French Wars of Religion (1562–1598): Catholics vs Huguenots

The French Wars of Religion were a series of eight civil wars fought between 1562 and 1598, mainly between French Catholics and Protestants known as Huguenots. Religious conflict combined with rivalry between great noble families and a weakened monarchy to tear France apart for more than three decades. The wars ended only when Henry IV converted to Catholicism and issued the Edict of Nantes, granting Protestants limited toleration.

Background

Protestant ideas reached France in the 1520s, and from the 1540s the Reformed teaching of John Calvin, directed from Geneva, spread rapidly. By about 1560 there were well over a thousand Reformed congregations, and Huguenots may have made up about 10 per cent of the population, perhaps around 2 million people. They were strongest in the south and west, among townspeople and, crucially, among nobles.

Kings Francis I and Henry II had persecuted Protestants, but persecution failed to stop the movement. Then, in July 1559, Henry II died after a jousting accident at celebrations following the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. His sons were young and weak: Francis II (1559–1560), Charles IX (1560–1574) and Henry III (1574–1589). Real power often lay with their mother, Catherine de’ Medici.

The crown’s weakness let great noble families compete for influence. The Catholic Guise family, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, and his brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, dominated the court of Francis II. Their rivals included the Bourbon princes, Antoine, King of Navarre, and his brother Louis, Prince of Condé, who became the political leader of the Huguenots, and the Châtillon family, including Admiral Gaspard de Coligny.

In March 1560 Protestant plotters tried to seize the young king at Amboise to free him from the Guises. The Conspiracy of Amboise failed and many conspirators were executed. After Francis II died in December 1560, Catherine became regent for Charles IX and, advised by the chancellor Michel de l’Hôpital, tried conciliation. The Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 attempted a theological dialogue, and the Edict of Saint-Germain of January 1562 allowed Protestants to worship outside town walls.

The first wars, 1562–1570

The first war began with the Massacre of Vassy on 1 March 1562, when followers of the Duke of Guise attacked a Protestant congregation worshipping in a barn at Wassy in Champagne, killing dozens. Condé called Protestants to arms, and Huguenot forces seized Orléans, Lyon, Rouen and other cities.

The first major battle took place at Dreux on 19 December 1562. Both commanders, Condé and the Constable Anne de Montmorency, were captured, and the royal Catholic army held the field. In February 1563 the Duke of Guise was shot by a Protestant, Jean de Poltrot de Méré, while besieging Orléans, and died days later. The Edict of Amboise of March 1563 ended the war with limited rights of worship for Protestants.

The second war (1567–1568) began when Huguenot leaders tried to seize the king at Meaux. Montmorency was mortally wounded at the Battle of Saint-Denis in November 1567. The third war (1568–1570) was fought mainly in the west. The Huguenots lost at Jarnac in March 1569, where Condé was killed, and at Moncontour in October 1569, but Coligny kept an army in the field. The Peace of Saint-Germain of August 1570 gave Protestants freedom of worship in specified places and four security towns, including La Rochelle.

St Bartholomew’s Day and the middle wars

To seal the peace, Catherine arranged the marriage of her daughter Margaret of Valois to the young Protestant Henry of Navarre, son of Jeanne d’Albret. The wedding took place in Paris on 18 August 1572, attended by many Huguenot nobles.

On 22 August Coligny was wounded by an assassin. Fearing a Huguenot revenge, the king and his council decided to kill the Protestant leaders. Early on 24 August Coligny was murdered, and the killing spread into a general massacre by Parisian Catholics, described in the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Estimates of the dead in Paris range from about 2,000 to 4,000, and similar massacres in a dozen provincial cities over the following weeks killed thousands more.

The massacre destroyed much of the Huguenot leadership and led to the fourth war (1572–1573), in which La Rochelle withstood a royal siege. Protestant writers now began to argue that subjects could resist tyrannical kings. At the same time, a group of moderate Catholics, called the Politiques, argued that peace and the state’s survival mattered more than religious unity.

The fifth war (1574–1576) ended with the Peace of Monsieur, named after the king’s brother Francis, Duke of Alençon, which was so favourable to Protestants that it provoked a Catholic backlash. The sixth (1576–1577) and seventh (1579–1580) wars were shorter and inconclusive, ending in the Peace of Bergerac and the Peace of Fleix.

The War of the Three Henrys and Henry IV, 1585–1598

In June 1584 the king’s last brother, the Duke of Anjou (formerly Alençon), died. Henry III had no children, so under the law of succession the heir was Henry of Navarre, a Protestant. For many Catholics a Protestant king was unthinkable. They revived the Catholic League under Henry, Duke of Guise, son of the murdered duke, with financial support from Philip II of Spain.

In 1585 the League forced Henry III to cancel the rights of Protestants and exclude Navarre from the succession, beginning the eighth and longest war. Navarre defeated a royal army at Coutras in October 1587. In Paris, the League’s supporters rose against the king on the Day of the Barricades in May 1588, and Henry III fled the capital.

The king struck back. On 23 December 1588 he had Guise killed by his guards at the château of Blois, as described in the assassination of the Duke of Guise. The League declared him a tyrant, and Henry III allied with Navarre. On 1 August 1589, while besieging Paris, he was stabbed by the Dominican friar Jacques Clément and died the next day, recognising Navarre as his heir.

Henry IV, as Navarre now was, had to fight for his kingdom. He defeated the League at Arques in 1589 and at the Battle of Ivry in March 1590, but failed to take Paris, which endured a terrible siege and famine in 1590. Spanish armies under the Duke of Parma intervened to relieve the city.

On 25 July 1593 Henry formally abandoned Protestantism at the basilica of Saint-Denis. He was crowned at Chartres in February 1594 and entered Paris on 22 March 1594. Towns and League nobles gradually submitted, often in return for money and offices. From 1595 Henry fought an open war against Spain, which ended with the Peace of Vervins in May 1598.

In April 1598 Henry issued the Edict of Nantes. It confirmed Catholicism as the state religion but granted Huguenots freedom of conscience, the right to worship in specified places, equal access to offices and special courts. Secret articles and royal warrants also allowed them to hold around 150 places of safety, many of them garrisoned, for a limited period.

The edict was a compromise imposed by an exhausted country, not a principle of religious freedom. Yet it ended open war between the faiths for a generation.

Key people

Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589), wife of Henry II and mother of three kings, dominated French politics for three decades. Long blamed for the St Bartholomew’s massacre, she is now seen by many historians as a ruler who generally sought compromise in an impossible situation.

Gaspard de Coligny (1519–1572), Admiral of France, was the leading Huguenot commander after Condé’s death and the first victim of the massacre of 1572.

Henry, Duke of Guise (1550–1588) led the Catholic League and was hugely popular in Paris until his murder.

Henry III (1551–1589) was intelligent and devout but distrusted by both sides; his assassination ended the Valois dynasty.

Henry IV (1553–1610), the first Bourbon king, brought the wars to an end and became one of France’s most popular monarchs.

Consequences

The wars brought widespread devastation. Armies of French troops and foreign mercenaries from Germany, Switzerland and Spain lived off the land. Massacres, sieges, plague and famine caused enormous loss of life. Historians’ estimates of total deaths range from about 2 million to 4 million, but these figures are very uncertain.

The Huguenot minority survived but was much reduced, and many former Protestants returned to Catholicism. Royal authority, so weak in the 1580s, recovered under Henry IV and became the foundation of the absolute monarchy of the 17th century.

Legacy

Henry IV was assassinated in 1610. Under Louis XIII, Huguenot revolts in the 1620s led to the siege of La Rochelle (1627–1628), and the Peace of Alès of 1629 removed the Protestants’ military privileges. In 1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, forcing hundreds of thousands of Huguenots to convert or flee abroad.

The wars also shaped political thought. The writings of Jean Bodin on sovereignty and the reflections of Michel de Montaigne on cruelty and tolerance were responses to the violence of these decades.

Myths and facts

Myth: Henry IV said “Paris is well worth a Mass”. No contemporary source records the phrase, which appeared later. It captures the political logic of his conversion, but it should not be treated as his actual words.

Myth: the wars were purely about religion. Religion was central, but noble rivalries, royal weakness, local grievances and Spanish intervention were also crucial.

Timeline

• 1559, 10 July: Henry II dies after a jousting accident.
• 1562, 1 March: The Massacre of Vassy starts the first war.
• 1562, 19 December: The Battle of Dreux is fought.
• 1570, 8 August: The Peace of Saint-Germain ends the third war.
• 1572, 24 August: The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre begins in Paris.
• 1588, 23 December: Henry, Duke of Guise, is assassinated at Blois.
• 1589, 2 August: Henry III dies after being stabbed; Henry of Navarre becomes Henry IV.
• 1593, 25 July: Henry IV converts to Catholicism at Saint-Denis.
• 1594, 22 March: Henry IV enters Paris.
• 1598, April–May: The Edict of Nantes and the Peace of Vervins end the wars.

Why it matters

The French Wars of Religion showed how religious division could destroy a powerful kingdom. Their resolution through a strong monarchy and limited toleration shaped the French state and influenced European ideas about sovereignty and coexistence.