In France, according to the Salic law,
women could not reign as monarchs.
Without a male heir, King Henri III recog-
nizedHenriofNavarreaslegitimateheir
to the throne through the latter’s descent
from King Louis IX. As a Huguenot
(Protestant) in Catholic France, however,
Henri was strongly opposed by the French
church as well as a powerful faction of
nobles, led by Henri, Duke of Guise. In
1588, Henri of Guise was murdered on the
orders of Henri III, who was in turn assas-
sinated by a monk. As a result of these
events, Henri of Navarre became Henri IV,
king of France, at the age of thirty-six in
- The allies of the Catholic Church
forced him out of Paris, however, and
named Henri’s uncle Charles as King
Charles X. Henri held Charles in his cus-
tody but was forced to rally an army and
fight for the kingdom that was legitimately
his to rule.
Stymied in his efforts to capture Paris,
Henri publicly declared his conversion to
Catholicism in 1593. The announcement
ended the wars of religion, and Henri was
crowned in 1594. Determined to end the
generation of violence between Catholics
and Protestants, in 1598 he passed the
Edict of Nantes, which allowed Protestants
freedom of religion throughout the king-
dom. With the Duke de Sully, his able min-
ister, Henri was an active king, working in
support of important reforms. The French
economy was improved through reclama-
tion of marshland and other measures to
promote agriculture. The state’s finances
were put on sound footing, and Paris be-
came the sight of important public works
projects, including the Grand Gallery of
the Louvre, a residential square known as
the Place Royale, and the famous Pont
Neuf, a wide, paved bridge across the Seine
River. Henri also promoted explorations to
North America that allowed France to es-
tablish its claims to Canada. Although he
was a popular monarch, known best for
his proclamation that the French would
enjoy “a chicken in every pot,” the bitter
resentment against his Protestantism still
burned in France, and in 1610 he was as-
sassinated by a devout Catholic believer,
Francois Ravaillac. His nine-year-old son
Louis, the daughter of his third wife Marie
de Médicis, inherited the throne of France
as Louis XIII.SEEALSO: Bourbon dynasty; France; Henri
IIIHenry the Navigator ........................
(1394–1460)
Prince of the ruling Aviz dynasty of Por-
tugal, the third son of King John I, and
leader of Portuguese exploration of the
African coasts. In the early fifteenth cen-
tury, Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula
were the scene of frequent attacks by pi-
rates based in North African ports. To
thwart these attacks, in 1415, Henry
planned and took part in the conquest of
Ceuta, on the North African coast. There
the Portuguese encountered the lucrative
trade in gold and slaves across the Sahara
Desert. Inspired by the possibilities of join-
ing this trade, and by the legend of a
Christian king known as Prester John, said
to rule somewhere in Africa, Henry spon-
sored voyages of exploration down the At-
lantic coast of Africa.
In 1419, Henry was named as the gov-
ernor of Algarve, the southernmost prov-
ince of Portugal. From his headquarters
on the Sagres Peninsula, at the southwest-
ern limit of Europe, Henry planned explo-
rations into unknown reaches of the At-
lantic Ocean and helped develop a new
kind of ship, known as the caravel, that
was lighter and nimbler than the heavyHenry the Navigator