Amazon Review
The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (New Approaches to European History) by Mack P. Holt.
Mack P. Holt's "The French Wars of Religion" brings clarity and order to a historical narrative that can all too easily collapse into confusion. After all, when the penultimate act of the narrative is something known as "The War of the Three Henries," the prospect of losing a reader in the details is a constant threat.
What struck me about Holt's narrative was how "Shakespearian" the events of the French Wars of Religion were, with one generation seeking revenge for an atrocity of a previous generation, only to reap the whirlwind of their own atrocities in a later age. Thus, in the 1563, Francis, Duke of Guise, was assassinated during the siege of Orleans. The Guise suspected Admiral de Coligny of masterminding the assassination and pursued a vendetta against de Coligny, culminating in a botched assassination attempt in Paris in 1572. Because this failure threatened to touch of another round of civil war, the Guise involved themselves in a treacherous and cowardly "decapitation strike" against the Protestant Huguenot leaders in Paris, which included pulling Coligny out of bed and murdering him. This was the match to a powder keg of religious tribalism in Paris and twelve Catholic controlled communities with sizeable Huguenot minorities, known to history as the St. Bartholomew's Massacres. By the time that the massacres ended, there were 3,000 Huguenot dead in Paris and 2,000 in the provinces. The Guise were to get repaid in kind in December of 1588, when King Henry III invited the leader of the Guise, the latest Duke Henry (one of the "Three Henries") and his uncle, a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, to his chambers, where King Henry III without "telegraphing his punch" had Duke Henry ambushed and murdered by his guard, and the Cardinal imprisoned. Two days later, Henry III had the Cardinal murdered, the bodies of the Duke and the Cardinal hacked to bits and burned and scattered to the winds, whereupon the Henry III went off to Christmas Mass. Henry III was repaid in his turn in August of 1589 when a Jacobin monk named Jacque Clement assassinated Henry III, and, thereby, extinguished the Valois line and promoted the last of the Henries - Henry Bourbon, the Huguenot King of Navarre and the successor of Henry III - to the throne, as well as establishing the Bourbon dynasty, which would last in France until the 19th Century - after an interruption on account of the French Revolution - and would be re-established in Spain in the 20th Century.
Shakespearian, indeed, as well as a fruitful source for contemplating the irony of history. If it wasn't history, it would make an exciting story. Also, when I consider the twists of fate caused by ill-time deaths - three of the four Valois sons would ascend to the throne and die relatively young during this period - as well as the breaking and remaking of alliances, and the fact that there were 8 separate wars, which were punctuated by peace treaties determined by who was doing better at the time that hostilities were ended, the history reminded me of the English War of the Roses.
As a Catholic, I appreciated the even-handedness of Holt's account. Histories of the religious conflicts of the Reformation era are typically written by Protestants, who find it too easy to portray the Protestant cause as the forces of historical progress against superstition and oppression. Holt's account is even-handed so that it is possible to see that there was a cycle of actions and reactions by people who found themselves in a situation where they felt provoked by their understanding of what it meant to be a community. Holt's thesis is that religion was defined by community, more than by beliefs, and that for both sides, it wasn't clear how to define people who were not part of one's own community. Notwithstanding Protestant apologists for whom the Huguenots were just liberty seeking folks who wanted to be left alone, this was clearly a problem for both sides. Although Holt simply mentions it in passing, several of the negotiated peace treaties called for the Protestants to permit the re-institution of Catholic religious practices in the cities and towns they held. It would seem that both sides had similar attitudes toward non-conforming religious practices.
I was also fascinated by the constant theme of the sacral nature of the French monarchy, which required the monarch to defend the Catholic faith as part of a vow made upon his coronation. Thus, when on the Day of the Placards, Protestants published and posted blasphemies against the Eucharist throughout France, it was inevitable that the King would react. Similarly, when Henry IV abjured Protestantism in order to assume the throne, he too saw it as part of his core mission to bring the Protestants back into the Catholic Church because of the sacral nature of the monarchy.
I was surprised by Holt's sympathetic depiction of Henry IV. I had believed that Henry IV had said something like "Paris is worth a mass" in reference to his decision to abjure Protestantism. I had viewed that decision as a cynical political ploy. Holt's interpretation is that Henry IV had proven his religious sincerity too often for us to assume that he was a religous cynic. In addition, Henry's subsequent conduct in trying to encourage nobles to return to Catholicism is positive evidence of his sincerity. In any event, Henry IV comes across as the most admirable person to emerge from this conflict.
Holt describes the Machievellian intrigues of the eight wars of religion, as well as the effect that the wars had on the peasantry. Holt spends a chapter describing the desultory ending of the religious wars as Henry IV's son, Louis XIII and his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, finally brought the Protestants "state within a state" to an end in the 1620s. The Huguenots would continue to co-exist with the Catholics until the 1680s, when in a final bit of historical irony, Louis XIV, the grandson of Henry IV, the great champion of the Protestant cause, would revoke the Henry's Edict of Nantes and exile Huguenots from France.
In sum, Holt's account is a well-written and very interesting account of a fascinating period.
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