Discussion

The Wars of Religion, Part

II

A procession of the League, 1590

The War of the Three Henries (1584-1589)

When the Duc d'Anjou died in 1584, Henri de Navarre

became heir presumptive to the throne of France. The

Catholicity of the crown, and the special sacral role of "The

Most Christian King", were principles widely assumed to be

fundamental to the constitution of France. The threat of a

Protestant accession to the crown was very disturbing. The

pope, Sixtus V, immediately excommunicated Navarre and

his cousin, Henri Prince de Condé, declaring that as heretics

they were unfit for the throne. There were Catholics who

resented this interferance by the pope in the internal affairs

of France, but there were others who viewed it as a sanction

to seize the throne of France. The chief opportunist was the

dashing and charismatic Duc de Guise, who somehow

managed to find a pedigree that could be traced to

Charlemagne. The House of Guise had been strongly

identified with the defense of the Catholic Church, Guise

was the son and grandson of heroes, and was himself a

military hero, nicknamed "Le Balafré" for the scar he

acquired in battle.

Henri III tried to convince Henri de Navarre to convert to

Catholicism, as this would remove the cloud over his

succession and make for a legitimate transition. Navarre

was not ready to do this, as it would have cost him his

current base of support. Guise revived the Catholic League

with the goal of preventing any heretic from coming the

throne. In December of 1584 the Guises signed the Treaty of

Joinville on behalf of the League with Phillip II of Spain.

Spain poured a huge annual subsidy into the League and

Guise pockets for the next decade in an attempt to

destabilize the government of France. The royalist,

Protestant, and Leaguer forces, all led by men named Henri,

were to engage in the bloodiest and longest of the civil

wars.

The Duc de Guise and his relations, the Duc de Mayenne in

Burgundy, the Duc d'Aumale in Picardy, the Duc d'Elboef in

Normandy, the Duc de Mercoeur in Brittany, and the Duke of

Lorraine (not a French territory at this time, but bordering it

on the northeast) controlled vast amounts of territory (see

Map) that were claimed for the League. In addition to this

strong noble base, the League had a growing urban

following among the middle classes, especially in Paris

where the government was eventually in the hands of the

League Committee of Sixteen.

Henri III tried to coopt the League as he had done almost 10

years earlier, by putting himself at the head of it. The Treaty

of Nemours, signed in 1585, revoked all the previous edicts

of pacification: banning the practice of the reformed religion

throughout the kingdom, declaring Protestants unable to

hold royal office, ordering all garrisoned towns to be

evacuated, and requiring all Protestants to abjure their faith

within six months or be exiled. Naturally, this lead to war.

The League, under the leadership of Guise, managed to

dominate in the north and east. Navarre and Condé

entrenched in the south and went looking for foreign aid

from the German princes and Queen Elizabeth. In 1587, an

army of German mercenaries contributed by Jan Casimir of

the Palatinate entered France. Guise took a Leaguer army to

deal with them, and Henri III sent the Duc de Joyeuse to cut

Navarre off in the southwest. Navarre won the first

spectacular Protestant victory at the battle of Coutras,

killing Joyeuse and routing his army. Guise, in turn, trounced

the Germans and sent them home.

Meanwhile, the people of Paris, under the influence of

inflammatory Leaguer preachers and the Committee of

Sixteen, were becoming more and more dissatisfied with

Henri III and his failure to suppress the Protestants. To be a

moderate Catholic was almost as bad as being heretic to the

Leaguers, and politique was an epithet of contempt. In May

of 1588, a popular uprising where barricades went up the

streets of Paris for the first time (the beginning of a

venerable French tradition) caused Henri III to flee the city.

The Committee of Sixteen took complete control of the

government and welcomed the Duc de Guise to the city.

The League pressed for a meeting of the Estates-General,

which was held in Blois in the fall. Their proposed heir to the

crown was the Cardinal de Bourbon, Navarre's uncle. He was

an old man and would have been a puppet figure for the

Guises, and there was even a fear that Henri III would be

forced to abdicate and that the people might proclaim Guise

king. On Christmas Eve in 1588, when Guise was at Blois for

the meetings, Henri III invited him to his quarters for some

discussion. Perhaps he should have been suspicious of the

rows of archers lining the stairs to the king' apartments, and

of the 40 gentlemen waiting in the anteroom. When he

entered, the doors were bolted and although he struggled

heroically, he was cut to pieces, his body burnt, the bones

dissolved, and the ashes scattered to the wind. The same

fate was visited on his brother, the Cardinal de Guise. This

cut the two best heads from the house of Guise, but it still

left the younger brother, the Duc de Mayenne, who now

became leader of the League.

Henri's triumph over the House of Guise was short-lived.

The League presses took over printing revolutionary tracts,

exceeding by far in vitriol the earlier anti-royalist works of

the Huguenots. The Sorbonne proclaimed that is was just

and necessary to depose Henri III, and that any private

citizen was morally free to commit regicide. And in fact, one

of them eventually did.

The League sent an army against Henri III, and Henri III

turned to Navarre for an alliance. The two kings joined

forces to reclaim Paris. In July 1589, in the royal camp at St.

Cloud, a monk named Jacques Clément begged an audience

with the king and put a long knife into his spleen. At first it

was thought the king might recover, but the wound

festered. On his deathbed, Henri III called for Navarre and

named him his heir.

The Wars of the League (1589-1598)

Henri IV's position was delicate. Some of the late Henri III's

followers gave their loyalties to the new sovereign, and

others melted away into the night. The League staged coups

in many of the principal cities of France. In a reign of terror,

they kept watch on the political correctness of the citizens,

hanging moderates, Protestants, and suspicious persons.

Well financed with Spanish money, Mayenne took to the

field. Henri IV brought the war out of the south and into the

north, which he knew was critical if he wanted to be king of

France and not just king in Gascony. In September of 1589,

Henri met Mayenne and gave him a serious defeat at

Arques. His army swept through Normandy, taking town

after town that winter, and then he inflicted an even more

crushing defeat on the League in March of 1590 at Ivry. The

League pretender, the Cardinal de Bourbon, died,

weakening the League position further.

Henri laid siege to Paris in the spring and summer of 1590.

Although he reduced it to severe hunger, he made

humanitarian gestures like allowing women and children to

leave. This is not usually considered militarily wise by a

besieger, as it means the only people consuming food in the

city are able-bodied combatants. The situation alarmed

Philip II of Spain, who ordered the Duke of Parma, perhaps

the most able military commander of the age, to divert

himself from suppressing the Dutch to relieving the siege.

Parma was able to successfully get supplies into the city.

The two never met in open combat, but Henri IV was obliged

to withdraw.

In 1593, the League held an Estates-General in Paris, to

name a candidate for the throne of France. The Spanish

proposed the Infanta, the daughter of Philip II by Elizabeth

de Valois, the late Henri III's sister, who would be married to

a suitable French noble like the young Duc de Guise. This

was a shocking departure from the Salic Law (no woman can

inherit the throne of France), and Parliament passed a

decree that the crown could not go to any foreigner.

At this point, Henri IV made his "perilous leap" and abjured

his faith in July 1593, in the church of St. Denis, reputedly

with the famous witticism that "Paris is worth a mass." A

coronation was arranged for him at Chartres, rather than at

the traditional Reims, which was in the hands of the League.

This was a blow to the League, as it removed the chief

objection of many of the more moderate Catholics to Henri

IV. Many people did not trust the conversation, including the

Protestants who hoped it was not for real. Still, some of

Henri's hardcore Protestant supporters withdrew from him.

In the end, he won over enough moderate Catholics to

strengthen his position.

Finally, in the spring of 1594, Henri IV entered Paris without

firing a shot, and the Spanish garrison marched out. It

wasn't over yet, but Henri was now in possession of his

capital. He began a vigorous program of winning over the

support of moderate Catholics with a combination of charm,

force, money, and promises. A great deal of money was

spent guaranteeing various nobles pensions and positions in

exchange for the support, and a great deal of money was

given to the towns in exchange for theirs. Henri himself

made the crack that the loyality of the king's "bonnes villes"

was "vendu, pas rendu." In the end, Henri considered it a

bargain given he alternative costs of war.

Meanwhile, the king of Spain renewed the offensive in the

northern territories, hoping to unite with the still rebellious

Leaguer lords. Cambrai, Doullens, Calais were all taken in

1595 and 1596. Henri IV besieged La Fere, a Spanish

outpost in French territory. In 1597, the Spanish took

Amiens. The king fought back quite vigorously. Finally, in

1598, faced with financial problems of their own, the

Spanish signed the Treaty of Vervins, which restored the

captured towns to France. Of the League leaders, Mayenne

capitulated in '96, the young Guise in '95, and Mercoeur at

last in '98.

1598 saw the publication of the Edict of Nantes, which

granted Huguenots freedom of worship and civil rights for

nearly a century, until Henri IV's descendent Louis XIV

revoked it in 1685. It is not the end of the Huguenot story in

France, but it closes this chapter of the Wars of Religion.