Henri III
(September 19, 1551 - August 2, 1589) France
King
 Henri III was king of France from 1574 to 1589, and he was the last of the Valois kings.
Henri was born at Fontainebleau on September 19, 1551, the third son of Henri II and Catherine de Médicis.
He ruled over an opulent court; also an able military leader, liberal patron of the arts, and founder of the religious Order of the Holy Spirit; however, the king's homosexual tendencies were the subject of much gossip, pamphlets, and poetry (he dressed in women's clothes, used makeup, and had gay lovers called mignons).
Despite his considerable gifts, he failed to resolve the religious civil wars in his country and brought it close to bankruptcy.
As a leader of the royal army in the Wars of Religion against the French Protestants (the Huguenots ) Henri, then duke of Anjou, took part in the victories over them at Jarnac and at Moncontour in 1569.
 Elizabeth I of England, The Virgin Queen, was on the verge of marriage.
She was poised to marry the duke Henri, the brother of the King of France.
 But during his visit to England (1571), where he was to propose to her, she walked in on him having an orgy with young male courtiers. Therefore he left, citing that he couldn't marry her for... ahem... "religious grounds", and refused to proceed with negotiations for his marriage to the Protestant queen of England, Elizabeth I.
Amongst his several "mignons" we can remember Mougeron, Joyeuse, Epernon...
With his mother, in 1572 the duke helped instigate the massacre of the Huguenots (massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day). Elected king of Poland (1573), he returned to France at his brother Charles IX death to ascend the thron and assume the French crown. The wars between the Roman Catholics and Protestants continued throughout Henri's reign.
 By the Edict of Beaulieu (1576) at the end of the fifth war of religion, he made concessions to the moderates and the Huguenots. Displeased with the edict, the Roman Catholics, under the leadership of Henri I de Lorraine, 3rd duc de Guise, then formed the Holy League and renewed the war with the Huguenots. The king, fearing the League's power, proclaimed himself its head. The war ended in 1577 with the Peace of Bergerac and the king dissolved the league after revoking some of the concessions made to Protestants.
 The League was revived (1584) by Henri de Guise, however, when the death of the king's younger brother, Francis, duke of Alençon, made Henri III of Navarre (a Huguenot, later Henri IV of France) the legal heir to the French throne of the childless king.
De Guise forced Henri III to issue an edict repealing all the privileges granted to the Huguenots and excluding Henri of Navarre from the succession. In the war that ensued, known as the War of the Three Henris, Navarre defeated the king's troops at Coutras (1587). The king found his power rivaled by that of the duc de Guise.
Although de Guise in 1588, on the Day of Barricades, helped raise a Parisian revolt against Henri, he did permit his escape to Chartres. However, subsequently had Henri de Lorraine and his brother Louis de Lorraine assassinated in the hope of quelling the rebellion, but his action only further provoked the Catholics.
 Joining forces with Henri of Navarre, whom he declared his successor, the king attempted to regain Paris. The two Henris then became joint leaders of a Huguenot army. In the siege on August 1, 1589, the king was stabbed by Jacques Clément, a fanatical Dominican friar, and died the next day. The last male member of the house of Valois, Henri III left France torn by civil war. Henri of Navarre succeeded him as Henri IV.
|
