FRANCE. 357 



which was aimed at by the holy league, was with a view to place the 

 duke of Guise, the idol of the Roman catholics, on the throne ; to 

 which that duke had some distant pretensions. To secure himself 

 on the throne, a seventh civil war broke out in 1579, and another in 

 the year 1585, both of them to the disadvantage of the protestants, 

 through the abilities of the duke of Guise. The king thought him 

 now so dangerous, that, after inviting him in a friendly manner to 

 court, both he, and his brother the cardinal, were, by his majesty's 

 orders, and in a manner under his eyes, basely assassinated in 1588. 

 The leaguers, upon this, declared that Henry had forfeited his crown, 

 and was an enemy to religion. This obliged him to throw himself 

 into the arms of the protestants ; but while he was besieging Paris, 

 where the leaguers had their greatest force, he was in his turn as- 

 sassinated by one Clement, a young enthusiastic monk, in 1589. In 

 Henry III, ended the line of Valois. 



The readers of history are well acquainted with the difficulties, on 

 account of his religion, which Henry IV, king of Navarre,* head of 

 the house of Bourbon, and the next heir by the Salic law, had to 

 encounter before he mounted the throne. The leaguers were headed 

 by the duke of Maine, brother to the late duke of Guise ; and they 

 drew from his cell the decrepit cardinal of Bourbon, uncle of the 

 king of Navarre, to proclaim him king of France. Their party be- 

 ing strongly supported by the power of Spain and Rome, all the glo- 

 rious actions performed by Henry, his courage and magnanimity, 

 seemed only to make him more illustriously unfortunate : for he and 

 his little court were sometimes without common necessaries. He 

 was, however, personally beloved ; and no objection lay against him. 

 but that of religion. The Jeaguers, on the other hand, split among 

 themselves ; and the French nation in general were jealous of the 

 Spaniards. Henry, after experiencing a variety of good and bad for- 

 tune, came secretly to a resolution of declaring himself a Roman catho- 

 lic. This was called a measure of prudence, if not of necessity ; as the 

 king of Spain had offered his daughter Isabella Clara Eugenia to be 

 queen of France, and would have married her to the young duke of 

 Guise. 



In 1593, Henry went publicly to mass, as a mark of his conver- 

 sion. This complaisance wrought wonders in his favour ; and hav- 

 ing with great difficulty obtained absolution from the pope, all France 

 submitted to his authority, and he had only the crown of Spain to 

 contend with ; which he did for several years with various fortune. 

 In 1598, he published the famous edict of Nantes, which secured to 

 his old friends, the protestants, the free exercise of their religion ; 

 and next year the treaty of Vervins was concluded with Spain. Henry 

 next chastised the duke of Savoy, who had taken advantage of the 

 late troubles in his kingdom ; and applied himself with wonderful 

 attention and success (assisted in all his undertakings by his minister, 

 the great Sully) to cultivate the happiness of his people, by encourag- 

 ing manufactures, particularly that of silk, the benefit of which France 

 experiences at this day. Having re-established the tranquillity, and 

 in a great measure secured the happiness, of his people, he formed 

 connexions with the neighbouring powers, for reducing the ambition 



* A small kingdom lying upon the Pyrenean mountains, of the greatest part of 

 which, Upper Navarre, Henry's predecessors had been unjustly dispossessed by 

 Ferdinand king of Spain, about the year 1512. 



