Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Makers of History Henry IV. BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT WITH ENGRAVINGS NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1904 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. Copyright, 1884, by SUSAN ABBOT MEAD. PREFACE. History is our Heaven-appointed instructor. It is the guide for the future. The calamities of yesterday are the protectors of to-day. The sea of time we navigate is full of perils. But it is not an unknown sea. It has been traversed for ages, and there is not a sunken rock or a treacherous sand-bar which is not marked by the wreck of those who have preceded us. There is no portion of history fraught with more valuable instruction than the period of those terrible religious wars which desolated the sixteenth century. There is no romance so wild as the veritable history of those times. The majestic outgoings of the Almighty, as developed in the onward progress of our race, infinitely transcend, in all the elements of profoundness, mystery, and grandeur, all that man's fancy can create. The cartoons of Raphael are beautiful, but what are they when compared with the heaving ocean, the clouds of sunset, and the pinnacles of the Alps? The dome of St. Peter's is man's noblest architecture, but what is it when compared with the magnificent rotunda of the skies? JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. Brunswick, Maine, 1856. CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13 II. CIVIL WAR 45 III. THE MARRIAGE 68 IV. PREPARATIONS FOR MASSACRE 93 V. MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 109 VI. THE HOUSES OF VALOIS, OF GUISE, AND OF BOURBON 137 VII. REIGN OF HENRY III 167 VIII. THE LEAGUE 196 IX. THE ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE OF GUISE AND OF HENRY III 220 X. WAR AND WOE 256 XI. THE CONVERSION OF THE KING 281 XII. THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. AND HIS DEATH 306 ENGRAVINGS. Page THE BIRTH OF HENRY OF NAVARRE 19 THE FLIGHT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE 52 THE MARRIAGE 87