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HENRI IV. (OF PRANCE). 



HENRY L (OF ENGLAND). 



the Duke of Joyeua* was killed. In 1589 be made his peace with 

 lUnri HI., and joined him again.t the League. Henri III. before he 

 expired ukiued tho king of Navarre as hi* ucceor, telling him at the 

 une time that he wUhrU him a quieter reign than hi* own had been. 

 Hrnri however wa oppo*ed by one half of the kingdom, which 

 obeyed the Duke of Mayrnne, whom the parliament of Parii hod 

 appointed Liutnant-Oener*l, and he wu obliged to raise the (leg* 

 of the capital. 



He icon after gained the battle* of Arquci and Ivry, received some 

 reinfurcemeuto from Elisabeth of England, and pursued the war with 

 reiMWrd vigour. At last in 1593 Henri began negotiations with 

 even! of the leaden of the League, and as a preliminary condition 

 of their submission he wu induced to make a public profession of the 

 Roman Catholic faith at St. Denis on the 25th of July of that year. 

 In Harch 1504 Paris opened its gates to him, and Rouen and other 

 citu-a followed the example of the capital Charles, duke of Guise, 

 likewise made his submission. In the following year the pope acknow- 

 ledged Henri, and in 1596 the Duke of Mayenne submitted. It 

 wan not however till 1598 that all France acknowledged Henri, nine 

 yean after his assumption of tho crowu. The peace of Vervins, 

 concluded in that year, put an end to the interference of Spain in tho 

 affairs of France. From that time till his death Heuri enjoyed peace, 

 with the exception of a abort campaign against the Duke of Savoy in 

 the year 1600, which terminated in favour of the French arms. 



The king applied himself to reform the administration of justice, to 

 restore order in the finances, and to promote industry and commerce. 

 He established new manufactories ; he introduced plantations of 

 mulberry-trees and the rearing of silkworms, and ho began tie 

 botanical garden of Montpellier. He embellished Paris, and founded 

 the hospital of La Charite" Chre'tienne for invalid officers and soklien; 

 he added to the collection in the royal library, and encouraged and 

 rewarded men of learning, among others Grotius, Isaac Cosaubon, 

 Joseph Scaliger, Da Thou, Malherbe, &c. In his foreign politics he 

 was the ally of England ; he supported the independence of Holland, 

 and took the part of the Protestants of Germany against the 

 encroachments of Rudolf II. Henri was censured for his change 

 of religion, and by none more earnestly than by his faithful friend and 

 counsellor, Duplessis Mornay. On the other hand, many of the Roman 

 Catholics never believed his conversion to be sincere. But the truth 

 probably was that Henri, accustomed from his infancy to the life of 

 camps and the hurry of dissipation, was not capable of serious religious 

 meditation, and that he knew as little of the religion which he forsook 

 as of that which he embraced. In his long conference at Chartres in 

 September 1593 with Duplessis Mornay, which took place after his 

 abjuration, he told his friend that the step he had taken was one not 

 only of prudence but of absolute necessity ; that his affections remained 

 the same towards his friends and subjects of the reformed communion ; 

 and he expressed a hope that he should one day be able to bring about 

 a union between the two religions, which, he observed, differed less in 

 essentials than was supposed. To which Duplessis replied, that no 

 such union could ever be effected in France unless the pope's power 

 were first entirely abolished. ('Mdmoires et Correspondance de 

 Duplessis Moruay depuis 1'an 1571 juaqu'en 1623,' Paris, 1821-34.) 



By tho Edit de Nantes, promulgated in 1598, Henri gave what he 

 thought a full redress of the grievances under which his Protestant 

 subjects had so long laboured, and such it would have proved, had 

 the provisions of the edict been honestly and fully carried into effect, 

 and had not the king's intentions been frustrated in great measure by 

 the intolerance of tho different parliaments and courts of justice. 

 Henri found the finances of the kingdom hi a most wretched condi- 

 tion ; of 150 millions of livres taken from the people only 30 millions 

 reached the king's coffers. His able minister Sully had the task of 

 restoring order in this financial chaos. Ho adopted the method of 

 letting the taxes by pubUc auction ; be entered into a rigorous examina- 

 tion of the accounts of former receivers-general and other agents, and 

 introduced forms of accounts which were to be filled up and accom- 

 panied with the necessary vouchers, so that no pretence was left for 

 oboeurity or omission. During a ministry of fifteen years he reduced 

 the taille five millions of livres, and other imposts one-half: he 

 redeemed 135 millions of debt, while he added four millions to the 

 king's revenue, and left 35 millions in the treasury, besides a value 

 of 12 millions in arms and auimunition, 5 millions expended in 

 fortifications, and above 26 millions on public works and royal 

 gratuities. (Bresson, ' Histpire Financiore de la France,' Paris, 1829.) 

 The sympathy which Henri felt and showed for the humbler classes 

 of his subjects, whom his predecessors had looked upon as an inferior 

 race of beingi, would alone be sufficient to account for his popularity 

 with the French people a popularity which has survived all the 

 eventful changes in that country. He is the only king of the old 

 monarchy whose memory is still popular in France. His brilliant 

 qualities, his tastes, even his failings, such as his excessive gallantry, 

 were national, and they flattered the self-love and the vanity of the 

 people. " He was," says the President Henault, " his own general and 

 his own minister. He united to a blunt frankness the most dexter- 

 ous policy, to the most elevated sentiments a delightful simplicity of 

 manners, and to ao undaunted courage a most touching feeling of 

 humanity and benevolence. He often forgave, and when forced to 

 punish, as in the case of Biron, he did it with extreme regret. His 



life was repeatedly attempted by anassins who were stimulated by 

 the old fanaticism of the League ; and at last ho was stabbed to death 

 in liis carriage, by Ravaillac, ou tbe 14th Hay ItilO. Ho was succeeded 

 by his son Louis XIII., under the guardianship of his consort Maria 

 de' Medici. The grief for his death was deeply felt nil over France. 

 ('Mcmoires de Sully;' Houault and the other French historians: 

 Thomas, ' Easai sur lei Eloges ; ' and a collection of Henri's most 

 remarkable sayings and doings, entitled 'L' Esprit de Henri IV.,' Paris, 

 1769.) Lenglet da Fresnoy, iu tho fourth volume of hi* ' Journal de 

 Henri III.,' has published many letters of Henry IV. When the royal 

 tombs at St. Denis were ransacked in the time of the Revolution (1793), 

 the body of Henry IV. was found in very good preservation : hid 

 features appeared hardly changed. 



HENRICO. [DAIBLA, HEN RICO CATEHI.NA.] 



HENRY I., King of England, surnamed Beauclerc, or the Scholar, 

 was the fourth and youngest son of William the Conqueror, by hi* 

 queen Matilda of Flanders, and was born in 1063 at Selby iu York- 

 shire, being the only one of the sons of the Conqueror who was au 

 Englishman by birth. His surname attests that he had received a 

 more literary education than was then usually given either to the sons 

 of kings or to laymen of any rank ; and this advantage was seconded 

 by natural abilities of a superior order. From an early age he aud 

 his next brother, William, appear to have monopolised the favour of 

 their father to the exclusion of his eldest son, Itobert (Uichard, tho 

 second son, died iu his youth); aud Robert's first recourse to arms is 

 even attributed to his indignation at having oue day had a pitcher of 

 water thrown down upon his head, in mockery or sport, at the town 

 of L'Aigle iu Normandy, by his two younger brothers, and at his 

 father's refusal to punish them for the insult If this incident took 

 place at all it must however have been when Henry was a mere 

 child, not beyond his eighth or ninth year : his brother William was 

 about twelve years his senior. In the last days of their father's reign 

 jealousies arose between these two brothers ; anil iu this new family 

 quarrel the father seems to have attached himself to the one who was 

 on the whole most like hitnself in character. At hia death iu 1087, 

 the Conqueror expressed his wish that William should be his successor 

 in the crown of England, and only left Henry a legacy of 5<; 

 silver. With 30001. of this however Henry soon after obtained, from 

 the facility of his brother Robert, the whole of the district of Coteutin, 

 comprehending nearly a third of Normandy. Although in the first 

 instance a quarrel between the two arose out of this bargain, they 

 were afterwards reconciled ; and in 1 090, when tho intrigues of 

 William, now king of England, had excited a revolt of the Norman 

 barons against Robert, Henry came to the assistance of the hitter, and 

 was chiefly instrumental iu putting down the insurrection. Upon this 

 occasion Henry gave a striking proof of the relentless determination 

 of his character. Conan, a rich burgess of Rouen, one of the most 

 active and powerful of those who had taken part ill the treason, having 

 fallen into the hands of his enemies, Duke Robert thought it punish- 

 ment enough to condemn him to perpetual imprisonment; but Henry, 

 deeming it expedient to have better security against his future attempts, 

 led tbe unfortunate man, on pretence of giving him a view of the sur- 

 rounding country, to the highest tower of the castle in which he was 

 confined, and threw him over the battlements. When Robert and 

 William made peace the following year, they turned their united arms 

 against Henry, who was soon compelled to evacuate even his last 

 stronghold the fortress built oil the lofty rock of St. Michael ; after 

 which he wandered about for some two years in a state of nearly 

 complete destitution. At length, ou the invitation of the inhabitants 

 of tho town of Domfrout, he assumed the government of that place ; 

 and it would appear that from this point d'uppui he gradually rasNd 

 himself to the repossession of nearly all the territory that he had lost. 

 He also became reconciled to Rufus, and was iu England and in the 

 New Forest with that king when he came by his death (2nd of August 

 1100). That sudden and mysterious event (which very possibly his 

 hand or his contrivance may have caused, aud into which at least he 

 never instituted any inquiry), made Henry king of England. Jlis 

 reign is reckoned from Suuday the 3rd of August, on which day ho 

 was crowned in Westminster Abbey by Maurice, bishop of London. 

 The next day he published a charter confirming the rights and liberties 

 both of the Church and of the nation, and promising the restoration 

 of the laws of the Confessor, with only such alterations as had been 

 mode iu them by his father. All the circumstances of Heury's acces- 

 sion furnish strong evidence of the great importance which the Saxon 

 population had already recovered since the Conquest. Henry from the 

 first put forward his English birth as one of his chief claims to 

 acceptance with his subjects ; and he hastened to strengthen this title 

 by an act which almost amounted to a tacit admission that the rights 

 of the old Saxon line were not yet extinct his marriage with Maud, 

 or Matilda, daughter of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and niece of Edgar 

 Atheling, which, after a delay occasioned by the reluctance of tho 

 princess to unite herself to the supplauur of her house, aud by the 

 circumstance of her having been at least designed to pass her days as 

 the inmate of a nunnery, if she bad not actually taken the veil, was at 

 last celebrated on Suuday the llth of November. As soon as he 

 assumed the crown, Henry affected a complete change of manners, 

 laying aside the open licentiousness in which ho had heretofore 

 indulged, aud with much apparent zeal clearing the court of the 



