USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Historical collections, Vol. I > Part 4
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Catherine de Medici, trained from her early childhood a Papist, did not seruple to tamper with the pride and influ- ence of the Guises, by calling to her aid the Bourbon princes. Anthony, King of Navarre, was requested to aid the new government with his council ; while the able but tolerant Chancellor l'Hopital was continued in the court ; and further- more to counteract the great influence of the Guises, Prince Louis of Conde, who had been set at liberty, was again ad- mitted to court in January, 1561. These steps favored much the cause of the Protestants, and now the subtle queen-regent, fearing to give too much power into the hands of the Bour- bon princes and their friends, which included the Protestant
* Mary Stuart, daughter of James V, of Scotland, was born, December, 1542, her father dying about ten days after her birth. She became queen in 1543, at the age of about nine months; removed to France in 1548, and married the dauphin, Francis, in 1558; and in 1559, by the death of Henry II, became Queen of France. Returned to Scotland in 1561; married Lord Darnly in 1565; her only child, born in 1566, was James VI, of Scotland, who, on the death of Queen Elizabeth, became James 1, of England. Darnly was killed in 1567; she married the Earl of Bothwell same year; fled to England 1568; was imprisoned about twenty years, and was beheaded in 1587.
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party, began again to solicit the favor of the Princes of Lor- raine. At this point came the strife between the two great parties which now divided the kingdom. Catherine, fearing the great power of the Papists, who were led by the Guises, decided in their favor, apparently for the time, but still held on to the friends of the Protestants, vacillating between the two extremes, in order to neutralize the power of each.
At this juncture of parties, the Guises formed a union with the Constable Montmorency, who had hitherto favored the Bourbon princes and the admiral, and to these was united the Marechal de St. Andre. This union took the name of the " Triumvirate."
Under this state of parties the ceremony of the coronation of Charles IX was performed, May 15, 1561, at Rheims. Now was brought about an apparent reconciliation of Francis, Duke of Guise, and Louis, Prince of Conde, the great leaders of the two factions at this time.
An ecclesiastical assembly was summoned to meet at Poissy, which took the name of a conference, through the influence of the Pope, instead of a council.
At this assembly the Cardinal of Lorraine was to advocate the claims of the Romish church, while the able Theodore de Beza supported the side of the Protestants. The only effect of this was to widen the existing differences upon reli- gious faith. It was found useless to continue the discussion, when it was agreed that a commission of five from each party should be selected to confer upon the points in dispute. Both sides now composed confessions of faith, which were recipro- cally rejected, and finally the conference closed, cach party flattering themselves that they had gained by the assembly; still the difference in matters of faith had in no respect been changed or settled ; but the Papists, by bribery, had strength- ened their cause by buying over Anthony, the King of Na- varre, greatly to the disgust of his former friends.
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The Protestants received protection from the queen-regent at this time, and propagated their doctrines with much suc- cess. This caused the Papists to complain of their public preachings, and in some parts where the Protestants were not very numerous, commenced to use force to protect their re- ligion from such opposition, when reprisals ensued on the part of the Protestants, and the whole kingdom presented a state of anarchy.
To attempt to relieve the country from the disordered state of religions affairs, the chancellor called a meeting of the nobility at St. Germain, at which time, in his speech, he in- troduced the following wise remarks :
" Dost the interest of the state require the permission or the prohi- bition of the meetings of the Calvinists? To decide, it is not necessary to examine religious doctrines ; for even supposing the Protestant religion to be bad, is that a sufficient reason for proseribing those who profess it? Is it not possible to be a good subject without being a Catholic or even a Christian? And can not fellow-citizens differing in their religious opinions still live in good harmony? Do not, therefore, fatigue your- selves with inquiring which of the two religions is best; we are here, not to establish a dogma of faith, but to regulate a state."
These liberal ideas were in advance of that age ; yet their reasonableness had the effect to produce the well-known tol- erant edict of January 17, 1561- 62. This granted the Prot- estants the privilege of exercising their religion outside the towns, but unarmed. Their ministers were forbidden to criti- cise the ceremonies of the Catholic religion or to hold any synod without permission of the court, or to travel from town to town to preach, but to confine themselves to one church; this was to continue until a council should assemble to decide the questions in dispute.
This edict was considered a triumph for the Protestants, but received with gloomy silence by the Romish church. It was recorded as law in the different precincts of the kingdom.
The Pope's legate and the Spanish ambassador at the French
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court made great effort to induce the queen-regent to evade this edict, and to dismiss the admiral and his brother, d'Ande- lot, from the court ; and when the queen gave as a reason for not complying, "that the Calvinists were a powerful party," the ambassadors made an offer of troops to support her.
The Guises, who had kept aloof from the assembly of St. Germain, influenced the Triumvirate to collect troops during the following winter, and to seize on the king's person in the spring.
It being understood by Coligny that the design of the Catholics was a civil war (headed on their part by the Trium- virate), he united with the Prince of Conde, and called on him to make a public profession of the Protestant religion, which he did.
The excitement of the Papists by the influence of the Pope's legate against the meetings of the Huguenots, now began to cause many murders of Protestants in unprotected districts.
The Duke of Guise was summoned by the Catholics to appear at Paris, as the queen-regent continued closely con- nected with the Huguenots. This movement was in February, 1562.
In March following, while the Duke of Guise was passing through Vassy, the Huguenots were assembled for divine service; and, while he expressed great indignation at the independence of the Huguenots, and visited a Catholic church with a part of his followers, the others hastened to the Protestant church, and commenced an attack upon the audience. The Catholies spared neither sex nor age, and during this fanatical attack about eighty of the Huguenots were murdered. This caused great indignation throughout the kingdom. The Duke of Guise was stigmatized with the title of the Butcher of Vassy.
This was the first aggressive step which led to the religions wars, which were carried on with great barbarity and desola-
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ting effeet for over thirty years. Actual hostilities by the military forces on each side began in the latter part of June, 1562. These wars favored alternately one side and the other, the power of the throne not being able to restore peace. The Triumvirate, to secure their power more fully, seized the young king and kept him under their protection, making their acts as a matter of defense for the crown, and to show that their opponents were rebels.
The condition of affairs in the kingdom was such during the year 1562, that the Huguenots had no other choice left them but to either surrender at discretion, leave the king- dom, or fight for their rights ; and their leaders, the Prince Louis de Conde, the admiral, and his brother, chose the latter course.
Through a period of about seven years, up to the close of the battle of Jarnac, the war had raged with intense hatred upon each side, when most of the leaders who were the cause of the war had perished.
The deaths of these leaders were as follows : The King of Navarre, Anthony of Bourbon, lost his life at the siege of Ronen, September, 1562; the Marshal de St. Andre was slain in the battle near Dreux, in Normandy; while, in the same battle, Lonis, Prince of Conde, fell into the hands of the royalists, and the Constable Montmorency was taken prisoner by the Protestants. This was a severe battle for the opposi- tion. Flushed with the hard-won victory at Dreux, the Duke of Guise determined to lay siege to the stronghold of the Protestants at the city of Orleans, and having nearly reduced the place, which must have surrendered in a few weeks, he was assassinated, February 18, 1563, by a private gentleman of Angoumois, named John Poltrot de Mere. This relieved the Huguenots.
These terrible disasters did not soften the hearts of either side any further than to bring about a temporary peace.
,
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Admiral Coligny was accused of effecting this assassination ; but it is quite clearly proved by history that he was not guilty of this atrocious act ; yet the son of the duke, Henry III, Duke of Guise, vowed perpetual enmity against him as his father's murderer.
By the peace succeeding this battle the Prince of Conde and the Constable Montmorency were released to their re- spective parties.
During this peace, concluded in 1563, the regent, Cath- erine de Medici, caused the palace of Tournelles, at Paris, to be demolished, and erected in its place the present noted palace of the Tuilleries.
The death of the Duke of Guise put an end to the power- ful and noted Triumvirate, and by this event Catherine de Medici was left without any restraint upon her schemes of advancement. Her chief plan now was to hull the Huguenots by pomp and display, and to demoralize them by her duplic- ity, in endeavoring to create discord among their principal men.
IIer chief effort in this respect was to seduce from the Prot- estant party their most influential leader, the Prince of Conde, and, for a time, her plans had the effect to demoralize his habits and character ; but a timely and friendly interview with his friend, Coligny, who forcibly remonstrated with him on the pernicious consequences, publie as well as personal, of his continual deviations from decorum, had the good result of leading him to accept these truths, acknowledge the justice of these expostulations, and devote himself with firm adherence to their cause.
During the quiet of the country under this peace Cath- erine planned for the young king a tour through many provinces of the kingdom, attended by a brilliant display of courtiers, apparently to show to his subjects the young sovereign.
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The characteristic tone of the queen's disposition was dis- played in the preparations made for this journey. Besides the courtiers and a brilliant collection of ladies, who joined in this tour, were the Duke of Anjon, the eldest of the king's two brothers, and Margaret, his youngest sister, who after- wards became wife of Prince Henry of Navarre, accompanied by Catherine, who directed all the movements of the party.
The court, after traveling through several provinces, and giving the most lavish and brilliant entertainments, arrived at Bayonne in June, 1565.
Here took place the celebrated interview between Charles IX and his sister Elizabeth, the Queen of Spain, who was conducted to the Spanish borders by a splendid train of the nobility of her court, at the head of which Philip II had placed the noted Duke of Alva and the Count de Benevento.
Here the river Bidassoa, the dividing line of the two king- doms, separated the two royal parties on their arrival. Catherine, impatient to embrace her daughter, crossed over to meet her, while Charles waited to receive his sister personally at Bayonne. The interview continued for three weeks with all the pomp and magnificence for which the exquisite taste of the queen-mother was so remarkable. While pleasure seemed to engross every thought of all, and all enmity and party differences appeared for the time to have been suspended and forgotten, a continued series of interviews were kept up during these festivities between Catherine de Medici and the Duke of Alva, as has been asserted, on the subject of extirpa- ting the Huguenots. Intimations of these plans soon came to the knowledge of the Huguenot leaders, which created such distrust that it was not in the power of the court or the artful display of the queen-mother to dispel. Soon after this noted interview these displays terminated.
The conduct of the court was such during the year 1566 that the edicts of toleration and protection for the Huguenots
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were little respected by the Papists ; while the appeals for redress of wrongs received from the Protestants were in no adequate manner heeded. These grievances of the Calvinists were frequently brought to the notice of the Prince of Conde and the admiral.
They were slow to act, both desiring, if possible, to avoid a renewal of the direful calamities of another civil war. Soon after, however, receiving information that it had been de- termined by the court to seize on them both, to detain the prince in perpetual imprisonment, and to put Coligny to death, they were obliged to prepare measures for their pro- tection. It was resolved to begin by an attempt to get pos- session of the young king. This, at first, did not appear diffi- cult to accomplish ; but Catherine, having received intelli- gence of the approach of the Prince of Conde and Coligny, suspected their intentions, and hastily retired to the city of Meaux. Montmorency was dispatched to meet the Hu- guenot chiefs, and to discuss propositions for the relief of the Protestants, to gain time for Catherine to provide for the defense of the sovereign. While the Constable Montmorency proposed to the queen and her advisers moderate measures, and to leave the king in his quietness at the city of Meanx, the Cardinal of Lorraine, more violent, advocated the removal of the king to Paris, which latter advice having prevailed, immediate steps were taken to effect this object; and, although the party received repeated attacks from the cavalry of the Huguenots, the court's plans were successful.
Ineffectual negotiations succeeded ; both parties, inflamed with bigotry and hatred, were not in a condition to listen to any acceptable terms of peace.
War was again inaugurated by an attempt of the Huguenots to lay siege to Paris. The Prince of Conde and Coligny commanded the Protestants, while Montmorency, an old veteran soldier, headed the royalists. A battle was fought on
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the plains of St. Denis ; and, although the victory fell to the superior number of the royalists, the old Constable Mont- morency here lost his life. When abont to expire by his severe wounds received in this battle, he was approached by a Franciscan friar, wearying him with religious exhortations in his last moments, which induced from the old soldier the memorable reply :
" Dost thou imagine that I have lived to near fourscore years without having yet learned to die a single quarter of an hour ?"
He was the last of the old school whose counsels had any effect upon Catherine de Medici. Ile alone could have ven- tured to inspire the young king to reign independent of his mother's counsels ; his death gave her an unlimited career for the exertion of her pernicious influence over the mind of Charles IX. It is said that the natural qualities of the char- acter of Charles IX fitted him for an able prince, if it had not been corrupted by his mother, in whom he had unlimited confidence. Soon after the ill success of the Huguenots before Paris, they were reinforced by German auxiliaries, led to their aid by Cassimir, son of the Elector Palatine- while the important city of Rochelle declared in their favor
The French and Germans, composing the Huguenot force, formed a numerous army, which, in February, 1568, con- menced a siege of the city of Chartres. While before this city, propositions of peace were proposed by Catherine, which were finally accepted on the 2d of March following. This, however, was but temporary, it being a plan to effect the seizure of the Prince of Conde, or to do that by deception which could not be reached by honorable means.
By a seizure of the great Calvinist leaders while deluded by the terms of the late peace, Catherine hoped to make an easy conquest of the rank and file of the believers in the Re- formed religion, and thus compel a return to the Romish church.
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This treacherous movement, when known, only tended to arouse the Huguenots and to strengthen their cause.
A general assembly of the Huguenots was held at the city of Rochelle, which now became the principal seat of the Protestant power.
The armies, greatly strengthened, again took the field in March, 1569, when was fought on the banks of the river Cha- rente, in the province of Angoumois, a severe battle, known as the battle of Jarnac. This was a victory for the Catholics, and made memorable by the death of the able leader of the Huguenots, Prince Louis, of Conde. After being wounded and made prisoner, he was assassinated by a captain of the Duke of Anjon's guards, who discharged a pistol-ball into the prince's head, which instantly killed himn.
The court and Romish church were now fully persuaded that by the death of Conde the whole Huguenot faction could be easily destroyed.
But they had not in this judgment fully weighed the prin- ciples which governed the Reform party, nor correctly ap- preciated the ability of Admiral Coligny, upon whom the leadership now fell. Although the Prince of Conde was able both in the field of war and in the councils of the kingdom, yet he was not attached to the religious principles of the Calvinists like Coligny. The admiral now gave all his at- tention to gathering up and strengthening his forces, and in this effort he received great support from the intelligent and able Jane de Albret, Queen of Navarre, who had inherited the genius and elegance of her mother, Margaret of Valois. She, in company with her son, Prince Henry, journeyed from her residence at Nerac to Rochelle, where she harangued the troops drawn up for that purpose, and Coligny was immedi- ately declared General-in-Chief of the Hugnenot forces under the Prince of Navarre and his cousin, Henry, the young Prince of Conde.
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The great rejoicing of the court over the death of Conde, and the elated spirit of the Papists, was soon found to be pre- mature. The Huguenot army, under Coligny, became more formidable than ever before.
Each of the contending parties renewed the strife with in- creased zeal, and with alternate success and defeat, until nearly every province of the kingdom became desolated by the ravages of war.
Anarchy and confusion were general throughout the land. When least expected, Admiral Coligny, reinforced by English and German auxiliaries, re-appeared on the 25th of January, 1570, in the heart of France, at the head of an army which menaced even the crown.
The imperial army was powerless to stay the progress of the Huguenot legions; while the royal treasury was empty, the country exhausted, and unable to afford supplies for addi- tions to the royal forces.
The wily Catherine, under these circumstances, again sought for terms of peace.
She always, more in her true element in exercising her powers of diplomacy rather than in war, hoped to accomplish in time of peace what she could not effeet by force of arms.
Her propositions were favorable to the Huguenots, and when embodied in a treaty which was concluded on the 15th of August, 1570, she and the king solemnly pledged themselves to their faithful observance. Charles IX and his court be- came convinced that so long as the admiral led the Huguenots the royal army was powerless to enforce submission to the Papal church or order in the government; and submission to the toleration of the Reformed faith was apparently the only resort to preserve the royal authority of the kingdom in the present reigning prince. In this extremity of affairs Cathe- rine de Medici devised the scheme known as the " Massacre of St. Bartholomew."
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In this plan she received into the counsel of herself and her son, Charles IX, Henry, Duke of Anjou, and Henry III, Duke of Guise, who burned with hatred and revenge against the admiral, for his supposed complicity in the assassination of his father.
This fatal plot was introduced by the marriage of several parties, got up for the purpose of attracting the attention of all the members of the nobility, both Catholic and Huguenot.
The first preliminary for confirming the bonds of this peace was the marriage of Margaret, sister of the king and daughter of Catherine de Medici, with Prince Henry, of Navarre ; this was the principal preliminary which was to draw the Hugue- nots into the snare she had designed for them.
The young Duke of Guise attempted to raise obstacles to this match, as there was a mutual attachment between him and Margaret, and it has been said that they were at the time pledged to each other ; yet this was given up by the influence of the king, who considered his sister as the principal instru- ment wherewith to deceive and allure Coligny and the Cal- vinist chiefs to repair to the court. Warned of the king's sentiments, and desiring to revenge the death of his father upon Coligny, Henry, Duke of Guise, to release himself from Margaret, consented to a marriage with Catherine of Cleves ; while the admiral was to be put in possession of the estates of his late brother, the Cardinal de Chatillon, and receive a pres- ent of 100,000 erowns to furnish the castle.
After the marriage of the Duke of Guise to the Princess of Cleves, then came that of the king ; Catherine having in vain solicited the hand of Queen Elizabeth of England for her son, selected the Archduchess Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Maximillian II, to become Queen of France. She met the king at Mezieres in Champagne, where the marriage ceremo- nies were performed with great splendor, November 26, 1570. Her coronation was celebrated at St. Denis on the 25th of March following.
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Everything that could be devised to keep up a friendly in- tercourse with the Huguenots was continued. Coligny, the chief victim to be disposed of, was constantly called in to coun- sel with the king in reference to important court matters, and Charles IX went so far as to engage the admiral to arrange plans for advancing an army to the aid of the people of the Netherlands, against whom Philip II was then at war.
Finally all arrangements were completed for celebrating the marriage of Henry, Prince of Navarre, with Margaret of Valois. Gregory XIII, who succeeded Pius V as the head of the Romish church, having granted the dispensation for this marriage, so long withheld by his predecessor, a day was fixed for the nuptials.
In order to be present at her son's marriage, Jane de Albret repaired to Paris, accompanied by the Princes of Navarre and Conde, June 5, 1572 ; but while she was engaged in prepara- tion for the approaching ceremony a malignant fever put an end to her life after five days' illness.
The Queen of Navarre's death, supposed by the Huguenots to have been caused designedly by parties in high position in the court, caused alarm, and many declined to repair to Paris. Coligny himself, dreading Catherine and the king's treachery, instead of repairing to court, retired to his castle of Chatillon. It required new artifices to allure him from his retreat. The hostilities against Philip II in the Netherlands were conunenced, as had been talked of between him and the king, which was the strongest assurance of the friendship of Charles in his favor. The admiral finally yielded against his judgment, and arrived in Paris, accompanied by a great num- ber of the Huguenot nobility.
The marriage of Henry, Prince of Conde, with Mary of Cleves, sister to the duchess, the wife of Henry, Duke of Guise, having been solemnized, that of his cousin, the King of Navarre, was fixed for the following month, as the last and crowning aet
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to aid in elosing the contemplated tragedy. Every demonstra- tion of friendship of the most cordial character was given in favor of the Huguenot nobles and their celebrated leader.
The inhabitants of Rochelle, who had received so many acts of friendship and evidences of the firmness of Coligny in sup- port of the Calvinistic faith against the Papists, could not be convinced of the sincerity of Charles IX and his mother in their sudden change from bitter hostility to such acts of amity and affection, and repeatedly warned Coligny not to rely upon their pretensions.
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