840 



HENRI I. (OP FRANCE). 



HENRI IV. (OF FRANCE). , 



350 



bis successor. The government however confided the trust to Mr. 

 Pond, the astronomer royal, who immediately offered Mr. Henderson, 

 on terms of remuneration, employment for a great part of his time. 

 This offer was not accepted : but on the death of Mr. Fallows the 

 Admiralty proposed to Sir. Henderson to succeed him in the charge 

 of the observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. This offer was 

 accepted; and from April 1832, the date of his arrival at the Cape, 

 he must be considered as a professional astronomer. 



After vigorous application to his duties for little more than a year, 

 he found his health and spirits give way. His isolated position and 

 separation from his family, accompanied by the knowledge that he 

 was subject to a disorder of the heart, which might at any time, and 

 which finally did, prove fatal, made him wish to return to Scotland. 

 He came back accordingly in 1833, with a rich store of observations, 

 the redaction of which he imposed upon himself as a voluntary duty. 

 la 1834, by an agreement between the government and the Astro- 

 nomical Institution of Edinburgh, the latter gave up their observatory 

 to the university, the government agreeing to appoint and provide for 

 an astronomer, who was also to hold the professorship of practical 

 astronomy in the university. On the recommendation of the Astro- 

 nomical So'-iety of London, to whom Lord Melbourne applied for 

 advice, Mr. Henderson was appointed the first astronomer royal for 

 Scotland. Here, in the midst of his friends, and in the position 

 which, of all that could have been imagined, he would have chosen 

 for himself, he pursued his observations and researches till hU death, 

 which took place suddenly, November 23, 184*. 



A very full account of Mr. Henderson's astronomical writings will 

 be found in the ' Annual Report of the Astronomical Society for 1845,' 

 with a list of hU writings, which consist of upwards of seventy com- 

 munications, of different degrees of magnitude and importance, to 

 different scientific publications, independently of the volumes of 

 observations which issued from the Edinburgh Observatory. We 

 might particularise what he did on occultations, on the solar and 

 lunar parallaxes, &c. ; but it will better suit our limits and the nature 

 of the subjects, to refer the reader to the memoir just cited, and to 

 confine ourselves to a mention of the manner in which his name is 

 connected with the discovery of the parallax of the fixed stars. Mr. 

 Henderson, when at the Cape, repeated the attempt in which Briuklcy 

 bad failed, namely, the detection of the effect of parallax upon the 

 meridian observations. The stars chosen were o 1 and a- Centauri ; 

 and the results derived from the former star show discordances, both 

 in right ascension and declination, very much resembling those which 

 parallax would cause. Mr. Main, in his elaborate investigation of the 

 modern claims upon this subject (' Mem. Astron. Soc.,' voL xii.) says 

 that in the event of a parallax at all comparable to that assigned by 

 Mr. Henderson being ultimately found to belong to the star, he will 

 deserve the merit of the first discovery. Mr. Maclear, Mr. Henderson's 

 successor, made a new series of observations on the same stars, with 

 a different instrument, from which Mr. Henderson produced results 

 very nearly agreeing with his own. 



The private character and social qualities of Mr. Henderson are 

 among the pleasant recollections of those who knew him. In his 

 astronomical career he resembled his friend Mr. Baily in bringing to 

 his subject the most methodical habits of business. He was well 

 acquainted with astronomical literature, and with other branches of 

 science ; and at different times supplied the places of the professors of 

 mathematics and of natural philosophy in the University of Edin- 

 burgh. He formed a great attachment to the methods of the German 

 astronomers, and his models were MM. Besscl and Struve. His deter- 

 mination to be well acquainted with all that was doing abroad made 

 him collect an astronomical library which, for a man of his very 

 limited means, was of extraordinary extent and goodness ; and those 

 who knew him remember the ready manner in which he coultl produce 

 the results of his reading. Of his writings we may say briefly that, 

 in addition to their valuable masses of observations, they abound in 

 nil that distinguishes the astronomer, properly ao called, from the 

 noter of phenomena. 



HENRI I. of France, son of King Robert, and grandson of Hugues 

 Capet, succeeded his father in July 1031, being then about twenty- 

 seven years of age. Hi mother, Constance of Provence, who wished 

 to favour her younger son Robert, excited a civil war, in which Eudes, 

 count of Champagne, and Baldwin, count of Flanders, took her part, 

 while the Duke of Normandy assisted Henri. Peace was made by 

 Henri giving to his brother Robert the duchy of Burgundy, which was 

 the beginning of the first ducal house of Burgundy. In the year 1035 

 Robert le Diable, duke of Normandy, died ; and his son, William the 

 Bastard, who succeeded him, was assisted by Henri in defeating several 

 rival* who claimed the dakedom. A new pretender however arose 

 dome time after in the person of William of Arques, cousin to the late 

 duke ; and Henri of France, who had now become jealous of the power 

 of William the Bastard, assisted his competitor, who however was in 

 the end defeated by the Bastard about the year 1047. Henri married 

 in 1014 Anna, daughter of Jaroslav, duke of Russia, by whom he had 

 several sons, the eldest of whom, Philip, wag crowned at Rheims in 

 1059, at seven years of ge, by order of his father, who died in the 

 following year, leaving Philip I. under the guardianship of Baldwin, 

 arl of Handera. [BALDWIN IV.] 

 HENRI II., born in 1518, succeeded his father, FranoU I., in 1547. 



In 1550 he concluded the war which was then pending with England, 

 which gave up to him Boulogne for the sum of 400,000 crowns. About 

 this time Mary Stuart, the queen of Scotland, then a minor, came to 

 France under the guardianship of her uncles of Guise, and was betrothed 

 to Francis, eon of Henri. In 1552 Henri assisted Maurice, elector of 

 Saxony, and Albert, marquis of Brandenburg, who had united for the 

 defence of the religious and civil liberties of Germany against 

 Charles V. Henri invaded Lorraine, and took Metz, Toul, and 

 Verdun, which were from that time annexed to France. It is curious 

 to see the French government, which persecuted Protestantism at 

 home, taking up arms for the professed purpose of supporting the 

 Protestants of Germany. After the abdication of Charles V. the war 

 continued between his successor Philip II. and Henri, whose troops, 

 under the command of the Constable Montmorency, were defeated by 

 the Spaniards at the battle of St. Quentin in 1557 : the French arms 

 were likewise unsuccessful on the side of Italy, where the Duke of 

 Alba commanded the Spaniards. The war ended in 1559 by the peace 

 of Chftteau-Cambresis, by which Calais, which had been taken the year 

 before by the Duke of Guise, remained in the hands of the French. 

 At the same time a double marriage was concluded between Elizabeth, 

 Henri's daughter, and Philip II. of Spain ; and between Margaret, 

 Henri's sister, and the Duke of Savoy. The festivals given on this 

 occasion had a tragical end. Henri was accidentally wounded at a 

 tournament by the Count of Montgomery with the shaft of his broken 

 spear, which struck the king on the right eye. Henri died shortly 

 after, July 10th 1559. By his wife, Catherine de' Medici, he had four 

 sons, of whom three reigned in succession after him, beginning with 

 the eldest, Frauds II. He also left several natural children by various 

 mistresses. He had none however by his principal female favourite, 

 Diana de Poitiers, whom he made Duchess of Valentinois, and who 

 survived him. The great influence of the Guises began under his 

 reign. [GuisE, DUKES OF.] 



HENRI III., born at Foutainebleau in 1551, was the third son of 

 Henri II. Under the reign of his brother, Charles IX., when he was 

 called the Duke of Anjou, he fought courageously at the battles of 

 Jarnac and Moncontour against the Huguenots. In 1573 ha was elected 

 King of Poland and the successor of Sigismund Augustus. Henri was 

 crowned at Cracow ; but a few months after, upon hearing of the death 

 of his brother, Charles IX., he suddenly quitted Poland and returned 

 to France, whera he assumed the title of Henri III. His reign was a 

 reign of unworthy favourites. A mixture of bigotry and debauchery, 

 of vice and folly, characterised his court. Under his weak administra- 

 tion, factious and civil and religious wars desolated France ; and instead 

 of checking party spirit he was himself the leader of a party, and that 

 party not the strongest. The king's party stood between the other 

 two parties, that of the Ligueurs under Henri of Guise and that of tho 

 Huguenots under Henri of Navarre, and the war which ensued was 

 appropriately called tho War of the Three Henris. At last Paris 

 revolted in favour of the Guises, and Henri had recourse to assassin- 

 ation, by cauiiing the Duke of Guise and his brother the cardinal to be 

 murdered. Most of the towns of France, indignant at this base act, 

 rebelled; the parliament of Paris instituted his trial; and the pope 

 excommunicated him. In this emergency, Henri felt for a moment 

 his old spirit revive ; he applied for assistance to his generous enemy, 

 Henri of Navarre, who joined him with his army, repulsed the Duke 

 of Mayenne, the leader of tho League, and the two kings laid siege to 

 Paris. During this siege a Dominican monk, named Jacques CMtnent, 

 excited by the declamations of tho Ligueurs, assassinated Henri III. 

 at St. Cloud. Henri died on the 2nd of August 1589. He left no 

 issue, and in him terminated the dynasty of Valois, which had reigned 

 in France since the accession of Philip VI. in 1328. 



HENRI IV., king of Franco and of Navarre, born at Pau in the 

 Beam, the 15th of December 1553, was descended in a direct line 

 from Robert, count of Clermont, sixth son of Louis IX., who married, 

 in 1272, Beatrix of Burgundy, heiress of Bourbon, and assumed the 

 arms and the name of Bourbon. [BOURBON.] Henri's father, Antoino 

 de Bourbon, married Jeanne d'Albret, only daughter and heiress of 

 Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre, after whose death, in 1535, Antoine 

 became king of Navarre in right of his wife. Henri IV., during his 

 youthful years, was trained up to hardiness and privations iu his 

 native mountains, after which he was sent to the French court till 

 1566, when his mother Jeanne d'Albert recalled him to Pau and had 

 him instructed in the Calvinist communion. In 1569 he was acknow- 

 ledged at La Rochelle as the leader of the Calvinists, and fought at 

 the battles of Jarnac and Moncontour in the same year. After the 

 peace of 1570 he was invited to the French court, and two years after 

 he married Margaret, sister of Charles IX. By the death of his 

 mother, June 1572, he became King of Navarre. At the massacre of 

 the St. Barthdlemi, which followed close upon his marriage, Henri's 

 life was spared on condition of his becoming a Roman Catholic ; but 

 aa the court did not trust a conversion which was extorted by fear, 

 he was kept under watch as a state prisoner for about three years. 

 Having escaped in 1576, he put himself again at the head of the 

 Calvinists, and began a series of hazardous and hard -fought campaigns, 

 interrupted by short cessations of arms whenever Henri III. of France 

 mad* promises of peace and toleration to his Calvinist subjects, 

 promises which he or the Guise never failed to break. Henri won the 

 battle of Coutras in Guyenne, October, 1587, iu which hia antagonist 



