A Son of Aragon - Henry VIII's Catholic Heir
- Thread starter Direwolf22
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Well thats pretty definitive - glad to see!!
I'll aim for a post in the next few days. France and Civil War
I'll aim for a post in the next few days. France and Civil War
Was just thinking about whether or not this would ever continue yesterday. Definitely interested in seeing it continue; it's one of the last timelines I'm still subscribed to on this site.
#15 The French Civil War 1564-1578
The French Civil War (1564-1578)
In 1547 Francis II succeeded his father Francis I as King of France, as his wife Marie Bourbon was crowned Queen. The stability of the House of Valois, joined as it was in marriage to their great domestic rivals the Bourbons, seemed beyond doubt. The country had fought with relative success against the vast encircling Habsburg Imperium, secured alliances with the Protestant German princes and the Jagiellon bloc in the east and though Reformed elements were on the rise the religious divisions within the country seemed muted. Yet within two decades the county would be in the grip of a bloody religious and dynastic Civil War.
In order to better understand the course of the French Civil War of 1564-1578 it is important to outline what caused the gradual weakening of the French monarchy and the rise of the two armed camps within France. There are three interlinked causes for the outbreak of the Civil War: financial, religious and political. Let us start with the financial aspect. Francis II inherited a relatively stable economy from his father, but the balance was a tenuous one. Francis I’s wars, domestic improvements, early colonial activities and subsidies to anti-Habsburg forces had put grain strain on the French balance sheet. What the country needed was several decades of peace and no foreign adventurism. However, Francis II’s obsession with building up French military strength to rival the Habsburgs, including a large naval building program inspired by the English, made this all far worse, though with time the economy may still have recovered. However it did not get this as in 1553 a new Franco-Spanish War erupted lasting for five years. That conflict involved bloody fighting in Italy, along the Rhine and on the Franco-Spanish border [This conflict is roughly OTL]. The war saw no border changes, with France unable to take Metz or drive the Burgundians out of Artois, but in turn hanging on to Savoy. All it did succeed in doing (besides resulting in thousands of deaths) was force France to declare bankruptcy in 1557 - it was only Spain’s own financial near collapse and the ongoing Subjugation of the Regions by Charles in Aragon that spared France from total defeat [1]. Rather than have time to recover from this France was again distracted by the outbreak of the War of the English Succession in 1559. France was unable to intervene directly, but the subsidiaries and aid sent to the Stuart cause (eventually unsuccessfully) put even greater strain on the French economy. In fact it was the intervention in this war with the opportunistic Siege of Boulogne which saw Francis II’s untimely death in battle. By the time his son, Henry II, ascended the throne in 1563 therefore the French state was in an incredibly dire financial state - the attempt to compensate this by squeezing the nobility and raising various taxes was not appreciated by many of the other French noble families and their reactionary status quo intransigence prevented necessary reforms. This led into the political divisions that contributed to the Civil War. Anger at the increasing demands of the Crown, jealousy of the Bourbons who through marriage were now clearly the second family in France, the ambitions of other major noble families (specifically the influential Catholic House of Guise) and the sudden deaths of both Francis II and later Henry II created a tinderbox of aristocratic resentment and opportunism.
The final aspect of the conflict was of course religion. Specifically the rising struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and the followers of the United Reformed Church and the influential John Calvin. France was not immune to the spread of the Reformation and indeed even by the time of the death of Francis I it had made significant inroads. Though the peasantry remained strongly Catholic (somewhere around 80-85%) the Reformation made strong inroads into parts of the merchant and commercial classes as well as the nobility - with the Bourbons being the largest house to be ‘infiltrated’. The most significant converter of course was Marie Bourbon, now Queen of France. She fostered a significant Protestant faction in the royal court and even brought in the English Reformer Thomas Cromwell (in exile in Calais) as a tutor for her second son Louis. After she became Queen she encouraged the spread of the movement, John Calvin’s exile was lifted and Reformists teachers and printed works began to arrive in the country from northern Germany and Switzerland and then increasingly from English exiles. This group continued to grow, and elsewhere in French middle and upper society the light or rot of Reformation (depending on one’s view) continued to spread. It is interesting to consider how the spread of Reformism may have been at least disrupted had either the original Parisian plot to spread anti-Papal placards throughout Paris gone ahead [2] or if Francis II had taken much of an interest in theological issues. However it is clear that he did not and Francis II was focused foremost on military and foreign affairs - not that he was a bad king as few would claim, merely that his interests lay on the battlefield and his military reforms. The domestic government of the country was effectively run by a triumvirate of Queen Marie, her brother the new Duke of Bourbon Charles IV (a Catholic) and Anne, Duke of Montmorency Marshall of France, another Catholic who had one foot in domestic affairs and one in the military endeavors of the King, consequently he was the least influential of the trio. It is important to note that both Charles Bourbon and Anne Montmorency did not support the Reformist movement but did not directly oppose the Queen’s efforts for personal political reasons - Charles obviously recognising the strong influence his family gained by the Queen’s power and Montmorency due to his deep personal dislike for the Catholic House of Guise who were the main opponents of the Queen. They were the original and leading members of the Politique faction that attempted to promote national and political issues over religious squabbling [3]. The religious mood in the county however was tense. Violence and abuse between Protestants and Catholics was far from uncommon and many Catholic nobles began to stir up anti-Protestant and increasingly anti-Marie sentiments in their own lands. Consequently by the time of the ascension of Henry II in 1563 France was economically crippled, politically fragmented and religiously divided and discontented. In addition with the English dynastic conflict finalising in a victory for the Tudor-Avis faction, France found itself increasingly isolated diplomatically. An explosion was inevitable - and the spark came in February 1564.
In that fateful month Henry II was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic who claimed Henry II was a secret Reformer who intended to abolish Catholicism in France - likely whipped up by the more militant parts of the Catholic nobility or indeed possibly directly supported by them [4]. Although it is difficult to know for certain if Henry II was indeed a secret Reformist - it seems unlikely. The most widely accepted belief is that Henry II was inclined to the Humanist Catholicism popular in England, Denmark and Portugal - that of reform within the Catholic Church but there is no evidence of any clear break from Rome in the mind or actions of King Henry II. Now where there is some debate on Henry II’s potential Reformist beliefs there is no debate on those of his younger brother, the now King Louis XIII. Louis XIII, King of France, was an open adherent to the Reformed Faith. This was well known by the Catholic nobility and tends to downplay (but not rule out) the possibility of their direct involvement in the assassination of Henry II. Enraged by the death of his brother Louis moved against the main Catholic families (particularly de Guise). This was interpreted and proclaimed by the Catholic elements as a plot to forcibly instill the Reformation in France, and they took up arms (encouraged by Rome and Spain). The situation of course then spiraled out of control and France was engulfed in Civil War as central authority began to break down.
The war which ran in one form or another for about fourteen years is usually divided into three phases and we will use that formula here for it does make understanding and following the conflict far easier. This will not be an account of every single battle or personal action but more of a general overview including the key events to give a broad comprehension. The first phase of the war is occasionally referred to as the Local Phase and lasts roughly from 1564 to 1568. This period as its name would imply would see local regional conflicts break out across France each telling their own local story. This is a very bloody four years for France and as the violence was often undertaken against the French people (and usually the peasantry) by other Frenchmen makes it all the sadder. As the country collapsed into civil strife the massacre of Reformists (suspected or proven) by Catholic militias and mobs was matched only in ferocity by the massacre of Catholics (suspected or proven) by Reformists. In the south and west the Reformist forces, led by Charles Bourbon for the most part, secured territory and key towns and cities such as La Rochelle and Lyon. In and around Paris the King secured control and moved into the Loire Valley. Mutinies and revolts within the Royal army (such as it was) saw around half of it dissolve early on, but a reminder comprised of Reformists or simply those loyal to the King, survived and saw action at St Denis in 1565 (a Reformist victory) and a year later at Clermont (a decisive Catholic triumph which briefly threatened Paris in late 1566). The Catholic League as it became known was expertly led by the brothers Duke Francis of Guise (victor at Clermont) and Cardinal Charles of Lorraine. They secured control of the northeast, Brittany, the east of the country and Provence in the far southeast. It is hard to form exact counts of the dead in this period but it is estimated the number of French killed in massacres, riots and murders (aka not including the battles) during these four years at near half a million. Not all of the major noble families took up arms in this period some (including Anne de Montmorency) were torn between religious belief and loyalty to the king so sat out the early period [5], though most did raise arms simply to defend their holdings in the increasingly lawless state of France. The end of the Local phase in 1568 is marked by three events, two military and one political. First their were the two great clashes at Mayenne in the west (another victory for Francis de Guise which effectively secured the northwest and Brittany for the League) and at Chambery in the southeast where Charles Bourbon defeated a combined Catholic-Savoyard [6] army that was attempting to retake Lyon. The political act was the Declaration of Nantes, where the major Catholic League leaders decide to formalize their position in the hope of unifying their movement and attracting foreign support. They argued for the abdication of Louis XIII and a regency for his one year old son Charles (who they would of course guide) and the formal declaration of Catholicism as the official religion of France and the denouncement of the Reformist heresy. The war would now enter its second phase.
The second phase of the war, often creatively termed the Middle phase, lasted from 1568 to the direct involvement of Spain in 1572. One key difference between this period and the preceding time was the increasing professionalization of the two armies. Those elements that had remained loyal to the King or were Protestant had been molded into the Royal Army and along lines set out by Charles Bourbon and English Protestant exile veterans. The Catholic League Army meanwhile was tightening its control on the east, north and northwest of the country, and saw its expanding army advised and supported by Spain, and to a far smaller but rising extent, England. A Catholic peasant revolt in the Loire Valley induced a League Army under Francis de Guise to move on Orleans. King Louis meanwhile was distracted by a renewed Catholic campaign in the northeast, supported by Burgundian mercenaries (financed by the Catholic nobility borrowing from Spanish and Flemish banks). The north would then see several years of back and forth campaigning with the two Catholic armies (in northeast and northwest) attempting to drive on Paris and Orleans as Louis sought to defend against these blows. In the end Louis was unable to prevent the fall of Orleans in late 1571 but did crush the northeastern army at Amiens. The following year Duke Charles III of Burgundy prepared to intervene directly in the conflict but a large revolt in the Protestant northern parts of the Burgundian Netherlands [Roughly analogous to OTL - more on this later] scuppered his plans and he turned his army north not south. In the south of France the war devolved into a series of sieges and counter-sieges. La Rochelle was besieged by Catholic forces whilst Toulouse changed hands repeatedly. As 1570 turned to 1571 the Catholic forces in the southeast managed to force Charles Bourbon to withdraw from Lyon and secured much of the Rhone valley. In 1572 however Bourbon, reinforced by troops from the triumphant campaign in the northeast and Swiss mercenaries from the Protestant Swiss Confederacy (funded by loans taken by the French Crown from domestic and German sources and indeed discounted by the friendly co-religious Swiss) defeated the Catholic League army at Nevers as it sought to join de Guise at Orleans. Not long later a Reformed army under Protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny relieved La Rochelle. In 1572 therefore concerned about the direction of the war following the Dutch Revolt and the battle at Nevers, and with his country now somewhat recovered from the domestic unrest following the Subjugation of the Regions - Philip II of Spain entered the war in earnest alongside the Catholic League. Two Spanish armies, one in Catalonia led by the king’s younger brother John, Governor of Tunis since 1559, and another in the Habsburg controlled Duchy of Milan under the Duke of Alba, moved towards France.
Flag Increasingly Used by Those Loyal to Louis XIII. Traditional French Cross used in the French army with the Valois Coat of Arms. Louis XIII preferred those of the pre-Francis I Valois Kings due to the less Catholic imagery.
The Coat of Arms of Francis de Guise
The final phase of the French Civil War was the longest and bloodiest lasting from the Spanish entry into the war up until the end of hostilities in 1578. Depending on the source this is known as the National, Long or Spanish phase of the war and would see the deployment of large foreign armies in France and the increasing politicization (at the expense of religious) nature of the conflict. The Spanish entry immediately put King Louis and his allies on the backfoot. There was already a strong Catholic League Army in Orleans not far from Paris under Francis de Guise. In Provence the remnants of the army defeated at Nevers under the command of Francis’ younger brother the Duke of Aumale (and then following his assassination in 1574 by the Duke of Mayenne) was regrouping and other smaller forces besieged Angers and occupied Brittany. Spanish Armies under Alba and Prince John were now on the march. The Protestant/Loyalist forces meanwhile were divided into a force led by the King near Paris and another by the Duke of Bourbon in the southeast, as well as scattered local garrisons holding key towns about the country and a third force being gathered in the southwest lead by Coligny near Navarre whose King John IV (Louis XIII’s brother in law) was openly sympathetic to the Reformation.
Starting in the southeast Bourbon began to pull his army northwards for fear of being trapped between Amuale and Alba. He was reluctant to abandon Lyon for a second time and consequently fought Alba’s army at Vienne, where he suffered a narrow defeat and was forced to withdraw from the region entirely. Meanwhile Prince John of Spain invaded Navarre which he and King Philip (correctly) believed was granting aid to the Reformed cause. The Navarrese alongside the French forces in the area fought a valiant resistance slowing, but not halting the Spanish move north. In northern France the situation was rosier for the Royalists (as it is now proper to refer to the two sides as Royalists and League as the religious element continued to loses primacy). King Louis moved his army (now bolstered by troops and gold provided by his uncle by marriage William of Hesse) out of Paris and crushed Francis de Guis at the battle of Dreux west of the capital in late 1573 - buying time and relief for the Royalist cause. 1574 was a year of gradual Spanish/League advance in the south and withdrawal in the north, save Brittany. 1575 was the decisive year. In March of that year after long since overrunning Navarre, Prince John’s Spanish Army had besieged and then (aided by Spanish warships) sacked La Rochelle. The sack of La Rochelle was a brutal bloody affair, with thousands murdered due to suspected Protestant beliefs or simply murderous rampaging as was all too common in this period. It was a sad horrific massacre in a war littered with sad horrific massacres. What made this different however was that it was committed on French men, women and children by a foreign army - and this story was retold and exaggerated by the printers and their pamphlets (who were disproportionately Protestant) again and again throughout France. The story’s effect on the peasantry (those that could get hold of the info or be able to read it) and merchant classes varied from horror to righteous pleasure at the death of heretics. Amongst the nobility however the reaction was very much fury. A few, including the new Duc de Montmorency, Francis, who had succeeded his father Anne a few years earlier, declared immediately for the King. Despite being a Catholic, Duke Francis despised the House of Guise [OTL] and Spain’s entry and the massacre at La Rochelle were the final straw. It was Louis XIII’s wife, the older and very intelligent Catherine of Navarre (sister of King John of Navarre), whose involvement was crucial however. Recognising the opportunity to turn the focus of the war to one of combating Spanish invasion rather than a religious divide she, along with the Catholic Royalists Charles de Bourbon the new addition of Francis de Montmorency and the other Politiques persuaded the King to publish the Edict of Chartres. The Edict guaranteed religious and political toleration for Catholics and Reformists (though not for the tiny Lutheran minority). As well as containing a declaration protecting Catholics and the Catholic Church (and its lands in France) from harm or assault from the Crown or others and the denunciation of de Guise and his followers as Spanish puppets [Effectively a mix of a French version of the Peace of Augsburg and the OTL Edicts of Amboise and Saint-Germain]. Almost simultaneously Orleans was retaken by forces loyal to Louis. Those nobles who had largely tried to remain on the sidelines almost to a man declared for the King and the tide now slowly began to turn. Then later in the year the Duke of Alba’s army in the southeast pivoted abruptly and moved east - leaving a small force to supplement the Savoyard force as that Dukedom has been largely liberated from the French - to northern Italy as the conflict in Austria erupted threatening the Habsburg base of power in the Empire.
It is at this point that a proper analysis of Spain’s role and agenda for this conflict is worth discussing. The outbreak of the war between Habsburg and Wittelsbach for the Austrian Succession was indeed a major distraction for Spain - and likely a more pressing one than continued intervention in a bloody French Civil War. However did Spain need to dispatch so much of its forces and focus that way at this time - and for that matter could it have invested more directly in France from the beginning? Maybe. But Spain did not do so, so what were King Philip’s motivations? Firstly it has to be again reiterated that Spain (like France and to a lesser extent England) had been fighting externally and internally off and on for decades and had its own financial and economic malaise to deal with. Spain’s own exchequer and Spanish merchants cried out for a period of peaceful recovery. Secondly is what we would now term the realpolitique reason. Did Spain prefer a Catholic France to one ruled by a Protestant king? Probably. But what Spain really desired was a weak France. The French were the only major power in Western Europe that could rival or threaten the Habsburg Empire - so a decisive early (or even late) intervention that ended the conflict and unified France behind a Catholic dynasty was not beneficial. A long Civil War, drawn out and bloody that weakened France however was far better, indeed imaging a Catholic defeat (still not the desired option) would leave a France that was led by a Protestant King but home to a majority Catholic population leaving it almost certainly too internally divided to threaten Spain for decades. No, a weak and possibly reduced in size France, was the best case option for Spain. So a smaller (and therefore financially more bearable) intervention alongside the League that prolonged but did not immediately end the conflict was a sensible course. And if that had been Spain’s only strategic dilemma in the 1570s it is likely it would have paid off, allowing Spain to slowly recover economically and see France deteriorate before an indebted Catholic monarchy could be secured in Paris. Whereas the Austrian affair threatened directly the Habsburg mastery of Europe and thus Spain’s prioritisation of its stretched resources for that conflict makes a great deal of sense.
With around a third of Spain’s forces therefore leaving the conflict and with the Empire clearly distracted by the Austrian Succession Crisis the Swiss felt comfortable enough to move in a larger force openly to support the Royalists. In response to aid the flagging League forces the Burgundians moved into France now that the Dutch uprising had (temporarily) been put down but with limited success. Henry IX of England too sent aid, but with the country still recovering from its own Civil War, only 3,000 men (mostly Catholic Irish) were able to be financed and sent to Brittany to support the League forces there. The intricacies of the final few years of the conflict are not necessary to cover in detail but the broad summary can be outlined as such: the gradual reassertion of the French Royal authority alongside increasing defections from the League to the Royalist cause simultaneous with the solidification of Anglo-League control of Brittany and Spanish forces holding onto Navarre and defending Savoy. Two final battles in 1578 at Blois (a Royalist triumph seeing Francis de Guise defeated permanently and forced into exile) and just north of Nantes (an Anglo-Spanish-League victory that prevented a reconquest of Brittany) effectively ended the conflict. A series of agreements, treaties and pardons (collectively known as the Treaties of Rouen) served as the official end of the war. Louis XIII was accepted as King of France by internal and external enemies and the religious toleration of the Edict of Chartres was guaranteed and recognised. Those Catholic nobles who by the end had defected to the Crown were largely pardoned and the remaining minority (mainly de Guise and core allies) were exiled, arrested or executed. In exchange Louis XIII and John IV were forced to recognise the Spanish annexation of Navarre south of the Pyrenees and the renewed independence of and effective Spanish influence in the Duchy of Savoy (both effective facts on the ground anyway) as well as some minor border adjustments in Burgundy and Spain’s favour. The final point of Brittany was the most contentious but again the de facto situation was begrudgingly recognised. Brittany was severed from the French crown and its status as an independent Catholic Duchy was established. The aging Philibert of Chalon-Arlay, titular Prince of Orange, a Catholic noble from Provence who had fought for Charles V and then for the League and who had a dynastic link to the old Breton rulers through his father, was named the new Duke and taking the name John VI. Louis XIII’s realm was battered, broken and bruised. Two million of his people had died, Brittany and Savoy had been lost, the economy was in tatters and his people restive. France was now clearly in the second rank of European powers and unable to effectively exert influence beyond its borders for decades. It was debatable whether the Valois Monarchy and France itself would survive the next few years. But survive it would, slowly, slowly rebuilding from this disaster and re-emerge as a major power in the next century. For the foreseeable future however it seemed Europe and total dominance was within the grasps of the Habsburgs. Or was it?
[1] Both France and Spain repeatedly declared bankruptcy in OTL in their wars
[2] The OTL Affair of the Placards which I previously butterflied.
[3] An OTL Faction/Movement in this period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politique)
[4] If curious look up the number of OTL assassinations in France during the Wars of Religion. It is frankly ridiculous.
[5] This is the key fundamental difference from OTL. Rather than a chaotic weak monarchy which in OTL was a relative spectator for the Wars of Religion here the monarch is active and influential diluting those who take up arms against the Crown.
[6] The Catholic Duchy of Savoy had been under French rule for a few decades now and has taken this moment to revolt, allying itself with its coreligionists.
Author’s Note & Map:
First of all welcome back. I have attempted above to lay out and detail what I think is a realistic, compelling and sensible portrayal of how a Protestant Monarch could come to the throne of France. A majority Protestant France by the 1580s I think all would agree is impossible. However I believe the idea of a French monarch adhering to the Reformed faith but not seeking to impose it (and therefore ruling over a careful balance) I think is plausible, just. With a few changes from OTL. I’ve laid them out elsewhere but to summarize the key changes from OTL that lead to this possibility are: 1) The maintenance of Royal power in the Civil War as opposed to the impotence of the French Crown in OTL which largely sat out the majority of the conflict until the later stages. This also prevents an outright immediate split of the nobility on religious lines such as the eventual Royalist commitment of the Montmorency’s ITTL. 2) The overall larger influence and numbers of Reformists in France due to earlier events in this timeline such as the unification of the Reformation at Marburg, the ability of a united Swiss Confederacy to aid the cause, English Protestant exiles, the Valois-Bourbon dynastic alliance allowing the OTL Huguenot friendly Bourbons more influence and a more influential John Calvin. 3) More sensible and pragmatic leadership on the part of the Royalist/Reformed faction. In conclusion I hope you can accept the plausibility of the above and join with me as the story progresses. Plus, why write alternate history if not to push the bounds? Direwolf.
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Well France is still majority Catholic but yes I'm going to be moving east now to Austria/Bohemia then Poland & Lithuania then Russia. So lots to come.
Not wanting protestant Ottomans?!
Prottomans? Unfortunately the Ottomans will not be converting to any from of Christianity. Sorry
Nice to have you back, Direwolf! This alternate French civil war was a good read, and definitely seems like a plausible alternate path for the country to take in the 16th century. Looking forward to the Habsburg succession crisis that was foreshadowed.
Nice to have you back, Direwolf! This alternate French civil war was a good read, and definitely seems like a plausible alternate path for the country to take in the 16th century. Looking forward to the Habsburg succession crisis that was foreshadowed.
Thanks! Lots to come.
Quite a bit. The big war is on the near horizon now.
Great update. Not much to add really it is all plausible. France going down the drain after a string of failures, the other powers around them playing the vulture and the final outcome is believable as well.
Keep up the good work and I am looking for more, hopefully with less of a wait
Keep up the good work and I am looking for more, hopefully with less of a wait