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HENRY IV. HENRY I 



to excommunicate the king. The misguided mon- 

 arch had now no hope but in a reconciliation with 

 Heiiry of Navarre. After they had united at Tours, 

 tkey obtained the ascendency over the league, and 

 Henry HI. marched to Paris, but he was assassinated 

 in the camp at St Cloud ; and his last commands to 

 the assembled nobility were that they should ac- 

 knowledge Henry of Navarre as his lawiul successor 

 to the throne of France. Meanwhile Henry IV. 

 f 'in H I 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. first defeated his enemies in the memor- 

 able battle of Arques, and completed their overthrow 

 in the celebrated engagement of Ivri. In conse- 

 quence of this victory, Paris was besieged, and Henry 

 IV. was upon the point of compelling the fanatical 

 citizens to surrender by famine, when the Spanish 

 general Alexander, duke of Parma, by a skilful 

 manoeuvre, obliged him to raise the blockade. Con- 

 vinced that he should never enjoy quiet possession of 

 the French throne without professing the Catholic 

 faith, Henry at length yielded to the wishes of his 

 friends, was instructed in the doctrines of the Roman 

 church, and professed the Catholic faith, July 25th, 

 1593, in the church of St Denys. He happily 

 escaped an attempt to assassinate him ; was solemnly 

 anointed king at Chartres, hi 1594 ; and entered the 

 capital amid the acclamations of the people. The 

 Spanish troops were compelled to a disgraceful re- 

 treat. After Henry had been acknowledged by the 

 pope, all parties in France were reconciled. To 

 humble the pride and break the power of Spain, 

 Henry concluded an offensive alliance with England 

 and Holland. The war against Spain was concluded 

 in 1 598, by the peace of Vervins, to the advantage 

 of France. Henry made use of the tranquillity which 

 followed, to restore the internal prosperity of his 

 kingdom, and particularly the wasted finances. In 

 this design he was so successful, with the aid of his 

 prime minister Sully, that 330 millions of the national 

 debt were paid, and forty millions laid up in the 

 treasury. At the instance of Sully, Henry dissolved 

 his marriage with Margaret of Valois ; the pope 

 confirmed the divorce, and the king soon after 

 married Maria de' Medici, niece of the grand duke 

 of Tuscany. But the crafty, domineering, and am- 

 bitious Maria so imbittered the life of Henry by her 

 constant jealousy, that he resolved more than once 

 to dissolve his union with her ; Sully, however, 

 prevented him. The birth of an heir (Louis XIII.) 

 for a while reconciled him with his wife. But other 

 troubles afflicted him, particularly the conspiracy of 

 his former friend and companion in arms, marshal 

 Biron, whom he would gladly have saved ; but whom 

 repeated acts of disobedience obliged him to surren- 

 der to the hand of the executioner. No less painful 

 to the king were the conspiracies of the count of 

 Auvergne, of the marshal de Bouillon, and his mis- 

 tress, the artful d'Entragues. It became necessary to 

 inflict punishments, though mercy would liavebeen 

 more congenial with his feelings. To his former 

 brothers in faith, the Protestants, Henry granted 

 entire religious freedom and political security, by the 

 edict of Nantes, in 1598. (See Huguenots.) To 

 humble Spain and Austria (against whom the Protes- 

 tants. in Germany had sought his aid), he conceived 

 a perhaps impracticable plan of a great confederacy, 

 and an entire alteration in the arrangement of the 

 European states ; the consequence of which was to 

 be a perpetual peace. He made preparations to 

 carry it into execution, and was on the point of 



entering upon a campaign. During his absence, 

 Maria, his wife, was to be regent ; and lie therefore 

 caused her to be crowned at St Denys, in 1610. As 

 Henry was riding through the streets of Paris, on the 

 following day, to examine the preparations for the 

 solemn entrance of the queen, his coach was obstruct- 

 ed in the street de la Feronnerie, by two wagons. A 

 fanatic, named Ravaillac, took advantage of this 

 moment to perpetrate a long-meditated deed ; he 

 mounted the step of the coach, plunged a long two- 

 edged knife twice into the heart of Henry, and thus 

 ended the career of the best king France ever had. 

 (See Ravaillac.) By his first wife Henry had no 

 heir ; by Maria, two sons and three daughters. By 

 his mistresses, Gabrielle d'Estrees, Henrietta de 

 Balzac (the countess d'Entragues), Jacqueline (coun. 

 tess of Moret), and Charlotte of Essarts, he had 

 several children. The benevolent mind of Henry, 

 his paternal love to 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 ; and his royal expression, 

 " I wish that every peasant might have a fowl in 

 his pot on Sundays,'' still lives in the mouths of the 

 people, while his defects are charged to the disso- 

 luteness of the age. See Memoirs and Correspon- 

 dence of Duplessis-Mornay : being a history of the 

 Reformation and of the Civil and Religious Wars in 

 France, under the Reigns of Charles IX., Henry 

 III., Henry IV., and Louis XIII. , from the Year 

 1571 to 1623 (Mem. et Correspond, de Duplessis- 

 Mornay, pour servir d rHist. de la Reformation et 

 les Guerres Civiles et Religieuses en France, sous le 

 Regne de Charles IX., Henry III., Henry IF., et 

 Louis XIII., depuis VAnlSlljusqu 1 en 1623), (Paris, 

 1825, 15 vols.) ; Secret Amours of Henry IV., from 

 the Original Manuscripts of 1632 ; written by Jean 

 Francois, Marquis of Montgendre ; collected in 

 France, in 1815, with Notes by Count Alb. von 

 Pappenheim (Nuremberg, 1824, 2 vols.). 



HENRY I., king of England, surnamed Beauclerc, 

 youngest son of William the Conqueror, was born in 

 1068. He was hunting with William Rufus, in the 

 New Forest, when that prince received his mortal 

 wound, in 1100. Henry instantly rode to London, 

 and caused himself to be proclaimed king, to the 

 prejudice of his brother Robert, then absent on the 

 crusades. To reconcile the people to his usurpa- 

 tion, Henry issued a charter, containing concessions 

 to public liberty, which, however, operated little in 

 restraint of his own government. He also performed 

 another popular act, by recalling Anselm, archbishop 

 of Canterbury, vrhose authority was necessary to his 

 projects of conciliating his English subjects, by 

 marrying Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III., king 

 of Scotland. This union strengthened his party, 

 when his brother landed an army in 1101, with a 

 view of asserting his claim to the crown. Actual 

 hostilities were prevented by Anselm, who induced 

 Robert to accept a pension ; and it was agreed that 

 the brothers should succeeil to each other's domin- 

 ions, in the event of death without issue. This 

 treaty did not prevent Henry from invading Nor- 

 mandy, a short time after ; and, in 1106, he took 

 Robert prisoner, and reduced the whole duchy. A 

 contest with the papal court, on the subject of inves- 

 titures, ended in a compromise, by which he merely 

 retained the right of temporal homage. His usur- 

 pation of Normandy involved him in continual war, 

 which was very oppressive to his English subjects ; 

 but, although William, son of Robert, escaped out of 

 custody, and was assisted by the king of France, 

 Henry maintained possession of the duchy. His 

 public prosperity was, however, counterbalanced by 

 several domestic misfortunes. One of these was the 



