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 Under pressure from the Guises, the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was revoked.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.