The Wars of Religion had culminated in the War of the Three Henrys in which Henry III had assassinated Henry de Guise, leader of the Spanish-backed Catholic league, and the king is murdered in return.

After the assassination of both Henry of Guise (1588) and Henry III (1589), the conflict is ended by the accession of the Protestant king of Navarre as Henry IV (first king of the Bourbon dynasty) and his subsequent abandonment of Protestantism (Expedient of 1592) effective in 1593, his acceptance by most of the Catholic establishment (1594) and by the Pope (1595), and his issue of the toleration decree known as the Edict of Nantes (1598), which guarantees freedom of private worship and civil equality.