1/8 Ecu of Navarre - Henry IV

Henry IV's path to the French throne required him to hold Navarre simultaneously, and coins struck under this dual authority occupied an awkward constitutional space — issued by a king whose legitimacy Paris refused to recognize until his conversion to Catholicism in 1593. Production of this type spans that conversion and the Edict of Nantes in 1598, meaning examples struck in the early years of the range were made by a monarch still formally excommunicated.

Navarre's mints operated under different monetary ordinances than the French royal system, which accounts for minor weight and fineness deviations sometimes observed across the type's long production run.