Lecture 1/6
- 2. France In France, Calvinism spread after 1555, eventually forming the Huguenot church. Huguenot- French protestant By 1562, rival Huguenot and Catholic armies began fighting a series of wars, with one third of the nobility, often led by noblewomen, joining the Huguenots and forming their own armies. This period of religious conflict in France is known as the French Wars of Religion. The monarchy was weakened by family tragedy, including the accidental death of Henry II in 1559. He was succeeded by his ten-year-old son, Charles IX (r. 1560–1574), whose mother, Catherine de Medicis, served as regent. Huguenots followed the lead of the Bourbon family, who stood to inherit the throne if the Valois line failed. Catholics followed the lead of the Guise family, who tried to counter the Bourbons. Catherine organized the marriage of the king’s Catholic sister to a Huguenot, Henry of Navarre. In 1572, after their marriage ceremony in Paris, Catholic mobs massacred 3,000 Huguenots, including the Huguenot nobles that were gathered for the wedding. This is known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre This heightened the tensions between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Charles IX’s brother Henry III (r. 1574–1589) became king but had no heir. After Henry III died, Huguenot Bourbon Henry of Navarre took the throne. The Guises formed the Catholic League, and sought help from the Spanish king Phillip II, but Henry III assassinated two Guise leaders before he was assassinated himself. Despite Phillip II’s resistance, Henry of Navarre became Henry IV. To appease the Catholic League, he became a Catholic. He drove out the Spanish, defeated the Catholic ultras. He issued in 1598 the Edict of Nantes, granting toleration to the Huguenots in certain areas. France was a Catholic state with religious toleration of Protestants. The Edict of Nantes ended the French Wars of Religion. Henry strengthened the monarchy and state finances, although he was assassinated in 1610.
- 3. Spain Charles V- Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain and the Netherlands, eventually found his empire too much to handle and abdicated his throne and entered a monastery. He believed his vast empire was too much for any one person to handle, and therefore divided it. He gave the Holy Roman Empire and Austria (the Hapsburg Empire) to his brother Ferdinand He gave Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, and the Spanish American colonies to his son Philip, who became Philip II. Philip II of Spain was Europe’s most powerful monarch, controlling Hapsburg lands in Spain, the Americas, and the Netherlands. He was deeply devout and dedicated to restoring Catholic unity and resisting Ottoman (Muslim) and Protestant expansion. Philip married four times into Portuguese, French, English, and Austrian royal families. In 1578, he took over Portugal after the death of its king, his uncle who had no heir. At the battle of Lepanto, his fleet destroyed the Ottoman navy. He suppressed a Muslim revolt in southern Spain, but Calvinists in the Netherlands, used to being left alone, rebelled when Phillip sent an army to punish them for attacks on Catholic churches in 1566, known as the DutchRevolyt. The Catholic, often French-speaking southern provinces of the Netherlands returned to Philip’s rule by 1579, but the seven northern provinces continued in rebellion and Spanish troops failed to control the provinces, becoming an independent state in 1579. Spain did not recognize their independence until 1648. The Netherlands was established as a republic, unlike most other European countries of the time. It was religiously tolerant, became the center of European art and European banking, as well as established the world’s largest trading fleet.
- 4. England Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), son of Henry VIII and a Protestant, put down Catholic rebellions throughout England. Calvinist puritans who sought to reform the English Protestant church denounced crown-appointed bishops and sought to put the local presbyteries in their place. Puritans gained influence, building up the family church, emphasizing strict morality and an end to public entertainments, and saw themselves as an “elect nation.” Queen Elizabeth resisted Puritan pressure to intervene in the Dutch revolt, but after Philip II (Spain) assumed control of Portugal in 1585, she sent troops and money. Philip hoped Elizabeth would be succeeded by her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, however, Mary had been forced to abdicate her Scottish throne in 1568 in favor of her son James, a Protestant. Mary was executed in 1587 when she was discovered offering her succession rights to Philip. Philip sent an armada to invade England in 1588, but the English scattered it with fireships, inflicting a crushing psychological blow on Philip. This weakened Spain. Phillip died in 1598 as his bankrupt empire weakened. Elizabeth I solidified her control as queen and consolidated her country as a Protestant power. Refusing to marry, she maintained her and her country’s independence and was succeeded by James I (r. 1603–1625), who was king of both Scotland and England.