Louis XIII of France

Louis became King of France and Navarre on 27 September 1601, shortly before his ninth birthday, when Henry IV was assassinated. His mother Marie de' Medici ruled as regent, but her mismanagement and reliance on Italian favorites pushed the young king to seize power in 1617 - he exiled her and had Concino Concini, her most influential courtier, executed. Taciturn and suspicious by nature, Louis leaned on ministers to govern: first Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes, then Cardinal Richelieu. Together, the King and the Cardinal founded the Académie française, dismantled noble rebellion, destroyed the castles of defiant lords, and banned dueling and private armies. By the late 1620s Richelieu had installed "the royal monopoly of force" as doctrine. Louis's reign, which lasted until his death on 14 May 1643, was defined by campaigns against the Huguenots and Habsburg Spain.