French Wars Of Religion

Thesis- To examine how religious intollerance in 16th cenutury France led to

decades of civil war, and the effects of the this intollerance.

Background

- "One faith" was viewed as essential to civil order, and without the right

faith, which was pleasing to God , the people were sure there would be

disaster.

- In 1559, Henri II died suddenly, leaving an enormous power vacuum in

France.

- The House of Guise moved in to attempt to fill the vacuum.

- January 1562, Regent Catherine de' Medici promoted peace by issuing the

Edict of Toleration, which made the practice of Protestantism legal,

although it was restricted to preaching in open fields outside the towns and

to the private estates of Protestant nobles. This was not popular with most

Catholics.

- 1562, Vassy Masacre: troops of the Duke of Guise stopped in Vassy on a

Sunday to hear Mass. A few of his servants got into a conflict with some

Huguenots who were attending a service in a nearby building, and the whole

thing escalated until the Guise faction had fired on the unarmed Huguenots,

set the church on fire, and killed a number of the congregation. This event

marked the beginning of three generations of armed stuggle over the issue of

religion.

The First War (1562-1563)

- The national synod for the reformed church met in Paris and appealed to

Louis de Bourbon, the Prince of Condé to raise troops and protect the

Protestants from futher persecution. He issued a manifesto calling all

Protestants to raise arms and oppose Guise.

- The Protestants captured strategic towns along the waterways, highways,

and crossroads of France.

- The Guise forces were slow to respond, and by this time the Protestants

were well established.

- One open pitched battle was fought at Dreux, it was a Catholic victory.

The Prostestants manaaged to withdraw to Orleans safely. Which was beseiged

during the entire winter of 1562-63.

- In Orleans, the Duke of Guise had been killed by an assasin.

- Regent Catherine issued the Edict of Amboise. This severely restricted

Protestant freedoms.

The Second War (1567-1568)

- The Guise faction remained powerful. The Cardinal argued for more vigorous

suppression of the Protestants in response to Protestant insurrection in the

neighboring Low Countries, where outbreaks of iconoclasm were met with

fierce repression by Spain.

- Regent Catherine met with the Duke of Alva. This was a cause for alarm in

the Protestant community. There were rumours that Catherine was plotting

with Spain to exterminate them. This caused the Protestants to attemp to

seize the king from the Guises. This plan failed, and provoked the second

war.

-The second war was a repeat of the first. At the end of it the crown was

only in more debt than before.

The Third War (1568-1570)

- The Cardinal of Lorraine hatched a plot to overturn the peace and capture

Condé and Coligny. They escaped to La Rochelle and raised another army to

begin the third war. Condé and Coligny made an alliance with William of

Orange in the Netherlands. The Guise became ever more closely involved with

Spain.

- The Cardinal of Guise also saw in Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a tool for

unseating Elizabeth and putting a Catholic monarch on the throne of England.

- Protestants were now suffering great defeats, and their leader, The

Prince of Condé, had been killed. However the cost of the campaigne was

weighing heavey on the crown. They were forced to negotiate a more

Protestant friendly peace agreement which garunteed them equality in front

of the law and returned property that had been lost to them.

The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572)

- August 23 1572, Charles IX made the decision to kill Coligny and The

Protestant Leaders.Charles IX was alleged to have said, "Well, then kill

them all that no man be left to reproach me."

- Sunday morning, Coligny was dragged from his bed, stabbed, and thrown out

the window to the pavement below. The militia and the general population

went on a rampage killing Protestants. With no one being able to bring the

crouds under control, the killing went on for 3 days.

The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh War (1572-1584)

- The city of La Rochelle refused to pay taxes to the king because of the

massacre and refused admittance to the royal governor. In response to this,

The King delcared war on the town.

- 1574, Charles IX dies. His brother, Henri, was then installed as king.

- 20,000 troops invaded France under Jan Casimir in the spring of 1576. The

crown was forced to negotiate The Edict of Beaulieu, otherwise known as the

Peace of Monsieur.

- 1576, Estates General was held. The Protestants were pushing for this, but

there were hardly any Prostestant delegates in attendance.

- The Estates advocated establishing one religion in the realm, and Henri

III demanded new taxes and revenues in order to finance such a project. The

Estates wanted this to be done without spending any money.

- Henri III declared himself head of a Catholic League to oppose the

Protestants, but Protestant forces were at large in the South and there was

no hope of a victory over them. The Peace of Bergerac was signed in July.

- Henri of Navarre seized of the city of Cahors. This battle is sometimes

called "The Lover's War

The War of the Three Henries (1584-1589)

- The Catholicity of the crown, and the special sacral role of "The Most

Christian King", were principles widely assumed to be fundamental to the

constitution of France. The threat of a Protestant accession to the crown

was very disturbing. The pope, Sixtus V, immediately excommunicated Navarre

and his cousin, Henri Prince de Condé, declaring that as heretics they were

unfit for the throne.

- Henri III tried to convince Henri de Navarre to convert to Catholicism, as

this would remove the cloud over his succession. Navarre was not ready to do

this, as it would have cost him his current base of support. Guise revived

the Catholic League with the goal of preventing any heretic from coming the

throne

- The Treaty of Nemours, signed in 1585, revoked all the previous edicts of

pacification: banning the practice of the reformed religion throughout the

kingdom. This led to war.

- The League, under the leadership of Guise, managed to dominate in the

north and east. Navarre and Condé entrenched in the south and went looking

for foreign aid from the German princes and Queen Elizabeth.

- In 1587, an army of German mercenaries entered France. Guise took a League

army to deal with them, and Henri III sent the Duc de Joyeuse to cut Navarre

off in the southwest. Navarre won the first Protestant victory at the battle

of Coutras. Guise, in turn, trounced the Germans and sent them home.

- French Catholics were greatlydissatisfied with Henri III and his failure

to suppress the Protestants.

- On Christmas Eve in 1588, Henri III invited the Duke of Guise to his

quarters for some discussion. When he entered, the doors were bolted, cut to

pieces, his body burnt, the bones dissolved, and the ashes scattered to the

wind. The same fate was visited on his brother, the Cardinal of Guise. The

Duc of Mayenne, now became leader of the League.

- The League presses took over printing revolutionary tracts

- The League then sent an army against Henri III, and Henri III turned to

Navarre for an alliance. They joined forces to reclaim Paris. In July 1589,

in the royal camp at St. Cloud, a monk named Jacques Clément begged an

audience with the king and put a long knife into his spleen. It was thought

the king might recover, but the wound festered. On his deathbed, Henri III

called for Navarre and named him his heir. The war was over.

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