Henry III of France
Henry III was King of France from 1574 until his assassination in 1589 and, as Henry of Valois, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.
As the fourth son of King Henry II of France and Queen Catherine de' Medici, he was not expected to inherit the French throne and thus was a good candidate for the vacant throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he was elected monarch in 1573. During his brief rule, he refused to sign the Henrician Articles into law, which would recognise the szlachta's right to freely elect their monarch. The Henrician Articles became, nonetheless, deeply rooted in Poland's politics as all his successors accepted them. Aged 22, Henry abandoned Poland–Lithuania upon inheriting the French throne when his brother, Charles IX, died without issue.
France was at the time plagued by the Wars of Religion, and Henry's authority was undermined by violent political factions funded by foreign powers: the Catholic League, the Protestant Huguenots and the Malcontents. Henry III was himself a politique, arguing that only a strong and centralised yet religiously tolerant monarchy would save France from collapse.
After the death of Henry's younger brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, and when it became apparent that Henry would not father an heir, the Wars of Religion developed into a dynastic war known as the War of the Three Henrys. Under Salic Law, Henry III's heir apparent was his distant cousin, King Henry III of Navarre, a Protestant. The Catholic League, led by Henry I, Duke of Guise, demanded the exclusion of all Protestant heirs from the line of succession. They instead championed the Catholic Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon, as Henry III's heir presumptive.
Henry had the Duke of Guise murdered in 1588 and was in turn assassinated by Jacques Clément, a Catholic League fanatic, in 1589. He was succeeded by the King of Navarre who, as Henry IV, assumed the throne of France as the first king of the House of Bourbon.
Early life
Childhood
Henry was born at the royal Château de Fontainebleau, as Alexandre Édouard, duc de Angoulême, the fourth son of King Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. He was a grandson of Francis I of France and Claude of France. His older brothers were Francis II of France, Charles IX of France, and Louis of Valois. He was made Duke of Angoulême and Duke of Orléans in 1560, then Duke of Anjou in 1566.He was his mother's favourite; she called him chers yeux and lavished fondness and affection upon him for most of his life. His elder brother, Charles, grew to detest him, partially because he resented his better health.
The royal children were raised under the supervision of Diane de Poitiers, his father's mistress.
Youth
Although he was skilled and fond of fencing, he preferred to indulge his tastes for the arts and reading. These predilections were attributed to his Italian mother. Henry's favourite interests were hunting and riding.At one point in his youth Henry showed a tendency towards Protestantism as a means of rebelling. At the age of nine, he called himself "a little Huguenot", attended Mass only to please his mother, sang Protestant psalms to his sister Margaret, and even bit the nose off a statue of Saint Paul. His mother firmly cautioned him against such behaviour, and he would never again show any Protestant tendencies. Instead, he became staunchly Catholic.
In the factional dispute that engulfed France in the wake of Henry II's death in 1559, Henry was solicited by Henry, son of Francis, Duke of Guise, at the behest of Jacques, Duke of Nemours, to run away from court to be a figurehead for the ultra-Catholics. However, the plot was uncovered before any action could be taken.
Henry was known as a flaneur, who relished leisurely strolls through Paris and partook in the sociability in the busiest of neighbourhoods. He revelled in fairs, music, bilboquet and court masques. His extravagance in court entertainments cut him off from the common people. He was also a devout Catholic who introduced pious reforms into the city and he encouraged the French church to follow the edicts of the Council of Trent.
Sexuality
Reports that Henry engaged in same-sex relations with his court favourites, known as the mignons, date back to his own time. He was known to have enjoyed intense relationships with them. The scholar Louis Crompton maintains that all of the contemporary rumours about Henry were true. However, some modern historians have disputed this: Jean-Francois Solnon, Nicolas Le Roux, and Jacqueline Boucher have noted that Henry had many famous mistresses, that he was well known for his taste in beautiful women, and that no male sex partners have been identified. They concluded that the idea he was homosexual was promoted by his political opponents who used his dislike of war to depict him as effeminate and undermine his reputation with the French people. The portrait of a self-indulgent homosexual incapable of fathering an heir to the throne proved useful in efforts by the Catholic League to secure the succession for Cardinal Charles de Bourbon after 1585. Robert Knecht maintained that the mignons themselves were "not homosexuals" either, "as is often assumed. Far from being effeminate, they were skilful swordsmen, who risked their lives in duels."However, French Renaissance scholar Gary Ferguson considers such interpretations to be unconvincing: "It is difficult to reconcile the king whose use of favourites is so logically strategic with the man who goes to pieces when one of them dies." Katherine Crawford, by contrast, emphasizes the problems Henry's reputation encountered because of his failure to produce an heir and the presence of his powerful mother at court, combined with his enemies' insistence on conflating patronage with favouritism and luxury with decadence.
Elizabeth
In 1570, discussions commenced arranging for Henry to court Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth, almost 37, was expected by many parties in her country to marry and produce an heir. However, nothing came of these discussions. In initiating them, Elizabeth is viewed by historians as having intended only to arouse the concern of Spain, rather than contemplate marriage seriously. Henry's mother felt the chance of marriage despite differing religious views simply required personal sacrifice. Henry tactlessly referred to Elizabeth as a putain publique and made ridiculous remarks about their difference in age.Wars of Religion
In November 1567, upon the death of Anne de Montmorency, Henry assumed the role of Lieutenant-General of France, placing him in nominal control of France's military. Henry served as a leader of the royal army, taking part in the victories over the Huguenots at the Battle of Jarnac and at the Battle of Moncontour. At this time he was a rallying point for the ultra-Catholics at court, who saw him as an opposition figure to the tolerant line being taken by the King, with Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine guiding his council. Lorraine offered him 200,000 Francs of Church revenue to become a protector of Catholicism, and tried to arrange his marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots; however neither project took off.While still Duke of Anjou, he helped plot the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. Though Henry did not participate directly, historian Thierry Wanegffelen sees him as the royal most responsible for the massacre, which involved the targeted killing of many Huguenot leaders. Henry III's reign as King of France, like those of his elder brothers Francis and Charles, would see France in constant turmoil over religion.
Henry continued to take an active role in the Wars of Religion, and in 1572/1573 led the siege of La Rochelle, a massive military assault on the Huguenot-held city. At the end of May 1573, Henry learned that the Polish szlachta had elected him King of Poland and political considerations forced him to negotiate an end to the siege. Negotiators reached an agreement on 24 June 1573, and Catholic troops ended the siege on 6 July 1573.
King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1574–1575)
Following the death of the Polish ruler Sigismund II Augustus on 7 July 1572, Jean de Monluc was sent as the French envoy to Poland to negotiate the election of Henry to the Polish throne in exchange for military support against Russia, diplomatic assistance in dealing with the Ottoman Empire, and financial subsidies. Charles IX allowed Henry's envoys to give up to 50,000 écus to important people in Poland-Lithuania as a bribe, but this would increase to 100,000 each.File:Henri on the throne in front of the Polish Diet.jpg|thumb|right|Henry III on the Polish throne, in front of the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and aristocracy surrounded by halberdiers, 1574
On 16 May 1573, Polish nobles chose Henry as the first elected monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Lithuanian nobles boycotted this election, however, and it was left to the Lithuanian ducal council to confirm his election. The commonwealth elected Henry, rather than Habsburg candidates, partly in order to be more agreeable to the Ottoman Empire and strengthen a Polish-Ottoman alliance that was in effect. In addition to this, Henry was not a powerful ruler in his own right, as he was only a Prince, nor did France border the Commonwealth, so he wouldn't have the capacity to strip the Polish Nobility of their historic rights.
A Polish delegation went to La Rochelle to meet with Henry, who was leading the Siege of La Rochelle. Henry left the siege following their visit. In Paris, on 10 September, the Polish delegation asked Henry to take an oath, at Notre Dame Cathedral, to "respect traditional Polish liberties and the law on religious freedom that had been passed during the interregnum". As a condition of his election, he was compelled to sign the pacta conventa and the Henrician Articles, pledging religious tolerance in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Henry chafed at the restrictions on monarchic power under the Polish-Lithuanian political system of "Golden Liberty". The Polish-Lithuanian parliament had been urged by Anna Jagiellon, the sister of the recently deceased king Sigismund II Augustus, to elect him based on the understanding that Henry would wed Anna afterward.
At a ceremony before the Parlement of Paris on 13 September, the Polish delegation handed over the "certificate of election to the throne of Poland-Lithuania". Henry also gave up any claims to succession and he "recognized the principle of free election" under the Henrician Articles and the pacta conventa.
It was not until January 1574 that Henry was to reach the borders of Poland. On 21 February, Henry's coronation was held in Kraków. In mid-June 1574, upon learning of the death of his brother Charles IX, Henry left Poland and headed back to France. Henry's absence provoked a constitutional crisis that the Parliament attempted to resolve by notifying Henry that his throne would be lost if he did not return from France by 12 May 1575. His failure to return caused Parliament to declare his throne vacant.
The short reign of Henry at Wawel Castle in Poland was marked by a clash of cultures between the Polish and the French. The young king and his followers were astonished by several Polish practices and disappointed by the rural poverty and harsh climate of the country. The Poles, on the other hand, wondered if all Frenchmen were as concerned with their appearance as their new king appeared to be.
In many aspects, Polish culture had a positive influence on France. At Wawel, the French were introduced to new technologies of septic facilities, in which litter was taken outside the castle walls. On returning to France, Henry wanted to order the construction of such facilities at the Louvre and other palaces. Other inventions introduced to the French by the Polish included a bath with regulated hot and cold water as well as dining forks.
In 1578, Henry created the Order of the Holy Spirit to commemorate his becoming first King of Poland and later King of France on the Feast of Pentecost and gave it precedence over the earlier Order of St. Michael, which had lost much of its original prestige by being awarded too frequently and too readily. The Order would retain its prestige as the premier chivalric order of France until the end of the French monarchy.