The Second French War of Religion (26 September 1567 – 23 March 1568) was the second of the French Wars of Religion, civil wars between French Protestants and Catholics which divided the kingdom of France between 1562 and 1598. After four years of peace, the Protestant nobility, led by the prince de Condé and admiral de Coligny resolved to enter rebellion in September. In the prior months, tensions had raised in the kingdom over the hiring of mercenaries by the French crown to protect the border while the Spanish sent an army along the border to crush a revolt in the Spanish Netherlands. The French Protestant leadership believed (among other grievances) that the forces might be turned against them.
At the Surprise of Meaux they attempted to capture king Charles IX of France and the royal court, chief among which the young King's mother Catherine de' Medici. This attempt failed, and the King was able to reach Paris. The Protestants settled in for a siege of the capital but lacked the strength for it to be effective. The defence of the city was led by the constable de Montmorency, who on 11 November, conducted a sortie from the capital and fought the Protestants at the battle of Saint-Denis. During the battle, the royalists would hold the field, though the constable de Montmorency was killed. In his absence, royal command fell to Charles IX's younger brother, the sixteen-year-old duc d'Anjou (duke of Anjou). Anjou, set out in pursuit of the Protestant army as it fled eastwards towards the border with the Holy Roman Empire, but failed to bring it to battle, thereby allowing the Protestants to unite with the German mercenaries they had hired under the command of John Casimir.
The Protestants then turned around and re-entered France, making for the heart of the kingdom. As they progressed, they were shadowed by the royal army under the duc d'Anjou. The Protestant force set itself up before the city of Chartres, and put the city to siege in late February. By this time, both the Protestants and the royalists were desperately short on money, incentivising a push for peace. The Protestants would fail to take Chartres.
Throughout the course of the war, peace talks had been conducted between Catherine and the Protestant leadership. The French crown at first looked to see the Protestants surrender and put themselves at the mercy of Charles, but as the conflict progressed, and the financial situation got more desperate, they consented to more concessions. Finally, in March 1568, a peace agreement was reached by which the edict of Amboise, which had brought the first war to a close in 1563, was reinstated minus subsequent modifications, and the crown would pay off the Protestant mercenaries. The peace would last less than a year, before civil war resumed in the Autumn.
Rebellion in the Netherlands In the summer of 1566, a wave of iconoclastic riots swept the Spanish Netherlands. The Spanish king Philip resolved to send an army north to restore order. This army was to travel overland along France's eastern frontier under the command of the duke of Alba. Fears of this army, were compounded with the knowledge of the recent hiring of Swiss mercenaries by the French crown to supplement the royal guard. The Protestants therefore imagined that Alba's army might be diverted into France, where it would crush them in conjunction with the French crown.
The historian Constant describes the Protestant fears as 'largely false'. The historian Shimizu ridicules the notion of a combined royal-Spanish anti-Protestant offensive, highlighting that the situation in the Netherlands was too complicated for Alba to resolve in short order, that it would not have been possible for sufficient aid to be provided to the extermination of the French Protestants without losing the Netherlands, and that Philip had just begun a domestic campaign against the Moriscos (Christian converts from Islam).
Nevertheless, in Paris, the Spanish ambassador Francès de Álava exhorted the queen mother Catherine to follow the Spanish example in dealing with the Protestants of France and chastised her for her policy of toleration. The French king Charles IX was more sympathetic to these exhortations, being of the opinion he must instil obedience in the Protestants.
Surprise of Meaux
Châtillon-sur-Loing Several meetings were held among the Protestant aristocratic leadership, all of whom attended with the exception of the seigneur de Soubise (lord of Soubise) and prince de Porcien. These meetings transpired at the château de Vallery, a property belonging to the prince de Condé, and Châtillon-sur-Loing, a property of the admiral de Coligny. The first of these meetings took place at Châtillon-sur-Loing, sometime in mid-July 1567 (definitely before 19 July, placed on 12 July by the contemporary diarist Claude Haton) on the initiative of the admiral de Coligny. In attendance, the Admiral; the prince de Condé; Coligny's brothers the cardinal de Châtillon and the seigneur d'Andelot; the comte de Montgommery; the comte de La Rochefoucauld; the seigneur de Téligny; seigneur de Mouy; and the seigneur de La Noue among other gentlemen. Beyond these grandees, Protestant pastors were also present.
The historian Kingdon argues that in contrast with the first civil war several years prior, there is no evidence to be found that the pastors played an important role in the decision by the Protestant leadership to enter rebellion. The meeting was, according to Haton, camouflaged under the pretext of a banquet. According to La Noue who was present, it was the Admiral who took on the position of the cool head, advising the assembled against confrontation with the French crown, while most of the others were in favour of assuming arms. For those against war, the risk of driving the King into the arms of their enemies and galvanising anti-Protestant action was a concern. Condé was part of the war camp, he argued that the Spanish queen Élisabeth was pregnant, and the birth of a child was going to strengthen the bonds between the French and Spanish crowns and that Catherine and the cardinal de Lorraine were soon to imitate the example of the duke of Alba in the Netherlands by arresting both him and Coligny. Coligny was for a while able to succeed in convincing the gathered nobles of the dangers of rebellion as he counselled patience. For him, before seeking the solution of a coup, all avenues of negotiation should be exhausted.
While the Protestants were meeting at Châtillon-Coligny, they had with them a host of 1,200 to 1,500 horsemen. Catherine was aware of this great host having met there, but put little weight in it. The son of the constable de Montmorency, the seigneur de Thoré, was sent to Châtillon to enquire of the affair. Thoré delivered a memorandum to Coligny, which does not survive but has been inferred to have contained a mixture of concern and reproach. Coligny's response survives. In this response, Coligny assured Thoré that he was not preparing to lead a Protestant uprising. His past conduct was a testament to his good intentions. As for the Protestant suspicions of the crown, these were well founded. Charles refused to dismiss the Swiss guard he had raised even though the duke of Alba had now passed up into the Netherlands.
Upon learning that the 6,000 Swiss soldiers were to come to Paris, fears of betrayal were enlivened again in the Protestant camp. The historian Daussy dismisses the validity of this particular Protestant fear, arguing that the transfer of the mercenaries to Paris was rather so that the King could see them, the Swiss still being in their pre-paid service period.
Vallery A second meeting transpired, this one at the château de Vallery a little before 15 August. The debate that transpired at this meeting is unknown, the contemporary Aubigné states that the Admiral again played the role of the cooling voice. Daussy speculates that Condé and Coligny may have been entrusted with delivering a protest to the King. They would therefore make a brief trip to the court, but without result.
Then, according to the historian Crété, Coligny is to have learned of a plot by which he and Condé were seized, with the one killed and the other thrown in prison. The Swiss would fan out between Paris, Orléans and Poitiers and then the edict of Amboise would be annulled. Champion states that it was Condé who learned of this secret royal plot, through a letter communicated to him by a member of the court. The English ambassador Norris reported that, under pressure from the cardinal de Lorraine, the edict of Amboise (the toleration edict that brought the first civil war to a close and permitted the practice of limited Protestantism in France) was to be revoked, the Tridentine decrees (outcomes of the ecumenical council which reformed Catholicism) imposed and Protestantism outlawed on pain of death. This related to the supposed secret meetings that had transpired while Charles was in Picardy at the end of August. Champion reports that the Protestant's saw the shadowy hand of pope Pius V working to drive Charles towards the destruction of French Protestantism.
By letters of 23 August, Norris reported that the cardinal de Lorraine was in the process of appointing centurions in Paris and other large cities to inspect the houses of Protestant seigneurs, looking for violations of the numbers permitted to attend Protestant worship therein. In Norris' estimation, the cardinal de Lorraine enjoyed great royal favour at this moment.
Return to Vallery According to Daussy, it was likely the failure of the mission to the court that inspired the third meeting.
Condé summoned the Protestant leaders to Vallery for a meeting that may have been on 10 September. The time for patience had passed. D'Andelot made a passionate speech for rebellion. According to La Noue, he argued that to do nothing was to wait for their own executions, that the foreign enemy was already on the march seeking to avenge the injury of the 1562 battle of Dreux (where many Swiss soldiers had been killed), and defensive Protestant actions. Further, that 3,000 Protestant's had been killed since the coming of peace without any justice for the crimes being delivered by the crown. The assembled knew the risks of this plan, that it could be taken as an attack against the king himself. Andelot analogised it rather to the fight of king Charles VII in the fifteenth-century. He had assumed arms, not to crush his father or hurt France, but in the greater interest of the French nation. Andelot's appeal was one of courage rather than prudence, and he carried the assembled before him. His cautious brother, Coligny endorsed this proposal. The conversation then turned to the practicalities of the uprising. Lessons had been learned from the first civil war. According to La Noue, they would focus on the capture of a more limited number of key cities (Troyes, Toulouse, Lyon) that were highly defensible. This would better allow for their maintenance than a vast number of places, which during the first civil war they had been unable to relieve when they had been threatened with siege. Having assembled a powerful and coherent army they would destroy the Swiss mercenaries in the crown's employ, and drive from the French court the cardinal de Lorraine. A new royal council could be established at which the Protestant nobility would enjoy a preponderance of power. Once in such a strong position, they could extract religious toleration. A petition could be presented to Charles, and freed of his malfeasant advisors he would truly understand their situation.