Descendants of Henry IV of France

Extracted miniature from a book of prayers of Catherine de' Medici, representing Henry and Margaret as King and Queen of Navarre.

The coronation of Henry of Navarre as Henry IV of France.

Henri de Bourbon was born in Pau, the capital of the French province of Béarn.[1] Although baptised as a Roman Catholic, Henry was raised as a Protestant by his mother Jeanne d’Albret. On 9 June 1572, upon Jeanne's death, he became King Henry III of Navarre.[2]

When Henry was a boy, it seemed highly unlikely that he would ever inherit the throne of France, since Henry II had produced four surviving sons. However, his male-line pedigree gave him a special place of honour in the French nobility, since all sons of the Bourbon line were acknowledged as the princes of the blood. As the senior male representative of that line, Henry was officially the First Prince of the Blood.

Henry of Navarre became the legal heir to the French throne upon the death in 1584 of François, Duke of Alençon, brother and heir presumptive of the Catholic King Henry III. Because of Henry's status as the Prince du Sang, Henry III had no choice but to recognise him as the legitimate successor. The Salic law disinherited the king's sisters and all others who could claim descent by the distaff line. He was then the closest relative of the king in the legitimate male line, and as such the next senior-most representative of the House of Capet after the king himself. Catherine de Medici, the King's mother, had attempted to unite Valois and Bourbon interests. In 1572, by which time only two of her sons remained alive, she brokered a marriage between her daughter Marguerite of Valois and Henry.

On the death of Henry III on 2 August 1589, Henri of Navarre nominally became the King of France. But the powerful Catholic League, strengthened by support from Spain, forced him to the south and he had to set about winning his kingdom by military conquest, aided by money and troops bestowed by Protestant England. This set off the War of the Three Henries phase of the French Wars of Religion. The League proclaimed Henry's Catholic uncle Charles, 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.

With the encouragement of the great love of his life, Gabrielle d'Estrées, on 25 July 1593 Henry declared that Paris vaut bien une messe ("Paris is well worth a mass") and permanently renounced Protestantism, thus earning him the allegiance of the vast majority of his subjects and the resentment of his former allies. He was crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Chartres on 27 February 1594. In 1598, he declared the Edict of Nantes, which gave circumscribed toleration to the Huguenots. However, this action angered fanatical Catholics, who wanted Protestantism rooted out for good, and could see that Henry had no intention to do so. Therefore, in 1610, Henry was assassinated by a fanatical Catholic, François Ravaillac.[3]