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... eir presence on the Eastern borders added to the panic. The rumor that Catherine was plotting with Spain to exterminate them caused the Huguenots to attempt a coup at Means, to seize the person of the king and get him away from the Guises. This provoked the second war, which was much a repeat of the first.
At the end of it, Montmorency was dead, the crown was more in debt, and the Peace of Longjumeau was pretty much the same as the Peace of Ambrose. The Third War (1568 - 1570) It was destined to be short-lived. The Cardinal de Lorraine fashioned a plan to overturn the peace and capture Conde and Coligny. They instead escaped to La Rochelle and raised an army to begin the third war. Conde and Coligny made an alliance with William of Orange in the Netherlands. The Cardinal de Guise also saw in Mary Stuart Queen of Scotts, a tool for unseating Elizabeth and putting a Catholic monarch on that throne as well. (As long as Elizabeth was childless, Mary was next heir in England. ) The third war therefore involved an even larger number of foreign interests, and lasted from 1568 - 1570.
The Protestant strategy was to fortify the southwest and create a stand off with the crown. This was successful for a fairly long time. However, at Jarnac, under the leadership of the king's younger brother, Henri de Anjou, the Protestants suffered a defeat and the Prince de Conde was killed. Coligny met the Catholics at Moncoutour and suffered another defeat. However, he collected his forces and made a "long march" across the south of France, depriving the crown of their chance to break the Protestant hold on the south.
The cost of the army in the field was again telling on the crown and yet another peace was negotiated at St. Germain. This peace was more favorable to the Protestants then the previous, naming specific towns as secure strongholds, returning confiscated property to the Huguenots, and guaranteeing some equality before the law. This third war was more prolonged, and brought the war to the rural areas in central and southern France, spreading the suffering to the population and raising the cultural tensions between Catholics and Protestants. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572) After the peace of St.
Germain, Catherine exerted a great deal of diplomatic effort trying to establish harmony between Catholic and Protestant leaders. Admiral de Coligny, was welcomed into the king's council, Elizabeth of England entertained the prospects of marriage to one of King Charles' younger brothers, and Catherine negotiated with Jeanne d'Albert, Queen of Navarre, to marry her daughter Margot to Henri de Navarre, the ranking Huguenot prince of the blood. However, the common people felt no such harmony, and tensions grew in the towns and countryside. Protestant beliefs had become increasingly revolutionary in the late 60 's, with thinkers advocating that Christians did not have the obligation to obey leaders when they themselves defied god.
Calvin himself came to the conclusion, after advocating for many years that obedience to the authorities was a Christian duty that a prince who prosecuted the church had given up his right to be obeyed. Francois Human's Francogallia was written during this time. It advocated the existence of a mythical Frankish constitution whereby the kings of France were elected by the people and governed only through their consent. This was all very frightening and served to unite the Protestant faith with treason in the mind of the average person. Along with these more abstract issues, tensions between Catholics and Protestants had some more everyday economic and social elements. Protestants were often represented in the more lucrative trades, such as printing, out of proportion to their numbers in the general population.
The Protestant emphasis on literacy as the basis for understanding the Bible made for a better-educated group. Protestantism was more an urban than a rural phenomenon, one well suited to capitalists and merchants. For example the 100 or so Catholic feast days that they didn't celebrate made for more days to do business. This wasn't viewed as being much of an advantage by the peasants, but was viewed as an unfair advantage by other Catholic townsmen. The years of persecution had created a cell-like structure of congregations, where people in the group stuck together and helped each other, both in matter of religion and everyday business. Like that other minority in Europe, the Jews, this engendered a feeling of suspicion about their "secret" organization.
The participation of women in the church, with men and women singing and studying the bible together, was viewed with a range of emotions: from a sign that society was imploding when cobblers and women could debate the meaning of the Bible, to a conviction that Protestant worship must involve some kind of orgiastic rituals. Prices had risen very sharply between the beginning of the century and the 1560 s, especially the prices of food, fuel, and shelter. This seems irrelevant to matters of religion, but the stress of making ends meet, increasing homelessness, poverty in the towns, anxiety about the future, and all other factors that go with these economic pressures made for a fearful society looking for scapegoats. Catholics felt that tolerance of heresy was like a disease in the body of Christ that threatened the very bond between god and his people. There was an increasing rhetoric among the preachers to purge this infection and restore god's favor. This tension is important background to a history changing event which occurred the evening of August 23, 1572 -the feast of St.
Bartholomew. Henri de Navarre and Margot de Valois were married in Paris on August 17 and the festivities were still going on. The entire Huguenot leadership came to Paris for this wedding. Henri himself brought 800 mounted noblemen.
On August 22, as Admiral Coligny was returning to his lodgings, after a meeting with the king, an assassin shot him, breaking his arm and wounding him severely. The Huguenots were outraged and demanded justice from the king. Everyone suspected the Guises of the attack. At this time they could have easily made to the safety of a Protestant city. Feeling that it would show a lack of trust in the king, Coligny refused to flee. However, Huguenots were threatening riots in the streets if something wasn't done.
During the night of August 23, the decision was made to kill Coligny and the Huguenot leaders gathered around him. Charles the Ninth was certainly there, Catherine de Medici, Henri de Anjou. It may not have been intended to be a general massacre. Charles the Ninth was reputedly badgered into this decision by Catherine and his councilors, and when he broke he is alleged to have said, "Well then, kill them all let no man be left to reproach me. " Sunday morning, a troop of soldiers came to Coligny's door. They killed the guard at the door and rushed through the house.
Coligny was stabbed and thrown out the window to the pavement below. Reputedly the Duc de Guise mocked the body, kicking him in the face and announcing that this was the king's will. Rumors ran thick and fast, somehow the militia and the general population went on a rampage, believing themselves to be fully sanctioned by the king and the church. Catholics identified themselves with white crosses on their hats, and went around b...
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Research essay sample on Catholics And Protestants De Guise
