ABSTRACT
Henry IV (Henry of Navarre) ended the Wars of Religion that had plagued France in the sixteenth century. Henry IV then reconstructed the French economy and royal finances. Henry IV grew up at a time of increasing religious tensions stemming from the Protestant Reformation, which had split France into two opposing factions of Catholics and Huguenots. Henry IV's chief accomplishment was bringing lasting peace to France after nearly 40 years of civil and religious war. Royal authority had nearly collapsed during the war years, with both Catholics and Protestants questioning the power and prerogatives of royal rule. Henry IV's compromise with the Huguenots, while ending the war, did not solve the problem of two faiths in a nation where the king embodied and defended only one. The economic growth promoted by the stable social and political order Henry IV constructed enabled France to finance its military rivalry with the Habsburg dynasty in the seventeenth century.
