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Henry of Navarre, the King Who Dared
Book by Pearson, Hesketh
249 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1976
About the author
Hesketh Pearson
75 books1 followerEdward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson was an English actor, theatre director and writer. He is known mainly for his biographies; they made him the leading British biographer of his time, in terms of commercial success.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 7, 2026
This was a good introduction to the life of Henri of Navarre, not perfect but good, and the writing was very accessible.
The author highlights Henri’s path to the French throne, his lost illusions, major accomplishments, and the main challenges the man had to face in order to survive and ultimately prevail. Here is just one simple fact that explains the importance of this reign and puts it in perspective. In 1589 Navarre inherited a weak, impoverished and fiercely divided kingdom. At the moment of his death in 1610, Henri IV left his young son a much stronger and prosperous kingdom.
The author’s description of St. Bartholomew massacre is somewhat dated, but it can be understood as this is not a recent book. The author couldn’t benefit from recent scholarship. And in any case, no one can know how exactly the bloody and tragic events of the St. Bartholomew massacre started and how they unfolded.
The author highlights Henri’s path to the French throne, his lost illusions, major accomplishments, and the main challenges the man had to face in order to survive and ultimately prevail. Here is just one simple fact that explains the importance of this reign and puts it in perspective. In 1589 Navarre inherited a weak, impoverished and fiercely divided kingdom. At the moment of his death in 1610, Henri IV left his young son a much stronger and prosperous kingdom.
The author’s description of St. Bartholomew massacre is somewhat dated, but it can be understood as this is not a recent book. The author couldn’t benefit from recent scholarship. And in any case, no one can know how exactly the bloody and tragic events of the St. Bartholomew massacre started and how they unfolded.
January 1, 2017
HENRY OF NAVARRE: THE KING WHO DARED is an excellent biography. It isn't highly colored or dramatic like THE RIVAL QUEENS, but provides an enjoyable account and analysis of an admirable, pathfinding man. It also has values. In THE RIVAL QUEENS, Henry IV of France is described essentially as coarse and promiscuous. THE KING WHO DARED recognizes Henry's whole round of characteristics, from the charismatic visionary who bound together the civil war-wracked fragments of France, and created a bulwark against the hungry acquisition of Spain and the Inquisition; to the leader who managed a team of corrupt, jealous or perfectionist ministers and nobles; to the multiply-henpecked king pulled between his queen and his mistresses.
My favorite non-fiction of 2016.
My favorite non-fiction of 2016.
March 4, 2023
I found this book in a St Vincent De Paul charity shop. There I bought TEN books – many hardcover, including a mammoth history of the world by Isaac Asmiov (his history of the bible having sold me on his historiography, and they’re all out of print, so it was a FIND) – for TWENTY EURO. This was one of them, and it was sans dust-jacket, so essentially contextless. I could just about gather it was a history of Henry of Navarre who, it turns out, is Henri Quatre of France and reigning just after the events of the Lymond Chronicles. Which is the only reason I knew some of the players involved.
And let me just say: white men writing history in 1963 is a WILD RIDE. I had enormous fun, despite the fact that Hesketh Pearson (did a whiter man name ever exist?) is wildly misogynistic and frowny-facing at Catherine de Medici for being too clever and Marie de Medici for being too stupid in basically the same breath. He is also madly in love with Henry and makes no bones about it: in fact his central thesis is that Henry is the Best Ruler Ever Bar None (except Charles II, which like, he’s so not in the zeitgeist these days so I have no real handle on him except is he the Big Wig King?). Having this kind of partisan zeal and also owning it is quite refreshing. Pearson is also a total bitch and the sarcasm shines through. I may in fact look for more of his books. Maybe in the next St Vincent De Paul.
Fun facts:
‘One of [Catherine de Medici]’s methods of influencing and corrupting men was to keep a bevy of lovely girls in her train, known as the escadron volant (flying squadron), all of them coached in guile, and the man would be difficult to please if one of these beauties could not ensnare him, discover his secrets, and weaken his resistance to whatever the Queen Mother required.’
Pearson also describes her as a ‘shameless opportunist’ – of course the MEN bear NO responsibility for this.
‘Margaret [of Valois] was lovely, but like the rest of the women she patched and painted herself, spoiling her complexion and lessening her beauty.’
O NOOOOO
‘The revenues of the Crown were in such an appalling state that anyone, in whatever capacity employed, could make money out of them. They were farmed out to contractors, under whom were treasurers, receivers, controllers, registrars, sub-contractors and intendants, all of them concealing their own inequities by conniving at the frauds of others. The chief victims of this army of parasites were the Crown and the people, the treasury being empty and the community taxed beyond endurance.’
O SEEMS FAMILIAR HERE IN YEAR OF OUR LORD 2023
‘We note in passing that the two optimists [Henry and Rosny] proposed a statute prohibiting parents from giving one of their children an unfair proportion of their property, thus anticipating the Code Napoléon.’
lols:
‘[The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre] was undoubtedly a great triumph for those who believed in purification by murder.’ (It was, also, apparently the first time Philip of Spain had ever laughed.)
‘The Invincible Armada despatched by Philip of Spain against England was made vincible by British seamanship and ultimately wrecked by the northern climate, which suggested to many godly folk that God was a Protestant.’
‘The novel suggestion of making paste from the powdered bones of disinterred bodies [during the siege of Paris 1590] was acted upon, but the effect was innutritious.’
‘Pope Clement VIII announced that he would ‘never believe in the conversion of “the Béarnais” unless an angel was sent from heaven to assure him of it’. Apparently heaven, after thinking the matter over, obliged him with an angel; but at the time Nevers was so much annoyed by the indignities to which he was subjected that he left Rome in dudgeon.’
‘[Henriette, Marchioness of Verneuil]’s half-brother, the Count of Auvergne, was another who did not refuse presents from Savoy, and in short the visit of Charles Emmanuel endeared him to all who liked being tipped.’
‘Asked at [Leonora Gaglaï]’s trial by what means she had bewitched the Queen Regent [Marie de Medici], she said: ‘By the charm of a strong mind over a weak one,’ adding that her sole witchcraft had been her wit: ‘Is it at all to be wondered that I governed the Queen, who had none?’’
‘[Henry] prayed that [his son] would never draw the sword except for the glory of God and the good of his subjects, which implied that God was a Frenchman.’
‘At five o’clock in the afternoon of 31 July 1601, [Biron] was led to the scaffold where, according to those historians who have never been threatened with decapitation, he displayed a pusillanimity unworthy of a brave soldier.’
‘[Henry] once confessed that, necessity being the law of the times, he would contradict himself frequently, saying to one man that he remained a Hugenot at heart, to another that he had always been a Catholic, both statements being true unless the Almighty was a partisan.’
And let me just say: white men writing history in 1963 is a WILD RIDE. I had enormous fun, despite the fact that Hesketh Pearson (did a whiter man name ever exist?) is wildly misogynistic and frowny-facing at Catherine de Medici for being too clever and Marie de Medici for being too stupid in basically the same breath. He is also madly in love with Henry and makes no bones about it: in fact his central thesis is that Henry is the Best Ruler Ever Bar None (except Charles II, which like, he’s so not in the zeitgeist these days so I have no real handle on him except is he the Big Wig King?). Having this kind of partisan zeal and also owning it is quite refreshing. Pearson is also a total bitch and the sarcasm shines through. I may in fact look for more of his books. Maybe in the next St Vincent De Paul.
Fun facts:
‘One of [Catherine de Medici]’s methods of influencing and corrupting men was to keep a bevy of lovely girls in her train, known as the escadron volant (flying squadron), all of them coached in guile, and the man would be difficult to please if one of these beauties could not ensnare him, discover his secrets, and weaken his resistance to whatever the Queen Mother required.’
Pearson also describes her as a ‘shameless opportunist’ – of course the MEN bear NO responsibility for this.
‘Margaret [of Valois] was lovely, but like the rest of the women she patched and painted herself, spoiling her complexion and lessening her beauty.’
O NOOOOO
‘The revenues of the Crown were in such an appalling state that anyone, in whatever capacity employed, could make money out of them. They were farmed out to contractors, under whom were treasurers, receivers, controllers, registrars, sub-contractors and intendants, all of them concealing their own inequities by conniving at the frauds of others. The chief victims of this army of parasites were the Crown and the people, the treasury being empty and the community taxed beyond endurance.’
O SEEMS FAMILIAR HERE IN YEAR OF OUR LORD 2023
‘We note in passing that the two optimists [Henry and Rosny] proposed a statute prohibiting parents from giving one of their children an unfair proportion of their property, thus anticipating the Code Napoléon.’
lols:
‘[The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre] was undoubtedly a great triumph for those who believed in purification by murder.’ (It was, also, apparently the first time Philip of Spain had ever laughed.)
‘The Invincible Armada despatched by Philip of Spain against England was made vincible by British seamanship and ultimately wrecked by the northern climate, which suggested to many godly folk that God was a Protestant.’
‘The novel suggestion of making paste from the powdered bones of disinterred bodies [during the siege of Paris 1590] was acted upon, but the effect was innutritious.’
‘Pope Clement VIII announced that he would ‘never believe in the conversion of “the Béarnais” unless an angel was sent from heaven to assure him of it’. Apparently heaven, after thinking the matter over, obliged him with an angel; but at the time Nevers was so much annoyed by the indignities to which he was subjected that he left Rome in dudgeon.’
‘[Henriette, Marchioness of Verneuil]’s half-brother, the Count of Auvergne, was another who did not refuse presents from Savoy, and in short the visit of Charles Emmanuel endeared him to all who liked being tipped.’
‘Asked at [Leonora Gaglaï]’s trial by what means she had bewitched the Queen Regent [Marie de Medici], she said: ‘By the charm of a strong mind over a weak one,’ adding that her sole witchcraft had been her wit: ‘Is it at all to be wondered that I governed the Queen, who had none?’’
‘[Henry] prayed that [his son] would never draw the sword except for the glory of God and the good of his subjects, which implied that God was a Frenchman.’
‘At five o’clock in the afternoon of 31 July 1601, [Biron] was led to the scaffold where, according to those historians who have never been threatened with decapitation, he displayed a pusillanimity unworthy of a brave soldier.’
‘[Henry] once confessed that, necessity being the law of the times, he would contradict himself frequently, saying to one man that he remained a Hugenot at heart, to another that he had always been a Catholic, both statements being true unless the Almighty was a partisan.’
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews