Oath of Henri IV with the Protestants
National museum of the Castle of Pau
After the battle of Jarnac
Fracture between catholics and reformedThe war was going to begin again soon, the more so as the tensions at the borders clearly drew lines of fracture between catholics and reformed. In the Netherlands, the pile cluster illustrated himself by the cruelty of his policy of oppression, which worried the French Protestants, but also the catholics moderate - the count de Hornes, decapitated in June 1568, was a Morello cherry. Coligny and Condé agreed with William of Orange and Louis de Nassau to help itself reciprocally (August 1568)
In England, Marie Stuart, catholic queen of Scotland and cousin of the Own way, found themselves captive in fact of Elisabeth I. Lastly, Spain as papacy pushed the king of France to be acted against the Huguenot ones.
Charles IX took the head of the intransigent catholic factions then, and wanted to make stop Condé and Coligny, then in Burgundy (August 1568). However, Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes, in charge of this mission, could not seize Protestant chiefs, who, at the end of a long escape, found refuge with the La Rochelle. The king then published the edict of Saint-Maur (September 23rd, 1568), who prohibited the reformed worship
The edict of Saint-Germain
Vis-a-vis the royal intransigence, the Protestants took the weapons. He were defeated with Jarnac (March 13th, 1569), battles following which Condé was assassinated; in reprisals, they made the massacres of the Rock-The Bee, in the Limousin, and Vault-To mow, in Périgord. The Protestants were again defeated with Moncontour in October 1569. Coligny and the troops which it had joined together at the beginning of the winter then started a walk which led them around midday then made them go up by the valley of the Rhone, until reaching the Charity-on-Loire.
In spite of the military failure of Cop and Coligny, the king published on on August 8th, 1570 the edict of Saint-Germain, particularly favorable to the Protestants. In particular, the latter obtained for the first time four places of safety: La Rochelle, Cognac, Montauban and Charity. The provisions of the edict of Saint-Maur were cancelled: the Protestants recovered freedom of worship in the places where it had been authorized until August 1st, 1570.
The intervention of Spain in the Netherlands
This edict dissatisfied the catholics. The external situation, with the continuation of the intervention of Spain in the Netherlands, however turned the spirits towards other horizons, and the Spanish business is not foreign with the massacre of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, which started again in France the wars of religion.