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The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholics and Protestants (called Huguenots) from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease directly caused by the conflict, and it severely damaged the power of the French monarchy. [1] One of its most notorious episodes was the ...
Wars of Religion, (1562–98) conflicts in France between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The spread of French Calvinism persuaded the French ruler Catherine de Médicis to show more tolerance for the Huguenot s, which angered the powerful Roman Catholic Guise family. Its partisans massacred a Huguenot congregation at Vassy (1562), causing an ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Affair of The Placards & Persecution
- Amboise Conspiracy & Massacre of Vassy
- First Three Wars 1563-1570
- St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre & Fourth War: 1572-1573
- Fifth Through Seventh War: 1574-1580
- War of The Three Henrys: 1585-1589
- Conclusion
The Reformation launched by Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) in 1517 had reached France by 1521 but was not as enthusiastically received as it had been in the Germanic territories of the Holy Roman Empire where Luther and his followers were at work. Francis I of France, a devout Catholic, became king in 1515 but refrained from persecuting Protestant ac...
This situation led to the Amboise Conspiracy of 1560 in which a group of Protestants planned to kidnap Francis II to remove him from the Guise’s influence. The plot was discovered and all those suspected of taking part in it were arrested and executed. Louis de Bourbon was among these and was slated for execution when Francis II died. His brother, ...
Both factions quickly blamed the other for the killings in propaganda campaigns which only fueled tensions. Louis de Bourbon seized Orleans in April 1562, declaring it now a Protestant city, and this encouraged other Huguenot leaders elsewhere to do the same. The first war raged for almost a year, during which Antoine de Bourbon was killed at Rouen...
The wedding of Henry and Margaret drew large crowds, Protestant and Catholic, to Paris in August and tensions were running high already when, on 22 August 1572, Admiral de Coligny was shot in the street by an unknown assailant. De Coligny was only wounded and was brought to his apartments for care but Henry I, Duke of Guise (l. 1550-1588, son of Fr...
Charles IX’s brother Henry, Duke of Anjou (the future Henry III of France, l. 1551-1589) had been elected King of Poland-Lithuania in 1573 but, when Charles IX died in 1574, returned to France and was crowned king. By this time, his younger brother, Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon (l. 1555-1584), had secretly sided with the Huguenots and, in 157...
Henry III of France had no son and so Francis had been next in line for the throne. After his death, this honor went to Henry of Navarre who was considered unacceptable as a Calvinist. Henri I de Guise and his Catholic League, with the support of Catholic Spain, forced Henry III to nullify Henry of Navarre’s legitimate claim as his heir and issue t...
Henry of Navarre was now legally Henry IV, King of France, but had no control over the northern and eastern parts of his kingdom. Between 1589-1593 he won a series of decisive battles against the forces of the Catholic League but could not take Paris which was heavily fortified against him. Recognizing that France would not accept a Protestant mona...
- Joshua J. Mark
The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) were a series of eight conflicts between Protestant and Catholic factions in France lasting 36 years and concluding with the Protestant King Henry IV of France (r. 1589-1610) converting to Catholicism in the interests of peace. Although Protestant forces won the final battles, Catholicism triumphed, and ...
- Joshua J. Mark
- Content Director
Wars of Religion: 1562 - 1576. The 'Wars of Religion' took place in France over the course of four decades, from 1562-1598. Rather like the Hundred Years War, they consisted of a series of wars rather than one continuous conflict. But this time it was a long series of civil wars, between Catholics and Protestants (known as Huguenots - hence the ...
Wars of ReligionBetween 1562 and 1598 France was torn apart by eight Wars of Religion. The conflicts began as a struggle between French Protestants who wanted freedom to practice their religion and Catholics who saw themselves as defenders of the true faith. The wars also had political roots in the rivalry among French nobles for royal patronage*.
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The French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) is the name of a period of civil infighting and military operations primarily between French Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and the House of Guise, and both sides received ...
