A splintered lance killed Henry II and helped end royal jousting in France
In June 1559 Henry II rode in a tournament celebrating the peace that ended decades of Italian wars. A fragment of his opponent's lance slipped past a badly fastened visor into his eye, and he died days later. His young sons inherited a divided kingdom that soon slid into religious war.
Henry was born on 31 March 1519 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the second son of Francis I and Claude of Brittany. After his father was captured at Pavia in 1525, Henry and his older brother were handed to Spain as hostages and held for more than four years. At fourteen he married Catherine de' Medici, fourteen too, in a ceremony led by her relative Pope Clement VII. He only became heir in 1536, when his brother died after a tennis match; poison was rumoured, but a respiratory illness is the likelier cause.
From boyhood Henry was devoted to Diane de Poitiers, over two decades his senior, and wore her colours in the lists. Catherine had little sway at first, and the couple had no children for a decade until the future Francis II arrived in 1544; ten children followed in all. Henry became king on his 28th birthday in 1547, when his father died.
At home he hardened the persecution of Protestants, creating a Paris court chamber for heresy trials nicknamed the chambre ardente, the burning chamber. Abroad he was pragmatic, allying with German Protestant princes and the Ottomans against Emperor Charles V. His armies seized Toul, Metz and Verdun and in 1558 took Calais from England. He raised Mary, Queen of Scots, at his court and married her to his son, hoping to unite the French and Scottish crowns. Money shortages and religious strain pushed him to the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in April 1559, surrendering Italian claims but keeping Calais and the three bishoprics. He also introduced the published patent specification, requiring inventors to describe their device in return for a monopoly.
The fatal joust took place on 30 June 1559, against Gabriel Montgomery, captain of his Scottish Guard. Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius attended him, but modern analysis blames an infection from a retained wooden splinter. Catherine kept Diane from his bedside and later exiled her. His heart went into an urn held by Germain Pilon's marble Three Graces, which survives in the Louvre.
Source: Henry II of France
