The French War of Religion (1562-1629)

By end of 16th century France had become perhaps the weakest kingdom in western Europe. The reason for this was the long series of civil wars, commonly known as the French Wars of Religion.

Protestants were known as Huguenots, and were accused of heresy by the Catholic king and government and in 1536 a General Edict was issued urging their extinction; thus began the French Wars of Religion.

With the death of Henry II following his jousting accident while celebrating the conclusion of the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559, France entered period in which the authority of the crown and its agents suffered progressive erosion before reaching a nadir during the 1580s.

The French Wars of Religion began in 1562 with the massacre at Vassy in Champagne; continue until the Edict of Nantes in 1598; and then erupts again briefly in the 1620s.

Historians typically divide the French Wars of Religion into nine different conflicts, beginning in 1562 and ending in 1598 with the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes.

Edict of Nantes, signed by Henry IV in 1598 ended the French Wars of Religion and allowed the Huguenots some freedom and right to practice their religion in twenty specified towns of France.

But the Edict of Nantes did not end religious warfare within the country; and the war extended until 1629.

The French War of Religion (1562-1629)