Franco-Savoyard War (1600–1601)
| Franco-Savoyard War | |||||||||
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 Henry IV and the war of Savoy |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Kingdom of France
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 Duchy of Savoy
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Henry IV of France Charles de Gontaut, Duke of Biron François de Bonne, Duke of Lesdiguières Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully |
Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy | ||||||||
The Franco-Savoyard War of 1600-1601 was an armed conflict between the Kingdom of France, led by Henry IV, and the Duchy of Savoy, led by Charles Emmanuel I. The war was fought to determine the fate of the former Marquisate of Saluzzo, and ended in a French victory.
Saluzzo was a French enclave in the Piedmontese Alps in the mid-sixteenth century, having been annexed by Henry II of France following the death of the last marquis Gian Gabriele I in 1548. France's claim on the marquisate, however, was relatively weak, and in the 1580s its possession of the territory came to be contested by Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, who had begun pursuing a policy of expansion for his duchy and sought to acquire Saluzzo for himself. Taking advantage of the civil war weakening France during the reign of his cousin Henry III, he occupied Saluzzo in the autumn of 1588, on the pretext of wanting to prevent its occupation at the hands of the Protestant Huguenots of Dauphiné, and continued to hold it for the following twelve years.
In 1595 the French king Henry IV, on the occasion of his visit to Lyons, offered to grant the Marquisate of Saluzzo to one of Charles Emmanuel's sons as a French fief, but the Duke of Savoy insisted on outright possession and rejected the proposal. Papal arbitration of the matter proved to be no more successful, and the issue remained unresolved until December 1599, when the king of France received the Duke of Savoy in Fontainebleau. To resolve the dispute, Henry IV suggested to Charles Emmanuel two alternatives: the return of Saluzzo to France, or to retain the marquisate but to cede in exchange the county of Bresse, the vicarship of Barcelonnette, and the Stura, Perosa and Pinerolo valleys.
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