Henry III of France
Henry III was the last Valois king of France and was stabbed by a Dominican friar. Born at Fontainebleau in 1551, the fourth son of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici, he was her favourite, and was the ablest of her sons. He commanded royal armies as a teenager and won at Jarnac and Moncontour in 1569 against the Huguenots. He was elected King of Poland in 1573, travelled there, and left secretly within months when his brother Charles IX died, riding for the French border with Polish nobles in pursuit. He inherited a kingdom in its fifth civil war. His position was structurally impossible: the Catholic League under the Guise family, funded by Spain, was more powerful than the crown, and the Huguenots would not disarm. His own conduct did not help. He alternated between extravagant court festivals with his mignons — favourites whose dress and manner scandalised opinion and provoked accusations of effeminacy and sodomy — and bouts of extreme penitential piety, walking in processions of flagellants. His brother's death in 1584 made Henry of Navarre, a Protestant, heir to the throne, which the League refused to accept. Paris rose against the king on the Day of the Barricades in 1588 and he fled his own capital. That December he had the Duke of Guise and his brother the cardinal murdered at Blois. The League declared him deposed, and he allied with Navarre to besiege Paris. Jacques Clément, a friar, stabbed him at Saint-Cloud in August 1589. He named Navarre his heir as he died.
- Lived: 1551 CE – 1589 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: king, head_of_state
