Succession of Henry IV of France

Henry IV of France's succession
Part of the French Wars of Religion
King Henry IV of France, until 1589 known as Henry of Navarre. 17th century engraving by Henri Goltzius.
Date August 1589 – March 1594[according to whom?] Location France Result Henry IV of France is recognised as king in most of France after converting to Roman Catholicism and under the condition of tolerance towards Protestants[according to whom?] Continued Catholic resistance with Spanish support leads Henry IV to declare war on Spain in January 1595
Belligerents
Huguenots  England	Catholics: Catholic League Spain
Commanders and leaders
Henry IV of France	Charles de Bourbon

Henry's succession in 1589 proved far from straightforward. He and King Henry III were moving to besiege Paris at the time of the latter's death. The city and large parts of France, mostly in the north, were in the hands of the Catholic League, an alliance of leading Catholic nobles and prelates who opposed the Protestant Henry of Navarre as heir to the throne. Instead, they recognized Henry's uncle, Charles of Bourbon, as the heir, and on Henry III's assassination, they declared Charles king. As a result, Henry IV was forced to fight a civil war to assert his position as king, followed by a war against Spain, who continued to question his legitimacy.

After the death of Charles of Bourbon, the Catholic League's failure to choose a replacement claimant to the throne, in combination with Henry IV's conversion to

At the death of Charles IV, Duke of Alençon in 1525, all cadet branches of the House of Valois had become extinct, with the only remaining Valois being the royal family itself. The chief of the Bourbons became the first prince of the blood, the closest to the succession to the throne should the immediate family of the king become extinct. At the death of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon in 1527, the Vendôme branch of the House of Bourbon became the senior line of the family. At that time, Charles de Bourbon was Duke of Vendôme. His son Antoine de Bourbon married the Queen of Navarre. Antoine's son, Prince Henry of Navarre, inherited this title on his death from an arquebus wound at the siege of Rouen in 1562.^[1]

The legitimacy of Henry of Navarre's claim to the throne was still questioned, however. In similar cases, the throne had earlier passed to successors with a much closer blood link to the throne.

The importance of the princes of the blood had been demonstrated when Antoine of Navarre's uncle Francis, Count of Enghien (d. 1546) had commanded the victorious royal armies at the battle of Ceresole in 1544. It was to be further demonstrated when Antoine of Bourbon's last surviving brother, Cardinal Charles (d. 1590), was chosen by the Catholic nobles as King of France in the face of Henry IV's Protestantism. Catherine de' Medici had ensured her regency of the nine-year-old King Charles IX in 1560 only by making a deal with Antoine of Bourbon, who many considered had the right, as First Prince of the Blood, to be the regent.^[3]

In a kingdom that the

Henry of Navarre always emphasised the significance of his blood, rather than religion, when he challenged the Guise-led Catholic League. After the League forced Henry III to sign the Treaty of Nemours, which excluded Navarre from the succession, in July 1585, the latter issued a manifesto condemning the pact as:

A peace made with foreigners at the expense of the princes of the blood; with the House of Lorraine at the expense of the House of France; with rebels at the expense of obedient subjects; with agitators at the expense of those who have brought peace by every means within their power.... I intend to oppose it with all my heart, and to this end to rally around me... all true Frenchmen without regard to religion, since this time it is a question of the defence of the state against the usurpation of foreigners.^[5]

The pull of such propaganda remained so potent that even after 25 years of civil war, an English agent reported that after that and similar declarations by Henry, "many good Catholics flooded to his standard".^[6]

Kingdom of Navarre

Though most of the old

During the period between the succession of Henry IV and the death of the Cardinal of Bourbon, the city of Paris had achieved a degree of independence. While acknowledging the Catholic League and accepting a Spanish garrison, the authorities there had championed their liberties against those of the crown so much that some citizens openly opposed the institution of monarchy altogether. In October 1589, a Parisian lawyer complained publicly, "Our civil disorder and factions have opened the door to a crowd of corrupt little men who, with effrontery, have attacked authority with such licence and audacity that those who have not seen it would not believe it. In so doing, they have wanted to jump from a monarchy to a democracy".[8]

The death of the Cardinal of Bourbon prompted measures to elect a new

In November 1591, when the Sixteen executed a group of moderates from the Paris parlement, Mayenne hanged or imprisoned the ringleaders. Mayenne, who nursed ambitions to be king himself, saw his grand alliance of Catholic nobles, French towns and Spain crumbling from a growing disunity of purpose and the absence of an obvious claimant to the throne.[12]

It was widely believed among Catholics that the pope's blessing was essential to the legitimacy of a king of France because of the Protestant faith of Henry.^[13] At the time of his succession, Henry IV was under a papal excommunication, which had been imposed by Pope Sixtus V on 21 September 1585, and so the papacy considered it legitimate for Henry's subjects to oppose his rule, both as King of Navarre and, after 1589, as King of France. The persistence of rebellion and civil war in the early years of Henry's reign owed much to the papacy's refusal to accept anyone but a Catholic on the French throne.^{[citation needed]}

Mayenne was opposed to the idea of summoning the Estates-General to elect a king, but in 1592, he finally caved in to Spanish pressure to do so. Mayenne opened the assembly with a symbolically empty chair beside him.

The Spanish ambassador in Paris had instructions to "insinuate cleverly" the rights of the Infanta to the French throne. His brief also stated that the Salic Law "was a pure invention... as the most learned and discerning of their lawyers recognise".[16] The Estates-General of the Catholic League insisted that if Clara Isabella Eugenia were to be chosen, she should marry a French prince. Philip II, however, wanted her to marry Archduke Ernest of Austria.^[17] The Estates replied that "our laws and customs prevent us from calling forward as king any prince not of our nation".^[14] On 28 June 1593, the Paris parlement followed up by resolving "to preserve the realm which depends on God alone and recognizes no other ruler of its temporal affairs, no matter what his status, and to prevent it from being overrun by foreigners in the fair name of religion".^[18]

While the delegates of the Estates-General dithered in Paris, Henry IV dealt a well-timed blow to their deliberations by announcing his wish to be converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, a move that effectively cut the ground from under the Catholic League's feet. The Estates-General sent delegates to treat with Henry's representatives, and on 8 August, most of the members of the assembly returned home.^[14]

Legitimisation

Henry's

According to his murderer, François Ravaillac, Henry "made no attempt to convert these Protestants and was said to be on the point of waging war against the Pope so as to transfer the Holy See to Paris". Ravaillac stated that "he had felt obliged to take this step because, from rumours he had heard, he felt the King had seemed reluctant to punish the Huguenots for trying to murder all the Catholics last Christmas Day. Some Catholics still languished in the Paris gaols while their persecutors went scot free".[28]

Henry continued to promote Huguenots to office in France and to form alliances with Protestant princes abroad. In his home territory of Béarn, he did nothing to re-establish free Catholic worship, as the pope had demanded. It seemed clear to Henry's Catholic opponents that he had recanted his Protestantism merely for political reasons to secure the French throne. Rebels and would-be assassins felt justified by what they saw as Henry's manifest failure to comply with the terms of his absolution. In their view, Henry remained a heretic and thus a usurper on the throne of France.^[29]

Genealogy

On the death of King Henry III of France, who had no son, the crown passed to Henry IV, in application of Salic law, because Henry was the descendant of the eldest surviving male line of the Capetian dynasty.

House of Bourbon

Henry IV's descent in the male line from Louis IX of France.^[30]

• Henry IV was the 9th cousin of King Henry II, and the 9th cousin once removed of kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. He was the son of:
• Antoine of Navarre (1518–1562), 8th cousin of kings Charles VIII and Francis I, who was the son of:
• Louis XII
  , who was the son of:
• François de Bourbon-Vendôme (1470–1495), 6th cousin of King Charles VII
  , who was the son of:
• Jean de Bourbon-Vendôme (1428–1477), 5th cousin of King Charles VI, who was the son of:
• Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme (1376–1446), 4th cousin of King Charles V, who was the son of:
• Jean de Bourbon-La Marche (1344–1393), 3rd cousin of kings John I Posthumous and John II, who was the son of:
• Jacques de Bourbon-La Marche (1315–1362), 2nd cousin of kings Louis X, Philip V, Charles IV, and Philip VI, who was the son of:
• Louis I, Duke of Bourbon (1279–1342), 1st cousin of King Philip IV, who was the son of:
• Robert, Count of Clermont (1256–1317), brother of King Philip III and son of:
• King Louis IX (Saint Louis) (1214/1215 - 1270)

Simplified Bourbon family tree

From Louis IX to Louis XIV

Ascelina De Bourbon Trần Ngọc Dung ( Grand Princess of France) Last descendant of Bourbon dynasty

Descent from Henry IV

Henry IV King of France (1589–1610)

Louis XIII King of France (1610–1643)

Louis XIV King of France (1643–1715)

Philippe I Duke of Orléans

Louis "Le Grand Dauphin" of France

Philippe II Duke of Orléans Regent of France

Louis "Le Petit Dauphin" of France

Philip V King of Spain (1700–1746)

Louis Duke of Orléans

Ferdinand VI King of Spain (1746–1759)

Charles III King of Spain (1759–1788)

Philip Duke of Parma (1748–1765)

Louis Philippe I Duke of Orléans

Ferdinand Duke of Parma (1765–1802)

Louis Philippe II (Philippe Égalité) Duke of Orléans

Louis-Philippe I King of the French (1830–1848) Orléanist pretender (1848–1850)

Ferdinand Philippe Duke of Orléans

Alfonso Carlos Duke of San Jaime Alfonso Carlos I Carlist pretender (1931–1936) as Charles XII Legitimist pretender (1931–1936)

Charles III Duke of Parma (1849–1854)

Philippe Count of Paris as Philippe VII Orléanist pretender (1850–1894)

Robert Duke of Chartres

Philippe Duke of Orléans as Philippe VIII Orléanist pretender (1894–1926)

Jean Duke of Guise as Jean III Orléanist pretender (1926–1940)

Xavier Duke of Parma Carlist regent (1936–1952) Javier I Carlist pretender (1952–1977)

Felix Prince of Luxembourg

Henri Count of Paris as Henri VI Orléanist pretender (1940–1999)

Henri Count of Paris Duke of France as Henri VII Orléanist pretender (1999–2019)

Carlos Duke of Parma Carlos Xavier II Carlist pretender (2011–present)

Henri Grand Duke of Luxembourg (2000–present)

Jean Count of Paris as Jean IV Orléanist pretender (2019–present)

Louis Duke of Burgundy Dauphin of France

Leonor Princess of Asturias

Carlos Prince of Piacenza

Guillaume Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg

Gaston Count of Clermont

Ancestors

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Notes