On this day: la bataille de Ivry, le 14 Mars 1590

Henri IV à Ivry

La battaille de Ivry was fought on le 14 mars 1590, during the French Wars of Religion. The battle was to be a decisive victory for Henri de Navarre, the future roi Henri IV, leading Huguenot forces against the Catholic League forces led by le Duc de Mayenne. Henri's forces were victorious and he went on to lay siege to Paris.

The battle occurred on the plain of Épieds near Ivry (later renamed Ivry-la-Bataille), Normandie. Ivry-la-Bataille is located on the Eure River and about thirty miles west of Paris, at the boundary between the Île-de-France and the Beauce regions.

La battaille de Ivry par Peter Paul Reubens

Because Henri III died without having a son, and his brother, le Duc d'Alençon died in 1584, his cousin Henri de Navarre became the legitimate successor to the throne. However, Henri de Navarre was unpopular in the South, and not trusted by part of the army. Therefore, the rest of the country refused to recognise as its future King, a Calvinist whom Pope Sixtus V had excommunicated along with his cousin, Henri, Prince de Condé. The Catholic League took every opportunity to fight against the legitimate King and his successor.

In décembre 1584, le duc de Guise signed a treaty on behalf of the League with Philip II of Spain, who supplied a considerable annual grant to the League over the following decade hoping to destabilize the French Monarchy. The House of Guise had long been identified with the defence of the Catholic Church. Le duc de Guise and his relations, les ducs de Mayenne, Aumale, Elboeuf, Mercoeur et Lorraine controlled extensive territories that were loyal to the League. The League also had a following among the urban middle classes.

Navarre sought foreign aid from the German princes and Elizabeth of England. Meanwhile, the people of Paris, under the influence of the Committee of Sixteen were becoming dissatisfied with Henri III and his failure to suppress the Protestants. In mai 1588, a popular uprising raised barricades on the streets of Paris and Henri III fled the city. The Committee of Sixteen took complete control of the government and welcomed le duc de Guise to Paris.

The League pressed for a meeting of the Estates-Général, which was held in Blois. Guise was murdered on Christmas Eve in 1588 at Blois at this meeting with Henri III. The brother of le duc, the Cardinal de Guise, was also ruthlessly dispatched. Thus it fell upon their younger brother, le Duc de Mayenne, to become the leader of the Catholic League.

Henri's defeat of the House of Guise was fleeting. The League presses began printing anti-royalist tracts. La Sorbonne, at the time still a Catholic university, proclaimed that it was just and necessary to depose Henri III, and that any private citizen was morally free to commit regicide. Injuillet 1589, in the royal camp at Saint-Cloud, a monk named Jacques Clément gained an audience with the king and put a long knife into his spleen. On his deathbed, Henri III called for Navarre and named him his heir.

The City of Paris supported the League and had Mayenne appointed as Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. He and his troops controlled rural Normandie. However, in septembre 1589, Henri inflicted a serious defeat on Mayenne at Arques.

Henri's army swept through Normandie, taking town after town that winter. On le 14 mars 1590, he inflicted a crushing defeat on the League at Ivry.

Henri had moved rapidly to besiege Dreux, a town controlled by the League. As Mayenne followed intending to raise the siege, Henri withdrew but stayed within sight. He deployed his army on the plain of Saint André between the towns of Nonancourt and Ivry.

The army of the Catholic League consisted of citizens led by priests and rebellious nobles, Swiss infantry under Appenzell, spearmen brought from Flanders by Philip, Count of Egmont, and the troopers of the Guise family with le duc de Mayenne in command.

Topography of the battle of Ivry. Henri's royalist forces are the dark squares, the Catholic League's forces are the white.

At first light on le 14 mars 1590, the two armies engaged. Le duc had 12,000 foot soldiers supported by an assortment of German and Swiss infantry and 4,000 cavalry, 2,000 of whom were Spanish. The King had only 8,000 foot soldiers and 3,000 men on horseback.

The action began with a few deadly cannon volleys from the six pieces of the royal artillery, which was under the command of the master, La Guiche. The cavalry of the two sides then clashed with a dreadful force. Le duc de Mayenne followed up with the mercenary troops of the Guelders and Almaine across the open field. The mercenaries, who were mostly sympathetic to the Protestant cause, fired in the air and put their spears in rest.

Mayenne charged with such a fury that after a terrible fusillade and a struggle of a full quarter of an hour which left the field covered with dead, following the defection of his mercenaries, the opposing left flank fled and the right was pierced and gave way.

Aumont soon overcame the League's light horse and their royalist counterparts retreated under the attack of a Walloon (Belgian) squadron backed up by two squadrons from the League. It was then the turn of the Maréchal d'Aumont, le Duc de Montpensier and the Baron de Biron to charge the foreign cavalry, forcing it into a retreat. Marshal de Biron, in command of the rear-guard, joined up with the king who, without stopping after his victory, had crossed the river Eure in pursuit of the enemy.

However, the decisive event took place elsewhere on the battlefield: the King charged the League's lancers, who were unable to get far enough back to use their weapons.

Mayenne was driven back, le duc de Aumale forced to surrender, and le comte de Egmont killed. Le duc de Mayenne had lost the battle. The king pursued the losers, many of whom surrendered for fear of falling into worse hands, their horses being in no condition to get them away from danger. The countryside was full of Leaguers and Spaniards in flight, with the king's victorious army pursuing and scattering the remnants of the larger groups that dispersed and re-gathered.

Henri de Navarre so defeated Mayenne at Ivry that he became undisputed king of France. He made a wise ruler, and was one of the best loved of all French kings. He was famous for his gallant bearing, his chivalry, and his bravery, all of which he had shown very strikingly at Ivry.

With the Edict of Nantes which granted freedom of worship throughout France and established Protestantism in 200 towns, and with the Treaty of Vervins with Spain (both in 1598), Henri IV brought the Wars of Religion to as successful a conclusion as the Protestants could desire.

More Reading:


French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629

Noble Power during the French Wars of Religion: The Guise Affinity and the Catholic Cause in Normandy

The Politics of Piety: Franciscan Preachers During the Wars of Religion ( Changing Perspectives on Early Modern Europe Series)