Fourth Huguenot War

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The Fourth Huguenot War ( 1572 - 1573 ) was immediately followed by the massacre of French Protestants, the Huguenots , in the so-called St. Bartholomew . The leaderless Huguenots were pushed back on La Rochelle , Nîmes and Montauban in southern France and were then insignificant in northern France. Only through the election of the later Heinrich III. as King of Poland (1573) the Huguenots were saved from annihilation because the continuation of the war would have jeopardized the election in tolerant Poland.

The Bartholomew Night

Only the eighth Huguenot war was worse than the fourth Huguenot war . The wedding of the young Protestant Heinrich von Navarra, later Henry IV. , With the Catholic royal sister Margarete von Valois in August 1572 was actually intended to promote reconciliation between the Huguenots and the French Catholics, who wanted to wage war together against the national enemy Spain. But there was an assassination attempt on the Huguenot leader Admiral Coligny . The young King Charles IX. was thereupon incited to the massacre of the Huguenot leaders present in Paris for fear of retaliation.

Siege of La Rochelle

In the inevitable war that followed, the surviving Protestants defended themselves with the courage of desperation. On the Catholic side, Duke Heinrich I von Guise and the king's brother, later Henry III, distinguished themselves . The war developed into an arduous siege war, whereby the Huguenots were able to supply their main base La Rochelle with English support via the sea. Rainfalls and epidemics resulted in great losses among the Catholic troops.

peace

For the above-mentioned foreign policy reason, peace had to be brought about. In the pacification of Boulogne in 1573 , the Huguenots were granted amnesty and freedom of conscience, but they were only allowed to hold their services in public in La Rochelle, Nîmes and Montauban.