Henry IV of France

NAME Henry IV of France (also Henry of Navarre; Henri Quatre)

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Henry IV was the first French king of the Bourbon dynasty, remembered for ending the French Wars of Religion, issuing the Edict of Nantes (1598), restoring France’s economy, and famously declaring he wished every peasant could have “a chicken in his pot” on Sundays. Beloved for his courage, pragmatism, and warmth, he became known as “Good King Henry.”

BIRTH Henry IV was born on the night of December 12-13, 1553, at the Château de Pau in Pau, the capital of the joint Kingdom of Navarre with the Principality of Béarn (now in France). According to tradition, he was baptized with Jurançon wine and rubbed with garlic, customs of Béarn and Navarre. His birth occurred shortly before his parents became King and Queen of Navarre.​

Pau enjoys the unusual distinction of being the only city in Europe to have witnessed the birth of two kings who founded dynasties: Henry IV of France and, much later, Charles XIV John of Sweden (born 1763). (1)

FAMILY BACKGROUND Henry was born into the House of Bourbon and was the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, and Jeanne III d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. Through his father, Henry was in direct descent from King Louis IX (Saint Louis) of France, one of France's most illustrious rulers. His mother was the daughter of Marguerite de Navarre, a noted poet and patron of the arts. 

His parents exemplified the religious strife dividing France: his father Antoine was Catholic (though he temporarily allied with Protestants), while his mother Jeanne was a staunch Huguenot who became increasingly devoted to Calvinism. Antoine was constantly unfaithful to Jeanne, and the couple differed sharply over religion, with Antoine wavering between Catholicism and his wife's Protestant faith for political reasons. 

Henry inherited the throne of Navarre in 1572 upon his mother's death.​

CHILDHOOD Henry spent most of his early childhood in the countryside of Béarn at the Château de Coarraze. According to historian François Bayrou, Henry experienced a typical early childhood for the times, which involved being bound and strapped into his cradle like a mummy for the first year or more of his life—a common practice believed to help babies grow straight and tall. Babies were wrapped tightly with cloth bandages, usually changed only once a day, as people believed bodily filth was protective. Parents avoided cutting babies' nails before 18 months and even left some lice on children, believing they "ate bad blood". These practices continued until Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theories about child-rearing emerged in 1762.​ (2)

Presumed portrait of Henry as a child

During his childhood, Henry frequented the peasants during hunting trips and acquired the nickname "miller of Barbaste".

From 1561 to 1567, he lived with his second cousins, the children of the King of France, including his future wife Margaret. 

After his father's death in 1562, his mother raised him strictly in the Calvinist faith according to the precepts of the Reformation. In 1567, at age 13, his mother brought him back to Béarn, where at a crucial age in his intellectual development, he was brought up in the strict principles of Protestantism.​

EDUCATION The intellectual education of Henry had been almost entirely neglected in favor of developing the hardihood of his body, which gave such vigor and energy to his mind. His mother Jeanne d'Albret raised him in the strict morality of Calvinism. Around age 13, when his mother brought him back to Béarn, he began his military education in earnest. His mother placed him in the service of the Huguenot leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, during the Third War of Religion.

CAREER RECORD 1572: Succeeded his mother as King of Navarre (as Henry III) and sovereign lord of Béarn.

1572–1576: Held under virtual house arrest at the French royal court after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, where he was forced to temporarily recant his Protestantism.

1576: Escaped from the French court, recanted his Catholic conversion, and rejoined the Protestant and allied Catholic forces against King Henry III.

1584: He became heir presumptive to the French throne upon the death of Francis, Duke of Anjou

1589: Became King of France (as Henry IV) after the assassination of Henry III. He faced nine years of fighting the Catholic League, who refused to accept a Protestant king.

1593: Converted back to Catholicism to secure the throne and unify the kingdom.

1598: Issued the Edict of Nantes, establishing religious tolerance. Signed the Peace of Vervins with Spain.

1610: Assassinated.

APPEARANCE Henry was described as lean, athletic, and vigorous, with lively eyes and a famously expressive face.  He had a characteristic small, pointed moustache and a pointed goatee beard (sometimes referred to as the Henri IV beard style). Henry had a rugged charm rather than princely elegance.

In scientific examinations of Henry's preserved head (identified in 2010), researchers found features often seen in the king's portraits, including a dark lesion above his right nostril. The head had red and white hairs on the face and head, but none on the pate—Henry had ginger tresses and goatee but was bald on top. His skin was intact, his features were not disfigured, and the nasal cartilage was undamaged.

Henry IV, Musée des Augustins

FASHION Henry was known for being neither fastidious in his person nor circumspect in his habits. His clothes were often worn and dirty, and he rarely bathed. According to historian R.J. Knecht, "He reputedly stank like carrion". This lack of personal hygiene was consistent with his rustic upbringing in a rather austere Protestant court in Navarre. Despite his position as king, Henry maintained these casual habits throughout his life, which stood in marked contrast to the elaborate dress and grooming standards of the French court.​ However, he could appear suitably regal when ceremony required. (3)

He famously wore a white plume (panache blanc) on his helmet during battles, which became his rallying sign.

CHARACTER The character of Henry IV appeared in the nicknames his subjects invented for him. He was celebrated as "le roi de coeur" (the king of hearts), "le passionne" (the passionate one), and "le roi libre" (the free king). Other monarchs cultivated distance between themselves and subjects, using remoteness as an instrument of royal power, but Henry went another way. He was known to leave his palace incognito and mix with his subjects in informal ways. As a leader, he was open, informal, warm, free-spirited, brave, witty, clever, and generous to friends and enemies alike.​

He was also thought to be merciful, though fickle, unreliable, and untrustworthy. His best friends acknowledged his flaws, but his warmth and magnetism drew even his enemies to his service. His understanding of his people, willingness to enlist cooperation of well-chosen ministers, and political insight made him an efficient ruler despite not being a great administrator. Henry's courage and gallantry made him a great military leader, though he was not considered a great strategist.​

SPEAKING VOICE Based on his character and upbringing in the rustic court of Navarre with an austere Protestant sensibility, Henry's manner of communication would have been direct and unpretentious. His habit of mixing informally with subjects and his warmth and openness suggest a speaking style that was accessible and engaging rather than formal and distant.​

His famous quip, "Paris is well worth a Mass," indicates a flair for memorable, pragmatic rhetoric

SENSE OF HUMOUR Henry IV possessed a well-developed sense of humor that endeared him to his subjects and contributed to his popularity. His wit and clever repartee were legendary. After his decisive victory at the Battle of Coutras, Henry supposedly quipped, "At least nobody will be able to say after this that we Huguenots never win a battle". 

His ability to use humor in tense situations and his generally lighthearted approach to life, despite the serious challenges he faced, made him more approachable than typical monarchs. The nickname "le Vert Galant" captured both his youthful energy and his playful approach to life. 

His court was known for being more fun-loving and less formal than those of his predecessors, reflecting his personality.​

RELATIONSHIPS Henry IV's romantic and marital relationships were complex and legendary, earning him the nickname "Le Vert Galant". His sexual appetite was said to have been insatiable, and he always kept mistresses, often several at a time, as well as engaging in random sexual encounters and visits to brothels.​

The most famous of his mistresses was Gabrielle d'Estrées, with whom he had several children and whose death in 1599 deeply affected him.

Henry married Margaret of Valois (Marguerite de Valois), daughter of Catherine de' Medici and Henry II of France on August 18, 1572 at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris. The marriage was intended as a political peace-making gesture but proved personally unhappy and remained childless. 

Both Henry and Margaret were repeatedly unfaithful to each other from the start. Henry often ignored Margaret and instead slept with his mistress Charlotte de Sauve. Their marriage collapsed, leading to estrangement and living apart. By 1593, Henry first proposed an annulment to Margaret, which was finally granted by Pope Clement VIII in 1599, citing her infertility, consanguinity, and claims she was forced to marry against her will.​

Portrait of Margaret of Valois by Unidentified painter - derniersvalois.canalblog.com,

Henry married his second wife, Marie de' Medici, daughter of Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany on December 17, 1600. The marriage represented a solution to dynastic and financial concerns—Henry owed Marie's father 1,174,000 écus for war support, and the Medici promised a dowry of 600,000. 

Marie gave birth to the Dauphin Louis (future Louis XIII) on September 27, 1601, to great satisfaction, as France had been waiting for an heir for more than forty years. Between 1601 and 1609, Marie bore Henry six children total, including the future Louis XIII, Elisabeth (later Queen of Spain), Gaston Duke of Orléans, and Henrietta Maria, who later married Charles I of England.

Marie de' Medici and her family (1607; by Frans Pourbus the younger).

Henry was unfaithful to Marie from the first and insisted that she raise his illegitimate children along with her own. He housed his senior mistress close to the Louvre and was seen dining with the queen and his mistresses together. During their marriage, Henry sired five illegitimate children by d'Entragues, Jacqueline de Bueil, and Charlotte des Essarts.​

Henry's last passion was for Charlotte of Montmorency, the fifteen-year-old wife of Henry, Prince of Condé, First Prince of the Blood. The king had arranged Charlotte's marriage to Condé for his own convenience, to sleep with her when he pleased. To escape this predicament, the couple fled to Brussels.​

In total, Henry IV had at least eleven illegitimate children by various mistresses in addition to his six legitimate children with Marie de' Medici.​

MONEY AND FAME When Henry became king, France was in financial ruin. The direct royal tax had more than doubled between 1576 and 1588, going from 8 million to 18 million pounds, yet this did not cover state spending. State debt had increased from about 133 million pounds in 1588 to 296 million pounds in 1596—ten times the annual budget. By 1596, interest alone on state debt had grown to 10 million pounds, about 30% of the budget.​

Working with his chief financial advisor, the Duke of Sully, Henry undertook a comprehensive financial reform. Sully brought corrupt finance officers before a special court called the Chambre de Justice in 1597, 1601-1604, and 1607. He conducted a general debt audit beginning in March 1597, deciding to honor only debts the Kingdom considered legitimate. Sully negotiated with creditors by proposing immediate down-payments in exchange for forgiving part of the debt. He introduced indirect taxes on consumption, such as the gabelle (tax on salt), while lowering income tax by 12%.​

By the end of Henry's reign, not only was the state's creditworthiness fully restored, but the King had a solid treasury of 5 million pounds protected at the Bastille castle and could dispose of an available reserve of more than 11 million pounds. French Fiscal Year 1611 showed a budget surplus of 4.6 million pounds. Henry's government eliminated the formidable national debt and realized a reserve of 18 million livres.​

Henry's fame during his lifetime and after stemmed from his successful pacification of France after decades of civil war, his pragmatic religious policies, and his concern for the common people. He became known as "Good King Henry" and was widely beloved by his subjects.​

FOOD AND DRINK Henry IV is most famously associated with the legendary statement that he desired "a chicken in every peasant's pot every Sunday". According to legend, after decades of religious wars formally ended with the Edict of Nantes in 1598, "Good King Henry" turned his attention to restoring the country to peace and order, and his goal was to ensure that every French family had "une poule au pot"—a chicken in the pot, or stewed chicken—for dinner every Sunday.​

The traditional poule-au-pot recipe involved getting a good, fat hen (preferably alive or at least not drawn), stuffing it with a mixture of ham, lard, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, spices, sweet herbs, parsley, and garlic (reflecting Henry's Béarnais origins, where garlic was found in all cooking), and cooking it gently in bouillon with vegetables. Henry IV himself was a Béarnais, and garlic featured prominently in the cooking of that region.​

Henry IV had a well-known sweet tooth. Under his reign, sugared almonds, marzipan, and jam became fashionable at court, partly due to his own preference for sweet delicacies. He was also particularly fond of melons, which he grew in the gardens of his glasshouses—an innovation for the time.

A contemporary once described Henry as “chewing garlic and having breath that would fell an ox at twenty paces.”

His adviser and close friend, Philippe de Mornay—nicknamed “The Huguenot Pope”—created a cheese sauce especially for him. This recipe survives today as sauce Mornay. (1)

MUSIC AND ARTS While Henry IV lacked the artistic taste of the Valois kings who preceded him, he was a significant patron of architecture and contributed substantially to French cultural life. His chief contribution as patron of the arts was in the field of architecture. Although he made additions and improvements to many palaces, such as the Stable Court at Fontainebleau (1606-09), the thrust of his attention was directed toward the modernization and beautification of his capital.​

Henry beautified Paris extensively, completing the Tuileries and building the great gallery of the Louvre (the Grande Galerie, over 400 meters long), the Pont Neuf bridge, the Hôtel-de-Ville, and the Place Royale (now Place des Vosges). He invited artists and craftsmen to live and work in the Louvre. The art and buildings from his time are known as the "Henry IV style".​

Under Henry IV, the reign marked the appearance of two new types of galleries: the queen's gallery, which doubled that of the king, and the public gallery. Henry introduced the use of public galleries into court ceremonial, establishing a precedent for the grandiose receptions later staged by Louis XIV in the Galerie des Glaces. At Fontainebleau, Henry made more additions to the château than any king since Francis I, extending the oval court, remaking façades, building a new monumental domed gateway (the Porte du Baptistère), and creating a new courtyard (Cour des Offices) to house kitchens and court officials.​

Jacopo Peri composed the opera Euridice in honor of the marriage between Henry IV of France and Marie de Médici. The opera was commissioned by the Medici court specifically for their lavish wedding celebrations and was first performed on October 6, 1600, at Florence's Pitti Palace. Both the libretto (by Ottavio Rinuccini) and the musical score were dedicated to the new Queen of France, Marie de Médici.​

Euridice is considered the second work of modern opera, and is the earliest opera to have survived intact to the present day. The first modern opera, Dafne (also by Peri and Rinuccini), was composed in 1597 but survives only in fragments and is generally regarded as less accomplished than Euridice. Therefore, Euridice holds a foundational place as the oldest surviving opera that established the genre as an independent art form. 

LITERATURE Henry was the grand-nephew of Marguerite de Navarre, a significant poet. However, given his relatively neglected intellectual education in favor of military training, and his practical rather than scholarly disposition, Henry was not known as a literary monarch in the manner of some of his predecessors or contemporaries.​ His legacy is found more in his political writings and edicts, particularly the Edict of Nantes, than in literary works.​

Writers of Henry’s era benefited from the relative calm he brought to France. Satirists, political theorists, and poets all addressed his image as a unifying monarch. Chroniclers also preserved his lively wit—such as the story of a man who attempted to bore him during dinnertime with a speech beginning, “Sire, Agesilaus, King of Lacedaemon...” Henry cut him off, saying:

“I have heard of him—but he had dined and I have not.” (2)

NATURE Henry IV demonstrated a practical interest in nature, particularly as it related to agriculture and forestry management. He and Sully protected forests from further devastation, built a system of tree-lined highways, and constructed bridges and canals. He ordered the planting of pines, elms, and fruit trees. At the Château Fontainebleau, he had a 1200-meter canal built in the park (which may be fished today).​

To revive the economy, Henry undertook projects to develop agriculture, planting colonies of Dutch and Flemish settlers to drain the marshes of Saintonge. Assisted by leading physical economist Barthélémy de Laffemas and agronomist Olivier de Serres, Sully promoted an ambitious policy to increase national wealth. As Sully's Memoires stated: "The people of the countryside often tell the King that farming and grazing were the two udders from which France is fed and the true mines and treasures of Peru". 

Henry’s fondness for gardening is evident in his cultivation of melons in heated glasshouses

PETS As a king engaged in the aristocratic pursuit of hunting, Henry would have been surrounded by hunting dogs and horses, which were essential to this activity.​

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Henry IV's primary recreational activity was hunting, which he pursued with passion throughout his life. Hunting was a predominant pursuit for French nobility, and Henry frequently engaged in this sport both for pleasure and to maintain his martial skills. He owned several hunting lodges, including properties in the Limousin region where he would spend weekends hunting. 

Beyond hunting, Henry was an accomplished horseman and cavalryman, skills that proved essential in his military campaigns. His prowess on horseback was demonstrated repeatedly in battle, where he personally led cavalry charges. 

Henry IV at the Battle of Arques

Henry also enjoyed the social aspects of court life, though he was less formal than his predecessors. He was known for leaving his palace incognito to mix with subjects in informal ways. He appreciated good company, conversation, and the company of women, which is evidenced by his numerous romantic liaisons.​

SCIENCE AND MATHS The mathematician François Viète (1540-1603) served as a privy councillor to both Henry III and Henry IV of France. Viète, often called "the father of modern algebraic notation," was appreciated by Henry IV, who admired his mathematical talents.​

In 1590, Viète broke the key to a Spanish cipher consisting of more than 500 characters for Henry IV, and this meant that all dispatches in that language which fell into French hands could be easily read. This cryptanalytic success was of significant military and political value to Henry during his wars.​

Henry IV also supported practical applications of science and technology. Under his direction and that of Sully, new highways and canals were constructed to aid commerce. He introduced the silk industry to France and encouraged the manufacture of cloth, glassware, and tapestries—luxury items requiring technical knowledge. 

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Although Henry had been properly baptised as a Roman Catholic, it was his formidable mother—Jeanne d’Albret, who could have out-Calvin’d Calvin on a good day—who decided her son would be raised a thorough, no-nonsense Protestant. 

By 16, he had been handed over to Admiral Coligny, the Huguenot leader, who seems to have regarded Henry as something between a promising young general and a slightly exasperating nephew. In any case, Henry quickly became the great Protestant hope in the French Wars of Religion, which is the sort of job nobody applies for willingly, especially not a teenager.

Then came the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, on August 24, 1572. Six days after Henry's marriage to the Protestant Marguerite de Valois, over three thousand Huguenots who had come to the French capital for Henry's wedding were killed, as well as thousands more throughout the country in the days that followed. Henry, with admirable survival instincts, made what is beautifully described as a “feigned abjuration” of his faith. In other words: he said what was needed to avoid getting chopped up. He then spent about three years as a reluctant ornament at the French court, smiling politely and trying not to be murdered, until he finally escaped in 1576 and immediately revoked his forced conversion.

Fast-forward to July 25, 1593, in the Basilica of Saint-Denis. Henry, now older, wiser, and probably rather tired, made his official conversion back to Catholicism. This wasn’t a sudden burst of theological enthusiasm so much as a practical solution to the tiny challenge of a nation tearing itself apart. Walking into Paris, he is supposed to have remarked, “Paris is worth a Mass."

The truth is Henry had realised something deeply grown-up: peace mattered more than preference. The Catholic League was supported by Philip II of Spain, who threatened to plunge France into even more bloodshed if Henry insisted on remaining Protestant. And Henry, surprisingly for a king known for enthusiasm in several areas of life, decided he had had quite enough blood for one reign.

On April 13, 1598, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed French Protestants freedom of worship, gave them back their churches, and even allowed them to build new ones. It was all very modern and sensible—almost suspiciously so for the late 16th century. Scholars later suggested that Henry was something of a “crypto-Calvinist”—which sounds like a creature you might find lurking under the vestry sink but simply means he still privately leaned Protestant even while publicly Catholic.

REIGN Henry IV’s reign, which ran from 1589 until his very inconvenient assassination in 1610, was one of those periods in French history when, against all odds, things actually improved. This is rather impressive when you consider that he inherited a kingdom so battered by decades of religious warfare that it’s a wonder the French remembered which end of a pitchfork to hold.

Henry had already been King of Navarre since 1572, a small but spirited kingdom by the Pyrenees, when he unexpectedly found himself in line for the French throne—largely because everyone ahead of him kept dying at inopportune moments.

When the French crown finally came his way on August 2, 1589, he faced the minor complication that Reims, the traditional coronation site, was firmly in the hands of the Catholic League, who would have sooner crowned a goat than a Protestant king. So Henry did the practical thing and got himself crowned at Chartres on February 27, 1594, thereby proving that you don’t need sacred tradition to run a country—just a building with a roof and a bishop willing to cooperate.

King Henry IV in his coronation robes, by Frans Pourbus the Younger

France, at this point, had been torn apart by nearly 40 years of Catholics and Huguenots enthusiastically trying to eliminate one another. Henry, who had already switched religions more times than most people change socks, decided enough was enough.

In 1598, he issued the Edict of Nantes, a groundbreaking decree that granted Protestants the right to worship without being stabbed, burned, chased, or otherwise inconvenienced. It did not end disagreement, of course—this was France—but it did bring an end to the large-scale bloodshed, which was widely considered progress.

Once he had the religion issue more or less sorted, Henry set about repairing the country, which looked as though the Wars of Religion had used it as a practice pitch. Under the guidance of his indefatigable minister, Sully, Henry reformed finances, trimmed corruption, and encouraged farming as if the future of France depended on cabbages—and in many ways, it did.

Marshes were drained, new crops planted, and industries like silk, luxury goods, and other items formerly purchased abroad were encouraged to flourish domestically. The national debt, astonishingly, did not simply grow larger (as debts often do) but was actually eliminated, and reserves accumulated—something so unheard of that people probably stared at the treasury walls in disbelief.

Henry also supported the first truly successful French ventures in the Americas, backing explorers like Samuel de Champlain, who went off to map parts of Canada, probably hoping they would be slightly warmer than advertised.

His famous desire that every peasant should have “a chicken in the pot on Sundays” was less a culinary ambition than a summary of his governing philosophy: France should be prosperous enough that even its poorest citizens could occasionally eat well and smile about it.

Henry IV also took an enthusiastic interest in modernizing Paris, a city that had spent the better part of a century looking as though it had been dropped from a great height. He rebuilt bridges, extended the Louvre, improved the Tuileries, commissioned the Pont Neuf, and laid out the elegant Place Royale (now Place des Vosges), which still looks so pristine you suspect the builders cleaned their boots before walking through it.

He professionalized the French army, established schools for cadets, and reformed the artillery. Meanwhile, treaties and commercial agreements sprouted like mushrooms—with the Ottomans, the English, the Spanish, and the Dutch—demonstrating that France, once again, was open for business.

By the time Henry IV was assassinated in 1610, France had been transformed into something startlingly stable, prosperous, and optimistic—none of which would have sounded remotely plausible when he first took the throne. His death prompted widespread mourning, and he went down in history as “Good King Henry,” a ruler who somehow combined charm, practicality, moderation, and an eye for urban beautification.

He left behind a secure succession—his son, the future Louis XIII—and a kingdom vastly better than the one he had inherited.

In short: Henry IV did not just restore France; he reinvented it, proving that with enough tolerance, fiscal sense, and architectural flair, even a war-tangled kingdom can be coaxed back into grandeur. 

POLITICS Henry IV’s political legacy is defined by reconciliation, pragmatism, and national rebuilding.

He inherited a kingdom shattered by decades of religious civil war. His conversion to Catholicism and subsequent Edict of Nantes balanced competing factions and brought a measure of stability. He centralized royal authority, curbed noble disorder, and enacted financial reforms to restore the treasury and reduce peasant burdens.

Henry IV's political achievement was the restoration of peace and royal authority to France after decades of devastating civil war. He formally declared as King of France in 1589 upon the assassination of Henry III, but faced years of conflict before securing his kingdom. His political strategy combined military force, religious pragmatism, and financial incentives.​

SCANDAL Henry IV's reign and personal life were marked by numerous scandals, primarily related to his legendary sexual appetite. His womanizing became so notorious that it earned him the nickname "Le Vert Galant" (the Green Gallant). 

One particularly scandalous aspect of his relationships was his treatment of his wives. He repeatedly ignored his first wife Margaret of Valois in favor of mistresses, conducting affairs openly at court. Even more scandalously, after marrying his second wife Marie de' Medici, Henry was unfaithful from the first and insisted that Marie raise his illegitimate children alongside her legitimate ones. He housed his senior mistress close to the Louvre and was seen dining with both the queen and his mistresses together.​

The scandal surrounding his mistress Henriette d'Entragues was particularly serious. After his marriage to Marie de' Medici, Henriette became bitter and began sneering at the queen that her (Henriette's) children were the true legitimate heirs of France and that Marie was nothing more than "a fat banker". Henriette later involved herself in plots against the crown.​​

Henry's last passion created perhaps the greatest scandal. He became infatuated with Charlotte of Montmorency, the fifteen-year-old wife of Henry, Prince of Condé, First Prince of the Blood. The king had arranged Charlotte's marriage to Condé specifically for his own convenience—so he could sleep with her when he pleased. This arrangement was so scandalous and intolerable that the couple fled to Brussels to escape the king's attentions.​

During his reign, 23 plots to kill Henry were discovered, reflecting the serious opposition and controversy his policies generated. His policies regarding religion, despite bringing peace, remained controversial among both Catholic hardliners and Protestant extremists.​

MILITARY RECORD Henry IV emerged as one of Europe’s most capable soldier-kings, his martial instincts shaped early and sharpened in the chaos of the French Wars of Religion. He began formal military training at just thirteen or fourteen, in the autumn of 1567, under the watchful eye of the Huguenot commander Gaspard II de Coligny. As a teenager he witnessed the Third War of Religion’s major engagements—Jarnac, La Roche-l’Abeille, and Moncontour—absorbing the brutal realities of warfare long before he ever carried a sword into battle.

He saw his first real combat in 1570, at Arnay-le-Duc, where the sixteen-year-old prince led the first charge of the Huguenot cavalry with a zeal that startled even seasoned captains.

His first major triumph came years later at the Battle of Coutras on October  20, 1587. Against the royalist commander Joyeuse—whose force of 10,000 dwarfed Henry’s 6,300—Henry arranged his men in alternating lines of infantry and musketeers and ordered the front ranks to kneel. The tactic was devastatingly effective: within ten minutes Joyeuse’s army was collapsing. The entire battle lasted under an hour. Joyeuse and roughly 2,500 of his soldiers lay dead; Henry lost fewer than 500.

After inheriting the French crown in 1589, Henry found himself fighting not just for legitimacy but for survival against the Catholic League. He won a hard-fought victory at Arques that same year, followed by his iconic triumph at Ivry on 14 March 1590. There, outnumbered—8,000 infantry and 3,000 cuirassiers against Mayenne’s 15,000 foot and 4,000 horse—Henry rode into battle wearing a white plume in his helmet and a white scarf across his armor, rallying his men with unmatched bravado. When the dust settled, Royalist forces had killed nearly 3,000 enemy infantry, 800 cavalry, and seized almost a hundred standards. Mayenne fled in panic, ordering the bridge at Ivry destroyed behind him, abandoning many of his troops. Henry’s own order was characteristically sharp: spare Frenchmen, but give foreign mercenaries no quarter.

Henry IV at the Battle of Ivry, by Peter Paul Rubens

The war dragged on. In November 1591, Henry’s forces besieged Rouen, and the following February he was shot in the loins during a skirmish at Aumale, forced to travel for days by litter. Danger found him again in 1595 at Fontenay-le-Français, where he narrowly escaped death in a chaotic cavalry encounter.

That same year, Henry made his struggle official by declaring war on Spain. When Spanish forces captured Amiens in 1597, Henry personally marched to reclaim the city, declaring:

“I will have that town back or die. I have been King of France long enough—I must become King of Navarre again.”

During the siege, he reorganized the French army on modern lines, putting the veteran corps of Picardy, Champagne, and Navarre/Gascony on a permanent footing, adding Piedmont and new northern regiments of 1,200 picked musketeers and pikemen each. He maintained elite Royal Guards, Swiss and German mercenaries, and his fearsome 4,000 Gendarmes d’Ordonnance, the backbone of French heavy cavalry.

Henry’s final significant military campaign centered on the Saluzzo dispute, but his strategic reach extended far beyond France. Between 1598 and 1610, he poured more than 12 million livres into supporting the Dutch Republic against Spain. And when Habsburg troops invaded Jülich, sparking the War of the Jülich Succession, Henry ordered French intervention on 29 July, announcing that France was defending the rights of the Empire’s Protestant princes as bound by treaty.

By the end of his life, Henry IV had transformed himself from a regional Huguenot war leader into one of Europe’s most skilled commanders—a king as comfortable in the saddle as on the throne, and a general whose battlefield instincts shaped the future of France.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Henry IV's health appeared generally robust throughout most of his life, befitting his active military career. The hardihood of his body, developed during his childhood and military training, gave vigor and energy to his mind. He was physically fit enough to lead cavalry charges personally and fight in extended military campaigns throughout his thirties and forties.​

However, Henry did suffer several significant injuries during his military career. In February 1592, during a skirmish at Aumale, he was wounded by a bullet in the loins and had to be carried in a litter for several days. Despite such injuries, he continued his active military and personal lifestyle.​

HOMES Henry IV owned and improved numerous royal residences throughout France, though he did not add new properties to the royal domain but rather chose a policy of consolidation, restoration, and enlargement of existing edifices.​

The Louvre Palace, Paris: Henry undertook major renovations and additions to the Louvre. He oversaw the Grand Dessein (1594-1595), which involved extending the château and connecting it to the Tuileries Palace through the Petite Galerie (or Galerie des Illustres) and the Grande Galerie—a massive addition over 400 meters long. Henry invited artists and craftsmen to live and work in the Louvre. His apartment in the Louvre, consisting of salle des gardes-antechamber-bedchamber-Petite Galerie, constituted a significant precedent to Louis XIV's grand appartement at Versailles.​

Palace of Fontainebleau: Henry made more additions to Fontainebleau than any king since Francis I. He extended the oval court westward by building two pavilions called Tiber and Luxembourg. Between 1601 and 1606, he remade all façades around the courtyard, including that of the chapel of Saint-Saturnin, to give the architecture greater harmony. He built a new monumental domed gateway, the Porte du Baptistère, on the east side. Between 1606 and 1609, he built a new courtyard, the Cour des Offices (or Quartier Henry IV), to provide a place for kitchens and residences for court officials. He added two new galleries—the Gallery of Diana and the Gallery of Deer—to enclose the old garden of Diana. He also added a large jeu de paume (indoor tennis court), the largest such court existing in the world. Henry had a 1200-meter canal built in the park at Fontainebleau. His wife Marie de' Medici gave birth to all their children in the Oval room at Fontainebleau, later called the "Louis XIII salon".​

Fountain and garden behind Palace of Fontainebleau: (about 1680) By SiefkinDR 

Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye: Around 1600, new galleries adjoining the queen's apartment were added to the Château Neuf of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.​

Château de Blois: Henry had grandiose plans for extending the existing château, including adding a long gallery at the edge of the lower garden that would have rivaled the Grande Galerie of the Louvre in size. The project was later downscaled, and a shorter gallery was constructed and connected to the old château through an intermediate wing.​

TRAVEL During his youth, between 1564 and 1566, Henry accompanied the French royal family on its grand tour of France, during which he reencountered his mother, whom he had not seen for two years.​

His military campaigns required constant travel throughout France. During the Wars of Religion, he led campaigns through ravaged provinces extending from Poitou to the heart of Burgundy. 

Henry traveled diplomatically as well. In 1600-1601, he journeyed to Lyon to meet with the papal legate and his bride Marie de' Medici. He visited Chambéry and dealt with the Saluzzo conflict. He made multiple trips to Fontainebleau, which served as a regular residence.​

In 1604, Henry made a trade treaty with Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I, demonstrating his diplomatic reach extended beyond Europe. He also sent subsidies to Geneva after the Duke of Savoy attempted to capture the city in 1602.​

DEATH Henry IV was assassinated on May 14, 1610, at approximately 4:00-4:30 PM in Paris. The 56-year-old king was traveling in his carriage through the Rue de la Ferronnerie, a narrow street in what is now the Les Halles district, not far from the Louvre.​ 

François Ravaillac, a Catholic fanatic born in 1578, had been following the king for hours that day. He had stolen a knife from an inn and kept it hidden in his pocket for three weeks while waiting for the right moment. Ravaillac had previously attempted to meet the king but was unable to do so. He interpreted Henry's decision to invade the Spanish Netherlands as the start of a war against the Pope. Convinced that "the Pope was God and God was the Pope," Ravaillac decided to assassinate the king.​

When Henry's carriage became stuck in traffic due to a hay cart and a cart loaded with wine barrels blocking the narrow street, the king lifted the leather curtain to see what was causing the delay. The footmen standing on the carriage's step moved away to disperse the crowd that had recognized the king, giving Ravaillac his opportunity. He seized the moment, climbed into the coach, and stabbed Henry multiple times. The king was rushed back to the Louvre where he was declared dead at 4:30 PM.​

Assassination of Henry IV, engraving by Gaspar Bouttats

The assassination was particularly tragic in timing—Marie de' Medici had been crowned Queen of France just the day before, on May 13, 1610. Parliament was immediately informed, as was Marie.​

François Ravaillac was immediately seized by the guards under the direction of the Duc d'Epernon, who rescued him from a sure lynching by the enraged crowd. He was taken to the Hôtel de Retz for two days, then transferred to a prison cell in the Conciergerie. Ravaillac was tortured to make him identify accomplices, but he denied having any and insisted he acted alone, saying: "I know very well he is dead; I saw the blood on my knife and the place where I hit him. But I have no regrets at all about dying because I've done what I came to do".​

After a ten-day trial by the Parliament of Paris, it was determined that the assassination was the isolated act of a Catholic fanatic. On May 27, 1610, Ravaillac was brought to Notre-Dame Cathedral where he did penance barefoot, in his shirt, holding a candle. He was then taken to the Place de Grève (now Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville) where he was publicly executed in an extraordinarily brutal manner. His right hand (which held the knife) was burned off with sulfur fire. Molten lead, boiling oil, pitch, hot resin, wax, and sulfur were poured over his body. A horse was attached to each of his limbs, and when the horses pulled, his body was dismembered. The remains were thrown into fire, reduced to ashes, and scattered to the wind.​

Henry was buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

His widow, Marie de’ Medici, served as regent for their nine-year-old son, Louis XIII, until 1617.

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Henry IV of France has been portrayed in numerous films, television productions, and theatrical works:

Film: Henri 4 (2010): A German-French-Austrian-Spanish co-production directed by Jo Baier, starring Julien Boisselier as Henry IV. The film traces Henry's rise from Protestant battlefield warrior to France's beloved king, though it received mixed reviews. Critics noted that while it covered an interesting historical period, the execution was flawed, with Boisselier described as lacking charisma for the role. The film included Joachim Król as Agrippa, Roger Casamajor as Maximilien de Béthune (Rosny/Sully), Armelle Deutsch as Margot, and Chloé Stefani as Gabrielle d'Estrées.​

La Reine Margot (Queen Margot) (1994): This film focuses on Henry's first wife Margaret of Valois, depicting their marriage and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.​

Television: Henri IV (TV Movie 1961): A French television adaptation directed by Claude Barma, starring Jean Vilar. This was a French TV version of Luigi Pirandello's play Enrico IV from 1921 (note: Pirandello's play is not actually about the historical French king but rather uses the name).​

Stage: Henry IV has been the subject of various theatrical productions in France, and his story appears in stage adaptations of Alexandre Dumas's novel La Reine Margot (Queen Margot).​

Literature: Henry IV appears as a character in several historical novels, most notably Alexandre Dumas's La Reine Margot (Queen Margot, 1845), which has been adapted multiple times for film and television.​

ACHIEVEMENTS Ended the French Wars of Religion through compromise and political acumen.

Issued the Edict of Nantes, guaranteeing Protestant rights.

Rebuilt the French state, restoring finances and reestablishing strong central authority.

Modernized Paris, supporting public works and urban renewal.

Established a lasting image as a king of practical wisdom, wit, and national healing.

Sources: (1) Encyclopaedia of Trivia (2) Ckenb (3) Royal Favourites