continues 183 years later under the Revolution, only to resurface 403 years after his death in 2013 with his supposed skull, the mystery of which has still not been solved today (see “Henri IV up to and beyond his assassination”).

The story of Henri IV cannot be summed up in a single article. So we’ve divided it into 5 articles that follow on from each other and complete each other:

• The disrupted youth of Henri IV by religious conflicts
• Henri IV and the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (In construction)
• Henri IV and the reconquest of the throne (In construction)
• Henri IV up to and beyond his assassination (In construction)
• Ravaillac, Henri IV’s parricide (In construction)

A major inheritance from his mother

From his mother Jeanne III d’Albret, he inherited a large estate in what is now south-western France: Navarre north of the Pyrenees, Béarn, Albret, Armagnac, Foix and, further north, Périgord and the Viscounty of Limoges. When he was born, a legend spread that he had been baptised with garlic and his grandfather’s Jurançon wine, who wanted him to be brought up ‘à la béarnaise and not in a sluggish French way’.

Henri spent his childhood among the peasants of Béarn, dressed and fed like them, speaking their language, running alongside them and climbing the mountains barefoot. The future king nevertheless received an education that was not as neglected as some would claim. But he would acquire experience of the people and their direct contact, an empiricism that he would apply in war and in the choice of the men around him.

Henri IV is also a descendant of the House of Bourbon and of King Saint Louis (Louis IX)

Antoine de Bourbon, his father, was a direct male descendant of King Saint Louis (Louis IX) through his 6th and last son Robert de France, who was born around 1256 and died on 7 February 1317. He was known as the Count of Clermont, Lord of Saint-Just and Creil, Chamberlain of France. The future Henri IV was therefore a male descendant of King Saint Louis in the tenth generation.

Henri III of Navarre, the future Henri IV, became the first “Prince de Sang” (1574)

François 1er (1494-1547) had 3 sons. The eldest, François, died in 1536. The second, who became king (Henry II) in 1547, was accidentally wounded in a tournament on 30 June 1559 and died 10 days later in excruciating pain. A piece of spear pierced his eye and brain.

His son became king (Francis II) but died the following year in 1560, leaving the crown to his brother Charles IX, who died childless in 1574. The crown then passed to his brother, the 4th and last living son of Henry II, who took the name Henry III (of France).

Henri III of Navarre (and future Henri IV of France) became the first “Prince de Sang” (Prince of the Blood) by virtue of his ancestry as long as Henri III had no children. According to the “Salic Law”, the 1st” prince of the blood” becomes the natural successor to the reigning King of France, if they died without legitimate male descendants. Henri III, who had no children, was assassinated on 1 August and died on 2 August 1589. Henri III (of France) was the last sovereign of the Capetian House of Valois to rule France (The Valois House accession was in 1328 with Philip VI of Valois).

Henri of Navarre (his title was then Henri III of Navarre) therefore became the legitimate king of France as Henri IV.

A cascade of assassinations
On the morning of 23 December 1588, Henri III believed re-establishing his authority through a “coup de majesté”. First he had the Duke of Guise (a Catholic and leader of the League) assassinated and the following day his brother, Cardinal de Guise, judged to be just as dangerous as his brother.
Then it was Henry III’s turn to succumb to the blows of a Dominican Liguer, Jacques Clément, on 1 August 1589.
Finally and twenty years later, Henri IV died on 14 May 1610, assassinated by Ravaillac, a tormented spirit brought up to hate the Huguenots.

The disrupted youth of Henri IV: the king of two religions

Henri was born on the night of 12-13 December 1553 in Pau (south-west of France, at the Spanish border), then the capital of the sovereignty of Béarn, in the castle of his maternal grandfather, Henri d’Albret, King of Navarre. According to the tradition recounted by the chroniclers of the time, Henri, as soon as he was born, was placed in the hands of his grandfather, who rubbed his lips with a clove of garlic and made him breathe a cup of wine. This “Béarn baptism” was a common practice with newborn babies, to prevent illness. It continued in the following centuries for the baptisms of children of the House of France. Henri d’Albret gave him a tortoise shell, which is still on display in a room in the Château of the City of Pau that, according to an uncertain tradition, was Henri IV’s “bedroom”. In accordance with the custom of the Crown of Navarre, he was given the title of Prince of Viane as the eldest son.

The future Henri IV was baptised into the Catholic faith on 6 March 1554 in the chapel of the Château de Pau, by Cardinal d’Armagnac. His godparents were the kings Henri II of France and Henri II of Navarre (hence the choice of the first name Henri), and his godmothers were the queen of France Catherine de Médicis and Isabeau d’Albret, his aunt and widow of the count of Rohan. During the ceremony, the King of France Henri II was represented by the Cardinal de Vendôme, brother of Antoine de Bourbon. But Henri de Navarre was brought up by his mother in the Reformed religion.

His youth was dirupted in 1572 (he was 19 year old) as he has to abjure Protestantism, just after his first marriage to Marguerite de Valois (Catholic) and during the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre (5 days after his mariage). Again a new disruption when he returns to Protestantism in 1576 after managing to flee the French court.

Henri III of Navarre finally solemnly converted back to Catholicism on 25 July 1593, at a ceremony in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which enabled him to be crowned King of France in 1594, not in Reims but in Chartres. History has it that he said on this occasion: “Paris is worth a mass” – although many historians consider it unlikely that he was the one to utter such a controversial phrase in the tense context of the time.

Henri de Navarre in his early disrupted childhood

During his early disrupted childhood in the countryside of his native Béarn at the Château de Coarraze, Henri spent time with the peasants during his hunting trips, and acquired the nickname of ‘Barbaste miller’. Faithful to the spirit of Calvinism, his mother Jeanne d’Albret took care to educate him in strict morality, according to the precepts of the Reformation.

When King Charles IX came to power in 1561, his father Antoine de Bourbon brought his 8-year-old son Henri to live at the French court (Maily Catholics). There he rubbed shoulders with the king and the princes of the royal household who were his own age. His parents disagreed over the choice of religion, his mother wishing to continue educating him in Calvinism and his father in Catholicism.

Wars of religion and the accession to the French throne

Between 1562 and 1598, 8 Wars of Religion took place in the Kingdom of France. They pitted supporters of Catholicism against supporters of Protestantism (the “Huguenots”) in military civil war operations. The Catholics were generally supported by the royal power and its army, but both sides had their own military forces, with the French nobility divided between the two faiths, including the high nobility.

The Eighth War of Religion was particularly long and violent. As early as 1584 (5 years before the assassination of Henri III of France), the Catholic faction, which had become a party (the Catholic League), tried to prevent Henri of Navarre, leader of the Protestant faction (and legal heir of he crown), from becoming King of France on the death of Henri III, who had no children. King Henri III and Henri de Navarre joined forces to fight the Catholic leagues that controlled parts of France – including Paris.

After the assassination of King Henri III of France in 1589 by a beggar brother, the Protestant King Henri IV ascended the throne with the support of some of the Catholic nobility. However, it was only after his conversion to Catholicism (1593) and after nine years of fighting that the last League rebels surrendered. Henri IV defeated the Duke of Mercœur entrenched in Nantes on 28 March 1598. Henri IV promulgated the eighth Edict of Toleration, the Edict of Nantes, in April, which was respected this time.

The Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV (grandson of Henri IV) in October 1685 with the Edict of Fontainebleau. This led to the departure of many industrious Protestants to Switzerland and the northern countries (Netherlands and Germany).

Henri III de Navarre during the first Wars of Religion (1562-1571)

During his youth, Henri de Navarre was constantly torn between the two religions.

During the First War of Religion (1562), Henri was placed in Montargis under the protection of Renée de France, a princess committed to Protestant reform. He was only 11 years.

After the First Religion War and the death of his father (1562), Henri of Navarre (who became Henri III of Navarre on 9 June 1572 and then Henri IV of France on 2 August 1589) was retained at the French Court as guarantor of the entente between the French monarchy and his mother, Jeanne d’Albret, the Queen of Navarre and huguenotte. The latter obtained from Catherine de Médicis (the Regent of France after the death of the king Henri II) control over her son’s education.

From 1564 to 1566, Henri de Navarre even accompanied the royal family on its grand tour of France. During the tour he met up with his mother Jeanne d’Albret, whom he had not seen for two years. He was only 12 years old. In 1567, Jeanne d’Albret brought him back to live with her in Béarn.

When the Third War of Religion broke out in 1568, Henri, aged 15, took part as an observer in his first military campaign in Navarre – on the hugurnot’s side. He then continued his military apprenticeship. Under the tutelage of Admiral de Coligny (Hugunot), he took part in the battles of Jarnac, La Roche-l’Abeille and Moncontour against the Catholics. He fought for the very first time in 1570 – when he was just 17 – at the battle of Arnay-le-Duc.

Following the Huguenot defeat of 16 March 1569 at the Battle of Jarnac, Jeanne d’Albret’s brother-in-law, Louis I de Bourbon-Condé, was captured and then murdered. Gaspard de Coligny assumed command of the Huguenot forces. Contrary to expectations, the Huguenot party held firm. A Catholic attack on Béarn was thwarted (Battle of Orthez in August 1569) and even after the defeat at Moncontour in October, Jeanne d’Albret refused to surrender. But in early 1570, she had to bow to her co-religionists’ willingness to negotiate. She left La Rochelle (Protestant’s town) in August 1571 to return to her homeland.

Henri III of Navarre’s arranged marriage to try to end the Wars of Religion (August 18, 1572)

The marriage agreement

Jeanne d’Albret was the main architect of the negotiation of the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (near Paris), which put an end to the third war in August 1570 after the Catholic army had run out of money.

That same year, as part of the conditions set out in the peace treaty, a marriage of convenience, which Jeanne reluctantly accepted, was arranged between her son Henri of Navarre and the sister of King Charles IX, Marguerite of France (1553-1615), the third daughter of Catherine de Médicis. In exchange Huguenots got the right of holding public office in France, a privilege previously denied to them.

Finally, the two women reached an agreement. Jeanne took leave of Catherine de Médicis following the signing of the marriage contract between Henri and Marguerite on 11 April 1572. The wedding was due to take place on 18 August 1572. Jeanne arrived in Paris on 16 May and took up residence at the Hôtel Guillard, made available to her by the Prince of Condé, to prepare for the wedding.

The death of his mother Jeanne d’Albret before the mariage

On 4 June 1572, two months before the planned wedding date, Jeanne returned home from one of her outings feeling ill. The next morning, she woke up with a fever and complained of pain in the upper right side of her body. She died five days later.

However, the marriage of Henri de Navarre and Marguerite de Valois took place on 18 August 1572. Marguerite, a Catholic, could only marry in front of a priest, while Henri de Navarre could not enter a church, so their wedding was celebrated separately. The bridegroom remained on the forecourt of Notre-Dame.

A grandiose wedding in a poisonous climate

The wedding, celebrated on 18 August 1572, was the occasion for grandiose festivities to which all the great and good of the kingdom were invited, including the Protestants, in a spirit of concord and reconciliation.

A large number of Protestant gentlemen came to escort their prince. But Paris proved to be a fiercely anti-Huguenot city, and the Parisians, Catholics in the extreme, did not accept their presence. As a result of the preachers, Capuchins and Dominicans in particular, the marriage of a daughter of France to a Protestant, even a prince of the blood, was abhorrent to them. What’s more, the people of Paris were very unhappy: the harvests had been poor; the rise in prices and the luxury on display at the royal wedding had heightened their anger.

Rivalries between the great families also reappeared. The Guises were not ready to give way to the Montmorencies. François, Duke of Montmorency and Governor of Paris, was unable to control the urban unrest. Giving in to the danger in Paris, he preferred to leave the city a few days after the wedding.

And it was against this uncertain backdrop that the attack on the Huguenot Coligny took place 4 days after the wedding, followed on day 5 by the massacre of Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s Day. Read more in “Henri IV and St Bartholomew’s Day”.