Bourbon dynasty

A royal house whose members ruled many states of Europe, including France, Navarre, Naples, Sicily, and Spain, which still has a Bourbon member as its ceremonial king. The most powerful branch of the Bourbons ruled France from 1589 until 1792, when King Louis XVI was overthrown and executed during the French Revolution.

The family was established as the hereditary lords of Bourbon and vassals of the Capetian dynasty that established the French monarchy in the late tenth century. In 1268, Beatrix of Bourbon married Prince Robert, the count of Clermont and a son of King Louis IX. Charles of Bourbon, the last of the line, died in 1527; another branch of the family was ruling the duchy of Vendôeme. This family became lords of Navarre, a small kingdom on France's southern border with Spain, in 1555. In the meantime, the Protestant revolt against the Catholic doctrine and hierarchy was driving France to a full-scale civil war. To make peace with the Huguenots (Protestants) of France, Catherine de Médicis, the mother of the French king, arranged a marriage of her daughter Margaret to Henry, the Bourbon and Protestant prince of Navarre. On the wedding day, August 24, 1572, the Catholics of France took the festivities as an occasion for a wholesale slaughter of Protestants in the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Henry announced his conversion to the Catholic faith but in 1576 again declared himself a Huguenot. In 1584, after the death of the younger brother of the king, Henry of Navarre became next in line for the throne. In 1589, when the king of France was assassinated, King Henry III of Navarre became the first Bourbon king of France as Henry IV.

The arrival of a Protestant on the throne of France raised the ire of Catholics, who rallied around Henry's uncle, Cardinal Charles de Bourbon. Henry defeated Charles in battle in 1590, but was unable to seize Paris, a Catholic stronghold, with the forces at his disposal. For the sake of the French kingdom and a hope for a lasting truce, he converted once again to Catholicism, remarking that “Paris is worth a mass,” and was formally crowned in 1594. In 1598 Henry passed the Edict of Nantes that recognized Catholicism as the official religion of France but also decreed tolerance for the Huguenots. The civil war now at an end, France grew into the most powerful, united kingdom in Europe. Henry and his successor Louis XIII built new roads and canals, promoted the growth of textiles and other industries in the north, reformed and improved French agriculture, and built the French army and navy into a military force second to none in the western world. The Bourbons, through a system of their intendants, dominated the French nobles and extended their absolute control over the kingdom's many counties, duchies, and the semi-independent domains of the nobility. Under Louis XIV, France fought several wars for more territory in the north and east; but when the king revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 an exodus of Protestants from northern France took place, weakening the kingdom's productive industries.

In 1700, when the king of Spain died without an heir, Louis contested the throne of Spain with the Habsburg dynasty of Austria. England, the Netherlands, and Austria formed a coalition against the ambitious French. A War of the Spanish Succession lasted until 1714, when Louis finally succeeded in placing his grandson on the throne of Spain, at the cost of nearly emptying the French treasury. At his death Louis had reigned longer than any other king in the history of Europe. Under his great-grandson, Louis XV, France lost several major wars in Europe and North America, further damaging the kingdom's finances and leading to the widespread unrest that brought about the French Revolution.

See Also: France; Henry IV