WI: Henry IV Does Not Convert

What if Henry IV of France did not become Catholic? Who would the Catholic League put forward-Charles de Bourbon? What would be the effects on wider Europe? what if?
 
Well, if he did not convert, you could very probably have the vast majority of the country rallying to a catholic king, whose crowning could be approved by the Estates-General of the kingdom.
 
Yep. It also won't be Charles de Bourbon, on the grounds that he's... kind of dead by this point.

Now, as for who the Catholic League would put forward--one of the problems they had was the lack of a clear candidate. If Henri de Bourbon refuses to convert, they probably will eventually congeal on one.

The three most likely choices are...

Charles, Duke of Guise
Charles, Duke of Lorraine
Francois, Duke of Montpensier

There are other possibilities, including a few Catholic Bourbon-Condes who remained quite loyal to their cousin. (Francois was also pretty loyal, but he was also a great deal more Catholic...)
 
Don't forget about Infanta Isabella. Philip II tried to get his daughter made Queen of France and her rights were supposedly recognized by the Parliamente de Paris. So if the Catholic League can't get their acts together we might see a Spanish Invasion for "Queen Isabella".
 
Thing is, the Estates aren't going to accept her except as a potential marriage partner for one of the aforementioned. Hell, Philip damaged both Spain's standing with the League, and the League itself by insisting on that. (Especially with his insistence that they'd have to accept her being married to her cousin Albert....)
 
Yeah, what Space Oddity said. Philip offered his daughter, but the Estates General and moderate Leaguers aren't going to accept it. The only ones who really saw the Infanta as a potential Queen were the hardline members of the League. As stated, there are the various men of Guise branch of the House of Lorraine another idea might be the Duke of Lorraine himself, Charles III? He had been married to Claude of France, thus all his children were the grandchildren of Henri II, much as Infanta, but he's a male, and he's also unmarried in 1589, although he has two sons so his succession is secure, but if say, he needed to marry to secure his candidacy, it's an option.
 
One possible outcome could be that the war ends in stalemate, with the Huguenot armies hanging on to their territories (mainly in the south) but unable to conquer Paris or most of the rest of the north. (That was pretty much the situation facing Henry in 1593.) France would thus be split up, de facto or de jure, into a Protestant state recognizing Henry IV and a Catholic state with someone else on the throne. Rival French states, following different religions, would make for an interesting timeline. Presumably the Protestant kingdom would be allied with England and the Netherlands; the Catholic state, with Spain.
 
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One possible outcome could be that the war ends in stalemate, with the Huguenot armies hanging on to their territories (mainly in the south) but unable to conquer Paris or most of the rest of the north. (That was pretty much the situation facing Henry in 1593.) France would thus be split up, de facto or de jure, into a Protestant state recognizing Henry IV and a Catholic state with someone else on the throne. Rival French states, following different religions, would make for an interesting timeline. Presumably the Protestant kingdom would be allied with England and the Netherlands; the Catholic state, with Spain.

Mmmmmmmm......
 
If Henri IV does not convert, the closest legitimate heir is one of his Bourbon first cousins of the junior line : the Bourbon-Condé and Bourbon-Conti.

François de Bourbon-Conti cas catholic.
 
If Henri IV does not convert, the closest legitimate heir is one of his Bourbon first cousins of the junior line : the Bourbon-Condé and Bourbon-Conti.

François de Bourbon-Conti cas catholic.

Yes, but Conti in OTL swore loyalty to Henry IV and vowed not to oppose his rightful claim.
 
Actually, I disagree. By the time he converted, Henry of Navarre had a clear military supremacy in France and the moderate catholics had already rallied to him despite him being a protestant, even the ones who had fought him earlier. His conversion shortened the war by giving an out to the more rational of the extremist catholics and avoided his army storming (and sacking) Paris, but he could have done it.

So, abscent a conversion, the French civil war lasts a bit longer and is more devastating but Henry still gets the throne. However, he will NOT get a Medici bride and will have to issue an *Edict of Nantes, which will guarrenty (with secure fortresses) catholic religion. Early separation of Church and state.
 
You are missing a key différence between France or Habsburg Spain on the one hand, and England or Germanyn the other hand.

Except for a small minority that were never more than 10% of the country, France was catholic and there was not a serions enough conflict between the french king and the papacy to be the foundation for a material or political desire of the french king to cut links with Rome.

France had fought and won once and for all its political and financial conflict against the papacy in the early 14th century under Philip IV the handsome. And it did it without needing to resort to religions schism.

If the french king ever needed to get rid of his wife, he just could accuse his wife of adultery, be it true or false.

The country was latin catholic, with or without a pope.

If a protestant small minority had taken power in the late 16th century, it would most probably have been forced to have a religious policy not very different from the one Henry IV actually had. This was not 7th century Spain. Some kind do dhimmi status could not be enforced without having the protestant ruling minority be rejected, just like the arians were rejected in Spain and Italy.
And largely like the Plantagenet-Lancasters were finally rejected : because there could not be identification between them and the enormous majority of the population that sas them as foreigners.

This was much more a matter of objective politics than of religious conviction. Henry IV did not especially want to convert to roman catholicism. He just badly needed to, given the figures : 90% catholics.
 
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