I.

Introduction

French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), series of political and social upheavals in France caused by the weakness of the Valois monarchy in the face of religious conflict and aristocratic rivalry. The wars saw Roman Catholics, led by the House of Guise, in conflict with Protestant Calvinists, led by the House of Bourbon, and fell into a context of a wider religious quarrel that took place throughout Europe. There were in fact eight wars, intersected by short periods of peace.

II.

Origins of the French Wars of Religion

The Protestant Reformation had spread to France from Germany in the 1520s, but had attracted few followers. From the 1540s, however, a programme of evangelism coordinated by a network of preachers sent from the safety of Geneva by John Calvin had won many powerful followers in the nobility and thousands of lower rank and created the doctrine and the institutions of a distinctively French form of Protestantism. In May 1559, by which time approximately 10 per cent of the French population had adopted the new religion, Calvin secretly organized the first national synod of Reformed Churches. This provoked Henry II, who considered Calvinism a threat to royal authority, into outlawing Protestantism, but his sudden death at a tournament in July was interpreted by the Reformers as a sign of divine favour, and conversions multiplied. The throne passed to Henry’s 15-year-old son, Francis II, who was manipulated by the Guise family. The Guises, whose power rivalled that of the Crown itself, planned to continue Henry’s campaign of persecution, but could not avert a Protestant noble plot (the Conspiracy of Amboise) to seize the king in March 1560. They bloodily repressed the plot, and in the aftermath the Protestant nobles responsible were first referred to as Huguenots.

Francis II died in December 1560 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Charles IX, who was dominated by his mother, Catherine de Médicis, who was named as regent. Along with her chancellor, Michel de l’Hôpital, the devoutly Catholic Catherine was prepared to tolerate the Huguenots, not least because the power of the Bourbons potentially balanced that of the Guises. Subsequently, the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in January 1562 gave the Huguenots a limited toleration, allowing them to worship in public outside of towns and privately within them. Catholic reaction to this was hostile, and on March 1, 1562, soldiers of François, 2nd Duc de Guise, the leader of the Guises, attacked and massacred worshippers at a Calvinist service in Wassy, Champagne.

III.

First French War of Religion

The massacre at Wassy led to the first war of religion. Under pressure from the Guises, the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was revoked. Protestants armed themselves, seizing control over many towns, including Rouen, Orléans, Tours, Lyon, Nîmes, and Montpellier, and appealed to the Huguenot nobility, led by Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, for protection. There were major battles at Dreux, where Condé was captured, and at Orléans, where in February 1563 François, 2nd Duc de Guise, was assassinated. The war ended in March 1563 with the Peace of Amboise, which was mediated by Catherine de Médicis, who feared that the war would drag on. It gave recognition of the freedom of conscience to the Huguenots, but the limiting of the practice of their worship to some towns and the private homes of the nobility, and the halting of conversions to Protestantism, disappointed urban Huguenot congregations and hardened divisions between the rival faiths.

IV.

Second French War of Religion

Catherine de Médicis spent the next four years trying to maintain a shaky peace between factions in the towns and at Court. However, in September 1567 the Huguenots became alarmed by Catherine’s negotiations with Philip II, the Catholic king of Spain, who seemingly wanted to extend his influence over Charles IX. Suspecting Catherine of treachery, Condé attempted to capture Charles, Catherine, and the Court, at Meaux, Brie. When this failed, the Huguenots briefly rose again in revolt. In spite of their defeat at Saint-Denis in November 1567, the Huguenots accepted the Peace of Longjumeau in March 1568, which renewed the Peace of Amboise and the partial toleration allowed them.

V.

Third French War of Religion

Both sides remained at arms during the summer of 1568, and a third war was ignited in August when Catherine and Charles, now openly allied with the Guises, attempted to arrest the Huguenot leaders, including Condé. After Catholic victories at Jarnac, in March 1569, after which Condé was executed, and at Moncontour, in October 1569, the Huguenots, now led by Gaspard de Coligny, retreated to the west and south-west to regroup. After capturing Toulouse in the spring of 1570, the Huguenots were able to open negotiations with Charles, who was hugely in debt and keen on a peaceful solution. The Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in August 1570, was favourable for the Huguenots, reconfirming the terms of the Peace of Amboise, promising an end to forced conversions to Catholicism, and granting them the right to garrison the fortresses of La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban, and La Charité for two years.

VI.

Fourth French War of Religion

In 1571, hoping to heal the rifts at Court, Charles IX took the initiative and arranged the marriage of his sister, Margaret of Valois, to his Huguenot relative, Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV), for the following summer. The marriage was also intended to divert internal tensions to the Low Countries, where the Protestant William I of Orange was organizing a revolt against a Catholic Spanish army under the Duke of Alva. Gaspard de Coligny, now advisor to Charles, convinced the king to send an army of both Huguenots and Catholics to the Low Countries in response to this destabilizing threat on their border. The plan was opposed by the Guises, and Catherine de Médicis, threatened by Coligny’s influence over the king, ordered his assassination. The attempt, on August 22, 1572, failed, and Catherine, in order to conceal her involvement from the Huguenot nobles gathering at Court for Henry of Navarre’s wedding, panicked Charles into believing a Huguenot plot existed against him and that he should liquidate their leadership. In the subsequent Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day of August 24, 1572, Coligny and other Huguenot leaders were murdered. The bloodshed quickly spread across Paris and then into the provinces, resulting, by October, in the deaths of thousands of Huguenots (estimates vary from 2,000 to 100,000). Many thousands more were forced to convert to Catholicism, including Condé’s son and Henry of Navarre, who was imprisoned at court. The massacre provoked a fourth war, during which the Huguenot towns of Languedoc, in southern France, formed an independent federation which seized control of the province. The war, whose other principal episode was the failure of the Catholics to capture La Rochelle and Nîmes, was ended by the Edict of Boulogne in July 1573, which although allowing the Huguenots an amnesty and recognizing their freedom of belief, restricted their freedom to worship to the towns of La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nîmes, and within their own homes only.

VII.

Fifth French War of Religion

Many moderate Catholics, or politiques, were appalled at the Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day, and in the spring of 1574 a politique plot to kidnap Charles IX and Catherine de Médicis was successfully uncovered. Nevertheless, by the time Charles died in May 1574, to be succeeded by his brother, Henry III, a fifth war had broken out as Huguenots joined in a revolt by a number of politique nobles that eventually included the king's younger brother, the Duke of Anjou. The war was ended by the Edict of Beaulieu in May 1576, which, reflecting the Catholic rebels’ strength, gave the Huguenots freedom of worship in all towns except Paris, and allowed them to garrison eight fortresses.

VIII.

Sixth French War of Religion

Determined to resist the edict, which they saw as too favourable to the Huguenots, extremist Catholics, under the leadership of Henri I, 3rd Duc de Guise, and supported by the Spanish Crown, formed the Holy League in 1576 and renewed the war with the Huguenots. Their incipient revolt was quickly taken over by Henry III, who took control of the Holy League. He secured the support of most of the politique nobles and forced the Huguenots to accept a return to the terms of 1570 at the Treaty of Bergerac in September 1577. Having thus revoked some of the concessions made to the Huguenots in the Edict of Beaulieu, Henry then dissolved the Holy League.

IX.

Seventh French War of Religion

Royal authority disintegrated over the next few years as a multitude of noble and religious factions all attempted to further their own interests, and the peasantry registered its discontent through intermittent revolts. A seventh war broke out in 1579 and was ended at the Peace of Fleix in November 1580 (ratifying the Edict of Nérac of February 1579), which accorded the Huguenots 15 towns of safety for a period of six years and recognized all religious privileges previously granted to them.

X.

Eighth French War of Religion

Matters came to a head in June 1584 when the death of Henry III’s younger brother, the Duke of Anjou, left Henry of Navarre, who had repudiated his forced conversion to Catholicism after his escape from prison in 1576, as legal heir to the throne of the childless king. Fearing a Protestant king, the Guises re-formed the Holy League and secured the support of Spain and the pope for their efforts to exclude Henry of Navarre from the succession. Henry III joined the Holy League in July 1585, but was mistrusted, as his only hope of retaining any independence lay in a negotiated settlement and in preventing either side from winning an outright victory. The Holy League wanted nothing less than to destroy the Huguenots and share their wealth with the king. On July 7, 1585, Henry III, under pressure from the Holy League, issued the Treaty of Nemours, which repealed all the privileges granted to the Huguenots and excluded Henry of Navarre from the succession. Consequently, Henry of Navarre began the eighth war of religion, also known as the War of the Three Henrys, which saw the Huguenots, supported by England, Denmark, and the German principalities, take on both the Holy League, led by Henri I, 3rd Duc de Guise, and Henry III.

After being defeated at Coutras in October 1587 by Henry of Navarre, Henry III found his power rivalled by that of Henri I, 3rd Duc de Guise. He thus attempted a coup against the Holy League at Paris on May 12, 1588, in what became known as the Day of Barricades. However, the citizenry of the strongly Catholic Paris, dissatisfied with Henry III’s inability to finally defeat the Huguenots, revolted against him. Driving his Swiss troops out, they forced the king to flee the city for Rouen. Paris then declared for the Holy League—a move followed by a number of other towns—and welcomed Guise. The Holy League now effectively controlled France, and the king was forced to accede to its demands to create Guise, lieutenant general of France. However, Henry III refused to be treated as a mere puppet and on December 23, 1588, lured Guise, and his brother Louis II, cardinal of Guise, to the Château de Blois, Loire, where they were both assassinated. The murders caused Henry III’s breach with the Holy League to become permanent, and members of the Holy League, supported by Paris, Reims, and many other towns, under the leadership of the younger brother of the Guises, Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Mayenne, joined forces against the king.

Henry III subsequently sought refuge with Henry of Navarre, whom he declared his successor. The king concluded an alliance with the Huguenots and both he and Henry of Navarre became joint leaders of a Huguenot army. However, while attempting to regain Paris on August 1, 1589, Henry III was stabbed by Jacques Clément, a fanatical Dominican friar, and died the next day. Henry of Navarre succeeded as Henry IV, but was recognized only by a small number of towns, mainly in the south and west. In fact, the accession of a Huguenot caused many of the politiques to abandon his army. The remainder of France lined up behind the Holy League, who refused to acknowledge a Protestant as king of France, and were backed by the pope and intermittently supported from the Low Countries by the Spanish army.

Despite the apparent strength of the Holy League, Henry IV heavily defeated Mayenne’s army at the battles of Arques, in September 1589, and Ivry, in March 1590, both in Normandy. Knowing that he had to control Paris, the Holy League stronghold, to be accepted as king of all France, Henry besieged the capital, but it was eventually relieved by a Spanish army from the Low Countries in August 1591. A siege of Rouen likewise failed in April 1592. However, Henry managed to circumvent the problem of military stalemate by skilfully exploiting the divisions that existed among the Holy Leaguers, who were weakened by an inability to decide upon a Catholic candidate for the throne. The issue was to have been addressed at the Holy League Estates-General, which met in 1593, but internal rivalries meant that the question was never resolved. The situation was further confused by Henry IV’s re-conversion to Catholicism in May 1593, thus disarming his opponents. Though many doubted the sincerity of Henry’s conversion, the country was tiring of endemic war and peasant revolt. On March 22, 1594, Henry IV bribed the Holy League commander of Paris to admit his army. The conversion of the king enabled him to be accepted by the Parisian middle class and to return to the capital; in Henry’s words, Paris was “well worth a mass”. The following year he was crowned king at Chartres Cathedral.

After this, Henry IV was able, one by one, to defeat or buy off the towns and nobles of the House of Guise who continued to resist. At the same time, he used a mixture of concessions and force to defuse a major peasant revolt in the south-west. In 1592 he moved against the Spanish forces both along France’s north-eastern frontier and in Brittany, and was consequently granted absolution by the pope. In Brittany, the Catholic Philippe Emmanuel, Duc de Mercoeur, had declared an independent province in 1588 and with Spanish support—Philip II hoped to make his infant daughter queen of Brittany—had defeated Henry IV at Craon in 1592. Yet, Henry eventually achieved the surrender of Mercoeur at Angers in March 1598, and the withdrawal of the Spanish forces from France was obtained with the Treaty of Vervins on May 2, 1598. The wars were over.

XI.

Assessment of the French Wars of Religion

The French Wars of Religion illustrated the great power of the major feudal princes at the end of 16th century. In spite of the efforts of Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III, these princes were still capable of raising huge armies, following policies independent of the monarch, and of creating effectively independent states. They represented the resurrection of feudal anarchy. The wars also showed the virulence of religious extremism prevalent in France at that time, manifested in several massacres. In addition, the wars highlighted a change from the wars of the Middle Ages, as it was no longer enough for a battle to decide the outcome of a war on its own; throughout the wars, the Huguenots could lose battles but preserve their positions through treaties. Lastly, the weakness of the kings did not involve a reduction in the legislative and centralizing power of the monarchy. Strong individuals such as a Catherine de Médicis or Michel de l’Hôpital proved themselves able to preserve the structure of the institutions and administration of the monarchy during these dramatic years.

Indeed the ultimate beneficiary of the chaos of the 1590s was the monarchy, to which all sides appealed as a refuge from social anarchy. This enabled Henry IV to establish the foundations of a royal absolutism that lasted until the French Revolution of 1789. The only group excepted from this trend was the Huguenots. It was clear also that Henry could no longer rely on the Huguenots, who drove a hard bargain to secure legislation guaranteeing toleration. The Edict of Nantes of April 13, 1598, granted them freedom of worship and the protection of a large number of garrison towns across southern and western France. However, the edict was a reluctant truce between the religions, with guarantees for both sides, rather than a sign of genuine toleration, and the apparent strength of the Huguenots disguised the fact that the movement was now confined to a beleaguered minority. Eventually, in 1629, its privileges, but not its freedoms, were abolished by Henry’s son, Louis XIII, after a successful siege of the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle the previous year by Cardinal Richelieu.