Henri I de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (29 December 1552 – 5 March 1588) was a French '' prince du sang'' and

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

general like his more prominent father,

Louis I, Prince of Condé Louis I de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (7 May 1530 – 13 March 1569) was a prominent Huguenot leader and general, the founder of the Condé branch of the House of Bourbon. Coming from a position of relative political unimportance during the r ...

Life

Henri was the eldest son of Louis I de Bourbon and Eléanor de Roye, daughter and heiress of Charles de Roye,

Count of Roucy This article is a list of the counts of Roucy. In medieval France, Roucy was a county held by a succession of noble families. By the Late Middle Ages, it was one of seven titles that was made a peer within the provincial peerage of the greater Co ...

. Of the eight children in his family, he and his brother François, Prince of Conti, were the only ones to have children. Blason Louis Ier prince de Condé (1530 † 1569)

Blason Louis Ier prince de Condé (1530 † 1569)

Following the death of his father, Louis, at the

Battle of Jarnac The Battle of Jarnac on 13 March 1569 was an encounter during the French Wars of Religion between the Catholic forces of Marshal Gaspard de Saulx, sieur de Tavannes, and the Huguenots led by Louis I de Bourbon, prince de Condé The two forces met ...

Jeanne d'Albret Jeanne d'Albret ( Basque: ''Joana Albretekoa''; Occitan: ''Joana de Labrit''; 16 November 1528 – 9 June 1572), also known as Jeanne III, was Queen of Navarre from 1555 to 1572. Jeanne was the daughter of Henry II of Navarre and Margar ...

introduced Henri and her own son,

Henry of Navarre Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...

, as pages to

Admiral Coligny Gaspard de Coligny (16 February 1519 – 24 August 1572), Seigneur de Châtillon, was a French nobleman, Admiral of France, and Huguenot leader during the French Wars of Religion. He served under kings Francis I and Henry II during the Ita ...

. Since both were ''princes of the blood'', this act gave the Huguenot cause legitimacy. At the Battle of Moncontour on 3 October 1569, Henri was wounded in the face and was forced to retreat. Attending the wedding of Henry of Navarre and the subsequent massacre of Protestants, Henri was forced to convert to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, face death or life imprisonment. In his escape from

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, Henri was joined by

Theodore Beza Theodore Beza ( la, Theodorus Beza; french: Théodore de Bèze or ''de Besze''; June 24, 1519 – October 13, 1605) was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation ...

, who published his ''Du droit des magistrats sur leurs sujets'' in Germany. By 1573 the Huguenot cause had made some political gains in the

Midi MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

, consequently Henri was assigned "governor general and protector". Following the Peace of Monsieur, he was restored to his governorship of Picardy. During the sixth war of religion, he commanded the forces that captured Brouage and allowed for English aid for the Huguenots. And, it would be Henri, angered by Catholic resistance to his governorship of Picardy, who started the seventh war of religion by seizing the town of

La Fère La Fère () is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in France. Population See also * Communes of the Aisne department The following is a list of the 799 communes in the French department of Aisne. The communes coope ...

in November 1579. In 1588, Henri died at

Saint-Jean-d'Angély Saint-Jean-d'Angély (; Saintongeais: ''Sént-Jhan-d'Anjhéli'') is a commune in the Charente-Maritime department in southwestern France. The commune has its historical origins in the Abbey of Saint-Jean-d'Angély. Royal abbey Founded in the ...

after a brief illness.

Marriages

He married twice, first to his cousin,

Marie of Cleves Marie may refer to: People Name * Marie (given name) * Marie (Japanese given name) * Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973 * Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in T ...

. With Marie, Henri had one child: * Catherine (1574–1595), Marquise d'Isles Secondly, Henri married his

second cousin once removed Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

, Charlotte Catherine de La Tremoille (1568–1629), daughter of

Louis III de La Trémoille Louis III de La Trémoille (1521 – 25 March 1577), 1st Duke of Thouars, was a sixteenth-century French nobleman of the La Tremoille family. He was the son of François II de La Trémoille and his wife, Anne de Laval. Louis accompanied the d ...

. They had at least two children: *

Éléonore de Bourbon Éléonore de Bourbon-Condé (30 April 1587 – 20 January 1619) was the daughter of Henri I de Bourbon and his second wife Charlotte Catherine de la Tremoille. Éléonore's father was the first cousin of King Henry IV of France. She was a ...

(1587–1619), married in 1606 to

Philip William, Prince of Orange Philip William, Prince of Orange (19 December 1554 in Buren, Gelderland – 20 February 1618) was the eldest son of William the Silent by his first wife Anna van Egmont. He became Prince of Orange in 1584 and Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1599. ...

. * Henri II, Prince of Condé (1588–1646)

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Henri 01 de Bourbon, Prince de Conde 1552 births 1588 deaths People from La Ferté-sous-Jouarre House of Bourbon-Condé Huguenots French people of the French Wars of Religion Princes of Condé 16th-century peers of France