Religious Wars

22 Pages 5385 Words

the Marechal St. Andre to form the “Catholic Triumvirate.” They were joined by Antoine de Bourbon, who flip flopped again on the matter of his religion. His wife, Jeanne d’Albert, the Queen of Navarre, remained strictly Protestant and established Protestantism completely in her domains.
Catherine de Medici tried to promote peace by issuing the “Edict of Toleration” in January ’62, which made the practice of Protestantism not a crime, although it restricted preaching to open fields outside the towns and to private estates of Huguenot nobles. This was not well received by many Catholics.
The First War (1562-1563)
The first religious war was provoked by the massacre at Vassy in 1562. The Duc de Guise traveling to his estates stopped in Vassy to hear mass. His servants got into a scuffle with some Huguenots who were attending a service. It escalated until the Guise faction had fired on the unarmed Huguenots, set the church on fire, and killed a number of the congregation.
The national synod for the reformed chur...