THE FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION, PART II
(Map of the Religious and Political Divisions of France.)
The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (WARS Part 1, decimated nost of the Huguenot leadership. Henri de Navarre, still untried as a leader, was a prisoner. Condé fled to Germany, and Andelot, Coligny's younger brother, toSwitzerland. The French Protestant church had grown in the 1560's, but now began to decline as many Protestants changed their affiliation, but radicalised others who, distrusting the king, refused to disarm. Huguenot presses published works such as The Defense of Liberty against Tyrants.

The Huguenots functioned as a "state within a state", collecting their own tithes, maintaining their own armies and garrisons, and administered the welfare of Protestant communities.

THE FOURTH WAR (1572-1573)
Reacting to the massacre, New Rochelle (their de facto capital) refused to pay taxes and admittance to the royal governor. In response, the king declared was on New Rochelle in November of 1572, and his army (Led by Henry d'Anjou, with Henri of Navarre as hostage) besieged the town in February 1573. (This campaign appears in the 1952 film,Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Oscar winner Jose Ferrer, in which Roxane's love, Christian, was killed.) As a port city. easily supplied by sea, and a defendable harbor, La Rochelle resisted the siege, despite heavy casualties. Heavy casualties and burdensome costs on the crown's side led to abandonment of the siege in May. But the Treaty of La Rochelle was to Protests disadvantage.
THE FIFTH WAR (1576)
In 1574, Charles IX died. His brother, Henri, now king of Poland, returned to Franch to claim the crowm. But Henri III's reign was unstable as Condé procured money, troops, support from German Protestant rulers. Henri de Montmonrency of (heavily Protestant) Languedoc, "uncrowned king of the south", although Catholic, provided another army to the Protestants. In February 1576, Henry of Navarre escaped to his realm and raised an army.

In spring 1576, Jan Casimir, ruler of the Palatinate, invaded France with 20,000 troops, allying with the other armies within striking distance of Paris, forcing the crown to negotiate The Edict of Beaulieu, also known as "The Peace of Monsieur" (from the tradition title for the reigning monarch).

THE SIXTH WAR (1577)
Spring 1576 began with a convocation of the Estates General, with little Protestant representation. A (Catholic) state religion was advoced, with new taxes to promote it.

This year also initiation of a Catholic League to oppose the Protestants, but Henry III declared himself head of it and raised forces to retake some Protestant towns along the Loire. Accomplishing little, The Peace of Bergerac was signed in July, leaving "the balance" litle changed.

THE SEVENTH WAR (1580)
Known as "The Lover's War", from maneuvering between the French crown and Henri of Navarre in which his Queen Margot also became involved. Henry seized the city of Chors. But he and regent Catherine de; Medici signed the The Treaty of Merac and The Peace of Fleiz. King Henri III was childless and the Duc of Anjou was the heir presumptive. When Anjou died in 1584, the heir presumptive became Protestant Henri of Navarre. This created a problem relating to the constitution of France because of the traditional Catholicity of the crown ("The Most Christian King").
The War of the Three Henries (1584-1589)
Henri III argued for Henri de Navarre to convert to Catholicism, for a legitimate transition to the crown. But this would cost Henri his prevailing base of support. The Duk of Guise revived the Catholic League to prevent a "heretic" from assuming the throne. In December of 1584, on behalf of the League, the Guises signed the Treaty of Joinville with King Phillip II of Spain, providing a large annual Spanish subsidy for the League. The royalist, Protestant, and League forces were all led by men named Henri, and the bloodiest and longest of the civil wars seemed imminent.

The Duc de Guise and his relations, the Duc de Mayenne in Burgundy, the Duc d'Aumale in Picardy, the Duc d'Elboef in Normandy, the Duc de Mercoeur in Brittany, and the Duke of Lorraine (not a French territory at this time, but bordering it on the northeast) ruled vast territories that wsubservient the Catholic League. The League now had both a base among the nobles and a developing urban middle class support, especially in Paris due to the League Committee of Sixteen.

Henri III again declared himself head of the League. The Treaty of Nemours, signed in 1585,

  • revoked all the previous pacification edicts;
  • banned practice of reformed relgion in the kingdom;
  • banned Protestants from royal office;
  • ordered evacuation of all garrison towns (many of which we Protestant strongholds);
  • and ordered all Protestants to abjure their faith within six months or be exiled.. This led to war.

    The League, under Guise, dominated the North and East; Navarre and Condé in the south, where they sought foreign support from the German princes and Queen Elizabeth of England. In 1587, an army of German mercenaries sent by Jan Casimir of the Palatinate invaded France. Guise sent a League army meet them, and Henri III sent the Duc de Joyeuse to counter Navarre in the southwest. Navarre won a big Protestant victory at the battle of Coutras, killing Joyeuse, routing his army. But Guise drove the Germans from France.

    Meanwhile, the Parisian populace demonstrated disatisfaction with Henri III for his failure to suppress the Protestants. In May of 1588, a popular uprising set up barricades in the streets of Paris (initiating a French tradition). Henri III fled the city and The Committee of Sixteen seized the government and welcomed the Duc de Guise.

    The League called for a meeting of the Estates-General, held in Blois in the fall. Their proposed heir to the crown was the Cardinal de Bourbon, Navarre's aged uncle. Henry III invited the Duc of Guise to his quarter, where he was assassinated. together with his brother, the Cardinal de Guise. Their younger brother, the Duc de Mayenne, became leader of the League.

    But revolutionary tracts published by The League and a declaration by The Sorbonne that Henri III should be deposed, by regicide if necessary (as eventually occurred). When The League sent an army against him, and Henri III formed alliance with Navarre to reclaim Paris.

    In July 1589, in the royal camp at St. Cloud, a monk named Jacques Clément stabbed the King in the spleen. Dying from the festering wound, Henri III called for Navarre and named him his heir as Henri IV.

    THE WARS OF THE LEAGUE (1589-1598) BECOME INTERNATIONAL WAR
    Henri IV's position was perilous, with the loyalties of some of the late Henri III's followers and defection by others. The Catholic League staged coups in many principal cities of France, hanging moderates, Protestants, and questionable persons. Financed by Spanish money, Mayenne entered the field but, in September of 1589, Henri IV defeated him at     Arques, and swept through Normandy that winter, taking town after town. He inflicted defeated League armies in March of 1590 at Ivry. The League pretender, Cardinal de Bourbon, died.

    Henri besieged Paris in the spring and summer of 1590. Philip II of Spain ordered the Duke of Parma from suppression of the Dutch to relieve the siege. And Henri IV withdrew.

    In 1593, at an Estates-General in Paris to name a candidate for the throne of France, Spanish proposed that the Infanta -- daughter of Philip II by Elizabeth de Valois, the late Henri III's sister -- could be married to a suitable French noble like the young Duc de Guise, a radical departure from the Salic Law (no woman can inherit the throne of France), but Parliament passed a decree that the crown could not go to any foreigner.

    Henri IV, in "perilous leap", converted to Catholicism in July 1593, in the church of St. Denis, with the famous witticism that "Paris is worth a mass." Coronation was arranged at Chartres, rather than at the traditional Reims, now in control of the League. In the spring of 1594, Henri IV entered Paris without conflict, and the Spanish garrison marched out.

    Much fighting followed in various parts of the country, suc as Henri IV's siege of La Fere, a Spanish outpost in French territory. In 1598, financial problem forcedd the Spanish to sign the Treaty of Vervins, restoring captured towns to French rule. Mayenne , the young Guise in '95, and Mercoeur all cpitulated.

    The 1598 Edict of Nantes granted Huguenots freedom of worship and civil rights for nearly a century, until revoked by Louis XIV in 1685. Although not ending Huguenot history in France, it ends our description of The Wars of Religion.

    DO YOU WISH TO SEE THE FONTPAGE FOR THIS FILE?