HENRY III

born Oct. 4, 1379, Burgos, Castile died 1406, Toledo byname Henry The Sufferer, Spanish Enrique El Doliente king of Castile from 1390 to 1406. Though unable to take the field because of illness, he jealously preserved royal power through the royal council, the Audiencia (supreme court), and the corregidores (magistrates). During his minority, the anti-Jewish riots of Seville and other places produced the large class of conversos (converts). The son of John I, Henry bore the title of Prince of Asturias, which from then on designated the heir apparent. His marriage to Catherine of Lancaster, granddaughter of Peter I, ended the dynastic rift and consolidated the house of Trastmara. Henry succeeded as a boy of 11; and, under a regency, the Jewish communities were sacked as a result of fanatical preaching. He assumed power at 14, restored control over the royal council and courts, and imposed order. He curbed the Cortes (parliament), relying on legists. He resumed the struggle with Portugal (1396-98) and made a favourable truce, but he was unable to lead his troops and appointed his younger brother Ferdinand to campaign against Granada. He sent emissaries to the court of Timur (Tamerlane), the central Asian emperor and ruler of Persia, and licensed Jean de Bthencourt to conquer and colonize the Canary Islands. Henry III died young, leaving an heir, John II, less than two years old, and dividing the regency in an elaborate testament between his widow and his brother. born , Oct. 28, 1017 died Oct. 5, 1056, Pfalz Bodfeld, near Goslar, Saxony duke of Bavaria (as Henry VI, 1027-41), duke of Swabia (as Henry I, 1038-45), German king (from 1039), and Holy Roman emperor (1046-56), member of the Salian dynasty. He was a powerful advocate of the Cluniac reform movement that sought to purify the Western Church in the 11th century, the last emperor able to dominate the papacy. born October 1, 1207, Winchester, Hampshire, Eng. died November 16, 1272, London Seal of Henry III, showing the King enthroned; in the British Museum king of England from 1216 to 1272. In the 24 years (1234-58) during which he had effective control of the government, he displayed such indifference to tradition that the barons finally forced him to agree to a series of major reforms, the Provisions of Oxford (1258). The elder son and heir of King John (ruled 1199-1216), Henry was nine years old when his father died. At that time London and much of eastern England were in the hands of rebel barons led by Prince Louis (later King Louis VIII of France), son of the French king Philip II Augustus. A council of regency presided over by the venerable William Marshal, 1st earl of Pembroke, was formed to rule for Henry; by 1217 the rebels had been defeated and Louis forced to withdraw from England. After Pembroke's death in 1219 Hubert de Burgh ran the government until he was dismissed by Henry in 1232. Two ambitious Frenchmen, Peter des Roches and Peter des Rivaux, then dominated Henry's regime until the barons brought about their expulsion in 1234. That event marked the beginning of Henry's personal rule. Although Henry was charitable and cultured, he lacked the ability to rule effectively. In diplomatic and military affairs he proved to be arrogant yet cowardly, ambitious yet impractical. The breach between the King and his barons began as early as 1237, when the barons expressed outrage at the influence exercised over the government by Henry's Savoyard relatives. The marriage arranged (1238) by Henry between his sister, Eleanor, and his brilliant young French favourite, Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, increased foreign influence and further aroused the nobility's hostility. In 1242 Henry's Lusignan half brothers involved him in a costly and disastrous military venture in France. The barons then began to demand a voice in selecting Henry's counsellors, but the King repeatedly rejected their proposal. Finally, in 1254 Henry made a serious blunder. He concluded an agreement with Pope Innocent IV (pope 1243-54), offering to finance papal wars in Sicily if the Pope would grant his infant son, Edmund, the Sicilian crown. Four years later Pope Alexander IV (pope 1254-61) threatened to excommunicate Henry for failing to meet this financial obligation. Henry appealed to the barons for funds, but they agreed to cooperate only if he would accept far-reaching reforms. These measures, the Provisions of Oxford, provided for the creation of a 15-member privy council, selected (indirectly) by the barons, to advise the King and oversee the entire administration. The barons, however, soon quarrelled among themselves, and Henry seized the opportunity to renounce the Provisions (1261). In April 1264 Montfort, who had emerged as Henry's major baronial opponent, raised a rebellion; the following month he defeated and captured the King and his eldest son, Edward, at the Battle of Lewes (May 14, 1264), Sussex. Montfort ruled England in Henry's name until he was defeated and killed by Edward at the Battle of Evesham, Worcestershire, in August 1265. Henry, weak and senile, then allowed Edward to take charge of the government. After the King's death, Edward ascended the throne as King Edward I. born Sept. 19, 1551, Fontainebleau, France died Aug. 2, 1589, Saint-Cloud also called Henry of Valois, or (until 1574) duc d'Anjou king of France from 1574, under whose reign the prolonged crisis of the Wars of Religion was made worse by dynastic rivalries arising because the male line of the Valois dynasty was going to die out with him. The third son of Henry II and Catherine de Mdicis, Henry was at first entitled duc d'Anjou. Given command of the royal army against the Huguenots during the reign of his brother, Charles IX, he defeated two Huguenot leaders, the prince de Cond (Louis I de Bourbon) at Jarnac in March 1569 and Gaspard de Coligny at Moncontour in October of that year. Henry was Catherine's favourite son, much to Charles's chagrin, and she used her influence to advance his fortunes. In 1572 she presented him as a candidate for the vacant throne of Poland, to which he was finally elected in May 1573. In May 1574, however, Charles died, and Henry abandoned Poland and was crowned at Reims on Feb. 13, 1575. He was married two days later to Louise de Vaudmont, a princess of the house of Lorraine. The marriage proved childless. The French Wars of Religion (1562-98) continued during Henry III's reign. In May 1576 he agreed to the Peace of Monsieur, named after the style of his brother Franois, duc d'Alenon, but his concession to the Huguenots in the Edict of Beaulieu angered the Roman Catholics, who formed the Holy League to protect their own interests. Henry resumed the war against the Huguenots, but the Estates-General, meeting at Blois in 1576, was weary of Henry's extravagance and refused to grant him the necessary subsidies. The Peace of Bergerac (1577) ended the hostilities temporarily; the Huguenots lost some of their liberties by the Edict of Poitiers, and the Holy League was dissolved. In 1584, however, the Roman Catholics were alarmed when the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV), became heir to the throne on the death of Henry III's brother Franois, and the League was revived under the leadership of Henri, 3e duc de Guise. Henry III, acting on his mother's advice, tried to placate the Holy League by revoking past edicts that had granted toleration to the Huguenots, but its members regarded him as a lukewarm defender of the faith and tried to depose him. A rising of the people of Paris, a League stronghold, on May 12, 1588 (the Estates-Day of the Barricades), caused the king to flee to Chartres. In December 1588 he took advantage of a meeting of the Estates-General at Blois to have the duc de Guise and his brother Louis, the cardinal of Lorraine, assassinated. This, of course, exacerbated the League's hostility, and Henry III was compelled to ally himself with Henry of Navarre. Together they laid siege to Paris, but on Aug. 1, 1589, Jacques Clment, a fanatical Jacobin friar, gained admission to the king's presence and stabbed him. Before he died, Henry, who left no issue, acknowledged Henry of Navarre as his heir. Henry III had a good intellect, an ingratiating manner, cultivated tastes, and a gift for oratory but could not save France from civil war. He issued ordinances designed to correct many of the financial and judicial problems of the country, but he refused to exert the effort needed to enforce them. He was more attentive to the trappings of power than to its substance; and he lost the sympathy of powerful elements by his aloofness at court and by the favours he conferred upon his mignons, a small group of handsome young men with whom he indulged in questionable excesses. Above all, he was so extravagant as virtually to bankrupt his kingdom. born 1129/30 died Aug. 6, 1195, Brunswick, Saxony byname Henry The Lion, German Heinrich Der Lwe duke of Saxony (1142-80) and of Bavaria (as Henry XII, 1156-80), a strong supporter of the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. Henry spent his early years recovering his ancestral lands of Saxony (1142) and Bavaria (1154-56), thereafter founding the city of Munich (1157), enhancing the position of Lbeck, and greatly extending his territories. He broke with Frederick in 1176 and in consequence was deprived of most of his lands and was exiled twice (1181-85; 1189-90). Additional reading There is no contemporary biography, English-language work, or detailed treatise on Henry III. Ernst Steindorff, Jahrbcher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich III, 2 vol. (1874-81), is still the only comprehensive treatment. See also Die Urkunden Heinrichs III, ed. by Harry Bresslau and Paul Kehr (1931), vol. 5 in the "Monumenta Germaniae historica Series"; Paul Kehr, Vier Kapital aus der Geschichte Kaiser Heinrichs III (1931); Gerhart Ladner, Theologie und Politik vor dem Investiturstreit: Abendmahlstreit, Kirchenreform, Cluni und Heinrich III (1936, reprinted 1968); Ernst Mueller, Das Itinerar Kaiser Heinrichs III, 1039 bis 1056 (1901); Heinrich Appelt, "Heinrich III," Neue deutsche Biographie, vol. 8, pp. 313-315 (1969); Caroline M. Ryley, Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3, pp. 272-308 (1922). Additional reading Karl Jordan, Henry the Lion (1986), examines both his political dealings and his role as a patron of learning and art. Peter Munz, Frederick Barbarossa: A Study in Medieval Politics (1969), describes the political situation of Henry's time.