KnowraFrançois RavaillacFrançois RavaillacFrançois Ravaillac was a French Catholic zealot who assassinated King Henry IV of France in Paris on 14 May 1610.BriefConnectAssassination of Henry IV: The 1610 murder of French king Henry IV by François Ravaillac in Paris. This is the act that made Ravaillac historically notorious.Catholic League (France): A Catholic political and military movement that opposed Protestantism and Henry III's authority in late-sixteenth-century France. Its hardline religious politics formed part of the world in which Ravaillac acted.Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully: A French statesman and military leader who served Henry IV as superintendent of finances and a close adviser. Sully was among Henry IV's leading ministers when Ravaillac struck.French monarchy: The institution of royal government in France, which lasted from the medieval period until the French Revolution. Ravaillac's crime struck at the central institution Henry IV embodied.Henry IV of France: King of France from 1589 until his assassination in 1610, remembered for ending the French Wars of Religion. Ravaillac killed the king whose policies he opposed.French Catholicism: The traditions, institutions, and practices of Catholic Christianity in France. Ravaillac's stated religious convictions belonged to this broader tradition, not to Catholicism as a whole.Marie de' Medici: Queen of France as Henry IV's wife and regent for their son Louis XIII after Henry's death. Ravaillac's murder abruptly made Marie regent.Regency of Marie de' Medici: The period from 1610 to 1617 when Marie de' Medici governed France during Louis XIII's minority. Henry IV's death transferred power to a regency.French Wars of Religion: A series of civil wars between French Catholics and Protestants, fought mainly from 1562 to 1598. The religious conflicts shaped the anxieties surrounding Ravaillac's act.Society of Jesus: A Catholic religious order founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1540. Ravaillac was sometimes alleged to have Jesuit connections, but no reliable evidence establishes that he belonged to the order.Show all 20Linked from 1 pageBalthasar GérardCompared with: Ravaillac provides a later French case of religiously framed regicide.