Editing Henry III of France (section)

===Sexuality===
[[File:Henri III Versailles.jpg|thumb|150px|Henry III (c. 1575)]]
Reports that Henry engaged in [[homosexuality|same-sex relations]] with his court favourites, known as the ''[[Les Mignons|mignons]],'' date back to his own time. He was known to have enjoyed intense relationships with them.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2004|p=?}} The scholar Louis Crompton maintains that all of the contemporary rumours about Henry were true.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crompton |first=Louis |title=Homosexuality and Civilization |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=2003 |isbn=0-6740-1197-X |location=Cambridge |pages=[https://archive.org/details/homosexualityciv00crom/page/328 328–330] |chapter=Henry III and the Mignons |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/homosexualityciv00crom/page/328 |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref> However, some modern historians have disputed this: Jean-Francois Solnon,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Solnon |first=Jean-Francois |title=La Cour de France |publisher=Fayard |date=1987 |location=Paris}}</ref> Nicolas Le Roux,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Le Roux |first=Nicolas |title=Un régicide au nom de Dieu, l'assassinat d'Henri III |publisher=Gallimard |date=2006 |isbn=2-0707-3529-X |location=Paris |language=fr}}</ref> and Jacqueline Boucher<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boucher |first=Jacqueline |title=La cour de Henri III |publisher=Ouest-France |date=1986 |isbn=2-7373-0019-3 |location=Rennes |language=fr}}</ref> have noted that Henry had many famous mistresses, that he was well known for his taste in beautiful women, and that no male sex partners have been identified. They concluded that the idea he was [[homosexual]] was promoted by his political opponents (both Protestant and Catholic) who used his dislike of war to depict him as effeminate and undermine his reputation with the French people.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau |url=https://archive.org/stream/erotikabiblion00mirauoft#page/n5/mode/1up |title=Erotika Biblion |date=1783|publisher=Bruxelles, Chez tous les libraires }}</ref>{{Bettersource|date=October 2023}} The portrait of a self-indulgent homosexual incapable of fathering an heir to the throne proved useful in efforts by the Catholic League to secure the succession for [[Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon (born 1523)|Cardinal Charles de Bourbon]] after 1585.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2004|p=?}} [[Robert Knecht]] maintained that the ''mignons'' themselves were "not homosexuals"<ref name="Knecht">{{cite book |last=Knecht |first=Robert |date=2007 |title=The Valois: Kings of France 1328-1589 |location=London |publisher=Hambledon Continuum |page=219 |isbn=1-85285-522-3}}</ref> either, "as is often assumed. Far from being effeminate, they were skilful swordsmen, who risked their lives in duels."<ref name="Knecht"/>

However, [[French Renaissance]] scholar [[Gary Ferguson (literature scholar)|Gary Ferguson]] considers such interpretations to be unconvincing: "It is difficult to reconcile the king whose use of favourites is so logically strategic with the man who goes to pieces when one of them dies."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ferguson |first=Gary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KY7SDpSFTSYC&pg=PA183 |title=Queer (Re)Readings in the French Renaissance: Homosexuality, Gender, Culture |publisher=Ashgate |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-7546-6377-5 |location=Aldershot/Burlington}}</ref> Katherine Crawford, by contrast, emphasizes the problems Henry's reputation encountered because of his failure to produce an heir and the presence of his powerful mother at court, combined with his enemies' insistence on conflating patronage with favouritism and luxury with decadence.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=[[Katherine B. Crawford]] |date=2003 |title=Love, Sodomy, and Scandal: Controlling the Sexual Reputation of Henry III |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=513–542|doi=10.1353/sex.2004.0024 }}</ref>