Francis de Lorraine II, Prince of Joinville Guise

Henry II of France has inherited his father’s fight against Charles V.

A weak monarch, whose court has increasingly become a center of rivalry between the families of Montmorency and Guise, Henry's administration, having expanded the practice of selling government offices, has brought the crown to bankruptcy.

Anne, duc de Montmorency, the constable of France, had returned to favor at Henry’s accession in 1547: his thirty-three-year-old nephew, Gaspard de Coligny, is appointed admiral of France in 1552 on the death of Claude d'Annebaut.

Gaspard, born at Châtillon-sur-Loing in 1519, had come to court at the age of twenty-two and begun a friendship with Francis of Guise.

Coligny had distinguished himself in the campaign of 1543, and was wounded at the sieges of Montmédy and Bains.

He had served in the Italian campaign in 1544 under the Count of Enghien, and had been knighted on the Field of Ceresole.

Returning to France, he had taken part in different military operations; and having been made colonel-general of the infantry (April 1547), had exhibited great capacity and intelligence as a military reformer.

That year he had married Charlotte de Laval (d. 1568).

King Henry is a persecutor of the French Protestants, called Huguenots.

He has nonetheless allied himself with the German Lutheran princes.

Metz, a free city within the Holy Roman Empire from the twelfth century and the seat of a powerful bishop, has adopted Protestantism.

Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV had in 1354 and 1356 held diets here, at the latter of which was promulgated the famous statute known as the Golden Bull.

The town therefore feels that it occupies an almost independent position between France and Germany, and wants most of all to evade the obligation of imperial taxes and attendance at the diet.

The estrangement between it and the German States had daily became wider, and finally affairs have come to such a pass that in the religious and political troubles of 1552, Metz finds itself in the middle of the war between Charles V and the rebellious princes.

By an agreement of the German princes, Maurice of Saxony, William of Hesse, and John Albert of Mecklenburg, with Henry, ratified by the French king at Chambord, Metz is formally transferred to France, the gates of the city are opened, and Henry takes possession as vicarius sacri imperii et urbis protector.

The commander of the garrison, Francis, Duke of Guise (who had inherited the title from his father, Claude, in 1550), restores the old fortifications and adds new ones, and from October to December 1552 successfully resists the emperor's attacks.

Renty, a small village with a solid castle, has been in the hands of Spanish imperial troops since June 1554.

The French artillery begins firing at Renty Castle at noon on August 13; the siege lasts until August 15.

Gaspard de Coligny, who has earned a military reputation in the struggle against the Habsburgs, disputes the honors of victory at Renty with his rival, Francis, Duke of Guise.

The source of the "contagion", as French court pamphleteers put it, is ever Geneva, where the former Frenchman John Calvin achieves undisputed religious supremacy in 1555, the very year that the French Reformed Church organizes itself at a synod under the king's nose, as it were, in Paris.

At the Peace of Augsburg signed in September in Germany, the essential concept is cuius regio eius religio, "Whose region, his religion".

In other words, the religion of the king or other ruler would be the religion of the people.

The petty princes of Germany are enabled to dictate the religion of their subjects, and it comes to be sensed as a mark of weakness that the King of France cannot do so: "One King, One Faith" is to become the rallying cry of the ultra-Catholic party of the Guise faction.

The Parlement de Paris is deeply divided on the issues.

When the King approaches the Parlement for its formal advice beforehand on the best means of punishing and stamping out heresy, the moderate voices of président Pierre Séguier and conseiller du Drac urge against the proposed new edict (as unnecessary) and specifically oppose the introduction of an Inquisition into France, an innovation that would appear to circumvent the king's justice, vested in the parlement.

The French under Francis, Duke of Guise, take advantage of a weakened garrison and decayed fortifications to recapture Calais, held by the English since 1347.

When the French attack on January 1, 1558, they are able to surprise the English at the critical strongpoint of Fort Nieulay and the sluice gates, which could have flooded the attackers, remain unopened.

The French have thus deprived the English of their last Continental possession and restored, to some extent, French national pride.

The loss is regarded by Queen Mary I of England as a dreadful misfortune.

When she hears the news, she reportedly says, "When I am dead and opened, you shall find 'Philip' [her husband] and 'Calais' lying in my heart."

The region around Calais, known as the Calaisis, is renamed the Pays Reconquis ("Reconquered Country") in commemoration of its recovery by the French.

Use of the term is reminiscent of the Spanish Reconquista, with which the French are certainly familiar — and, since it occurs in the context of a war with Spain (Philip II of Spain is at this time Queen Mary's consort), might have been intended as a deliberate snub.

From this time, the Dutch speaking population is forced to speak French.

French armies now plunder Spanish possessions in the Low Countries.

Henry is forced nonetheless to accept a peace agreement in which he renounces any further claims to Italy.

François de Coligny d'Andelot, younger brother of Gaspard, had first gained military experience in the Italian Wars, and so distinguished himself at the battle of Ceresole (1544) that Louis de Bourbon, still comte d'Enghien at that time, had knighted him on the battlefield.

He had been made inspector-general of the infantry in 1547, and commanded the French troops sent to Scotland to defend the rights of Mary, Queen of Scots (until 1559, queen-consort of France).

When war broke out again in Italy, he had returned, marching to Parma and getting trapped in the city when it soon afterwards came under siege.

Taken prisoner during a sortie, he had been taken to the castle of Milan, where he had remained until the treaty of Vaucelles in 1556.

In prison, he read books obtained for him from outside and confirmed the doubts about Catholicism which he had already derived from conversations with French Protestants.

On his return to France, he had replaced his brother Gaspard as Colonel-General of the infantry and, at almost the same moment, war was declared against Spain.

In charge of getting a relief column to Gaspard, who was defending Saint-Quentin, he found himself trapped there, but managed to prolong the siege and only surrendered when overwhelmed by the vast enemy numbers penetrating the city through the gaps they had blasted in the walls, when any resistance would have been useless.

He had succeeded in escaping the Spanish camp and rejoined the French army besieging Calais, where he had acted so bravely that, according to Brantôme, Francis, Duke of Guise (who is no friend of François's) stated that all he needed to conquer a world of places were Andelot, (Piero) Strozzi and (Antoine) d'Estrées.

When Andelot returned to Paris, the Guises, jealous of his favor with king Henry II, had blackened his name by reporting certain discourses he had had on religion.

The king had called Andelot before him and, on receiving confirmation from him that he had made these discourses, had flown into a rage, arrested him and had him taken to the castle of Melun, where he had remained until his uncle, constable Anne de Montmorency, got him bail.

Andelot is the first of the Châtillon family to take on the Protestant reforms, and one of their most zealous defenders.

Gaspard de Coligny, released from Savoyard captivity upon payment of a stiff ransom, has by 1558, also become a Huguenot, through the influence of his brother.

The first known letter which John Calvin addresses to him is dated September 4, 1558.

In this year also, Nostradamus publishes an expanded version of his Centuries.

Henry, accidentally wounded in a joust during the celebrations following the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, had been struck in the head by a lance of Gabriel, Count de Montgomery, captain of the Scottish guard.

The king dies ten days later on July 10, 1559.

The fifteen-year-old dauphin, his eldest son by his marriage to Catherine de' Medici, succeeds him as Francis II.

Francis, having wed Mary Stewart the previous year, comes under the influence of Mary's powerful Guise relatives, who seek to destroy the Huguenots.

With her husband’s accession, Mary becomes queen of France as well as of Scotland.

Montmorency had been released from two years of Spanish captivity under the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, by which time the Guises have supplanted him and the fifteen-year-old king Francis II treats him with indifference.

Montmorency has to give up his Great Master status to the Duke of Guise.

However, his son Henri is appointed marshal by way of indemnity.

He himself retires to his estates.

Francis II ‘s powerful Guise in-laws, who see an opportunity for power and an opportunity to destroy the Huguenots in France, dominate the weak-willed French monarch.

The ensuing persecution provokes the Huguenot Conspiracy of Amboise, a plot hatched by Louis de Bourbon, prince de Condé and Huguenot leader, to abduct Francis and arrest his Guise mentors.

Some Huguenots surround the Château d’Amboise in March 1560 and attempt to seize the King in an abortive coup d'etat, but the authorities, having discovered their plan, bloodily crush the incipient rebellion.

The failure of the prince de Condé’s so-called Conspiracy of Amboise has strengthened the power of the Guises, which has in turn frightened the Queen Mother.

Catherine attempts to balance the situation by securing the appointment of the moderate Michel de L'Hospital as chancellor, who summons the States General in the hopes of gaining peace and rehabilitating court finances.

Soon after the session begins at Orléans, Francis, a sickly and weak-willed young man, dies on December 5, 1560 after a reign of seventeen months.

His death temporarily ends the dominion of his wife’s Guise relatives, and saves Huguenot leader Condé, who had been sentenced to death for high treason.

François’ younger brother ascends the French throne as Charles IX.

Mary Stewart, widowed at eighteen and recently orphaned—her mother Marie de Guise had died at forty-five on June 11—and unwilling to stay in France and live under the domination of her mother-in-law, elects to return to Scotland and take her chances with the Protestant reformers.

The ultra-Catholic François, duc de Guise, claiming Huguenot violation of the Edict of January 1562, issued by Catherine de' Medici, the ruling queen mother of France, orders his Catholic partisans to fire upon Protestant worshipers at Vassy on March 1, 1562.

Many innocents die in this so-called Massacre of Vassy, which promptly ignites a “War of Religion” between France’s Catholics and Huguenots.