Henry IV (France)

Henry IV, portrait by Frans Pourbus the Younger , 1610 ( Louvre , Paris)

Heinrich IV., Of Navarre ( French Henri IV, Henri Quatre, Henri le Grand , Occitan Enric Quate Lo Gran ; *  December 13, 1553 in Pau , Navarre , † May 14, 1610 in Paris ) was Heinrich from June 9, 1572 III. King of Navarre and from August 2, 1589 until his assassination on May 14, 1610 as Henry IV. King of France . In his Gascon home he was known in the local language lo nostre bon rei Enric ( German  "our good King Henry" ).

As the first prince of the blood and leader of the Huguenot party, Heinrich played a central role in the Huguenot Wars . After the Valois family died out , he inherited the French crown and became the first king of the Bourbon family . For four years, which were, however, strongly marked by the conflict within France , Henry IV (as a Calvinist ) remained the only Protestant king in the history of France . However, it was only after his conversion to Catholicism in 1593 that he was finally able to assert himself on the throne of France.

As king, Henry IV rebuilt the country, which had been shattered by the civil wars, and formed the basis for the French unified state. The Edict of Nantes , which guaranteed the French Protestants free exercise of religion, was one of the decisive edicts of his reign. In terms of foreign policy, he positioned the country again as a major power to be taken seriously and resumed France's fight against the House of Habsburg in order to regain supremacy in Europe.

Life

Portrait of Heinrich IV in the ballroom of the Zurlaubenhof in Zug

Heinrich was born on December 13, 1553 (according to some sources on December 14) in Pau Castle in the southwestern  French Pyrenees - on the border with the French region of Béarn  - as the second son of the Catholic Duke of Vendôme , Anton of Bourbon , and the Protestant Queen of Navarra , Johanna von Albret , born, which is why he was also called Henri le Béarnais . The shell of a sea ​​turtle , which still exists today, acted as the cradle .

His mother was the favorite niece of Francis I , the former king of France. She gave birth to a son named Heinrich on September 21, 1551, who also bore the title Duke of Beaumont . He died almost two years old due to an inattentiveness of his nanny. According to some sources , there was another son named Heinrich, who was born the firstborn before 1551 and died as a toddler.

Under Heinrich's grandmother Margarete , the Kingdom of Navarre had become a rallying point for Protestants and religious reformers, who were threatened with dungeons, exile and stakes in Paris . Her daughter Johanna made the castles of Pau and Nérac the center of French Protestantism .

Heinrich was baptized a Catholic on March 6, 1554 in the great hall of Pau Castle. The upbringing was the responsibility of Heinrich's grandfather, Heinrich von Albret , who did not trust his daughter Johanna to raise a child, as all of their children had previously died young. Heinrich's grandfather died a year later. Shortly afterwards, the toddler was entrusted to the care of his aunt Suzanne de Bourbon-Busset and until 1560 was raised very rural and close to the people in the castle of the village of Coarraze . As Prince of Navarre he was later raised Protestant by the educator La Goucherie .

At the marriage of the French heir to the throne Franz von Valois with the Scottish Queen Maria Stuart on April 24, 1558 in Paris, the four-year-old Heinrich was present, where he met his cousin and later wife Margaret of Valois for the first time. In later accounts it is reported that King Henry II was so taken with Henry of Bourbon that he informally betrothed him and Margaret at that time. The king was killed on July 10, 1559 in a lance tournament on the occasion of a peace treaty, he was succeeded by his ailing son Franz, who ascended the throne as Franz II . During his brief reign, Franz von Guise and Karl von Guise , who were also uncles of his wife Maria Stuart, dominated politics. The king died in December 1560. He was followed by his younger brother Charles IX. to the throne, and since he was only ten years old, his mother Caterina de 'Medici took over the business of government. This tried to limit the power of the Guises by including the aspirants of the House of Bourbon - the family of Henry of Navarre - in the reign, among other things by the fact that Heinrich's father Anton became lieutenant general of the kingdom in 1561. His wife Johanna followed Anton with Heinrich to the Paris court. In 1562 she went back to Navarra, Heinrich had to stay with Katharina and was brought back to the Catholic faith by Jean de Losse (called Jeanne ).

In revenge for the loss of power, Franz and Karl von Guise organized the Wassy bloodbath on March 1, 1562, with which the first Huguenot War broke out. Anton von Bourbon fought alongside the Catholics and died that same year from the effects of a wound sustained during the siege of Rouen on November 17th. Since Henry was now the Duke of Vendôme, his mother, now the sole Queen of Navarre, brought him back to Navarre against the will of the disempowered Catherine. His former tutor La Goucherie taught him the Calvinist teachings .

After the end of the first Huguenot War in 1563, Katharina led her son King Karl IX. on a big round trip through the whole empire. The Duke of Vendôme and Prince of Navarre were always there. On October 17th, 1564, the astrologer Nostradamus entered Heinrich's chamber at Empéri Castle and allegedly announced to him that one day he would unite France and Navarre under one crown, something that was already done in the 13th and 14th centuries under Philip IV the Handsome and his Sons was the case. In May 1566 the trip to which Johanna von Albret had joined in January ended. A year later, she and her son left the royal court. He became Lieutenant-General of Navarre and undertook his first campaigns against the Basque nobles . In addition to the Kingdom of Navarre, he owned other properties: the counties of Béarn , Foix , Bigorre , the Duchy of Albret, the counties of Limoges , Périgord , Armagnac , Fézenac , Rodez , Quatre-Vallées , Lomagne , the Duchy of Vendôme , the counties of Marle , La Fère , Soissons , the Duchies of Alençon and Beaumont .

1567–1573: Bartholomew's Night and fourth Huguenot War

In 1567 the second Huguenot War broke out with an attack by Prince Henry I of Bourbon-Condé . Katharina wanted to see the fourteen-year-old Heinrich back in her court as a Protestant pledge, and after his mother's refusal he became the target of kidnapping attempts. The war ended in 1568, but since both parties had their troops mobilized, it led almost seamlessly to the third Huguenot War .

In September 1568 Heinrich made the acquaintance of his uncle Ludwig von Bourbon-Condé , who was a leader of the Protestant army, in La Rochelle . The fourteen-year-old accompanied him during the campaigns, which first led the two princes of the House of Condé and from 1570 Gaspard II of Coligny .

In August 1570, with the Peace of Saint-Germain, a peace treaty was concluded between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Johanna von Albret died on June 9, 1572 , which made Heinrich King Heinrich III. of Navarre was. To seal the peace of Saint-Germain, he married Margaret of Valois on August 17, 1572 , the sister of three successive French kings, including the incumbent Charles IX. The Huguenots, including militarily and politically important personalities, accompanied “their” beloved king to the wedding in Notre-Dame de Paris . The wedding was followed by three days of festivities and popular entertainment.

The Carnage of the Night of Bartholomew , painting by François Dubois, around 1584

On August 22nd, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the Protestant admiral and military leader Gaspard von Coligny clouded the festive mood. Before the wedding, Coligny had gained influence over Karl and thus threatened Karl's mother Katharina's claims to regency. He pushed for the support of the rebellious Reformed in the Netherlands against the rule of the Spanish King Philip II by a united army of Catholics and Huguenots. He saw this as the only alternative to a civil war in France, but it ran counter to Katharina's long-term peace efforts. She wanted to blame the Guise family for the assassination attempt in order to neutralize the two influential parties through an intensified, already existing private feud  - a friend of Coligny's had murdered the Duke of Lorraine Franz von Guise in 1563 .

Two days later, on the orders of Charles IX. all Huguenots who had traveled to Paris, and others in larger French cities, were mercilessly murdered. The slaughter that took place on August 24, 1572, the feast day of the Apostle Saint Bartholomew , went down in history as " Bartholomew's Night " or "Parisian Blood Wedding". Around 3,000 Huguenots died in Paris (including Admiral Coligny and other Huguenot leaders), and around 10,000 in the rest of France. The rumor persisted in Paris that Katharina had persuaded her son to order the massacre. Heinrich, who was also Protestant, and his cousin, the Prince of Condé, were captured and brought before Karl. They were given the choice between imprisonment in the Bastille , death by the gallows or conversion to Catholicism. Both decided to convert, and Heinrich wrote, presumably under Katharina's dictation, to Pope Gregory XIII. a request to join the Catholic Church. Heinrich was a state prisoner for the next 39 months, while the fourth Huguenot War ravaged the country. The leaderless Huguenots were increasingly pushed back to the cities of La Rochelle , Nîmes and Montauban .

1574–1594: Takeover of the French crown

Henry IV as king on horseback ( Musée Condé , Chantilly )

Coat of arms of Henry IV as King of France (left) and Navarre (right)

Charles IX died on May 30, 1574 . He was succeeded on the French throne by his brother Henry III. who was childless. Two years later, Heinrich von Navarra managed to escape from the apartments in the Louvre, whereupon he gave up his Catholic faith again.

In 1578 Heinrich and Margarete saw each other again after 32 months of separation in the Guyenne , where Heinrich had been governor since 1576. She came there at her mother's request, hoping to bring Heinrich back to the Paris court. After a stay of almost four years, Margarete returned to the Louvre in 1582. A year later there was a big family quarrel after Margarete's brother Heinrich III. had expelled her from court for her behavior. The trigger was probably the fact that her husband had taken Diane d'Andouins , known as "La belle Corisande", as his mistress . From March 1584 Margarete stayed in Agen on the pretext of avoiding Diana’s attacks . She began to build hostilities against her husband and was subsequently imprisoned in the Usson Fortress .

Although Heinrich III. of France Catholic and head of the Catholic League , but Heinrich von Guise was regarded as leader , probably because he took a harder position against the Huguenots. His counterpart on the Protestant side was Henry of Navarre, which led to the French king standing between the parties. Closer to the family of the Guises used was Henry III. the combined forces of Heinrich von Guise, Heinrichs von Navarra and his own brother Franz-Herkules . This period is often referred to as the " War of the Three Heinriche ". Other European powers gave this war the character of a European religious war. Philip II of Spain supported the Catholics, while the Protestants in England received help from Elizabeth I and from the hostile Netherlands .

However, King Henry's brother Franz-Herkules, the French heir to the throne, died in 1584, so that Henry of Navarre took over his position as heir. This fact led Pope Sixtus V to excommunicate Heinrich in 1585. However, the latter refused to recognize the excommunication . On October 20, 1587, the Catholic Duke Anne of Joyeuse and Henry of Navarre came to the battle of Coutras , in which Henry defeated the French king's favorite and killed the duke. At the end of 1588 Heinrich III. excommunicated by Pope Sixtus V for having murdered the strictly Catholic Heinrich von Guise the day before Christmas Eve. The two excommunicated kings of France and Navarre allied and marched against the Catholic league that was occupying Paris.

Henry III, the last Valois , was stabbed to death by the Dominican Jacques Clément in Saint-Cloud on August 1, 1589 and died the next day as a result of the wound. Since the king's marriage to Luise von Vaudemont in 1575 was childless and he no longer had a brother, the Valois line was extinguished. Henry III. had confirmed his brother-in-law and ally as his successor on his deathbed, but demanded his conversion to the Catholic faith. Meanwhile, there were conflicts with the Pope. Finally, on June 15, 1591 in Châlons-sur-Marne, the excommunication bull of Gregory XIV directed against Henry IV and in 1592 the bull of Clement VIII were publicly burned by the executioner.

After lengthy battles with the French Catholics and the Habsburg Spaniards converted Henry of Navarre on 25 July 1593 again to Catholicism by the Basilica of Saint-Denis , the communion received. He described his conversion as a “dangerous jump” ( le saut périlleux ). The phrase "Paris is worth a mass" ( Paris vaut bien une messe ), which has been quoted over and over again, was "later put into his mouth by the Protestants". With the conversion, nothing stood in the way of his claim to the throne. He was anointed on February 27, 1594 in the Notre-Dame de Chartres Cathedral and crowned King Henry IV. The papal absolution did not take place until 1595, however. The Latin title of the king was:

HENRICUS QUARTUS D (EI) G (RATIA) REX FRANCORUM ET NAVARRAE
(Instead of "QUARTUS" there is occasionally "IIII" in the additive spelling of Roman numerals , rarely "IV".)

Translations:

• in contemporary Middle French : Henry IIII [par la grâce de Dieu], Roy de France et de Navarre
• French: Henri Quatre par la grâce de Dieu, Roi des Français [ actually: des Francs] et de Navarre
• English: "Henry the Fourth, by God's grace King of France [actually: the Franks] and Navarre"

1594–1610: King of France

Henry IV at the traditional ceremony of the royal "laying on of hands" in the case of scrofula (engraving from a medical textbook, 1609)

Maria de 'Medici in coronation regalia, painting by Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1611 ( Palazzo Pitti , Florence)

In the same year, King Henry's first act was to repel a Spanish invading army. On December 27, 1594, the student Jean Châtel tried to stab the king for religious reasons at a public event in the Hôtel de Schomberg. The king, slightly injured, wanted to spare the assassin, but the regicide law applied and Châtel was quartered . The result of the assassination attempt was the expulsion of the Jesuits from the kingdom, as the assassin had planned the attack with a Jesuit priest who was also executed. Both assassins were religiously motivated and hoped that their sins would be partially or completely forgiven.

In addition, the king reconciled himself first with the head of the league, then with the Spanish king Philip II . The country was reunited after a long time after the Duke of Savoy , Charles Emanuel I , was driven out of Provence and Brittany was subdued.

On April 30, 1598, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes as one of his greatest political decisions , which was supposed to secure 87 years of religious peace up to the Edict of Fontainebleau . The Protestant French were not granted full, but extensive equality vis-à-vis Catholics through appropriate privileges , access to public office and 100 safe places across France.

With the help of the Duke of Sully, Maximilien de Béthune , who had been at the head of the financial budget since 1597 , France experienced a remarkable economic and financial boom. The infrastructure ( road construction ) and agriculture have been modernized, the state budget for the repayment of a 200-million livres - government debt balance and the administration reorganized by superfluous royal offices were abolished. Maximilien de Béthune built canals and harbors and lifted customs duties on grain. Agriculture and animal husbandry are the "two breasts from which France should feed" ("Laborage et pâturage sont les deux mamelles dont la France est alimentée").

In 1599, Henry IV became engaged to Maria de 'Medici , then the richest heiress on the European continent. After Pope Clement VIII's marriage to Margaret of Valois (she remained queen) was annulled in December , the marriage between Maria and Heinrich could take place. The reason for this separation was that the marriage did not produce any children and both Heinrich and Margarete kept mistresses or lovers.

In October 1600 King Henry IV and Maria of Medici were married " per procurationem ", that is, in the absence of Maria, since she was still on her way to Marseille , where she arrived at the beginning of December. The Dauphin Ludwig was born on September 27, 1601 in Fontainebleau .

Henry IV with a poule au pot on his table

In a conversation with Karl Emanuel I of Savoy, Heinrich expressed the wish, “If God allows me to live, I will make sure that there is no farmer in my country who does not have his chicken in the pot on Sundays!” (“Si Dieu me prête vie, je ferai qu'il n'y aura point de laboreur en mon royaume qui n'ait les moyens d'avoir le dimanche une poule dans son pot! "). Since 80% of the population lived in the country at that time, this statement meant wishing the people in general a better life. King Heinrich created his own version of the "chicken in the pot" ( poule au pot ). A particular preference of the king was his unrecognized appearance in public in his homeland, mostly among the common people, to find out how his politics were received. He used to be generous whenever he could, and replaced many a farmer or shepherd with himself or his people who had destroyed land or lost cattle.

The murder of Henry IV in Paris on May 14, 1610 by François Ravaillac in a historical engraving

In 1610 he prepared an incursion into the Spanish Netherlands in order to rush to the aid of the Reformed princes in the Holy Roman Empire . His wife Maria de Medici was crowned and anointed in Saint-Denis on the evening of May 13th - three days before his planned departure - so that she could run the affairs of state with appropriate authority during Henry's absence. A day later, Heinrich went with six other noblemen without a guard on the way to Maximilien de Béthune. In the rue de la Ferronnerie, a narrow, poorly navigable street, the royal coach - a carriage with two open doors - stood in the way of an obstacle. Two cars wanted to pass each other, but couldn't because the street was too narrow. The nobles got out except for the Duke of Montbazon , so that Heinrich was completely unprotected. The fact that there were only two people in the body also explains why no one saw the regicide François Ravaillac coming, who jumped on the wagon and stabbed the king three times with a knife. The first knife stab slipped off Heinrich's ribs, the second cut the main strand of the artery just above the heart and pierced the left lung , the third stab also slipped off and hit the Duke of Montbazon. Ravaillac was driven to the Louvre with the king, and Heinrich died on the way there. Jérôme Luillier, Royal Advocate General of the Chamber of Accounts and Councilor of State, reports on the scene upon arrival at the Louvre that “the king was sprawled dead on his bed [the queen's bed], in full clothes with the doublet unbuttoned and a bloody shirt. Regardless of this, the Cardinal de Sourdis stood at his head, at his side ... the castle chaplain and the Queen's personal doctor ...; they spoke the admonitions ... But the poor prince was already different. "

To this day it is not clear whether the assassin was not behind men after all, because the number of attacks on the king was - with 18 attempts - exceptionally high. The Dauphin was born as Louis XIII at the age of nine . his successor, the affairs of state was his mother, while France and especially Heinrich's homeland in Gascognos mourned.

Burial and desecration

The king's corpse, preserved by the Parés method , was first laid out in the Louvre and finally buried in the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris. At the height of the French Revolution , his grave was opened on October 15, 1793 by radical supporters of the revolution and desecrated as a supposed symbol of absolutism. The body of Henry IV was found in such a good state of preservation that it was displayed to passers-by along with a few other mummified corpses in front of the church. His remains were eventually buried in a mass grave outside the church.

The skull of Henry IV was stolen and was lost for over 100 years. Several private collectors have owned the skull since the beginning of the 20th century. The last time the skull was in the possession of a French tax official was from 1955 to 2010. On December 16, 2010, a team of scientists announced that this skull had been identified as the King of Henry IV based on characteristic injury features. The skull was buried during a mass in Saint Denis in 2011.

Development of Heinrich's policy

Jacob Bunel : Portrait of Henry IV as Mars, around 1605 ( Pau Castle )

When Henry IV died, his son Louis XIII was. too young to rule, so his mother Maria de 'Medici ruled for him. She quickly revised some of Heinrich's strategies, particularly by entering into an alliance with the Spanish Habsburgs. After Ludwig had fought for power in 1617 by murdering his mother's favorite Concino Concini , he banished his mother from France, who died in Cologne in 1642. Initially politically undecided to decide between Catholic solidarity with Spain or the overthrow of the House of Habsburg , Ludwig XIII. considerable powers on Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu, known as Cardinal Richelieu , who was the first minister to continue the anti-Habsburg policy of Henry IV. This involved France in the Thirty Years' War , because France, ruled by the Bourbons, wanted to wrest the Habsburgs from supremacy in Europe, which was also achieved with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the Peace of Pyrenees in 1659.

It was Heinrich himself who laid the foundations for the repeal of the Edict of Nantes , because he had already seen the assurance of the security places as a violation of his authority . Henry IV, too, had preferred unification in the Catholic faith as a pragmatic project, because the possibility of a religiously legitimized uprising would have been definitively ruled out. But the Huguenot party was still far too powerful in Heinrich's time, which is why he inevitably had to make concessions. Richelieu followed the political line of Henry IV and was an advocate of absolutism , and in order not to endanger it by the unrest that had arisen after Henry's murder, in 1628 after the siege of La Rochelle he passed the edict of grace of Alès , in which the 100 secure Places in France were banned. The Edict of Tolerance was completely revoked by Louis XIV in the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 , which ended an almost ninety-year process of suppression. The policy of repression against the Huguenots was still from Louis XV. continued, as a hard core of Huguenots never converted and repeatedly sparked uprisings in central France. It was not until Louis XVI. After a violent struggle with the parliaments, he issued another edict of tolerance in which he paid his respects to the spirit of the Enlightenment .

progeny

Heinrich IV. With his wife Maria von Medici and their four children, Ludwig XIII., Elisabeth, Christine and Gaston in the cradle (1608); Nicolas Henri is not in the picture, Henriette Marie was born in 1609.

The childless marriage with Margaret of Valois was annulled in 1599 by Pope Clement VIII . On October 5, 1600, he married Maria de 'Medici for the second time . Together they had the children:

1. Louis of France (1601–1643), King Louis XIII. from France,
2. Elisabeth of France , called Isabelle de Bourbon in Spain (1602–1644), ⚭ Philip IV, King of Spain and Portugal,
3. Christine of France (1606–1663), ⚭ Vittorio Amadeo I Duke of Savoy,
4. Nicolas-Henri of France (April 16, 1607 - November 17, 1611), Monsieur , Duke of Orléans (died as a child),
5. Gaston of France (1608–1660), Monsieur , Duke of Orléans ,
6. Henriette-Marie of France (1609–1669), ⚭ Charles I, King of England.

He also had the following illegitimate children:

• with Esther Imbert :
  1. Gédéon (7 August 1587, † 1588);

• with Gabrielle d'Estrées :
  1. César de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme (1594–1665), legitimized 1595,
  2. Cathérine Henriette de Bourbon (born November 14, 1596), legitimized in 1596,
  3. Alexandre de Bourbon (born April 14, 1598), legitimized 1599;

• with Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues :
  1. Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Verneuil (1601–1682), legitimized 1603,
  2. Gabrielle Angélique (born January 21, 1603), legitimized 1622;

• with Jacqueline de Bueil :
  1. Antoine de Bourbon, Count of Moret (May 9, 1607 - September 1, 1632), legitimized 1608;

• with Charlotte des Essarts :
  1. Jeanne Baptiste de Bourbon (February 22, 1608 - January 16, 1670), legitimized 1608, Abbess of Fontevrault ,
  2. Marie Henriette de Bourbon (* 1609 - † February 10, 1629), legitimized, Abbess of Chelles .

ancestors

Henry IV. King of France and Navarre	Antoine de Bourbon Duke of Vendôme and PrinceBeaumontof France	Charles de Bourbon Duke of Vendôme and PrinceBeaumontof France	François de Bourbon Count of Vendôme Prince of France
			Mary of Luxembourg Countess of Saint-Pol
		Françoise Duchess of Alençon Countess of Perche	René Duke of Alençon Count of Perche
			Marguerite Duchess of Lorraine
	Johanna III. Queen of Navarre Duchess of Albret	Henry II, King of Navarre, Duke of Albret	Johann III. King of Navarre Duke of Albret
			Catherine I. Queen of Navarre
		Marguerite Countess of Angoulême and Périgord Princess of France	Charles de Valois, Count of Angoulême and Périgord Prince of France
			Louise of Savoy regent of France, Countess of Bresse

reception

The beard shape Henriquatre is named after the king. The Marche de Henri IV , an anonymously texted melody from the 16th century, testified to the king's popularity especially posthumously and was used in various dramatic, musical and cinematic works, including Gioachino Rossini Il viaggio a Reims (1824) and Pyotr Tchaikovsky Ballet music Sleeping Beauty (1890), Walt Disney's film adaptation of the same material as Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Sergei Bondartschuk's War and Peace (1966). During the Restoration , the song became an unofficial anthem of the French monarchy.

Heinrich Mann processed the life of Henry IV in his two novels The Youth of King Henri Quatre (1935) and The Completion of King Henri Quatre (1938). The historical film Henri 4 (alternatively: Henri IV ) was made in 2010 under the direction of Jo Baier and is based on Heinrich Mann's novels.

literature

• Maurice Adrieux: Henry IV. France's good king. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-7973-0330-0 .
• André Castelot : Henry IV. Victory of tolerance . Gernsbach, Verlag Katz, 1987, ISBN 3-925825-04-5 (French original edition: Henri Quatre, le Passioné ).
• Ernst Hinrichs : Heinrich IV. (1589–1610). In: Peter C. Hartmann (Ed.): French kings and emperors of the modern age. From Louis XII. to Napoleon III, 1498–1870 . Munich 1994, p. 143f. (Paperback: Munich 2006).
• Roland Mousnier: A regicide in France. The murder of Heinrich IV Propylaea, Berlin 1974.
• Madeleine M. Saint-René Taillandier: Henry IV. The Huguenot on France's throne. Hugendubel, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-424-01240-8 .
• Klaus Malettke : The Bourbons Volume I: From Heinrich IV. To Louis XIV. (1589-1715). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-17-020582-6 .
• Klaus Malettke: Heinrich IV. The first Bourbon on the throne of France (1553–1610). Muster-Schmidt Verlag, Gleichen / Zurich 2019.
• Michel Peyramaure: Henry IV. A child on the throne. Knaur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-426-61226-7 .
• Vincent J. Pitts: Henri IV of France. His Reign and Age. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2009.
• Uwe Schultz : Henri IV. Power man and libertine. Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-458-17471-4 .

Web links

Commons : Henry IV (France)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Heinrich IV. In the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Heinrich IV.  In the German Digital Library
• Publications by and about Heinrich IV. In VD 17 .
• Klaus Harpprecht : warrior and peacemaker, legendary lover and enthusiastic father. To this day, France loves its "good king" Henry IV, who was murdered on May 14, 1610 in Paris. A picture of the life of the vital monarch. In: Die Zeit , No. 20/2010 of May 12, 2010, p. 22.
• Illustration by Frans Hogenberg from 1610: The fourteen May has turned out to be a very terrible thing in France, because King Heinrich ... ( digitized version )

Remarks

1. ↑ Malettke 2008, p. 31.
2. ↑ Hinrichs 1994, p. 153, cit. according to Malettke 2008, p. 31f.
3. ↑ Malettke 2008, p. 33.
4. ↑ Matthias Schulz: Burial for a head. France celebrates the return of the legendary "good king" Henry IV. His skull was discovered in an attic . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 2010, p. 135 ( online - December 20, 2010 ). See Philippe Charlier, Isabelle Huynh-Charlier, Joël Poupon, Christine Keyser, Eloïse Lancelot, Dominique Favier, Jean-Noël Vignal, Philippe Sorel, Pierre F. Chaillot, Rosa Boano, Renato Grilletto, Sylvaine Delacourte, Jean-Michel Duriez, Yves Loublier, Paola Campos, Eske Willerslev, MTP Gilbert, Leslie Eisenberg, Bertrand Ludes, Geoffroy Lorin de la Grandmaison: Multidisciplinary Medical Identification of a French King's Head (Henri IV). In: BMJ 2010; 341: c6805 of December 14, 2010. PMID 21156748 .
5. ↑ Jean de Jaurgain: Corisande d'Andoins, Comtesse de Guiche et Dame de Gramont . In: Revue Internationale des Études Basques . No. 1, 1907, ISSN  0212-7016 , pp. 130-132.

predecessor	Office	successor
Johanna von Albret	King of Navarre 1572–1610	Louis XIII.
Henry III.	King of France 1589–1610	Louis XIII.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 10, 2005 .