Also called: Henri IV, Henry of Navarre
Founder of France’s Bourbon dynasty (r. 1589–1610), a Huguenot leader who converted to Catholicism to take the throne and ended the Wars of Religion with the Edict of Nantes
From 1562 France was torn for more than thirty years by civil war between Catholics and Calvinist Protestants (Huguenots); in 1598 Henry IV ended it with the Edict of Nantes, granting the Huguenots freedom of conscience.
From Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to Catherine the Great — the wars of religion of a divided Christendom ended at Westphalia, and absolute monarchs armed with divine right, standing armies, bureaucracies and mercantilism, followed by the enlightened despots of eastern Europe, contended for the balance of power among sovereign states