Henry IV: King of France

"Buisseret is a very respected historian, with a different slant than Babelon’s. He is not especially interested in Henri as a political figure before he becomes king. Instead, he concentrates on the military history of the times and Henri as a soldier. You get a great deal about Henri as a warrior and commander of armies. Henri was sometimes outmatched by some of the Spanish commanders like Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma. But Henri made good use of what skills he had and managed to hold his own over a very long period. Don’t forget that the civil wars only came to a close eight or ten years after Henri came to the throne, despite his conversion to Catholicism in 1593. During those years, Henri was constantly at war not only against factions of the Guises and others, but also against Spain and Savoy as well. If you’re interested in military history, you’ll find more here than you will in Babelon, including Henri’s later interest in ‘national defense’: restoring or building fortresses along the borders of France, strengthening their garrisons, and initiating infrastructure projects that would also make it easier to defend the frontiers. To this end, he built canals, roads, and bridges, all of which had both commercial and military implications. He also made efforts to rebuild the French artillery, traditionally a strong arm of the French military machine. He does cover some of the same ground that you find in Babelon, in particular the centrality and importance of the crown and the royal court as the political and administrative heart of the kingdom. He sees Henri again, not surprisingly, as the royal policeman, the person who restores law and order, re-establishing the stability that had been missing for so long, and creating the environment in which all the institutions of government could be revitalised. Buisseret doesn’t spend a lot of time on royal finances, which is an important area (he had already written a different book on that subject). “Henri was the only king of France who had to be a good politician” He’s also very good on the international dimension. You can’t get away from the fact that these quarrels of the 16th century were international. If Spain intervened in France, and hoped to do so in England, France was happy to reciprocate by supporting the Dutch revolt against their Spanish overlords, while Elizabeth of England aligned herself with Henri and the Dutch rebels: everyone had his fingers in somebody else’s dish, you might say. Buisseret is very good on that diplomacy. Overall, with Buisseret, you get a different slant on Henri than you find in Babelon, so the two biographies play off one another very well."