Louis XIII

Louis XIII (1601-1643), King of France (1610-1643), son of Henry IV, first of the Bourbon kings of France, and his wife Marie de Médicis, born in Fontainebleau. During his minority from 1610 to 1617 his mother served as regent. She allied France with Spain and arranged the marriage in 1615 of Louis to Princess Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III, King of Spain. For most of his reign Louis was dominated by Cardinal Richelieu, who joined his council of ministers in 1624 through the efforts of Marie de Médicis and served eventually as prime minister until his death in 1642. Under Richelieu's anti-Habsburg foreign policy, France entered (1635) the Thirty Years' War as an ally of Sweden and the Protestant princes of Germany. Louis's reign was marked also by occasional religious strife between Roman Catholics and the French Protestants, or Huguenots, and by the many conspiracies against Richelieu. Louis was succeeded by his son Louis XIV.