King de France (1560-1574).
The reign of Charles IX was marked by the massacre of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Often presented like a weak king, crushed by the personality of his mother, incompetent to slice in the fight between the factions catholic and reformed, Charles IX is one of the most discussed characters one and French history, of most obscure: the most tragic decisions of its reign were made in secrecy, and it is sometimes difficult to evaluate its share of responsibility in the dramas which are tied then.
Undoubtedly little prepared with the royal function, he preferred to devote himself to hunting - he was an excellent rider - or to forges he adored to work iron - rather than to attend his Council.
Years of supervision (1560-1570)
Third son of Henri II - after François and Louis, died in low age -, Charles-Maximilien was born on on June 27th, 1550; it succeeded in December 1560 his brother François II, and reigned initially under the supervision of his mother, Catherine de Médicis. This one had indeed managed to draw aside Antoine of Bourbon, first prince of royal blood, who could claim with regency, in return for the load of general lieutenant of the kingdom. The role of the young Charles IX was limited initially to the strict royal representation; thus, on on December 13th, 1560, eight days after the death of his brother, it opened the general states convened on the initiative of his mother and the Michel chancellor of Hospital. In the same way, it assisted, at the sides of his mother, the conference of Poissy between catholic and reformed theologists.
The voyage of the young king (1564-1566)
Once alleviated the disorders of the first war of religion (1562-1563), Charles IX was proclaimed major on on August 17th, 1563, in Rouen - which became thus the symbol of the reconciliation between catholics and Protestants. The queen-mother, hoping to seal the unit of the kingdom around her son and being also inspired by the voyage achieved by François Ier in her fields, introduced the young king on her subjects during a tour of twenty-seven month (January 24th, 1564 - May 1st, 1566).
Royal edicts
During this voyage, Charles IX was exerted with the royal function, always under the supervision of his mother. In April 1564, in Troyes, was signed with England the treaty by which Calais became again definitively French. In July, the king signed the ordinance which established the beginning of the year on January 1st, instead of Easter before. At the same moment, the edict of Crémieu organized royal control on the municipal elections; the cities still lost to be able to them following the assembly of Mills (1566), which restores certain prerogatives of the State justice finances in particular, without the king however having the means of imposing these measurements - thus, many Parliaments had refused to record the edict of pacification of Amboise of March 1563 -, which contributed to agitation in the cities and the resumption of the civil war. With Mills always, where the court resided of Christmas 1565 in March 1566, the admiral de Coligny was cleared by the council of the king of any responsibility in the assassination for the duke for Own way.
Second and third wars of religion
In November 1567, following the death of the constable of Morello cherry, Charles IX named, on the recommendation of his mother, his brother Henri general lieutenant of the kingdom; it is this one which were essential then like representative of Valois in military operations of the second and third wars of religion - and not the king. In 1569, Charles IX still increased the prestige of his brother by creating for him the load of general intendant of the kingdom, even if the reality of the power remained largely with the hands of the queen-mother.
Charles IX tried to control the agitation of the intransigent catholics who organized themselves in leagues - preceding the League of 1584. In 1568, he declared the chief of these various leagues, which he wanted to join together in an Association of the king, whose members owed him fidelity.
The royal marriage
On November 26th, 1570, in Mézières, the king married Elisabeth of Austria, from which it will have a girl, Marie-Elisabeth, isolated of her succession because of salic law - born in 1572, the princess died in 1578. It also had a natural son of Marie Touchet, whom it did not recognize: Charles de Valois, who was count d' Auvergne then duke of Angouleme (1573-1650).
The religious policy
From 1570, Charles IX became emancipated of the supervision of his mother, who remained however her principal adviser. It is then the interior religious conflict which dominates the political matters, the questions external passing with the second plan. Thus, Charles IX maintained the friendship with the Turks, and France did not take part in the naval battle of Lépante (1571), which marked the end of the Moslem expansion towards the west.
Attempts at appeasing
The king tried an ultimate bringing together with the Protestants by the means of the edict of Saint-Germain, who put an end to the third catch of weapons of the wars of religion (August 1570); he joined again thus with the policy of tolerance of Michel of Hospital.
In same time, whereas the moderate catholics worried about the Spanish policy in the Netherlands and that the Protestants expressed the desire to intervene there openly, Charles IX chooses to encourage in Coligny writing pad to help the revolted Beggars. The motivations of the policy of the king are dubious: the influence of Coligny could not be determining since this one, fearing for its life, almost did not remain at the court; it is possible that Charles IX wanted to move away the men from war on a foreign theater of operations, but it took the risk thus to cause the war with Spain, then the most powerful State in Europe. However, the party of the determined catholics was reinforced, at the court first of all, with Henri of Anjou, the future Henri III, and with Henri de Guise, whose popularity near the Parisian ones was notorious.
The marriage of Marguerite de Valois, sister of Charles IX, with Henri de Navarre, the future Henri IV, celebrated in Paris on on August 18th, 1572, was the occasion to join together at the court the nobility of the kingdom, including the Protestants. However, the ceremony, which did not respect the forms of the traditional catholic marriage, revived the religious tensions in the capital.
The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (August 24th, 1572)
On August 22nd in the morning, the assassination attempt against Coligny marked a new climbing. The king wanted to reassure the Protestants and went the afternoon even at the bedside of the admiral, but at the meetings of its Council, in the night from Friday to, it followed the party guisard and ordered the massacre of the Protestant chiefs. No document not existing at these crucial moments of the reign, the historians propose several explanations to the attitude of Charles IX. The thesis of the king frightened by the anger of his/her mother and ordering the massacre to erase any trace of the responsibility for this one in the attack against Coligny is forsaken today. One thinks rather than Charles IX ordered the massacre either by fear of a Protestant conspiracy, or out of fear of an open revolt of Parisian favorable to the intransigent catholic party, or in order to punish those which destroyed its efforts for a civil peace, that illustrated the edict of Saint-Germain.
It is thus certain that Charles IX ordered the massacre of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and it asserted for it the responsibility two days later before the Parliament for Paris. One cannot however allot to him the responsibility for the extension of the massacre in all the kingdom; on the contrary, the king ordered to his governors to maintain civil peace, without that being able to prevent massacres from occurring in many cities.
End of the reign
The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre involved a loss of confidence in the king. If the massacre of August had decapitated the Protestant nobility, the Huguenot party was far from being destroyed. The fourth war of religion opened as of October 1572; Henri of Anjou directed the seat of the La Rochelle, which he did not manage to take, and the war was completed by the edict of Boulogne (July 1573). Since 1573, the Protestants of the South organized themselves in Provinces of the Union, which escaped in fact from the power of Valois. In addition, in 1574, many powerful lords rebelled - conspiracies of Shrove Tuesday and, in April, Coconat and the Soft one -, thus preceding the war of Malcontents - fifth catch of weapons of the wars of religion.
The king found himself isolated: its health declined; Henri of Anjou was related to the catholic party, while his/her younger brother, François d' Alençon, were the hope of the rebellious nobility. Lastly, the influence of Catherine de Médicis was then on its lower level. Also, Charles IX chooses the way of repression again: he made to embastiller the duke François de Montmorency and wanted to make stop - without reaching that point - his brother Henri of Morello cherry-Damville, whose independence, in its stronghold of Languedoc, scoffed at the royal authority, and who affirmed himself little by little like the chief of the “malcontents”, noble catholics opposed to the policy of the king and seeking a civil solution with the conflict.
When his/her Henri brother was elected king de Pologne (May 10th, 1573), thanks to the efforts of his mother and his envoy, Jean de Monluc, Charles IX accompanied it to Rheims, where it bade his farewell to him on on November 12th, 1573. It is with the return of this tour that it was confined to bed definitively to die a few months later of tuberculosis, on on May 30th, 1574.