French monarch King Henri III of France was BOTD in 1551. Born in Fontainebleau, he was the third son of King Henry II and Catherine de Médicis, and styled the duc d’Anjou. His mother’s acknowledged favourite, he enjoyed court masques (in which he frequently dressed as a woman) and surrounded himself with pretty young men, who he called his “mignons”. Attempts were made to marry him to England’s Queen Elizabeth I, which came to nothing, possibly because of his habit of calling Elizabeth a “putaine publique” (public whore). A devout Catholic, he helped plot the slaughter of 5,000 Protestant Huguenots, who had gathered for the wedding of his sister Margot to the Protestant Henri de Navarre, which became known as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre. In 1873, his mother arranged for his election as King of Poland. The following year, his brother King Charles IX died, and Henri returned to France to be crowned king. He was married two days later Louise de Vaudémont, a princess of the house of Lorraine. Their marriage was childless and probably sexless, surprising no one, and he continued to lavish gifts and titles on his mignons. Most of his reign was consumed with fighting both the Huguenots while fending off the ultra-conservative Catholic faction La Sainte Ligue (the Holy League). A truce was achieved at the Peace of Bergerac in 1577, though Catholic hostilities resumed in 1584 after the death of Henri’s younger brother François made Navarre heir to the throne. Faced with a coup led by the Holy League, Henri had the movement’s leader, the duc de Guise, assassinated in 1588. Popular opinion turned against Henri and he fled Paris, joining forces with Navarre to attempt to re-establish order. While preparing to lead military forces into Paris, he was assassinated in 1589, aged 37. His death was hailed as a miracle from God, and he was succeeded by Navarre, bringing an end to the rule of the House of Valois. Henri has been portrayed many times in literature, notably in Alexandre Dumas père’s 1845 novel La Reine Margot (Queen Margot). He has been played onscreen by Pascal Greggory (as a smirking bisexual sociopath) in Patrice Chéreau‘s 1994 adaptation of La Reine Margot, and by Vincent Cassel (as an effete cross-dressing fool) in the 1999 film Elizabeth.