Title Text.
Politics and the Wars of Religion in the Sixteenth Century
The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598)
The First War (1562-1563)
The First war was provoked by the massacre in '62 at vassy.
The Guise faction turned to the pope and Phillip II, the battle at dreaux was a catholic victory.
The condé was captured by the catholics and Montmorency was captured by the protestants.
The national synod for the reformed church met in Paris and appealed to the Prince de Condé to become the "Protector of the Churches."
In Orléns the Duc deGuise was assassinated, also antoine de bourbon was killed in the rouen siege
The Edict of Amboise was issued in march '63 this eliminated the first gen of catholic leadership
The Second War (1567-1568)
Guise faction is still very powerful.
Cardinal de lorraine consolidated his power even more than he has.
Huguenots to attempt a coup at Meaux, to seize the person of the king and get him away from the Guises. This plan failed, and provoked the second war.
The Third War (1568-1570)
In this war Cardinel de lorraine planned on capturing Condé and Coligny,how ever Coligny escaped to La Rochelle and raised a new army.
Condé and Coligny were allies with William of orange. The strategy was to fortify the southern part of netherlands and the stand of the crown to the west. After all this the prince de condé was killed.
The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572)
King Charles younger brother,Catherine negotiated with Jeanne d'Albert, Queen of navarre,to marry her daughter to henride naravve. The Catholics and protestants had some more mundane economic and social elements.
The protestants are more urban except for the southwestern area Over the years they created a cell like structure in there city design. Catholics beleaved that heresy was a disease in the body of christ.
Henri de Navarre and Margot de valois got married in Paris on August 17th.
In August 22, Admiral de coligny was fired at by and assassin, breaking his arm and wounding him severely. The huguenots demanded justice from the king.
On August 23 catherine de medici, henri d'Ahjou and coligny was killed followed by a out of control 3 day slaughter.
The Massacre spread to the provinces within a few months.
The Fourth War (1572-1573)
The Fifth War (1576)
The Sixth War (1577)
The Seventh War (1580)
The War of Three Henries (1584-1589)
The Wars of League (1589-1598)
Course of the Struggle
Philip the Second and Militant Catholiticism.
Philip the Second was the king of Spain when Mary requested to be married to him. He didn't accept the marriage until his father crowned him of Naples and the Kingdom of Jerusulum. They got married at the Winchester Cathedral on 25th of July. This was the day Phillip II was crowned King of England, co-monarch with Queen "Bloody" Mary, who ended up killing protestants who were not Catholic, trying to bring Catholism back to the country by force.
Eventually, she died of an illness in May of 1588. After Phillip lost the throne due to Mary's death, he found out Elizabeth the first got the throne, he was still wanting the throne, he even sent a marriage proposal to her which she denied, but even after that, Philip was still an ally to Elizabeth. He defended her from the Pope when he threatened the Queen for ex-communication(It might have not been that important to Elizabeth since she was protestant.) When Elizabeth sent England to help the Netherlands and their revolt against Philip, he started to get concerned about who he was allying with. Further, English ships began a policy of piracy against Spanish trade and threatened to plunder the great Spanish treasure ships coming from the new world. The final straw was the Treaty of Nonsuch.
Revolt of the Netherlands
The Spanish Netherlands was one of Philip’s Empires and was one of great importance to the Most Catholic King. The Netherlands had seventeen provinces, all with very different cultures, including politics, religion and language. The only thing keeping the Netherlands together at the time was indeed Philip; it had become rich with influx because of its location and had a good textile industry.
Philip wanted more control over the Netherlands. It was strongly opposed by the nobles, towns and provincial states because they would loose much of their rights and freedoms. They also became very angry when they found out Philip was using their taxes to pay for interest of the Spanish. Violence eventually broke out when Philip tried to get rid of Calvinism. People began to destroy church property. Philip sent out 10,000 troops to stop it.
The England of Elizabeth
Religious Policy
One of Elizabeth's religious policies was the Act of Uniformity of 1559. This act made it so the people of England had to use the Protestant Book of Common Prayer during church services. This was because Elizabeth believed in a mono-religious country. In order to do this she combined the Prayer Books of Edward VI into one. Anyone that didn't attend church on Sunday's or other holy days, had a twelve pence fine and the money was given to the poor. This act barely passed through Parliament. This was mainly because a large number of the Parliament were Catholic. The votes for this act were 21 to 18.
The Act of Supremacy was another one of Elizabeth's policies. This act gave Elizabeth ultimate control over the Church of England. Elizabeth changed the monarch from "Head of Church" to "Supreme Governor of the Church in England". There are ideas that this was because women were For this act the clergy had to take an oath of loyalty to Elizabeth. They made a High Commision to ensure that this oath was taken. If it wasn't then the person who didn't take it lost their office.
Foriegn Policy
The Spanish Armada
Philip II assembled a massive armada of over 130 ships. This was to overthrow a protestant England run by Queen Elizabeth I. There were plenty of reasons why Philip II wanted to overthrow England. One of these reasons were that Elizabeth secretly helped the Dutch Protestants in the Netherlands which angered Philip because he wanted the Netherlands to be a Catholic place.