Alexandre-Édouard de Valois, Duke of Anjou (Henri III)

Alexandre-Édouard de Valois (* 19 September 1551; † 2 August 1589) was the fourth son of Henri II and Caterina de' Medici. Of all his brothers, he was the one with the most robust health. He did not get on well with his siblings, but was his mother’s declared favourite.

François Quesnel (?). Henri III. 1580-1586. Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu (Poznań). Detail. CC0

In 1570 negotiations began about a marriage with Elizabeth I. Anjou openly expressed his disapproval of being married to a woman 18 years his senior, but the English queen may never have been seriously interested in this union either.

Anjou had already taken part in the two or three meetings of Catharina de' Medici, Maréchal Gaspard de Tavannes, Retz, Gonzague and René de Birague that took place in the wake of the assassination of Coligny, on 23 August 1572. He is said to have been present when Charles IX, the Duke of Guise and presumably also the Duke of Montpensier joined them in the evening at the Louvre. Active participation in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre could never be proven against him.1

In July 1572 Sigismund II. August of Poland died childless. The Nihil Novi constitution of 1505 and the union of Poland and Lithuania into a Real Union in 1569 had led to the emergence of the so-called Rzeczpospolita szlachecka (Republic of Nobles), in which the nobles elected the king. Since the Polish nobility made up between eight and twelve percent of the population, a large proportion of the people were involved in political decision-making compared to other European countries. Preference was given to rulers who did not come from the ancestral homeland and had no domestic power. In May 1573 the Polish nobility decided in favour of Anjou, who left for Poland in December and was crowned in February 1574. Anjou was as unenthusiastic about Poland as Poland was about him. In mid-June he received news from Caterina de' Medici that Charles IX had died. In a night and fog action, Anjou left his new kingdom with a few faithful to succeed his brother in France.

On 3 February 1575, Anjou was crowned Henri III of France. Shortly afterwards he married Louise de Vaudémont, a cousin of the Duke of Guise. The king was not a faithful husband, but a good one, loved by his wife beyond death. It is believed that Louise was pregnant at least once but lost the child. She probably developed a uterine infection as a result of which she became infertile. In any case, despite numerous attempts, cures and pilgrimages, pregnancy no longer occurred. Henri III attached great importance to hygiene as well as to his appearance, often overstepping the bounds of extravagance.2 However, it was overlooked that this was an attempt to visually represent the majesty of the sovereign.3 Unlike his predecessors, he was not enthusiastic about hunting or physical exercise, although he was a good horseman and swordsman. Much to the astonishment of those around him, Henri III devoted himself to the administrative affairs of the realm. He was an intellectual who sought conversation with scholars, mastered several languages, but at the same time had great religious devotion, which he ostentatiously displayed, although he had flirted with Calvinism in his youth.4 His favouritism in particular was already reproached by his contemporaries. In fact, there was a political calculation behind it that only historians in the 20th century were able to appreciate. By making his favourites, also called mignons, entirely dependent on royal grace and keeping them busy with internal rivalries, Henri III created a nobility devoted only to him, which he could use against nobles like Guise who were striving for autonomy. Together with a predilection for appearance and etiquette, this makes Henri III the direct forerunner of Louis XIV.

Unlike Guise, Henri III was not popular with the population. Added to this was the king’s manoeuvring between Catholics and Huguenots, which became all the more politically explosive when Alençon died in 1584 and there was no Catholic heir to the throne in sight. This led to the foundation of the Catholic League under the leadership of Guise. The conflict escalated on 12 May 1588, the "Day of the Barricades", when the people of Paris threw their weight behind the duke, forcing the king to leave his capital in secret. Spain had supported the Catholic movement and Guise in particular for years. When it became known in the autumn of 1588 that the Spanish Armada had been destroyed and Spain suddenly had other worries, Henri III sensed an opportunity. He dismissed all his ministers on 8 September 1588 and convened the Estates General for October, the majority of which, however, were in favour of the League. The Duke of Mayenne informed Henri III of an assassination attempt his brother was planning. By assassinating the Duke of Guise, the king not only wanted to pre-empt this assassination attempt, he also hoped that the elimination of Guise and his brother Louis de Lorraine-Guise would weaken the League in the long term, but exactly the opposite happened.5 Henri III now officially turned to Henri de Navarre, whom he could be sure would support him in the struggle against his own subjects. In the summer of 1589, they laid siege to Paris, which was held by the League’s supporters. The Dominican monk Jacques Clément gained access to the king and stabbed him. Henri III, the last sovereign of the House of Valois, which had ruled France for 261 years, died in the morning hours of 2 August 1589.

The Massacre at Paris

Anjou first appears in [Scene 4] planning the massacre. In [Scene 6] he decides to take part in the general killing in disguise. He is present at the murder of Coligny, the preacher Loreine and Ramée in [Scene 7] as well as [Scene 9]. In this scene he also meets Navarre, whom he persuades that he has just got up and has done everything to stop the riot.
In the presence of the Polish ambassadors who offer him the royal crown, [Scene 10] Anjou presents himself as a worthy opponent for Russia’s Ivan IV the Terrible and the Ottoman ruler Suleiman I the Magnificent. This not only reveals his arrogance, but is also Marlowe’s sideswipe at religion by contrasting the two capable but non-Catholic rulers with Anjou, an unimpressive representative of Catholicism.6 The clause guaranteeing Anjou a return to France in the event of Charles IX’s death is an invention by Marlowe. Alençon, the youngest brother of Charles IX, had initially assumed that he would succeed the king after his death, as his other brother was already king of Poland. There, too, Anjou’s assumption of the kingship was seen as permanent and independent of developments in the French succession.
From the coronation onwards in [Scene 14], Marlowe pays more attention to the mignons. Even during Charles IX’s lifetime, Anjou surrounded himself with select favourites – not always to the court’s delight. They only appeared as a real nuisance after he became king and the impression arose that they would influence him politically. The conflict between Henri III and Guise was not triggered by an alleged relationship between the Duchess of Guise and a mignon as in [Scene 17], but by the permanent preference of favourites over Guise in important positions. In [Scene 19] several events are mentioned that preceded the last meeting between Henri III and Guise: the foundation of the League, the day of the barricades or the convocation of the Estates-General for autumn 1588. In contrast to the play, however, the conversation between Henri III and Guise took place afterwards and not before the convocation. The king’s statement in view of the dead Guise: "I nere was King of France untill this houre: "7 is one of many that Henri III is said to have actually made.
The assassination of the king in [Scene 24] is historically quite accurately described. Only Navarre was not present at the actual crime. He had set up camp in Meudon and was only called to the injured king later. The weapon was not poisoned, as the doctor says. At first, it looked as if Henri III would survive the attack. What exactly he said before his death is disputed. The League’s pamphleteers claimed that there was only a brief conversation with Navarre and that he was never presented by the King as his official successor. The writers of the Huguenots naturally claim the opposite. Henri III probably confirmed Navarre’s claim to the throne, but urged him to convert to Catholicism.

Marlowe’s Anjou/Henri III is an ambivalent figure whose transformation comes with the coronation. At the beginning, he is a Catholic fellow traveller in Guise’s haze. After becoming king, the duke increasingly becomes the real antagonist, for whose assassination Henri III gains rather than loses sympathy. Towards the end, the King of France and the King of Navarre stand united in battle against a group of rebellious fanatics led by a power-hungry family. Religion has lost its significance. The representation of the mignons is also interesting. They are criticised by the Queen Mother and Guise. Looked at closely, however, they are not bad advisors and are nowhere near as influential as Gaveston or Spenser in Edward II. In presenting good (Navarre) and evil (Guise, Queen Mother), Marlowe is unusually one-sided. Henri III is more complex and surprisingly accurately portrayed for a character in a 16th century historical drama.


Berger, Bibiana Maria. 1990. “Der Hof Heinrich III. (1551-1589): Studien Zur Französischen Hof- Und Festkultur Im 16. Jahrhundert.” PhD thesis, Wien: Universität Wien.
Crawford, Katherine B. 2003. “Love, Sodomy, and Scandal: Controlling the Sexual Reputation of Henry III.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 12 (4): 513–42.
Holt, Mack P. 1995. The French Wars of Religion, 1562 – 1629. New Approaches to European History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilkinson, Alexander. 2004. “’Homicides Royaux’: The Assassination of the Duc and Cardinal de Guise and the Radicalization of French Public Opinion.” French History 18 (2): 129–53. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/18.2.129.

  1. Holt (1995)↩︎
  2. Berger (1990)↩︎
  3. Crawford (2003)↩︎
  4. Berger (1990)↩︎
  5. Wilkinson (2004)↩︎
  6. Leech (1963)↩︎
  7. The Massacre at Paris. 21,97↩︎

Aktualisiert am 18.01.2023

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