Huguenot rebellions
Years: 1620 - 1628
The Huguenot rebellions, sometimes called the Rohan Wars after the Huguenot leader Henri de Rohan, refers to events of the 1620s in which French Protestant Huguenots, mainly located in southwestern France, revolt against the central Royal power of the French government.
The uprising follows the death of Henry IV, who, himself originally a Huguenot before converting to Catholicism, had protected Protestants through the Edict of Nantes.
The new ruler however, Louis XIII, under the regency of his Italian Catholic mother Marie de' Medici, becomes more intolerant of the Protestant religion.
The Huguenots try to respond by defending themselves, establishing independent political and military structures, establishing diplomatic contacts with foreign powers, and openly revolting against central power.
The Huguenot rebellions follow two decades of internal peace under Henry IV, following the intermittent French Wars of Religion of 1562–1598.
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Henry IV of France had given the Huguenots extensive rights in the Edict of Nantes.
La Rochelle has become the stronghold of the French Huguenots, under its own governance.
It is the center of Huguenot seapower, and the strongest center of resistance against the central government.
La Rochelle is, at this time, the second or third largest city in France with over thirty thousand inhabitants.
The assassination of Henry IV in 1610, and the advent of Louis XIII under the regency of Marie de' Medici, had marked a return to pro-Catholic politics and a weakening of the position of the Protestants.
The Duke Henri de Rohan and his brother Benjamin de Rohan, duc de Soubise, had started to organize Protestant resistance from that time, ultimately exploding into a Huguenot rebellion.
The forces of Louis XIII in 1621, t had besieged and captured Saint-Jean d'Angély, and a Blockade of La Rochelle had been attempted in 1621-1622, leading to the battle of Saint-Martin-de-Ré on October 27, 1622 between the naval forces of La Rochelle and a Royal fleet under Charles de Guise.
An uneasy peace had been concluded with the Treaty of Montpellier, but frustrations remain on both sides.
The Huguenots on January 17, 1625, led by Soubise, launch a second rebellion against King Louis XIII After publishing a manifesto, Soubise invades and occupies the island of Ré, seizing it with three hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors.
Soubise sails from the Île de Ré up the coast to Brittany, where he leads a successful surprise attack on the royal fleet being prepared in Blavet.
Soubise then returns to Ré with fifteen ships and soon occupies ...
...the Ile d'Oléron as well, thus taking control of the Atlantic coast from ...
...Nantes to ...
...Bordeaux.
Through these deeds, he is recognized as the head of the reform, and names himself "Admiral of the Protestant Church".
The French Navy, by contrast, is depleted, leaving the central government very vulnerable.
After these events, Louis XIII wishes to subdue the Huguenots, and Louis' Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu declares the suppression of the Huguenot revolt the first priority of the kingdom.
Buckingham now negotiates with the French regent, Cardinal Richelieu, for English ships to aid Richelieu in his fight against the French Protestants (Huguenots), in return for French aid against the Spanish occupying the Palatinate.
Seven English warships are to participate in operations against La Rochelle and in the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré (1625), but Parliament is disgusted and horrified at the thought of English Protestants fighting French Protestants.
The plan only fuels their fears of crypto-Catholicism at court.
Charles, Duke of Guise, organizes a landing in order to recapture the islands, using twenty borrowed Dutch warship as well as seven English ships under Henri II, Duke de Montmorency, grand admiral of France.
The Dutch fleet of twenty warships has been supplied under the terms of the 1624 Franco-Dutch Treaty of Compiègne, and is under the command of Admiral Willem Haultain de Zoete. (It will be withdrawn from French service in February 1626 after a resolution of the States-General in December 1625.)
English king Charles I and the Duke of Buckingham had negotiated with the French regent, Cardinal Richelieu, for English ships to aid Richelieu in his fight against the French Protestants (Huguenots), in return for French aid against the Spanish occupying the Palatinate (the Mansfeld expedition of 1624-25), an agreement which has led to great trouble with the English parliament, which is horrified by the help given to France against the Huguenots.
Seven English ships had been delivered by Captain Pennington after many misgivings, and are employed in the conflict, although they are essentially manned by French crews, as most of the English crews had refused to serve against their coreligionists and had disembarked in Dieppe.
The English ships duly see action against La Rochelle, however.
In an early encounter on July 16, 1625, Soubise manages to blow up the Dutch ship under Vice-Admiral Van Dorp, with a loss of three hundred Dutch sailors.
The Huguenot city of La Rochelle votes on August 8, 1625, to join Soubise.
Montmorency leads his large fleet out of Les Sables d'Olonne in September 1625 and defeats the fleet of La Rochelle, commanded by Jean Guiton and Soubise, in front of Saint-Martin-de-Ré on September 18.
Two elite regiments of royal troops under Toiras are landed on the island, defeating Soubise with his three thousand men.
The island of Ré is invested, forcing Soubise to flee to England with his few remaining ships.
Montmorency thus manages to recover both Ile de Ré and Ile d'Oléron, but the jealousy of Richelieu deprives him of the means of following up these advantages.
France remains the largest Catholic kingdom that is not only not aligned with the Habsburg powers but will come to actively wage war against Spain.
The French Crown's response to the Hugeunot rebellion is not so much a representation of the typical religious polarization of the Thirty Years' War, but rather the attempts at achieving national hegemony by absolutist monarchy.
After long negotiations, a peace agreement, the Treaty of Paris (1626) is finally signed between the city of La Rochelle and King Louis XIII on February 5, 1626, preserving religious freedom but imposing some guaranties against possible future upheavals: La Rochelle is prohibited from keeping a war fleet and has to destroy a fort in Tasdon.
The contentious Fort Louis under royal control near the western gate of the city is supposed to be destroyed "in reasonable time".
"Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?"
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Orator (46 BCE)