England in the later Middle Ages had been an important naval power, as her ability to carry on the Hundred Years' War in France amply proved. But in the sixteenth century she was greatly over-matched by Spain, especially after the annexation of Portugal added the naval forces of that country to the Spanish fleets. The defeat of the Armada not only did great harm to the navy and commerce of Spain; it also showed that a new people had arisen to claim the supremacy of the ocean. Henceforth the English began to build up what was to be a sea-power greater than any other known to history.
239. THE HUGUENOT WARS IN FRANCE
FRANCE UNDER FRANCIS I, 1515-1547 A.D.
By 1500 A.D. France had become a centralized state under a strong monarchy. [31] Francis I, who reigned in the first half of the sixteenth century, still further exalted the royal power. He had many wars with Charles V, whose extensive dominions nearly surrounded the French kingdom. These wars prevented the emperor from making France a mere dependency of Spain. As we have learned, [32] they also interfered with the efforts of Charles V to crush the Protestants in Germany.
THE HUGUENOTS
Protestantism in France dates from the time of Francis I. The Huguenots, [33] as the French Protestants were called, naturally accepted the doctrines of Calvin, who was himself a Frenchman and whose books were written in the French language. Though bitterly persecuted by Francis I and by his son Henry II (1547-1559 A.D.), the Huguenots gained a large following, especially among the prosperous middle class of the towns—the bourgeoisie. Many nobles also became Huguenots, sometimes because of religious conviction, but often because the new movement offered them an opportunity to recover their feudal independence and to plunder the estates of the Church. In France, as well as in Germany, the Reformation had its worldly side.
CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE
During most of the second half of the sixteenth century fierce conflicts raged in France between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. Philip II aided the former and Queen Elizabeth gave some assistance to the latter. France suffered terribly in the struggle, not only from the constant fighting, which cost the lives, it is said, of more than a million people, but also from the pillage, burnings, and other barbarities in which both sides indulged. The wealth and prosperity of the country visibly declined, and all patriotic feeling disappeared in the hatreds engendered by a civil war.
MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY, 1572 A.D.
The episode known as the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day illustrates the extremes to which political ambition and religious bigotry could lead. The massacre was an attempt to extirpate the Huguenots, root and branch, at a time when peace prevailed between them and their opponents. The person primarily responsible for it was Catherine de' Medici, mother of Charles IX (1560-1574 A.D.), the youthful king of France. Charles had begun to cast off the sway of his mother and to come under the influence of Admiral de Coligny, the most eminent of the Huguenots. To regain her power Catherine first tried to have Coligny murdered. When the plot failed, she invented the story of a great Huguenot uprising and induced her weak- minded son to authorize a wholesale butchery of Huguenots. It began in Paris in the early morning of August 24, 1572 A.D. (St. Bartholomew's Day), and extended to the provinces, where it continued for several weeks. Probably ten thousand Huguenots were slain, including Coligny himself. But the deed was a blunder as well as a crime. The Huguenots took up arms to defend themselves, and France again experienced all the horrors of internecine strife.