Favorite son of Catherine de Medici, Henri bears the title of Duke of Anjou while his brother Charles IX governs . Promoted to lieutenant general of the kingdom at the age of 16, he participated victoriously in the Wars of Religion (battle of Jarnac and Moncontour) before experiencing defeat at the siege of La Rochelle (1573). He was then suddenly named King of Poland. Less than a year later, following the death of his brother, he returned to France to be crowned. He continued the Wars of Religion, but then found himself in a delicate position between the Catholics of the Duke of Guise and the Protestants of his brother-in-law Henri de Navarre. Driven out of Paris by the Catholic League, he allies himself with the Protestants of Navarre and has the Duke of Guise assassinated in Blois (1589). During the reconquest of Paris, he was in turn assassinated by the Leaguer monk Jacques Clément. Before dying, he bequeaths the throne to Henry of Navarre.
Henri, King of Navarre is the son of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne dAlbret. He is a blood prince as a descendant of Saint-Louis. Baptized under the Catholic religion, he followed a Calvinist education by his mother, and converted to the Reformation. In 1572, in order to reconcile Catholics and Prote