Query: Henry III of France was succeeded by Henry IV, founder of the House of Bourbon.

Relevant passages:
Henry III of France <=SEP=> Henry III ( 19 September 1551 -- 2 August 1589 ; born Alexandre Édouard de France , Henryk Walezy , Henrikas Valua ) was a monarch of the House of Valois who was elected the monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1573 to 1575 and ruled as King of France from 1574 until his death . He was the last French monarch of the Valois dynasty .   As the fourth son of King Henry II of France and Catherine de ' Medici , Henry was not expected to assume the throne of France . He was thus a good candidate for the vacant Commonwealth throne , and he was elected with the dual titles King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania .   Henry 's rule over the Commonwealth was brief , but notable . The Henrician Articles he signed into law accepting the Commonwealth throne established Poland as an elective monarchy subject to free election by the Polish nobility . Of his three older brothers , two would live long enough to ascend the French throne , but both died young and without a legitimate male heir . He abandoned Commonwealth upon receiving word that he had inherited the throne of France at the age of 22 .   The kingdom of France was at the time plagued by the Wars of Religion , and Henry 's authority was undermined by violent political parties funded by foreign powers : the Catholic League ( supported by Spain ) , the Protestant Huguenots ( supported by England and the Dutch ) and the Malcontents , led by Henry 's own brother , the Duke of Alençon , which was a party of Catholic and Protestant aristocrats who jointly opposed the absolutist ambitions of the king . Henry III was himself a politique , arguing that a strong and religiously tolerant monarchy would save France from collapse .   After the death of Henry 's younger brother Francis , Duke of Anjou , and when it became apparent that Henry would not produce an heir , the Wars of Religion grew into a succession crisis that resulted in a war known as the War of the Three Henrys . Henry III 's legitimate heir was his distant cousin Henry , King of Navarre , a Protestant . The Catholic League , led by Henry I , Duke of Guise , sought to exclude Protestants from the succession and championed the Catholic Charles , Cardinal of Bourbon , as Henry III 's heir .   In 1589 , Jacques Clément , a Catholic fanatic , murdered Henry III , who was succeeded by the King of Navarre who , as Henry IV , would assume the throne of France after converting to Catholicism , and become the first French king of the House of Bourbon .

House of Bourbon <=SEP=> The House of Bourbon ( -LSB- langˈbɔrbən -RSB- -LSB- buʁˈbɔ̃ -RSB- ) is a European royal house of French origin , a branch of the Capetian dynasty ( -LSB- kəˈpiːʃən -RSB- ) . Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century . By the 18th century , members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain , Naples , Sicily , and Parma . Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs .   The royal Bourbons originated in 1268 , when the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon married a younger son of King Louis IX . The house continued for three centuries as a cadet branch , while more senior Capetians ruled France , until Henry IV became the first Bourbon king of France in 1589 . Bourbon monarchs then unified France with the small kingdom of Navarre , which Henry 's father had acquired by marriage in 1555 , and ruled until the 1792 overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution . Restored briefly in 1814 and definitively in 1815 after the fall of the First French Empire , the senior line of the Bourbons was finally overthrown in the July Revolution of 1830 . A cadet Bourbon branch , the House of Orléans , then ruled for 18 years ( 1830 -- 1848 ) , until it too was overthrown .   The Princes de Condé were a cadet branch of the Bourbons descended from an uncle of Henry IV , and the Princes de Conti were a cadet branch of the Condé . Both houses were prominent in French affairs , even during exile in the French Revolution , until their respective extinctions in 1830 and 1814 .   When the Bourbons inherited the strongest claim to the Spanish throne , the claim was passed to a cadet Bourbon prince , a grandson of Louis XIV of France , who became Philip V of Spain . Permanent separation of the French and Spanish thrones was secured when France and Spain ratified Philip 's renunciation , for himself and his descendants , of the French throne in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714 , and similar arrangements later kept the Spanish throne separate from those of the Two Sicilies and Parma . The Spanish House of Bourbon ( rendered in Spanish as Borbón -LSB- borˈβon -RSB- ) has been overthrown and restored several times , reigning 1700 -- 1808 , 1813 -- 1868 , 1875 -- 1931 , and since 1975 . Bourbons ruled in Naples from 1734 -- 1806 and in Sicily from 1734 -- 1816 , and in a unified Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1816 -- 1860 . They also ruled in Parma from 1731 -- 1735 , 1748 -- 1802 and 1847 -- 1859 .   Charlotte , Grand Duchess of Luxembourg married a cadet of the Parmese line and thus her successors , who have ruled Luxembourg since her abdication in 1964 , have also been members of the House of Bourbon . Isabel , Princess Imperial of Brazil , regent for her father , Pedro II of the Empire of Brazil , married a cadet of the Orléans line and thus their descendants , known as the Orléans-Braganza , were in the line of succession to the Brazilian throne and expected to ascend its throne had the monarchy not been abolished by revolution in 1889 .   All legitimate , living members of the House of Bourbon , including its cadet branches , are direct agnatic descendants of Henry IV .