Local Politics in the French Wars of Religion by Mark W. Konnert

Author:Mark W. Konnert [Konnert, Mark W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781351921589
Google: gGymDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-05-15T04:54:19+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Authority contested Royal power, the duc de Guise, the Catholic League and the towns of Champagne, 1580–1585

On 10 June 1584, François, duc d’Anjou, younger brother of King Henri III and heir apparent to the throne died in the champenois city of Château-Thierry, which formed part of his appanage. His death constituted a turning point in the Wars of Religion comparable only to the St Bartholomew’s Massacres twelve years earlier. All at once, political calculations and alliances were thrown into turmoil and confusion, for the new heir apparent was the Huguenot leader Henri de Bourbon, king of Navarre. For one thing, Anjou’s death completely reversed the political thinking of the Huguenots and of zealous Catholics. After the bloody events of 1572, Huguenot leaders and writers had developed political theories which justified resistance to and rebellion against a wicked or tyrannical ruler, while Catholics insisted on loyalty to a divinely-annointed king. Now, faced with the prospect of a Huguenot on the throne, the Protestants insisted on loyalty while many zealous Catholics adopted the previous Huguenot ideas of justified resistance. Even when they did not go so far as to advocate rebellion, most Catholics were deeply troubled by the prospect of a heretical king.

Anjou’s death and the resulting Catholic distress also prompted a renewed Catholic League, in imitation of the moribund leagues of the 1570s. This time, however, the Catholic League had much broader appeal. For one thing, it had a defined goal and raison d’être: the exclusion of the Huguenot Navarre from the succession. This galvanized Catholic opinion in ways that the amorphous goals of the earlier leagues could not, as ordinary Catholic laypeople were troubled enough to overcome their objections to the earlier leagues examined above.

Clearly here was an opportunity for the Guises to enhance their power while advancing the zealous Catholic agenda. While it is abundantly clear that the Catholic League of 1584 had genuinely popular roots, it is also clear that Guise leadership provided prestige, organization and overall direction to the movement. As Pierre de l’Estoile wrote, Anjou’s death ‘heartened the House of Lorraine, for whom his death came at a very opportune time, facilitating and advancing their plans for a League, which henceforth grew stronger as France grew weaker’.1

The first organizational step was taken in September at a conference held in Nancy under the auspices of the duc de Lorraine, Guise’s kinsman. Present at this meeting were not only Guise and Lorraine, but Guise’s brothers the duc de Mayenne and the cardinal de Guise, and a number of more distant relatives: the duc de Nemours, the duc and chevalier d’Aumale, the duc d’Elbeuf and the duc de Mercœur. In addition, there were a number of familiar Guise supporters: Senecey, Mondreville and de Rosne, who with the death of his patron Anjou had now migrated firmly to the Guise clientèle. Also present was a Norman nobleman, François de Roncherolles, sieur de Menneville, who represented the Charles, cardinal de Bourbon, Navarre’s uncle and the eventual Leaguer candidate for king in place of his heretic nephew.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.