Henry 4 or Henry of Navarre (2009)

Henry 4 or Henry of Navarre (2009)



Henry 4 covers a lot of the same material as Queen Margot, though it is told from Henry of Navarre's perspective.  I think I liked it a little better, mostly because it covered more historical information.  Like Queen Margot, there is a lot of nudity and a lot of sex -I am getting a little tired of seeing naked French people.

Henry of Navarre and a portrait of the real Henry IV of France.

It begins with Henry as a young boy meeting Nostradamus, who tells his mother, Jeanne d'Albret: "What a brave countenance.  He is the one.  He is still but a child, yet he has more power than any other living person.  Protect your son.  He has the mark of a King.  Of the King of France."

Nostradamus and a portrait of the real Nostradamus.

Then it becomes a bit like The Godfather, with people calling hits left and right -stabbings and poisonings all over the place.

Portrait of the real Jeanne d'Albrett and Jeanne d'Albret in the movie.

Henry's mother arranges for him to marry Marguerite of Valois of France (Margot), sister of King Charles IX and the Duke of Anjou and daughter of the formidable Catherine de' Medici.  As in Queen Margot, Margot does not want to marry Henry, but in this version she has wild sex with him when he arrives anyway.  Charles IX, just as crazy in this version, but with a little less innocence and a little more ire, remarks on this:

Charles: Already been under my sister’s robes?  Everyone knows what’s underneath.  D’Anjou, my brother, was the first.  We are a magnificent family.  You couldn’t have done better.  Welcome, brother in law.  As you see, I am healthy.  You’ll have to wait awhile for my death.
Henry: But I do not wish your death.
Charles: Then you are alone in that.  Everyone else wishes for my death.  Even my mother, my brothers.

Charles IX and a portrait of the real Charles IX of France.

After the wedding, we witness the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when Catherine manipulates the weak-witted Charles into ordering all the thousands of Protestants in Paris murdered (including Admiral Coligny, a man he views as a father-figure):

Margot marries Henry.

Catherine: Get up.  Your throne and life are at stake!
Charles: The Admiral, is he dead?  I will avenge him!
Catherine: He lives.  And you will do nothing.  Guise merely fulfilled my wish.
Charles: You ordered it?
Catherine: Desired.  I have no power to order.
Charles: What luck that he still lives.
Catherine: What bad luck.  Now you must order his death.
Charles: Never!  Never!
Catherine: Then he will destroy us.  You and me!  The whole city is arming itself.  The people are crying out for action.  The admiral must die.  Give the order!
Charles: I cannot!  I cannot!  Never!
Catherine [To Anjou]: Come.  We must save our lives.  The King is a pathetic coward.
Charles [Losing his cool and throwing things, screaming and sobbing]: I’ll kill you.  I’ll kill you all!  All of them.  Huguenots.  Protestants.  All of them!  Burnt!  Quartered!
Catherine: The Admiral as well?
Charles: Him too, my father.  Away with him!

Henry survives, but is imprisoned and forced to convert:

Henry: Do you sleep peacefully, Madame?
Catherine: My sleep is good and bad, befitting my age.  All this killing disgusts me.  The mob too.
Henry: Do you expect me to believe you?
Catherine: Why do you think you are still alive?  Because it was my wish.  Convert to Catholicism.
Henry: You take me for your fool?
Catherine: You lack the wit to be a fool.
Henry: In your presence, that is hardly surprising.
Catherine: What is your answer?  It requires no effort on your part.
Henry: It will cost me my friends.  And my beliefs.
Catherine: Foolish prattle.  You are not your mother.  We both believe in the same God.
Henry: I thought you were Catholic with heart and soul.
Catherine: With heart and soul, I am the Queen.
Henry: You sacrificed thousands for that?
Catherine: It had to be so.  For the sake of millions.
Henry: For your sake.
Catherine: What’s the difference?

Catherine, Henry's sister, and a sketch
of the real Catherine de Bourbon.

He is disgusted by the celebrations after the massacre.  As Anjou dances and rejoices, Henry comments:

Henry: You show us how cruelty conceals itself.
Anjou: And you show us the opposite.
Catherine: The Admiral was our enemy.  What happened afterward was not intended.
Henry: You blame the dead to make your life tolerable.

Margot is even more enigmatic in this version, and not in a good way.  I don't think that the writers knew what to do with her complex character.  She's hyper-sexual and volatile.  She's prone to tantrums, and at one point her mother literally bites her on the butt when she's being disobedient, I kid you not.  Margot says she hates Henry, then after the massacre tries to convince him that the deaths need not be the end of their love.  Love?  Since when?  Anyway, he hates her too much to forgive her after he realizes that she did have some awareness that the massacre was coming (I don't know how much the real Margot knew):

Henry: I need to get out of here.
Margot: You can’t leave the Louvre.  That was the condition.
Henry: Condition for what?
Margot: That you stay alive.
Henry: So you knew after all?
Margot: Not everything.  Nobody could have foreseen that!

Portrait of the real Catherine de' Medici,
Catherine and Margot in the movie, and a
portrait of the real Marguerite of Valois.

Both Henry 4 and Queen Margot have skinny actresses with straight black hair playing Margot, which seems a little off as she was actually a more voluptuous woman with lighter, curly hair.  In general, the women in the show have more modern hair styles than they should, and only the actress that plays Marie de' Medici resembles her character's real life counterpart.

After the death of Charles, Henry manages to escape and return to Navarre, but as her sons die without fathering children, Catherine becomes more desperate:

Catherine: Your brother, D’Alecenon, is dead.
Anjou: Poor beast.  He was so insignificant.  We Valois die before our time.  Even those dogs might outlive me.  I am the last of the House of Valois.
Catherine: You must finally sire a son.
Anjou: It is not in my power.  I tried my best with a woman.  Who disgusted me!  To no avail.
Margot: I too cannot bear children.  Any simple pleasant girl can but I cannot.

Anjou and his mother and a real portrait of the Duke of Anjou, later Henry III of France.

When the younger brother of Anjou (now Henry III, but I will continue to call him Anjou so as not to confuse him with Henry of Navarre), dies, Catherine wants Henry to return to Paris.  She prefers to support him over another contender for the crown, the Duke of Guise.

Duke of Guise and a sketch of the real Henry I, Duke of Guise.

Margot is sent to try to coax Henry back to Paris, but he flatly refuses, not intending to once more fall into their clutches.  In response, Catherine and Anjou send their army to face that of Navarre.  Though vastly outnumbered, Henry's army is victorious, and after the death Catherine and the assassination of Anjou, he reaches Paris.  Trapped at the gates, unable to breech the walls, he finally agrees to convert to Catholicism once again:

Soldier: The siege is having an effect!
Henry: But not the effect I want.
Rosny: They’ll only accept a Catholic king.
Soldier: Let them starve!
Henry: I won’t be a king who lets his people starve.

Gabrielle d'Estrees and a portrait of the real Gabrielle d'Estrees.

And so he becomes Henry IV of France.  Along the way, he meets and falls in love with Gabrielle d'Estrees, and she becomes his mistress.  He intends to marry her after divorcing Margot, but Gabrielle dies, breaking his heart: "I loved her, Rosny!  I loved her as my one true love."  The scene where he flat-out negotiates with Gabrielle over what she gets for becoming mistress made it really hard to take their love seriously, however.

Dejected, he agrees to an arranged marriage with Marie de' Medici.  The match is loveless, not that he really puts any effort into the union.  He is devastated by the loss of Gabrielle, and only wants a son and heir out of his marriage, quickly taking on a new mistress, Henriette d'Entragues.

Portrait of the real Henriette d'Entragues and Henriette d'Entragues in the movie.

Henry's character was murky to me.  Sometimes he was so good.  He had great ideas for his people: "My country is poor.  We must make it blossom again!  In my kingdom, everyone will be free to think and believe as they please.  They will have enough to eat and drink.  And on Sundays, every peasant’s wife will have a chicken in the pot!"

He changed his religion, sacrificing his friends and his own personal feelings, in order to prevent a longer war and the suffering of his people.  He cared about his Frenchmen getting enough to eat and living free from persecution, and was known as a good king.  The religious freedom he offered was revolutionary for the time: "Ever since I was the little King of Navarre, uncertain of my future, a long way from France’s throne, I’ve longed for this great hour.  Now I am strong enough to declare that you shall be free.  Free in your beliefs and free in your thoughts...Nobody will be persecuted for different beliefs than the majority.  Catholics and Huguenots, all of you are my people.  I love you equally."

At the same time, he could be brutal.  He was pretty violent with Margot after the massacre (in a way that made me squeamish to watch).  He was very cold towards his second wife, particularly on their wedding night.  I know he didn't want to marry her, but it's not like she had a choice either.  He could have been a little discreet and respectful.  They end up enemies, and it is heavily implied that his eventual assassination is her doing:
Marie: The whole court, everyone says you’re a horny old goat!
Henry: Forbid them to say so.
Marie: I became your wife for a lot of money.  That’s all.  You don’t love me.  You never have.  Why?  I bore you a son.  It was so important.
Henry: That’s true.
Marie: I hate you!  I’ll hate you for my whole life.  I’ll cut your whore’s head off!
Henry: Not as long as I am alive, Madame.
Marie: That could change.  You have many enemies.
Henry: The worst sits in front of me.

Marie de' Medici and a portrait of the real Marie de' Medici.

The reason I've included so much plot detail in this review is that so much happened it was hard to keep track of, and writing it down helps me to keep it all straight.  Even so, a lot of historical detail was left out.  The time feels really condensed.  Anjou ruled as Henry III from 1574-1589, but the movie makes his reign seem very brief.  Also, Marie and Henry had 6 children together, and the movie makes it appear that they only had one (one of these children, Henrietta Maria, would go on to marry Charles I of England and mother Charles II).

I think the show would have been better if it were longer.  It ran 3 hours, and this didn't offer enough space in which to flesh out the complicated characters and events that span the 56 years of Henry's very full life.

Of course, a lot of things were also left vague, mostly because history still has a lot of questions.  Was Gabrielle d'Estrees poisoned, or did she die of Pre-Eclampsia?  Was Henry's mother poisoned by Catherine?  Did Margot know about the plot to massacre the Protestants?  We don't know, but the show always implies the most devious possibilities.

Henry 4 ends with Henry riding through the streets in his carriage before he is assassinated, contentedly calling out to a peasant woman:

Henry: Stop the coach!  What’s in your pot?
Woman: A chicken, Majesty.  Would you like some?
Henry: No, thank you.
Woman: Thanks to you, with bacon and beans!
Henry: [smiling] Another time.  You see?  Our efforts were not in vain.

See my review of Queen Margot for a movie set at the same time, with many of the same characters: http://www.kaleenasmith.blogspot.com/2013/06/queen-margot-1994.html