HENRY IV, known as HENRY or NA VARRE, king of France: b. Pau, 13 Dec. 1553; d. 14 May 1610. He was a son of Anthony of Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, and of Jeanne d'Albret, daughter of Henry, king of Navarre, and herself afterward queen of Navarre. Educated by his mother in the Calvinistic faith, he early joined, at her wish, the Protestant army of France, and served under Admiral Coligny. In 1572 he married Margaret of Va lois, sister of Charles IX, and after the mas sacre of Saint Bartholomew, which took place during the festivities in connection with this marriage, adopted the Roman Catholic creed. For the next four years he was compelled to reside in Paris, but 3 Feb. 1576 succeeded in making his escape, and after retracting, at Tours, the abjuration of Calvinism which he had made at Paris, put himself at the head of the Huguenots and took a leading part in all the subsequent religious wars. He occupied a still more important position when, in 1584, the death of the Duc d'Anjou, brother of the king (Henry III), made him presumptive 'heir to the Crown as descended from Robert. Count of Clermont, the sixth son of Louis IX. Re jected by the Roman Catholic party and the League as a heretic, Henry found himself obliged to resort to arms to assert his claims. On 20 Oct. 1587 with an inferior force he de feated the army of the League at Contras. In 1589 he became king through the assassination of Henry III (q.v.), but found innumerable difficulties in establishing his claims. His Protestant religion was brought forward by all the competitors to prejudice the Catholics against him. At the head of the opposite party stood the Duke de Mayenne. Philip II of Spain also claimed the French throne and sent aid to the League. Henry IV defeated his enemies in the celebrated engagement of Ivry (14 March 1590). In consequence of this vic tory Paris was besieged, and Henry IV was upon the point of compelling the citizens to surrender by famine, when the Spanish gen eral, Alexander, Duke of Parma, by a skilful maneuver, obliged him to raise the siege. Con vinced that he should never enjoy quiet pos session of the French throne without profess ing the Catholic faith, Henry at length yielded to the wishes of his friends, was instructed in the doctrines of the Roman Church, and pro fessed the Catholic faith, 23 July 1593, in the church of Saint Denys. He was anointed
king at Chartres in 1594, and entered the capi tal amid the acclamations of the people. He quickly brought France entirely into subjec tion, and concluded the war against Spain in 1598 by the Peace of Vervins, to the advan tage of France. The same year was signalized by the granting of the Edict of Nantes, which secured to the Protestants entire religious lib erty and freed them from all political disabili ties. Henry made use of the tranquillity which followed to restore the internal prosperity of his kingdom, and particularly the wasted fi nances. In this design he was so successful, with the aid of his prime minister Sully, that the national debt of 350,000,000 livrcs was di minished by 125,000,000, and 41,000,000 livres were laid up in the treasury. As Henry was riding through the streets of Paris he was stabbed by the fanatic Ravaillac.
The great benefits which Henry IV be stowed upon France entitle him to the designa tion which he himself assumed at an assembly of the Notables at Rouen in 1596, the Regen erator of France. His benevolent mind, his paternal love for his subjects, his great achieve ments, his heart, always open to truth, though it exposed his own faults, have preserved his memory in the hearts of the nation. To the end of his life he had to contend against the governors of provinces, Protestant as well as Catholic, who had rendered themselves almost independent under the last kings of the house of Valois. Many of the acts of his internal government show that, while he aimed at re storing the prosperity of the nation by encour aging agriculture, commerce and manufactur ing industries, he was determined by all means in his power to strengthen the authority of the Crown. In his foreign policy Henry IV re vived the projects of Francis I and Henry II against the house of Austria, and re-established the influence of France in the Catholic states of Italy. He supported Holland in its revolt against Spain; allayed the bitterness of feeling between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, and induced them to form the Evangelical Union. Consult Burton, The Fate of Henry of Na 'ure' (1911) ; Lacombe, (Henri IV et Sa Poli tique) (1878); Perefisce, of Henri IV' (Eng. trans., 1904); Poirson, (Histoire du regne de Henri IV' (1862-67) ; Willem 'Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots in France' (1893).