The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) are often characterized as a series of “religious wars”. Yet, in essence, they were rooted in the political conflicts among various religiously motivated factions. These included the French Catholics, primarily led by the Guises family, the French Calvinists known as the Huguenots, and Politiques, a group that prioritized political settlement over religious struggles represented by Henry the Navarre. Simultaneously, the regency of Catherine de Medici, the French monarchy, and external powers such as Spain, also played important roles in different periods of the intricate wars. The wars unveiled the precarious political structure that France was facing and reshaped the nation’s political landscape: royal authority was challenged by the religiously motivated nobles and finally consolidated by Henry IV. In contrast, although the influence of both Catholic and Calvinist nobles increased during the wars, the long-endured struggles eventually led to their decline. When the wars ended in 1598, the Kingdom of France was a kingdom embracing religious tolerance, unifying under a stable monarchical power, and moving away from the former state of political and religious turmoil.

       The Massacre of Vassy in 1562 was identified as the beginning of the wars of religion; however, the trend of Protestant Reformation, the growth of Calvinism and the rise of factionalism, the gradual weakening position of the French monarchy with the challenges from powerful nobles, composed the political landscape of France in the first half of the sixteenth century and escalated crisis into wars. Since Martin Luther published the “95 Thesis” in 1517, the Protestant Reformation began to spread over Western European society, and in France, theologian John Calvin developed his ideas of predestination and God’s absolute sovereignty, defined as the term “Calvinism”. At the same time, the kings of France in the early sixteenth century, including Francis I and Henry II, implemented strict religious repression in response to the discontent of Protestants: in 1534, when Protestant radicals put up posters in Paris and other towns to reject the Catholic doctrine of “Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist”, known as the event “Affair of the Placards”, Francis I initially tolerated but later executed a number of those implicated in the Affair in 1535; After the death of Francis I in 1547, his successor, Henry II, utilized more severe religious repression policies to restrict the influence of Protestants. In 1551, the Edict of Châteaubriant curtailed Protestants’ right to worship and prohibited the distribution of “heretical” literature. Under the kings’ repressive policies, ambitious aristocrats and discontented townspeople joined the Calvinist church in opposing the monarchy. Before the war outbreak in 1562, though Calvinists only made up about one-fifteenth of the total population of France, two-fifths of the French aristocracy became Huguenots. The difference in the proportion of Huguenots among the aristocrats and the overall population showed that the so-called “religiously motivated” group also acted for certain political aims, and the events after the death of Henry II further indicated the claim’s validity.

       After the death of Henry II in 1559, the new monarch Francis II was only 15 years old. Since the niece of Francis, Duke of Guise, Mary Queen of Scots, was married to Francis II, the central power was mainly controlled by the hand of the House of Guise, a noble family that preserved a strong Catholic faith. In 1560, to reverse the current policies directed by the Guises, a group of disaffected Calvinist nobles attempted to gain control over the king but failed, known as “the Amboise Conspiracy”. The Amboise Conspiracy reveals that the “religious war” between the Huguenots and the Guises, was actually the result of a struggle for the control of state power, and essentially, it was sparked by the political landscape of France rather than religious doctrines: after the death of Henry II, France was in the state without an effective monarchical authority, with central power relied on the hands of nobles. Under these circumstances, religious divisions among the nobility led to the outbreak of the war in 1562, when troops of Francis, Duke of Guise directed a massacre towards Huguenots in Vassy.

       Having established the fertile ground for understanding the political nature of the religious conflicts, and the weak position of the royal authority at the time, it is crucial to evaluate the strategies employed by the regent Queen, Catherine de Medici, and the monarchs during the wars of religion, including Charles IX, Henry III, and Henry IV, analyzing how they navigated the chaotic political landscape with alliance, repression, negotiation and compromise, leading the initially conflicted French society into the phase of religious tolerance.

       During the reign of Charles IX, Catherine de Medici, the regent Queen, was the actual ruler of the royal authority. In the earliest stage of the regency, she acted as a role to reconcile the conflicts between the two sides through negotiations: in January 1562, she issued the Edict of Saint-Germain, which granted Protestants freedom to worship publicly outside towns; however, her effort of reaching reconciliation was abrupted in March same year, when the Duke of Guise directed the massacre of Vassy. Although the tolerant strategy was ineffective in the case of the Edict of Saint-Germain, Catherine de Medici continued to pursue a peaceful settlement during the first three wars (1562-1570). In 1563, she signed the Edict of Amboise, which led France into a period of “armed peace”. Again, the peace did not last long, the second war outbreak in 1567, and the third war (1568-1570) was the bloodiest of all the conflicts. During the third war, the previous Huguenot leader Condé was killed, and Huguenot leadership passed to Coligny. This was a blessing in disguise for the Protestants because Coligny was far the better military strategist. After the Peace of Saint Germain-en-Laye in 1570, the crown tilted manifestly toward the Bourbon faction and the Huguenots and Coligny became Charles IX’s most trusted adviser. At this point, Catherine de Medici began to fear on Coligny’s influence on the king, since Coligny as a Huguenot, planned to invade the Spanish Netherlands to support the Dutch Protestants' uprising. Despite attempting to seek a peaceful settlement between the two religious factions, the disappointment towards Coligny caused Catherine de Medici to change her initial moderate strategies into radical. In 1572, she arranged the marriage between her daughter, Marguerite of Valois, and Henry the Navarre, a Protestant, inviting Huguenot nobles to Paris for the “reconciliation” but planning to assassinate Coligny. Nevertheless, the assassination failed to kill Coligny, which made Catherine fear the king’s reaction to her complicated relationship in balancing the Huguenots and Guises and the responses from Coligny. Finally, On Saint Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1572, Coligny and 3,000 fellow Huguenots were butchered in Paris.

       Several primary sources have indicated that Catherine de Medici directed the massacre, the most notable one is the memoir of her daughter Marguerite of Valois, whose marriage became a tool for Catherine’s political aims and caused the massacre itself. In the memoir, Marguerite remembered what her mother explained the massacre to her:

“The Queen my mother called my sister to her, and child her very severely. My sister replied it was sending me away to be sacrificed; for, if any discovery should be made, I should be the first victim of their revenge. The Queen my mother made answer that, if it pleased God, I should receive no hurt, but it was necessary I should go, to prevent the suspicion that might arise from my staying.”

       According to Marguerite’s memoir, the Queen thought it was necessary to sacrifice her daughter to achieve “revenge”. In the eye-witnessed account of historian Jacques Auguste de Thou, Catherine de Medici was also seen as the planner of the massacre, while the massacre was cooperated with the Guises:

“So it was determined to exterminate all the Protestants and the plan was approved by the queen. They discussed for some time whether they should make an exception of the king of Navarre and the prince of Condé. All agreed that the king of Navarre should be spared by reason of the royal dignity and the new alliance. The Duke of Guise, who was put in full command of the enterprise, summoned by night several captains of the Catholic Swiss mercenaries from the five little cantons, and some commanders of French companies, and told them that it was the will of the king that, according to God's will, they should take vengeance on the band of rebels while they had the beasts in the toils. Victory was easy and the booty great and to be obtained without danger.”

        From the Edict of Saint-Germain in 1562 to the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572, the strategies of Catherine de Medici were inconsistent and even contradicted in principles. In the times of escalating conflicts that the three wars occurred in 8 years, Catherine’s objective to achieve a balance between the two factions was destined to be short-lived as both sides could not accept the settlement of “armed peace”. The fact after the St. Saint Bartholomew’s Day further proved the incorrectness of Catherine’s balanced strategy: though the aristocratic portion of the Huguenots was significantly loss during the massacre, the remaining members had become more radical. The massacre provoked further military action, and the end of hostilities was brought on by the election (11–15 May 1573) of the Duke of Anjou to the throne of Poland and by the Edict of Boulogne. Three months after Henry of Anjou’s coronation as the king of Poland, the French king Charles IX died, and as a result, Henry returned to France and was crowned Henry III.

       Similar to Catherine de Medici, Henry III first took relatively moderate policies to seek a peace settlement: in 1576, Henry signed the Edict Beaulieu in May 1576, granting the Huguenots almost complete religious and civil freedom. France, however, a nation in the serious split between religious belief and political powers, was unable to achieve such toleration sweepingly. Henry, Duke of Guise, formed the Catholic League and forced Henry to withdraw the granted rights to Huguenots. In the mid-1580s, with Spanish support, the Catholic League became dominant in Paris. In contrast, Henry III as the king of France, was in a weak position as he did not have any male heir, and under the Salic Law, the next heir to the throne was Henry the Navarre, a Protestant. Therefore, Henry III had to balance between the two factions even more cautiously than Catherine de Medici; however, different from Medici’s strategy of seeking alliance from both sides, Henry III adopted a more proactive approach, attempting to secure an advantageous position for himself in the power struggle: in 1588, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Henry III’s concern of Spanish support to the Catholic League waned, and directed an assassination on Henry of Guise. In the report to the government by Catherine de Medici’s doctor, there’s a dialogue between Henry III and his mother Catherine de Medici:

“Henry entered Catherine's bedroom on the floor below and announced, "Please forgive me. Monsieur de Guise is dead. He will not be spoken of again. I have had him killed. I have done to him what he was going to do to me."  Catherine's immediate reaction is not known; but on Christmas Day, she told a friar, "Oh, wretched man! What has he done? ... Pray for him ... I see him rushing towards his ruin.”

       Catherine’s words soon became a reality. In 1589, only one year after the assassination of Henry of Guises, Henry III was also assassinated. In general, Henry III’s strategy during the wars of religion experienced a shift from moderate tolerance toward radical assertiveness, and the key problem lies in the point that while attempting to resolve the issue by eliminating the opposition, Henry failed to unite the two factions with an acceptable solution for both. In other words, Henry III was not a monarch who prioritized political settlement over religious struggles, and his successor, Henry of Navarre, known as Henry IV, successfully avoided his mistake and ultimately ended the wars of religion.

       Henry IV, as a Protestant, was situated on a dangerous throne when he inherited the crown since many Catholics could not accept a Protestant to become the king of France. In response to the attack, Navarre declared that he would uphold the Catholic faith without changes. After a series of battles with the Guises and the Spanish army, in 1593, Henry IV converted to Catholicism and famously said “Paris is worth a mass.” The conversion to Catholicism satisfied the Catholic faction, which contained the majority population of France, and the official religious belief of France was being continued instead of transformed into Protestantism. On the other hand, in 1598, Henry IV’s famous Edict of Nantes proclaimed a formal religious settlement, which to promote civil unity granted the Huguenots substantial rights. Selections from the Edict of Nantes showed Henry IV’s attitude of embracing religious settlement, while he still controlled the influence of Protestantism in a certain acceptable range:

III. We ordain that the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion shall be restored and reestablished in all places and localities of this our kingdom and countries subject to our sway, where the exercise of the same has been interrupted…

VI. And in order to leave no occasion for troubles or differences between our subjects, we have permitted, and herewith permit, those of the said religion called Reformed to live and abide in all the cities and places of this our kingdom and countries of our sway, without being annoyed, molested, or compelled…

XXI. Books concerning the said religion called Reformed may not be printed and publicly sold, except in cities and places where the public exercise of the said religion is permitted.

       The main difference between Henry IV and previous royal authorities was his identity as a politique, someone who prioritized political settlement over religious conflicts. Therefore, all of his decisions were targeted at the goal of achieving national unity, and he would implement anything pragmatically to make the goal become reality: Understanding the importance of aligning with the majority Catholic populace, his conversion was a critical move that quelled significant opposition and secured his acceptance as king. The Edict of Nantes, meanwhile, exemplified his skillful balancing act; it restored Catholic worship while also granting substantial rights to Huguenots, maintaining religious peace without fully yielding to Protestant influence. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Kingdom of France was a kingdom achieving religious tolerance after decades of religious wars, and a kingdom with stable monarchical power after decades of power struggles.

       In summary, the French Wars of Religion mainly reshaped the French political landscape in two aspects: firstly, the wars of religion largely promoted political centralization in France. Following the long-lasted wars, the authority of the powerful nobles, such as the Guises, had been diminished, and the monarchy emerged as the authority to mediate the religious conflicts. Secondly, as the Edict of Nantes guaranteed religious rights to the Huguenots while remaining Catholicism the dominant religion, religious tolerance was finally established in France as a result of the 30-year religious wars.

Bibliography

1. Knecht, Robert. The French Wars of Religion, 1559-1598. 1989. CiNii, ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA22381590.

2. Kierstead, Raymond F., and J. H. M. Salmon. “Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century.” The American Historical Review, vol. 81, no. 5, Dec. 1976, p. 1121, doi:10.2307/1852965.

3. The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France: 1483-1610. 1996. CiNii, ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA29109912.

4. Guerard, Albert Leon. France: A Modern History. University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0472083902.

5. Knecht, R. J. Catherine De’Medici. Routledge, 2014.

6. De Valois of Henry Iv King Of, Margaret, and Queen Marguerite of Henry Iv King Of. Memoirs of Marguerite De Valois, Queen of Navarre: Written by Her Own Hand. Newly Translated in English with an Introduction and Notes by Violet Fane [pseud.] with Eight Portraits from Contemporary Engravings. 1892.

7. Kinser, S. The Works of Jacques-Auguste De Thou. Springer Science and Business Media, 2012.