Henry III of France

Henry was born at the royal Château de Fontainebleau, the fourth son of King Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. He was a grandson of Francis I of France and Claude of France. His older brothers were Francis II of France, Charles IX of France, and Louis of Valois. He was made Duke of Angoulême and Duke of Orléans in 1560, then Duke of Anjou in 1566.

He was his mother's favourite; she called him chers yeux ("precious eyes") and lavished fondness and affection upon him for most of his life.[1] His elder brother, Charles, grew to detest him, partially because he resented his better health.

The royal children were raised under the supervision of Diane de Poitiers.[2]

In his youth, Henry was considered the best of the sons of Catherine de' Medici and Henry II.[3] Unlike his father and elder brothers, he had little interest in the traditional Valois pastimes of hunting and physical exercise. Although he was both fond of fencing and skilled in it, he preferred to indulge his tastes for the arts and reading. These predilections were attributed to his Italian mother.

At one point in his youth he showed a tendency towards Protestantism as a means of rebelling. At the age of nine, calling himself "a little Huguenot", he refused to attend Mass, sang Protestant psalms to his sister Margaret (exhorting her all the while to change her religion and cast her Book of Hours into the fire), and even bit the nose off a statue of Saint Paul. His mother firmly cautioned her children against such behaviour, and he would never again show any Protestant tendencies. Instead, he became nominally Roman Catholic.[4]

In the factional dispute that engulfed France in the wake of Henry II's death in 1559, Henry was solicited by Henry I, Duke of Guise at the behest of Jacques, Duke of Nemours to run away from court to be a figurehead for the ultra-Catholics.[5] It was however uncovered before any action could be taken.[5]

Henry III by Étienne Dumonstier, c.1578

Reports that Henry engaged in same-sex relations with his court favourites, known as the mignons,[6][7] date back to his own time. Certainly he enjoyed intense relationships with them.[8] The scholar Louis Crompton maintains that all of the contemporary rumours were true.[9] Some modern historians dispute this. Jean-Francois Solnon,[10] Nicolas Le Roux,[11] and Jacqueline Boucher[12] have noted that Henry had many famous mistresses, that he was well known for his taste in beautiful women, and that no male sex partners have been identified. They have concluded that the idea he was homosexual was promoted by his political opponents (both Protestant and Catholic) who used his dislike of war and hunting to depict him as effeminate and undermine his reputation with the French people.[13] Certainly his religious enemies plumbed the depths of personal abuse in attributing vices to him, topping the mixture with accusations of what they regarded as the ultimate devilish vice, homosexuality. And the portrait of a self-indulgent sodomite, incapable of fathering an heir to the throne, proved useful in efforts by the Catholic League to secure the succession for Cardinal Charles de Bourbon after 1585.[8]

Gary Ferguson found their interpretations unconvincing: "It is difficult to reconcile the king whose use of favourites is so logically strategic with the man who goes to pieces when one of them dies."[14] Katherine Crawford, by contrast, emphasizes the problems Henry's reputation encountered because of his failure to produce an heir and the presence of his powerful mother at court, combined with his enemies' insistence on conflating patronage with favouritism and luxury with decadence.[15]

In 1570, discussions commenced arranging for Henry to court Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth, almost 37, was expected by many parties in her country to marry and produce an heir. However, nothing came of these discussions. In initiating them, Elizabeth is viewed by historians as having intended only to arouse the concern of Spain, rather than contemplate marriage seriously. The chance of marriage was further blighted by differing religious views (Henry was Catholic, Elizabeth Protestant) and his opinion of Elizabeth. Henry tactlessly referred to Elizabeth as a putain publique (public whore) and made stinging remarks about their difference in age (he was 18 years younger). Upon hearing (inaccurately) that she limped because of a varicose vein, he called her an "old creature with a sore leg".[4]

The Siege of La Rochelle by the Duke of Anjou in 1573 ("History of Henry III" tapestry, completed in 1623)

In November 1567, upon the death of Anne de Montmorency, Henry assumed the role of Lieutenant-General of France placing him in nominal control of France's military.[16][17] Henry would go on to serve as a leader of the royal army, taking part in the victories over the Huguenots at the Battle of Jarnac (March 1569)[18] and at the Battle of Moncontour (October 1569).[19] At this time he was a rallying point for the ultra-Catholics at court, who saw him as an opposition figure to the toleration line being taken by the King, with Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine guiding his council.[16] Lorraine offered him 200,000 Francs of Church revenue to become a protector of Catholicism, and tried to arrange his marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots however neither project took off.[20]

While still Duke of Anjou, he helped plot the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. Though Henry did not participate directly, historian Thierry Wanegffelen sees him as the royal most responsible for the massacre, which involved the targeted killing of many key Huguenot leaders. Henry III's reign as King of France, like those of his elder brothers Francis and Charles, would see France in constant turmoil over religion.

Henry continued to take an active role in the Wars of Religion, and in 1572/1573 led the siege of La Rochelle, a massive military assault on the Huguenot-held city.[21] At the end of May 1573, Henry learned that the Polish szlachta had elected him King of Poland (a country with a large Protestant minority at the time) and political considerations forced him to negotiate an end to the assault. Negotiators reached an agreement on 24 June 1573, and Catholic troops ended the siege on 6 July 1573.

Under Henry, France named the first Consul of France in Morocco in the person of Guillaume Bérard. The request came from the Moroccan prince Abd al-Malik, who had been saved by Bérard, a doctor by profession, during an epidemic in Constantinople and wished to retain Bérard in his service.[32]

Henry III encouraged the exploration and development of New World territories. In 1588, he granted Jacques Noël, the nephew of Jacques Cartier, privileges over fishing, fur trading, and mining in New France.[33]

Jacques Clément assassinating Henry III

On 1 August 1589, Henry III lodged with his army at Saint-Cloud, and was preparing to attack Paris, when a young fanatical Dominican friar, Jacques Clément, carrying false papers, was granted access to deliver important documents to the king. The monk gave the king a bundle of papers and stated that he had a secret message to deliver. The king signalled for his attendants to step back for privacy, and Clément whispered in his ear while plunging a knife into his abdomen. Clément was then killed on the spot by the guards.

At first, the king's wound did not appear fatal, but he enjoined all the officers around him, in the event that he did not survive, to be loyal to Henry of Navarre as their new king. The following morning, on the day that he was to have launched his assault to retake Paris, Henry III died.

Chaos swept the attacking army, most of it quickly melting away; the proposed attack on Paris was postponed. Inside the city, joy at the news of Henry III's death was near delirium; some hailed the assassination as an act of God.[34]

Henry III was interred at the Saint Denis Basilica. Childless, he was the longest-living of Henry II's sons to have become king and also the last of the Valois kings. Henry III of Navarre succeeded him as Henry IV, the first of the kings of the House of Bourbon.

• Jan Kochanowski, Gallo crocitanti (1576)
• Pierre Matthieu, La Guisiade (1589)

• George Chapman, The Tragedy of Bussy D'Ambois (1607) and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1613)
• John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee, The Duke of Guise (1683)
• Alexandre Dumas, père's Henry III and His Court (1829)
• Christopher Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris (1593)

• Alexandre Dumas, père's novels: La Reine Margot (1845), La Dame de Monsoreau (1846) and Les quarante-cinq (1847).
• Alexandre Dumas Les deux Diane (1846)
• Stanley Weyman, A Gentleman of France (1893), involves the events of Henry's reconciliation with the Huguenots and struggle against the Catholic League, leading to his assassination.
• Last Days of Henry III, King of France at IMDb
• Robert Merle Paris ma bonne ville (1980)
• Robert Merle Le prince que voilà (1982)
• Robert Merle La violente amour (1983)
• Jean Plaidy Queen Jezebel (1953)
• Michel Zevaco Les Pardaillan (1900)
• S.J. Parris Conspiracy (2015)

• The French short film The Assassination of the Duke de Guise (1908) shows the Duke's assassination but not the Cardinal's. The co-director, Charles Le Bargy, plays the Duke.
• The American silent film Intolerance (1916) depicts Henry as effeminate but not explicitly homosexual. He is portrayed by the British-born American actor Maxfield Stanley.
• The French movies La Reine Margot (1954) and La Reine Margot (1994), both based on Alexandre Dumas, père's novel of the same title, are fictional depictions of the lives of Henry III's family, his sister Margot, and her Protestant husband Henry around the time of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. In the 1994 film, Henry is played by the actor Pascal Greggory. In Dumas' novel, Henri was not portrayed as homosexual, whereas, in the 1954 film, he was shown as an effeminate, comical queen. In the 1994 film, he was portrayed as a more sinister character, bisexual and showing sexual interest in his sister. His brother dies by being accidentally poisoned by his mother, who had intended to kill Henry of Navarre instead.
• As the Duke of Anjou, the future Henry III plays a significant role in the French film The Princess of Montpensier, based on the novel of the same title by Madame de La Fayette.
• The film Elizabeth, released in 1998, depicts a fictional courtship between Elizabeth I of England and Henry III while he was still Duke of Anjou. In reality, the two never met and the Queen of England was actually courted nearly ten years later by his younger brother François, Duke of Anjou, when Elizabeth was 46. The film borrows some of the aspects of Henry III's life and features Anjou as a comical foolish transvestite. The role is portrayed by the French actor Vincent Cassel.
• In the film Dangerous Beauty, he has an assignation with the main character, the Venetian courtesan Veronica Franco. Visiting a Venice eager for military aid, the "French king" chooses her from among the famous courtesans of that city because he notices her reluctance; placing a blade at her neck, he tells Veronica that the "rumours" about him are true (that "the king is a pervert"), and the implication is made that Veronica pleases him enormously by first correctly guessing at and then indulging his fetish for BDSM domination. (When the king emerges from Franco's house in the morning, the assembled Venetian nobility awaiting, he smiles broadly while carefully settling his presumably sore posterior on a pillow, and then declares that the French navy shall assist the Venetians against the Ottoman Empire in defense of their rule of Cyprus.) He is played by the British actor Jake Weber.

• In an episode of Animaniacs entitled "The Three Muska-Warners", an Elmer Fudd–like Henri III is protected by Yakko, Wakko and Dot. In this version, Henri is portrayed by Jeff Bennett as nervous and jumpy, and for no apparent reason speaks with an English accent.
• He is also featured in a few episodes in the first and third seasons of the CW show Reign. In the show's fourth season, Henry is played by Nick Slater. With his brother showing little interest in the job, Spain wants Henry to become France's king.

• Chabrier's opéra-comique Le roi malgré lui (1887) deals with the unhappy Polish episode, with Henri as the reluctant King of Poland. In Kraków, he conspires with Polish nobles to depose himself. His friend Nangis changes places with him, but in the end, the plot fails and the curtain falls on Henri being crowned.