A fierce and protracted struggle followed, in which Henry displayed great military talent, as well as indomitable courage. The brilliant successes of the protestant party induced Henry III. of France to conclude a peace with them, by which they were guaranteed liberty of conscience, and the public exercise of their religion; and the judgments against Coligny and other protestant leaders who had been put to death, were reversed. But the Romish party were so strongly dissatisfied with this treaty, that they formed the famous Catholic League for the defence of their faith; and so powerful did this confederacy become under the direction of the Guises, that the king was constrained in self-defence to become the head of the league, and in this character he renewed the war against the protestants. The contest was long and bloody. In October, 1587, Henry gained a splendid victory on the plains of Coutras in Guienne over the duke of Joyeuse, who fell in the battle. After the murder of the duke of Guise and his brother, the French king was compelled to seek a reconciliation with the protestants, and Henry joined him with his forces against their common enemy, the league. When the king was assassinated in August, 1589, he nominated Henry of Navarre his successor on the throne of France. But the Roman catholic party refused to recognize his authority, and the duke of Mayenne, whom the parliament of Paris had appointed lieutenant-general, supported the claims of the cardinal of Bourbon, and was assisted by Spain and Savoy. The duke attacked the protestants at Arques, 6th October, 1589, but was repulsed with the loss of a thousand men. Henry soon after received some reinforcements from England and Scotland, and on the 14th of March, 1590, encountered Mayenne at Ivry, and inflicted on him a bloody defeat. The leaguers left six thousand men on the battle-field, and all their artillery, baggage, and standards fell into the hands of the victors. Henry then resumed the siege of Paris; but after the inhabitants had undergone the most dreadful sufferings from famine, they were relieved by the duke of Parma. The strength of the league though diminished was still unbroken; but at last, in 1593, several of the leaders entered into negotiations with Henry. For the purpose of conciliating their favour, he made a public profession of the Romish faith at Denis on the 25th of July. Paris, Rouen, and other cities immediately opened their gates to him. The dukes of Guise and Mayenne made their submission, and the pope himself acknowledged Henry's claims, and gave him absolution; but it was not till 1598 that the whole of France submitted to his authority. In that year peace was concluded at Vervins with Philip II., and the mischievous interference of Spain in the affairs of France terminated. As soon as he was firmly seated on the throne, Henry set himself to provide a remedy for the evils which had so long distracted the kingdom. He issued, 13th April, 1598, the famous edict of Nantes, securing equal rights and privileges to his protestant subjects, and, with the assistance of his sagacious and virtuous minister Sully, he strenuously exerted himself to restore order and justice, to rectify the public finances, to promote industry and commerce, to encourage learning, and to repair the ravages which the protracted civil war had made on his dominions. He had formed a scheme for the maintenance of peace among the European states by the formation of a kind of federative republic, whose disputes should be decided by a senate of wise and disinterested judges. He had long cherished the project of reducing the overgrown power of the house of Austria, and had made immense preparations both by sea and land for this enterprise. But his plans were suddenly cut short by his death. Repeated attempts had been made upon his life by fanatical adherents of the league, and at last he was stabbed in his carriage by Ravaillac on the 14th of May, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and the twenty-first of his reign. Henry IV. was undoubtedly the most popular monarch that ever sat on the throne of France. His many brilliant qualities, his warlike skill and courage, his vivacity, knowledge of the world, amiable disposition, simple, frank, and affable manners, and kindness to the poor, made him the idol of the French people, by whom his memory was long and fondly cherished. On the other hand, it must be admitted that his vices were neither few nor small; and that his licentious habits were productive of much misery to himself and injury to public morality; while his repeated changes of religion, combined with his immoral life, give too much reason to believe that he cared very little for any form of religious belief. Henry had no issue by his first queen. By his second, Marie de Medicis, he left three sons—the eldest of whom, Louis XIII., succeeded him—and three daughters. He left also a numerous illegitimate offspring. The memoirs of Henry the Great, as he is styled, are very numerous, and a collection of his letters has been published in six volumes, edited by Berger de Xivrey.—J. T.
EMPERORS OF GERMANY.
HENRY I., surnamed the Fowler, was the son of Otho, duke of Saxony and Thuringia, and was born in 876. He succeeded to the dukedom on the demise of his father in 912. During the lifetime of the latter, he had already earned a high reputation as a warrior in the Border wars; and subsequently to his assumption of the title, he had frequent opportunities of displaying his skill and bravery in the field by resisting the encroachments of Conrad I. On the death of Conrad in 918-19, Henry was elected to the imperial throne, in pursuance, it is alleged, of an express recommendation to that effect on the part of his predecessor in his last moments. The new prince had a difficult and perplexing part to play; for the internal state of his dominions was far from tranquil, and the frontiers were constantly violated by the Hungarians. By his combined tact, courage, and energy, however, Henry overcame all obstacles; the distempers of the empire were healed; and, after a series of triumphs, crowned by the famous victory of Keuschberg, near Merseburg, the power of the Magyars was so far paralyzed that no apprehensions were to be entertained for many years of any fresh troubles in that quarter. Henry died in 936.—W. C. H.
HENRY II., surnamed the Lame, great-grandson of Henry I., and last emperor of the Saxon line, was born in 972. He was the son of Henry, duke of Bavaria, and succeeded his father as duke in 995. His cousin Otho III. undertaking an expedition into Italy, the duke of Bavaria accompanied him, and the emperor dying in the peninsula, Henry contrived, partly by force and partly by intrigue, to procure his own election. He was crowned at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 1002. But Henry, though he had thus raised himself to power with comparative facility, found his new position by no means free from embarrassment and anxiety, for he was surrounded on all sides by formidable enemies and rivals. His own brothers stirred up insurrections against him in Germany, while the iron crown was assumed by Arduin, marquis of Ivrea. These and other movements of the same kind, though energetically repressed, were perpetually breaking out afresh. The emperor, however, with the aid of the holy see, which he sagaciously protected so far as his interests allowed, was ultimately successful in seating himself firmly in power, and in February, 1014, the pope crowned him at Rome. Henry II. died in 1024. His wife Cunegunda, with whom he is said to have lived for many years in a state of continence, spent her last days in the convent of Neuberg, and survived till 1038. Both were for the sanctity of their lives canonized.—W. C. H.
HENRY III., surnamed the Black, born in 1017, succeeded Conrad the Salic in 1039. The first part of his reign was troubled by wars with the barbarian Poles and Bohemians. The latter he vanquished in 1042, and captured their king Vladislaus; and in the following year he restored to the throne of Hungary Peter, king of that country, who had been expelled by his subjects. Henry's intervention ultimately involved him in a war with Hungary, in which he was not successful; and he was compelled to recognize Andrew, Peter's opponent, as king of that country, and to give him his daughter in marriage. Meanwhile the affairs of Italy demanded the emperor's serious attention. There were three popes, Benedict IX., Sylvester III., and Gregory VI., at one time sharing the ecclesiastical revenues of Christendom between them. To put an end to this great scandal, the emperor assembled a council at Sutri, summoned to it the three pontiffs, and deposed Gregory, who obeyed the summons, as well as the other two, who remained at a distance. He then filled up the papacy by his chancellor, Sudger, a German and bishop of Bamberg, who assumed the name of Clement II. Henry had been twice married, first to Margaret, daughter of Canute of England, secondly to Agnes of Aquitaine, who subsequently became regent during the minority of Henry IV. The emperor and Agnes were crowned by the new pope on Christmas-day, 1046. So absolute was the authority which Henry assumed in the disposal of the papal throne, that he appointed four popes in succession—Clement II. in 1046, Damasus II. in 1048, Leo IX. in 1049, and Victor II. In 1048 the emperor had to repress a powerful confederation of nobles in the Low Countries. On this occasion he held a conference with Henry I.
