Henri de Navarre

Abstract

In the second half of the sixteenth century, a series of weak Valois monarchs was unable to halt a murderous civil war between the Catholic majority and Protestant minority which devastated France for decades. By positioning himself as a tolerant chief of state above religious factions and acting in the interest of the French nation as a whole, Henri IV of France and Navarre was able to knit together the warring parties and bring to the country a degree of peace and prosperity rare in a century of strife.