HENRY IV. king of France and Navarre, commonly styled the Great, was the son of Antony de Bourbon, chief of the branch of Bourbon, so called from a fief of that name which fell to them by marriage with the heiress of the estate. His mother was the daughter of Henry d'Albert, king of Navarre; a woman of masculine genius, intrepid, simple, and even rustic in her manners, but deeply versed in politics, and a zealous Protestant. He was born in 1553; and in 1569, when scarcely sixteen years of age, he was declared the Defender and Chief of the Protestants at Rochelle. The peace of St Germain, concluded in 1570,
recalled to court the lords in the Protestant interest; and in 1572 Henry was married to Margaret de Valois, sister to Charles IX. king of France. It was in the midst of the rejoicings on account of these nuptials that the horrid massacre of the Protestants took place at Paris. By this infernal stroke of barbarous policy, Henry was reduced to the alternative of either changing his religion or being put to death; he chose the former, and was detained a state prisoner for three years. In 1587 he made his escape, and putting himself at the head of the Huguenot party, he exposed himself to all the risks and fatigues of a religious war, being often in want of the necessaries of life, and enduring all the hardships of the common soldiers; but this year he gained a victory at Courtray, which established his reputation in arms, and endeared him to the Protestants. On the death of Henry III. religion was urged as a pretext for one half of the officers of the French army rejecting him, and for the leaguers refusing to acknowledge him. A phantom, the Cardinal de Bourbon, was set up against him; but his most formidable rival was the Duke de Mayenne. However, Henry, with few friends, fewer important places, no money, and a very small army, supplied every deficiency by his activity and valour. He gained several victories over the duke, particularly that of Ivry in 1590, memorable for his heroic admonition to his soldiers: "If you love your ensigns, rally by my white plume; you will always find it in the road to honour and glory." Paris held out against him, notwithstanding his successes. But he took all the suburbs in one day, and might have reduced the city by famine, if he had not humanely suffered his own army to relieve the besieged; yet the bigoted friars and priests in Paris all turned soldiers, excepting four of the Mendicant order, and held daily military reviews and processions, with the sword in one hand and the crucifix in the other, on which they made the citizens swear rather to die with hunger than submit to Henry. The scarcity of provisions in Paris, however, became at last universal famine; bread had been sold, whilst any remained, for a crown the pound; at last it was made from the bones of the charnel-house of St. Innocents; human flesh became the food of the obstinate Parisians, and mothers devoured the dead bodies of their children. In fine, the Duke of Mayenne, convinced that neither Spain nor the League would grant him the crown, determined to assist in giving it to the rightful heir. He engaged the state to hold a conference with the chiefs of both parties, which ended in Henry's abjuring the Protestant religion at St. Denis, and being consecrated at Chartres in 1593. The following year Paris opened its gates; in 1596, the Duke of Mayenne was formally pardoned; and in 1598, peace was concluded with Spain. Henry now showed himself doubly worthy of the throne, by his encouragement of commerce, the fine arts, and manufactures, and by his patronage of men of ingenuity and sound learning of every country. But though the ferment of bigotry had been assuaged, the leaven was not destroyed. Scarcely a year passed without some attempt being made on his life; and at last the dagger of Ravaillac reached his heart whilst in his coach, in the streets of Paris, on the 14th of May 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age and twenty-second of his reign.