Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 1494-1598, Fifth Edition / Period 4 (of 8), Periods of European History

by A. H. Johnson

As Francis was over thirteen, it was not necessary to have a regency. None the less, it would have been natural that Antony of Navarre, as the nearest male relation of full age, should be called to power.The Guises in power. This was, however, prevented by the Guises. Uncles of the Queen, they succeeded in obtaining complete control of the young King; and Catherine, seeing that they were too strong to be opposed, jealous of Navarre, and disliking Montmorenci on account of his insolent behaviour to her during her husband’s life, threw herself on their support. Montmorenci was dismissed, and retired to his estates at Chantilly; Coligny was deprived of his governorship of Picardy, nearly all the governors on whom the Guises could not depend were removed, and while the Duke controlled the army, the Cardinal of Lorraine became the head of the civil administration. Having thus monopolised the government of the kingdom, the Guises resumed the procedure against the refractory members of the ‘Parlement,’ which had been stayed by the death of Henry II. Anne de Bourg, condemned by a special commission, was executed in spite of his appeal against the legality of the court, and the others were suspended or imprisoned.

But the triumph of the Guises was not to go unchallenged, and a formidable opposition was aroused in which their political and religious opponents joined hands. The nobility were indignant at being deprived of their governorships, and asserted the right of the princes of the blood against these upstart foreigners. The heavy taxation and the poor success of the war in Scotland, where Mary of Guise, assisted by her brothers, was carrying on an unequal struggle against the ‘Lords of the Congregation,’ added to the grievances. Those who wished to revive the authority of the States-General seized the opportunity to attack the despotic government of the Guises, and the religious discontent served as a rallying-point. In the spring of 1560, De la Renaudie, a noble of Perigord, formed a plot to remove the King,The Tumult of Amboise. March 17, 1560. who was at Amboise, from the hands of the Guises, and to place the Prince of Condé at the head of the government. The plot, however, was betrayed. De la Renaudie was killed in a skirmish, and the other conspirators cruelly punished, some being hung from the balcony of the castle.

Although the ‘Tumult of Amboise’ was by no means exclusively confined to the Protestants, it marks the moment when they finally became a political and aggressive party, and when they were joined by the smaller nobility of the provinces; while it furnished the government with a pretext for declaring that the interests of the monarchy and of the Catholic Church were identical. For the moment the Guises pretended somewhat to change their policy. On first hearing of the plot, they had issued an Edict in the King’s name promising forgiveness for all past deeds; and, although the Edict of Roromantin, which followed in May, 1560, gave exclusive jurisdiction over matters of conscience to the ecclesiastical courts, it urged the desirability of proceeding gently in the matter. The Guises even listened to demands of Coligny, which were supported by Catherine and Michel L’Hôpital, who had just been made chancellor, to summon a States-General, and a Council of the French prelates for the discussion of grievances, political and religious. To these proposals, however, they had consented in the belief that they could postpone the ecclesiastical Council under pretext that the Council of Trent was shortly to be reopened, and that they could secure a subservient majority in the Estates-General by influencing the elections, and by excluding and imprisoning those who would not subscribe to the articles of the Catholic faith.

The death of Mary, the Regent of Scotland (June 10, 1560), and the Treaty of Leith (July 6), by which the French were to evacuate Scotland, and King Francis and his wife, Mary Stuart, were to abandon their claims to the throne of England, had removed the apprehensions of Philip. He therefore offered to help the Guises in securing their power. The Pope and the Duke of Savoy were to send troops to exterminate the Vaudois and to attack Geneva, while Philip was to invade Navarre. Condé and the King of Navarre having rashly answered a summons to Orleans, where the court had assembled for the meeting of the States-General,The triumph of the Guises prevented, by death of Francis II. Dec. 5, 1560. were seized; an unsuccessful attempt was made to assassinate Navarre; and Condé, tried before a special commission for complicity in the late conspiracy, was condemned to die. The triumph of the Guises seemed secured, when it was snatched from them by the sudden death of the young King from a disease in the ear (December 5, 1560).

§ 4. Charles IX., December 1560–May 1574.

The Guises, baulked of their prey, went at first in such fear of their lives that they shut themselves up in their palace, and Catherine at last seemed to have her opportunity. As Charles IX. was only ten, a regency was necessary, and, beyond all dispute,Catherine rules in the name of Charles IX. the office should have been held by Antony of Navarre. But he agreed to surrender his right to the Queen-mother, reserving for himself only the office of Lieutenant-general. Catherine was delighted. ‘He is so obedient,’ she wrote to her daughter the Queen of Spain, ‘that I dispose of him as I please.’ She now hoped to act the part of mediator between the two religious parties, and, by playing off the Guises against the Bourbons, to rule. Her first difficulty was with regard to the States-General. Summoned on December 15, 1560, to Orleans, they were prorogued till the following August, when they met again at Pontoise.

This, the first meeting of the States-General for seventy-seven years, is noticeable as illustrating the political ideas of the Huguenots, who found themselves in a majority,The States-General. August 1561. and for the remarkable reforms proposed, which, if carried out, might have saved France from civil war, and altered her future history. The nobles, while insisting on their privileges, urged the reformation of the judicial system, and the substitution of an elective magistracy for one which, through the system of purchase, was rapidly becoming hereditary; they denounced the chicanery of the ecclesiastical courts and the abuses of pluralities and non-residence; they petitioned that nobles who preferred the Calvinistic worship should be allowed to use the churches for their services.

The demands of the Tiers État went further. They asked that the Prerogative should be limited by triennial meetings of the Estates, and by the appointment of a Council from which the clergy should be excluded. They petitioned for the sale of church lands. From the interest of the capital thus obtained, the clergy were to be paid fixed stipends, and the balance was to be spent on paying the debts of the crown, and in loans to the principal cities for the furtherance of their commerce. They demanded that persecution should cease, since ‘it is unreasonable to compel men to do what in their hearts they consider wrong,’ and that a national Council, in which the laity as well as the clergy should have votes, and in which the Word of God should be the sole guide, should be summoned for the final settlement of religious questions. This would have meant the establishment of the Reformed opinions in France, and for this Catherine was certainly not prepared, for the Huguenots after all only represented some one-thirtieth of the nation.

Nor did the results of the ‘Colloquy of Poissy,’ which was held near by at the same time, offer better hopes that comprehension would be possible.The Colloquy of Poissy. At this conference eleven ministers—among whom were Theodore Beza, the disciple of Calvin, and Peter Martyr the Italian—and twenty-two laymen appeared. But as might be expected, the attempt served rather to accentuate the differences between the two creeds. The only practical result of the Colloquy was that the bishops, to meet the demands of the third estate with regard to Church property, pledged themselves to pay by instalments the sum needed for the redemption of those crown lands which had been alienated to satisfy the public creditors.

Comprehension was plainly impossible. It remained to be seen whether toleration was practicable. This was attempted by the Edict of January, 1562, which,The Edict of Jan. 1562. while it insisted on the Huguenots surrendering the churches which they had occupied, allowed them, until the decision of a General Council, to assemble for worship in any place outside walled towns. Thus the policy of L’Hôpital seemed to have triumphed. The Huguenots were given a legal recognition, and ceased to be outlaws. But the appearances were delusive, and the Edict of January really only precipitated civil war. L’Hôpital himself had confessed, at the opening of the States-General, that ‘It was folly to hope for peace between persons of different religions. A Frenchman and an Englishman,’ he said, ‘who are of the same religion have more affection for one another than citizens of the same city, or vassals of the same lord, who hold to different creeds.’ Nor was this all. Religious differences were in many cases embittered by personal rivalry, by selfish interests, and by political prejudices, and all these had been intensified by the demands of the third estate. If granted, the demands would have revolutionised the constitution of the country, and they could only have been successful if backed up by the nation. But the third estate, nominated for the most part by the municipal oligarchies, represented neither the views of the peasants in the country districts nor those of the lower classes in the towns, who were mostly Catholics. Those whose interests and prejudices they assailed formed the great majority of the nation, and these henceforth learnt to look upon the Huguenots as their deadly enemies. The higher nobility were frightened at the demand for resumption of the crown lands, many of which were in their hands; the Church resented the cry for disendowment; the lawyers were indignant at the attack on their privileges, and were as jealous as ever of the claims of the States-General to rule the country. It is, in fact, from this time that we must date the uncompromising hostility to the Reformers of these three powerful bodies—the nobility, the clergy, and the lawyers—many of whom hitherto had not been unwilling to show some favour to the Huguenots. The only chance of the Huguenots now depended on the maintenance of peace. Although they had not gained all that they desired, and although the Edict was only to be provisional, their adherents were increasing so fast that in a short time they might hope to be able to command respect. One archbishop—that of Aix—and six bishops, besides the Cardinal of Châtillon, were said to favour the new opinions. Throgmorton informed the Queen of England that even Charles IX. himself was wavering. Catherine did not object to her ladies reading the New Testament and singing the psalms of the Huguenot Marot, and certainly she would not have hesitated to continue her policy of toleration if she could thereby have secured her authority. Unfortunately the administration was not powerful enough to enforce the law, and the religious and political animosities were too deep. The leaders of the Huguenots could not entirely control the more hot-headed spirits, and iconoclastic outrages occurred, more especially in the south; while the Catholics were determined to overthrow the Edict as soon as possible.