France, 1563. Protestants and Catholics are fighting for land and power, invoking their religion as justification. At the head of the Protestants stands Henry of Navarre, leading his men against Paris, against the Catholics, and against his mother‘s powerful rival, Catherine de Medici, Queen of France. Catherine de Medici offers Henry the hand of her daughter, Margot, as a sign of reconciliation but the wedding ends in a terrible bloodbath.

Henry survives the St. Bartholomew‘s Day Massacre but is kept prisoner in the Louvre, until he escapes after four long years.

He will change religion five times in the course of his life, fighting and resorting to any tactics to climb his way to the throne. He eventually becomes a monarch who can genuinely claim to be one of the first true humanists.