2 - From St Bartholomew's Day to the death of Charles IX, August 1572–May 1574

Summary

The young duke of Alençon was forced into a more prominent role in the French Wars of Religion in 1572 because of the international rivalry in Western Europe and the religious tension that had built up within France itself. Moreover, both issues fused together in that year and exploded in the most violent series of killings and bloodshed of the entire civil wars: the massacres that began in Paris on 24 August. These massacres were the result of an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the admiral of France, Gaspard de Coligny, whose efforts to lead a Huguenot army to aid the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands threatened war with Spain. Less directly, the massacres were caused by the serious division between Protestants and Catholics that had precipitated the civil wars a decade before. The French reformed church had certainly grown since the failure of the Conspiracy of Amboise, and this despite the efforts of the theologians of the Sorbonne and the Catholic nobility clustered around the Guises. But in spite of the patronage of many noble families, most notably the Bourbons, in 1572 the Huguenots were still seeking to establish their legal right to worship outside the limited areas that were outlined in the treaty of St-Germain in 1570. In January 1570 Jeanne d'Albret, the widow of Antoine de Navarre, had sought in vain for the maintenance of the reformed religion in all of France, as well as ‘the king's protection without exception for all sermons, baptisms, communions, marriages, and all other acts and exercises'.