| On this day King Henry III of France was stabbed by Jacques Clément, a Jacobin friar, at his headquarters in Saint-Cloud. The wound proved to be fatal; Henry died the following day and left no heir, ending the Valois dynasty. Before he expired, though, Henry acknowledged his Bourbon ally, Henry of Navarre, a Huguenot, as his successor. (He ruled as Henry IV.) Throughout Henry III's reign (1574–89), he was embroiled in the French Wars of Religion ... |