Henry I (Navarre)

Henry I the Fat ( French : Henri le Gros , Spanish : Enrique el Gordo ) (* around 1244 - † July 1274 ) was (as Henry III ) Count of Champagne and Brie and King of Navarre from 1270 to 1274 from the house Blois .

He was the youngest son of Count Theobald IV of Champagne, who became King of Navarre as Theobald I in 1234, and Margaret of Bourbon . He was apanaged with the County of Rosnay and took over the reign in Navarre in 1270 after his older brother Theobald II (Theobald V of Champagne) set out on the Seventh Crusade . When he died there in December 1270, he was succeeded by Heinrich as King of Navarre and Count of Champagne.

His proclamation in Pamplona took place in March 1271, his coronation only in May 1273. After a brief government in which Navarre came completely under the influence of France, he died in July 1274, according to tradition, due to his own body. After his death, uprisings against the French broke out in Pamplona, ​​whereupon his widow and heiress were forced to flee to the court of the French king.

With his death, the male line of the Counts of Champagne and Kings of Navarre died out.

Heinrich married in Melun Blanche d'Artois in 1269 († May 2, 1302), daughter of Count Robert I and niece of French King Louis IX. His only legitimate child, his daughter Johanna I , became his successor. Her marriage in 1284 to Philip IV , who became King of France in the same year, united the Kingdom of Navarre with France and made Champagne part of the French crown domain .

In Dante's Divine Comedy , Heinrichs Geist appears at the gates of Purgatory , where he resides with a number of other 13th-century European monarchs . He is not mentioned directly, but simply referred to as "with the friendly face" and "father-in-law of the plague of France".

Web links

• Short biography of Henry I of Navarre

predecessor	Office	successor
Theobald V./II.	Count of Champagne, King of Navarre 1270–1274	Johanna I.