The History of Christianity / Consisting of the Life and Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; the Adventures of Paul and the Apostles; and the Most Interesting Events in the Progress of Christianity, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.

by John S. C. Abbott

His father threatened to disinherit him if he did not renounce all connection with the Protestants.

But this noble man, true to the teachings of his conscience, would not allow the loss of a crown to induce him to swerve from his faith. In anticipation of disinheritance, and banishment from the kingdom, he wrote to the Protestant elector palatine,—

“I have so deeply offended my father by maintaining a Lutheran preacher in my service, that I am apprehensive of being expelled as a fugitive, and hope to find an asylum in your court.”

Though Maximilian, upon succeeding to the throne, maintained in his court the usages of the Papal Church, he remained the kind friend of the Protestants, ever seeking to shield them from persecution, claiming for them a liberal toleration, and endeavoring in all ways to promote fraternal religious feeling throughout his domains.

The prudence of Maximilian greatly allayed the bitterness of religions strife in Germany, while other portions of Europe were desolated with the fiercest warfare between the Catholics and the Protestants. In France particularly, the conflict raged with merciless fury. John Calvin soon became the recognized head of reformation there.

Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, was a Protestant. Her husband was a Catholic. They had one son,—Henry, subsequently Henry IV. of France. Gradually the strife between Catholics and Protestants became so fierce, that all Europe was in arms,—the Catholics combining to annihilate the Protestants, the Protestants arming for self-protection. Anthony of Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, the husband of the Queen of Navarre, and father of Henry IV., abandoned his Protestant wife and his child, and placed himself at the head of the Catholic armies. The Queen of Navarre, the most illustrious Protestant sovereign on the Continent, was then recognized as the head of the Protestant armies. Henry, her son, following the example of his noble Christian mother, espoused the same cause.

The kingdom of Navarre, a territory of wild ravines and majestic swells of land, often rising into towering mountains upon the northern slope of the Pyrenees, bordered France upon the south: its annexation to France was deemed important by the French court. An impotent, characterless, worthless boy, Charles IX., was nominally king of France: his mother, the infamous Catharine de Medici, was the real sovereign. She was as fanatical, as cruel, as wicked a womanas ever breathed. History, perhaps, records not another instance where a mother did every thing in her power to plunge her own son into every species of debauchery, that she might enfeeble him in body and in mind, so as to enable her to retain the supreme power.

This vile woman had a daughter, Marguerite, as infamous as herself. That Navarre might be annexed to France, the plan was formed of uniting in marriage Henry and Marguerite, the heirs of the two thrones. The scheme was formed by the statesmen of the two countries. Henry and Marguerite, though thoroughly detesting each other, made no objection to the arrangement, which would promote their mutual ambition. The marriage-tie had no sacredness for either of them. Catharine was delighted with the arrangement; for she had formed the plan of inviting all the leaders of the Protestant party to Paris to attend the nuptials, and there to assassinate them. Out of respect to their devoted friend, the Protestant Queen of Navarre, and her Protestant son, they would be all likely to attend. The leaders being all thus assembled in Paris, she would have them entirely at her disposal. Then, having cut off the leaders, in the consternation which would ensue, she would, by a wide-spread conspiracy, have the Protestant population throughout all France—men, women, and children—put to death.

With measureless hypocrisy, feigning the highest satisfaction in prospect of the union of the Catholics and the Protestants, Catharine sent very affectionate messages to the nobles, and all the men of prominence of the reformed faith, begging that there might be no more hostility between them. She entreated them to attend the nuptials, and assured them of the high gratification with which she contemplated the marriage of her daughter with a Protestant prince, who was thus destined to become king of France.

While plotting the details of perhaps the most horrible massacre earth has ever known, she did every thing in her power to lull her unsuspecting victims into security. The Queen of Navarre and her son were invited to the Castle ofBlois to make arrangements for the wedding. They were received by Catharine, and her weak, depraved son, Charles IX., with extravagant displays of affection. The Protestant nobles and influential clergy flocked to Paris. The Admiral Coligni, one of the most illustrious of men in all excellences of character, was received as the special guest of the king and his mother. He was unquestionably the most influential man in the Protestant party in France. His death would prove an irreparable blow to the cause of reform. Some of his friends urged him not to place himself in the power of so treacherous a woman as Catharine de Medici.