The 16th Century Part IV

            10-45 The shadow of the reign of Navarre not true
            It will make his life one of unlawful fate
            The vow made in Cambrai wavering
            The King of Orleans will give a legitimate wall.

            In this quatrain,  in the third line, the vow made in Cambrai, Nostradamus is referring to the Treaty of Joinville signed in Cambresis on December 31 1584 between Spain and the Guises. Note that in the numbering of this quatrain  10-45, we are given three digits of the date 1584.
            The King of Orleans spoken of in the last line, is the titular King, Charles X, since Orleans was ultra Catholic and belonged to the Guise family at the time. He of course was being supported fully by Philip II of Spain.

            The next quatrain echoes the word shadow of the previous one. The only and only time in French history, that a King was ever succeeded by his brother in law, was during the accession of Henry of Naverre, who was brother in law to Henri III.

 
        Henry IV                      Henri III

            10-26 The successor will avenge his brother in law
            He will occupy the realm under the shadow of vengeance
            That obstacle slain, his blood will be blamed for the death
            For a long time, Brittany will hold with France.

            The last two lines likely refers to the radical Catholic monk who killed Henri III, and for this, many in France blamed the Guises and the Catholics. The mention of Brittany in the last line is curious, since Brittany was the last province to submit to Henry IV.  Naverre’s forces marched in there in February of 1598, and by March, Mercouer had submitted to him. Mercouer managed to negotiate somewhat of a deal for himself - his daughter would marry Henry’s bastard son, and Mercouer himself would resign, handing over the province to his future son in law, King Henry IV. Henry created this son the Duke of Vendome, and Brittany remained a loyal French province from that day forward.
            The next quatrain is for Margo of Valois, and her brother King Henry III of France in the year 1587. Nostradamus predicts here, that the old dynasty of France, led by her warrior chief King Francis I will soon die and sputter out, with the accession of his heirs, who will be ineffectual monarchs for the country.
 

          Margo of Valois

         1-78 To an old chief shall be born one with dulled senses
         Degenerating in knowledge and in arms
         The chief of France will be feared by his sister
         The fields divided and granted to the troops.

            The old chief of the first line is King Henry II of France, head of the Valois dynasty of  French Kings - he was King at the time Nostradamus lived. Nostradamus in this quatrain sees his entire dynasty about to come to an end in France. To him and Catherine de Medici were born 9 children, of whom 7 survived. Three of his sons became Kings, and as Nostradamus says, the realm degenerated even further with each of them, the last, Henry III, being the worst.
            The placards in the streets of Paris at the time read “Henry by the grace of his mother, imaginary King of Poland, janitor of the Louvere, Warden of St. Germaines.” More often than not, this King would appear powdered and bejeweled, dressed like a woman, and surrounded by his male minions. The son that Catherine de Medici had such high hopes for, turned out to be a laughing stock instead.
            He is the chief of the third line who is feared by his sister, Margo of Valois. They were once the closest of friends, but when brother Henry caught her with her lover the Duke of Guise, they became the worst of enemies. This of course, gave rise to the rumors of the time that there was incest between them.
            In September of 1586, there was another scandal about a man murdered in Margo’s bed. Henry III ordered his sister’s arrest, and banished all of her ladies in waiting from the French court. Her lover Aubiac was hung, and Margo was kept confined for 2 months. However, she charmed and duped her jailer, escaped, and opened the gates of the town to the Catholic league, who were enemies of her brother.
            But it was soon all over for Margo, for in the next year, 1587, she was captured again, and sent to the fortress prison of Ussons. Here, she spent the next 18 years of her life, not being released until the year 1605.
            Nostradamus says in the last line, that the fields would be divided and granted to the troops - indeed this was the case. With no strong King at the helm to rule France, the Protestants and Catholics dragged the country down into religious and civil wars. Henry III was ultimately assassinated, and so ended the Valois dynasty in France.
            Note that in the numbering of this quatrain, 1-78, Nostradamus gives us three digits of the date 1587, the year that Henry III sent his sister Margo to be imprisoned at the fortress prison Ussons for most of her natural life.

             The next dated quatrain for the 16th Century concerns the murder at Blois in 1588. This was a particularly gory and shameful murder committed by a monarch of France against some of his own subjects. The trouble all began in Paris, on May 12, 1588, called the Day of the Barricades. The Catholic league had taken over the city, and drove out King Henri III on this day. The King promptly retaliated by joining up with the Protestant forces of Henry of Navarre at St. Cloud, and they resolved to besiege Paris together.

            3-50 The Republic of the great city
            Will not want to consent to the great severity
            The King summoned by the trumpet to leave
            The ladder at the wall, the city will repent.

            In this quatrain, Nostradamus likens Paris to a Republic, who has decided to set up it’s own form of government under the Catholic Guises, rather than be ruled by a King who consorts with the Protestants. They will kick their King out of the city, but will later repent of it, says Nostradamus, when they see the ladders at the wall.
            Henri III was a jealous sovereign, and was insulted by the attention Frenchmen paid to the Duke of Guise, and the Guise family in general. To all intents and purposes, the Duke of Guise was the “King of Paris” at the time.  To make matters worse, the King’s worries about the Guises trying to seize the throne were well founded - that is exactly what they were continually trying to do.
            Being driven out of the city of Paris by the Guises was the final straw. The King summoned by the trumpet to leave, as Nostradamus says. Henri III was just livid. He began to formulate plans to get rid of these troublesome Guises once and for all. Murder would do, most nicely. He invited the Guise brothers to come to Blois for peace talks to end the fighting between them. Actually, it was more of Catherine’s idea, to invite the Guises to Blois to try and make peace, she had not the slightest knowledge of what her son was really planning to accomplish.

            3-51 Paris conspires to commit a great murder
            Blois will cause it to be fully carried out
            Those of Orleans will want to replace their chief
            Angers, Troyes, Langres will commit a misdeed against them.

    Assasination at Blois, December 23, 1588

            Henry de Lorraine the Duke of Guise, was murdered by the King’s bodyguard just outside the royal apartments in the early hours of December 23, 1588. His brother the Cardinal, was murdered the next day.
            Upon hearing of their hero’s death, the Catholics of the city of Orleans rose up against their Protestant Governor Balzac d’Entregues, threw him out, and replaced him with the ultra Catholic Charles de Lorraine, the Duke of Mayenne.
            Angers, Troyes, and Langres were all Protestant cities during this time in history. After he had caused the death of the Catholic Guises, King Henri III had no choice but to openly join with the Protestants, thus further fueling the fight between the religions in France.

            6-11 The seven branches will be reduced to three
            The elder ones will be surprised by death
            Towards fratricide two shall be seduced
            The conspirators will be murdered in their sleep

            This quatrain tells of the year 1575, when out of the seven children of Catherine de Medici, only three remained alive, the three youngest, Henri III, the Duke of Alencon, and Margo of Naverre. Henri III and his brother the Duke of Alencon engaged themselves in a fratricidal war against each other as the prophet says here. The conspirators who were murdered were the Guise brothers who were taking the side of Alencon, and conspiring against the King Henri III.

         1-85 Because of the lady’s reply, the King shall be troubled
         Ambassadors will take their lives in their hands
         The great one will doubly imitate his brothers
         Two will die, through anger, hatred, and envy.

            “You will be pleased to know, that I have never felt better. I am King of France at last! I have just had M. de Guise killed. God has inspired and aided me to do it, whom I am now going to solemnly thank in Church.”
            These words were spoken on December 24, 1588, by King Henry III of France, to his mother Catherine de Medici. Catherine shook her head, and seemed not to understand her son’s words.
            He repeated “I have had the King of Paris killed. I am at last, King of France!”
 At last, as it sunk in, what her son had done, she said “God grant it may be as you hope, and that you have not made yourself King of Nothing.”
            This unfortunate Queen spent her life trying to undo what damage her children caused to the country. In this case, she had invited the ultra Catholic Guises to Blois to try and resolve the conflict between them and the crown. They paid for it with their lives.
           Henry III viewed the Guises as being more popular than him in Paris, and this rankled the monarch greatly. His solution was to murder both the Guise brothers. In this action, he had doubly imitated his brothers the mad and bloodthirsty Charles IX and the cunning and intriguing Alencon. Note in the numbering of this quatrain 1-85, we are given three digits of the date 1588, on which this event occurred!

            Another quatrain dated for 1588, concerns this same scene. Catherine de Medici was an indomitable woman. She guided France through some of the most tortured times in the country’s history, and she did it alone. But best of all, says the prophet, she protected the country from her own children as best she could.

         8-18 FLORA’S children will be the cause of her death
         Once before by young and old to drink
         For the three lilies shall make her such a pause,
         From her offspring, she will save more raw meat

            Nostradamus very craftily calls Catherine FLORA  in this quatrain, making reference to her origins in Florence Italy. He calls her children the three lilies - that is the three Kings of France with the insignia of the fleur de lys, or lilies.
            Her children were very literally the cause of her death. Ten days before Christmas in 1588, Catherine caught a cold. This, combined with her gout, obesity, recurring cough and fever, sent her to bed.
            On Thursday, December 23, 1588, from her sickbed, she received the news that her son the King Henry III had just assassinated the Duke of Guise. She could not believe what she was hearing. She had worked so hard to try and reconcile the two of them for the good of the country, and now everything was in total ruins.
            Wearily, she arose from her sickbed, and went to try and set things right - save the live of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who her son had also imprisoned. But the Cardinal only shouted at her, and accused her of having lured the Guises to come to Blois in the first place. Catherine tried to defend herself, but the Cardinal was too angry to listen.
            “Oh God, this is too much. I have no strength left, take me away!” she cried to her chair bearers. They carried her away, and the grand old woman died a few days later on January 5, 1589.
            Note in the numbering of this quatrain 8-18, we are given three digits of the date 1588, upon which these events unfolded.

            2-88 The circuit of the great ruinous deed
            The seventh name of the fifth will be
            The third one will be even stranger warlike
            Sheep, Paris, Aix will not guarantee.

            This quatrain tells us that the circuit of the Valois dynasty will come to an end in France, with the last of her Kings Henri III, who was the fifth of the seven children of Henry II and Catherine d’ Medici. This third one will really be strange, says the prophet!
            In the last line, Aix was the coronation site for the Holy Roman Emperors, while Reims was that of the French Kings. He has called it sheep here, because Reims was the wool processing center of France. Another possible reason why he could use the word sheep, is to signify the sign of Aries, which the King maker Saturn occupied the year before, in 1587.
            The meaning of this, is that although both the Holy Roman Emperor and the Spanish will fight to save the Catholic monarchy in France, that it will fail, and a new French King will succeed who is not Catholic, but Protestant.
            Note that in the numbering of this quatrain, 2-88, we are given two digits of the date 1588, in which the last Valois King died.

            9-76 With the rapacious and blood thirsty King
            Issued from the same bed as the inhuman Nero
            Between two rivers by the left military hand
            He will be murdered by a young bald man.

   Assasination of King Henri III  August 6 1589

            This speaks of the assassination of the last Valois King, Henri III. He is described as coming from the same bed as his brother Nero (Charles IX). Henri’s end came when he was murdered by a young bald man, exactly as the prophet predicted. He was murdered by Jacques Clement, a monk, on August 6, 1589 at St. Cloud, near Paris. Paris is situated between two rivers. This young monk was fanatically Catholic, and planned to save Paris from it’s ungodly foes who were besieging it.
            The next dated quatrain for the 16th century is for the accession of a new dynasty in France - the Bourbon. When Henry III was assassinated in 1589, the heir to the French throne was Henry of Navarre, a Protestant.

 Coat of Arms of King of Navarre

         5-89 Into Hungary, through Bohemia, Naverre
         And under that banner will be insurrections
         By the fleur de lys region carrying the bar
         Against Orleans they will cause disturbances

            The third line of this quatrain signifies the house of Vendome, and Henry of Naverre. A cadet branch, their arms featured three lilies with a diagonal bar set in the center.
            The fleur de lys carrying the bar certainly did cause a disturbance against the house of Orleans, who were the Guises and the ultra Catholics. For the first time in French history, their sovereign was not a Catholic, but a Protestant. This of course did not sit well with the Catholics of the country, and Henry IV had to subdue his own country before he could reign. On August 1, 1589, Henry became Henry IV, King of France, and began a new dynasty that would last until the French revolution in 1793.
     The banner of the first line is that of the Protestants of the Netherlands, with whom Henry of Navarre was allied with against Phillip II of Spain.  Note that in the numbering of this quatrain, 5-89, we are given three digits of the date on which Henry IV became King of France in 1589.
            In the next quatrain, Nostradamus very clearly says, that the power of the house of Lorraine will end with the death of the last Valois King. It will be replaced by the House of Navarre and the Protestants, who up until this point in time, had not occupied many places of importance in the reign.

            10-18 The house of Lorraine will make way for Vendome
            The high put low, and the low put high
            The sons of Hamon will be elected in Rome
            And the two greatest ones will be put at a loss.

            The highs of the third line were the Catholic Guises who had great power in France under the Valois Kings. The low, were the crude Gascons, most all of them Protestant. When their leader Henry of Navarre came to power, these positions were quickly reversed.
            The sons of Hamon referred to in the third line would be the string of Popes who were elected between 1590 and 1593, three Popes whose combined reigns did not last but a year and a half. According to the book of Esther, Hamon was an enemy of the Jews, who was hanged for plotting their destruction. The analogy here perhaps Nostradamus is making, is that these Popes were all very pro Spanish, and bent on destroying France’s Protestants by force - for this they paid the price, and all of them died within months of their elections.

            2-63 The Gauls Ausonia will subjugate very little
            Po, Marne and Seine will make permanent the truth
            He who will prepare the great wall against them
            He will lose his life from the least at the wall.

            This quatrain says that Ausonia, or Italy will not manage to defeat France, try as they will. The third line refers to the defeat of the  Duke of Parma took at the battle of Ivry in France on March 14, 1590. The Duke of Parma was the nephew of Philip II of Spain, and commander of his army. He had been successful in the Netherlands for his uncle, but then he was ordered to France to go against the Protestants under Henry of Navarre. This was a mistake on the part of Philip II, since the introduction of foreign troops into France only served to anger the Frenchmen and unite the Catholics and Protestants against Spain instead.
            This is a wonderful quatrain full of meanings in the original French! The second line reads Pau, Marne, et Seine fera Perme l’vrie. As can be seen here, the word Perme is capitalized, giving it extra significance. In this case, it is a play on the name Parma. L’vrie here is a word play on Ivry, which is near Paris. The battle of Ivry saw the Duke of Parma defeated by Henry of Naverre!
            Marne and Seine are both rivers in France, which intersect at the city of Paris near Ivry. Pau was the capitulate city of a province belonging to Henry of Naverre. In this case, it is a play on the Po river in Italy as well, since the city of Parma in Italy is located very close to it. As Nostradamus says in the last line, the Duke of Parma will soon loose his life - he was severely wounded at the siege of Caudebec and died not long after in 1592.
            The next quatrain dated for the 16th century, also concerns the young King of Naverre,  in the year 1594. Note that we are given two digits of the date 1594 in the numbering of this quatrain.

             9-45 None will remain to ask
             Great MENDOSUS will obtain his dominion
             Far from the court he will cause to be countermanded
            Piedmont, Picardy, Paris, Tuscany the worst

            9-50 MENDOSUS will soon come to his high realm
            Putting behind a little, the Norlaris
            The Red pale at the man in the interregnum
            The young fear, and barbaric terror.

            After Henry of Navarre became King, the Parisians still refused to acknowledge him, so he was forced to lay siege to his own capital. Here, Nostradamus calls him MENDOSUS, which is an anagram for VENDOME, the house of Navarre.
            Nostradamus sees very clearly here, just how powerful this young King will become - he was one of France’s greatest warrior Kings. All this, he had to accomplish far from his court, for his capital, the city of Paris was held by the Catholic league until March 22, 1594.
            This King’s influence extended far beyond the city of Paris. Piedmont is mentioned in the last line as well. This refers to Charles Emanuel of Savoy, who was allied with Spain, and continually plotting against Navarre. Finally in 1600, the French King trounced him in a war, and took all of his territory to the east of the Rhone all the way up to Lake Geneva. Picardy was held by the Duke of Aumale for the Catholic league, and Navarre trounced him as well. Tuscany was held by Grand Duke Ferdinand de Medici, who was mixed up in these wars as well - Navarre  trounced him up in a different way -  he married his daughter Marie de Medici.
    The Norlaris of the 2nd line of quatrain 9-50 makes a reference to the house of Lorraine, of which it is an anagram. The Reds of this quatrain are the Catholics of France, who pale at the very thought of a Protestant King reigning over them. Henri III died in 1589, but Henry IV was not crowned King until February 27 1594 at Chartres in France. . These few years of the dispute over the throne, saw some of the bloodiest battles imaginable happening in this country at this time. Note that in the numbering of this quatrain 9-50, we are given three digits of the date 1590, during which year some of these occurrences were happening.
            1590 was a momentous year in the history of France. The city of Paris was full of Catholics holding out against the besieging Protestants. Approximately 300,000 people were inside, and they had held out for 3 months. Famine was stalking the city, and they were reduced to eating dogs, cats, and leather for food. Every day, they prayed that the Duke of Parma would arrive with his Spanish forces and drive away the Protestants.
            Parma meanwhile, had departed from Valenciennes on August 5, 1590, and arrived at Meaux on August 22nd. He brought with him 12,000 foot and 3,000 horses, and he carried provisions for the city of Paris. On September 7, 1590, he entrenched his forces on the banks of the Marne river near Lagny, whose bridge and town were in the hands of the Protestants.

            Navarre was waiting for Parma, and expected the attack to come near the monastery of Chelles in the open country between the armies. However, Parma emerged to make a feint attack on the main enemy position, and under cover of this, he worked his usual magic using the waterways, and threw pontoons over the Marne, covered the bridge of Lagny with his artillery, and stormed the town on the east bank. With the capture of Lagny, went control of the Marne river, and he was able to deliver some food to the starving people of Paris.

            10-48 Banners from the deepest part of Spain
            Coming from the tip and ends of Europe
            Troubles passing near the bridge of Lagny
            His great army will be routed by a band.

            However, by mid September, Navarre was once again besieging the city. This time he drove out the Duke of Parma, and Parma subsequently made for the Netherlands frontier with his army, against the direct orders of his sovereign King Phillip II. Naverre’s small army followed him, snapping at his heels.

            9-56 The army near Houdan will pass Goussainville
            At Mantes it will leave it’s mark
            In an instant more than a thousand will be converted
            Cherchant les deux remettre en chaine et legne

            Houdan and Goussainville are both slightly to the West of Paris. Henry of Navarre first laid siege to Paris on May 4, 1590. It held out until Parma rescued it on the 17th of September. However, Navarre had another trick up his sleeve. On July 25, 1591 Henry stunned Frenchmen by issuing the Edict of Mantes.
He received instruction from the Catholic divines, and was taken back into the fold of the Catholic church. As he himself said “Paris is worth a Mass” The army certainly did leave it’s mark at Mantes, as Nostradamus says in the second line! The edict had it’s desired effect, and almost to a man, all of France rallied to his side. The third line is exactly correct.
    The last line of this quatrain is difficult to interpret. It could read literally “looking for the two to put them back in chain and firewood. But I think the word legne is a play on the word  Lagny, the site of the Duke of Parma’s successful entry into Paris.      Note that in the numbering of this quatrain 9-56, we are given two digits of the year 1591 on which this event took place.

             Henry’s entry into Paris

            9-86 From Bourg la Reine they will come straight to Chartres
            And near Pont d’ Antony they will pause
            Seven crafty as Martens for peace
            Paris closed by an army they will enter.

            The above incident took place in 1594. Henry of Navarre was crowed King of France at Chartres on February 27, 1594. He had to be anointed with holy oil from Tours, because Reims was still in the hands of the Catholic league - as was Paris, his capital. Henry V headed directly for Paris after his coronation, determined to take his capitulate. When he got there, he bribed the Governors of the city, who then let him in. This is what Nostradamus means in the last two lines of this quatrain. Henry’s troops marched in, and the next day, the Spanish garrison left with no further fuss.
    In the original French, the second line reads “Et feront pres du pont Anthoni pause” which could also be read And near the bridge Antony will pause - this is a word play on Antony of Naverre, Henry’s father.

    Nostradamus was also keeping his eye on the year 1595 in far away places. He foresees the accession of Sultan Mehmed III in that year.

                                         Sultan Mehmed III

           3-59 The Barbarian empire will be usurped by the third
            He will put the greater part of his own blood to death
            Through senile death the fourth struck by him
            For fear that the blood through the blood should not die.

            The Ottaman Sultan Murad III (1574-1595) had over 100 children - 20 sons survived him. It had once been the practice for the new Sultan to put all his rival brothers to death, to prevent them from trying to seize power. However, by the days of Nostradamus, this barbaric ritual was no longer practiced - instead, the brothers were kept royal prisoners in the harems.
            But one of the 20 sons of Murad was not going to take any undue risks with his chances. This was Mehmed III, who promptly strangled his 19 brothers, and succeeded as the 13th chief of the Ottaman empire in 1595. He died in 1603, and was succeeded by his son Ahmed I.  The last two lines of this quatrain are unclear, but note that in the numbering of this quatrain, 3-59, we are given two digits of the date 1595.
            Henry IV had a sister named Catherine. In 1587, at the age of 28 years she fell in love with Charles de Bourbon, the Comte de Soissons, son of her uncle Conde by his second wife Francoise de Orleans-Longueville. They exchanged secret and written promises of marriage to each other in 1592.
            But her brother became furious when he found out about this, because he intended to make a valuable political match for her. Henry charged his chief minister Rosny to possess himself of those marriage contracts using fair means or foul.
             Rosny chose foul means. He told a very naive Catherine, that if she would just give up the documents, then her brother would be happy to sanction her marriage. Catherine happily complied at once, and then found out to her dismay, that her brother had never intended to sanction this marriage at all.
            Instead, he offered her other choices for a husband, including the Duke of Bar Henry de Lorraine, who was son and heir of the Duke of Lorraine. Catherine stubbornly refused, and remained loyal to her love. But eventually Henry wore his sister down, and in 1597, she resignedly and wearily agreed to marry the Duke of Bar.
            Catherine, like her mother, was an avowed Protestant, and the Duke of Bar was a strong Catholic. It was a further 2 years before these religious questions could be formally sorted out, but they were finally married at St. Germaine en Laye on January 31, 1599. Catherine was then sent to live in Lorraine She arrived in Bar in March of 1599. Unknown to her, her brother had dealt her the worst blow of all, he had instructed Catherine’s new father in law to dismiss all her Protestant ladies in waiting. After 6 lonely and miserable years, Catherine died at age 45 in February of the year 1605.

Baron de Rosny, Duc de Sully.

         7-9 The lady in absence of her great Captain
         Will be wooed by the Viceroy
         A feigned promise and unfortunate luck in love
         In the hands of the great Prince of Bar

     Note that in the numbering of this quatrain, we are given two digits of the year 1597, in which this event occurred.

            The last important document in French history of the 16th century, was called the Edict of Nantes, and it was signed on April 5, 1598. This small document, as much as anything else, was enough to bring down the power of the mightiest empire of the day, Spain.
            Up until this period in time, Spain had fed on the festering boil of religious discord and civil war in France, backing the Catholics against the Protestants in that country. When Henry of Navarre came to the throne in 1589, he was a Protestant, but wisely he decided that Paris was worth a Mass. He later converted to the Catholic faith, thus partially uniting the country in this fashion. Later, in 1598 he issued an edict which gave tolerance to the Protestant people, and this ended the religious wars at last.
            In the year 1571, Spain had trounced the barbarians of the Ottaman empire at the Battle of Lepanto, and in doing so, had ended the Turkish threat in the Mediterranean. As well, during this time, that country grew very rich from the gold and silver which poured in from the new world. Spain never had to worry about any threat from her neighbor France during all this time, because the country was so weakened by civil wars (aided and abetted by Spain) that it was never a threat.
            However, once the French had united under their sovereign Henry IV, it became a rather different story for Spain.  Phillip II had to turn his attention to a strong Protestant threat to his realms from the Netherlands. And in France, in March of 1595, Henry IV declared war on Spain, and matched his scratch troops against the mightiest army in the world at that time.
            Navarre took Burgundy from Spain, and he restored the neutrality of Franch Comte for the Swiss - the mighty Spanish empire began to crumble at the edges, and in it’s place, rose a strong and united France.

       Edict of Nantes

            9-89 For seven years fortune will favour Phillip
            And he will beat down the exertions of the barbarians
            But then in his middle age, a perplexing contrary affair
            Young Ogmios will destroy his strength.

      Ogmios, The Gallic Hercules

Henri IV, in a propaganda print published in the 1590s. Above the pillars are the arms of France (left) and Navarre (right). Beside these are a scene of Henri's coronation (left) and one of his victorious battles (right).
                Nostradamus calls Henry of Navarre Young Ogmion in this quatrain - Ogmios was the Celtic equivalent of Hercules. Note in the numbering of this quatrain 9-89, we are given two digits of the date of 1589, in which the edict of Nantes was signed. Henry V thought of himself as the Gallic Ogmios even in his own lifetime, as this propaganda print incredibly enough proves!

            4-19 Before Rouen of the Insubrians placed the siege
            By land and sea the passages shut up
            By Hainaut and Flanders, by Ghent and those of Leige
            Through cloaked gifts they will ravage the shores.

            This quatrain concerns the siege of Rouen. In 1591 this city was held by the Protestants, who were holding on to it with aid from England. It went through several sieges, first by Protestants, and then by Catholics. It was finally taken by the troops of the Duke of Parma (the Insubrians) on April 6, 1592.
            Leige, Hainault and Flanders were all provinces in the Netherlands, struggling to free themselves from Spanish control, and allied with the Protestants of  France. Here, Nostradamus predicts that their gifts of Protestantism will find a home in France in the end, with the accession of France’s first Protestant King.  Note that in the numbering of this quatrain 4-19, we are given two digits of the date 1591.

            4-9 The chief of the army in the middle of the crowd
            Will be wounded by an arrow shot in the thighs
            When Geneva in tears and distress
            Will be betrayed by Lausanne and the Swiss.

            Henry of Navarre was wounded by a pistol shot in the thigh at the battle of Aumale on February 2, 1592. The last two lines of this quatrain are not clear, but have something to do with the Netherlands - Henry of Naverre, to offset the Spanish power, allied himself with the Protestant cantons of the Netherlands, as well as England during this period in time. His old enemy, the Duke of Parma, was the Governor of the Netherlands as well, during this time. Parma died at Araas on December 2, 1592 from the wounds he had received in the previous battles against Henry of Navarre.

            5-40 The royal blood will be so very mixed
            The French will be constrained by the Spanish
            One will wait until her term has expired
            And until the memory of his voice has perished.

            The rise of Spanish power began in the reign of Charles V. with the gold that poured in from the new world. Under the brilliant campaigns of the Duke of Alba, Spain gained control over Italy, and indeed France was constrained by the Spanish for many years.
            Another important base of Spanish power, was the Habsburg policy of marrying their family members to form alliances with other countries, as Nostradamus hints at in the first line of this quatrain. It was said at the time, that the Emperor would rather marry a country then make war with it.
            Phillip II, son of Charles V, carried on this policy as well. He even went as far as marrying the English Queen Mary to secure her alliance with Spain against France and the Pope. However, Phillip’s power started to slip towards the end of this reign, at the same time one of France’s greatest Kings Henry V began to rise to power.
            Phillip II followed the advice of his father the voice, on all matters. When Phillip II died on September 13, 1598, the term had passed, and the memory of the voice was gone forever.

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