25
July 1593 A.D. French
Huguenot King Henry IV Abjures Reformed Faith.
Later Issues Edict of Nantes.
Graves, Dan. “Henry IV Renounced Protestant Faith.” Christianity.com. Apr 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/henry-iv-renounced-protestant-faith-11630040.html. Accessed 13 May 2014.
Henry IV "The Great" remains the most
popular of the French kings. However, there was time when it was doubtful he
could take the throne. The chief difficulty lay in the fact that he had been
reared a Protestant (French Huguenot) in a nation whose majority was Roman
Catholic.
Henry escaped the St Bartholomew Day massacre (in
which Catholics butchered several thousand Protestants) by renouncing
Protestantism. Held captive by the French royal family, he escaped, rejoined
the Protestants and led them to successful victories. Meanwhile, deaths made
him legal heir to the French throne.
However, the pope had excommunicated Henry for his
religious views. French Catholics might have appreciated his flair, but were
unwilling to see a "heretic" on the throne. The Catholic league had
even passed a law that barred Henry from the throne.
Moderate Catholics, recognizing that Henry was the
only person with a real hope of governing the war-torn country urged him to
renounce his childhood faith and become a Catholic. Henry replied that one's religion was not as easily changed as
ones shirt. Nonetheless, he talked with his advisors, and they assured him that
one could be saved as truly in the Roman Church as under the Calvinism in which
he had grown up.
Four and a half years passed between the day the
throne became vacant and Henry's announcement that he would convert to
Catholicism. In July 1593, he made his way to Saint-Denis to speak with a score
of Catholic bishops and theologians who helped him resolve his remaining
questions. His last objections removed, Henry abjured Protestantism on this
day, July 25, 1593.
Dressed in white satin, the heir to the throne
marched through the hot streets of Saint-Denis, accompanied by trumpeters, a
Swiss guard and many nobles. The crowds shouted "vive le roi!" as he
passed. At the basilica of Saint-Denis, an archbishop met him and heard him ask
to be received into the communion of the catholic, apostolic Roman Church.
"Do you truly desire it?" asked the
archbishop.
"Yes, I wish and desire it," said Henry.
Popular legend also has him say at some point, "Paris is worth a
mass." This is probably fiction.
Still, Henry's problems were not over. The pope
wanted to make an example of him and refused to remove his excommunication
without humiliating penances. However, political dangers and King Henry VIII of
England's break with the Catholic church, brought the pope to a more reasonable
attitude.
When Henry became king, he issued the Edict of
Nantes, protecting the rights of his former Protestant allies. He adopted policies
which for the most part brought peace and prosperity to France. The chief blot
on his character was his passion for mistresses. He was assassinated by a
dagger-wielding fanatic seventeen years after his famous abjuration.
Bibliography:
1. Buisseret, David. Henry IV.
London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984.
2. Various encyclopedia and internet
articles.
Last updated July, 2007
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