Charles IX Of France: A Reign Overshadowed By Religious Wars

Charles IX of France was born on June 27, 1550 at the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He was the fifth of ten children and the third son of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. Upon birth he was given the title of Duc d'Angoulême. After the death of his older brother Louis in October 1550, Charles became the Duc d'Orléans. He was baptized in the Catholic religion and his godfathers were Henry II of Navarre and Maximilian II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and his godmother was the Duchess of Ferrara, Renée de France, who was a daughter of King Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany. Charles' father died in July 1559, leaving the throne to his son, François II of France. François, however, was a sickly boy and died on December 5, 1560. Thus Charles succeeded his brother on the throne, initially under the guardianship of his mother. Under his older brother François II, French politics had been dominated by the Catholic François de Guise, whose niece, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was François II's wife. Now that François had died, the Queen Mother became Regent of France and strengthened the power of the Protestant line of the Royal House, the Bourbons, who were the highest-ranking French noble dynasty after the Valois dynasty themselves. In order to weaken the power of the House of Guise, Catherine prepared a moderate edict of religious tolerance. François de Guise responded by organizing the Vassy bloodbath against the Huguenots, which led to the First Huguenot War in 1562. In the Edict of Amboise, the King granted the Huguenots non-public religious freedom outside of the cities. By doing so, he broke with the repressive religious policies of his predecessors. But Catherine and Charles could not successfully counter the opposition of Cardinal Charles de Lorraine, who was the brother of François de Guise. The Huguenots suspected an anti-Protestant plot and responded with the Second Huguenot War in 1567, during which Protestant foreign troops aided the Huguenots. After the Third Huguenot War, which lasted from 1568 until 1570, the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye roughly confirmed the Edict of Amboise. On November 27, 1570, Charles IX married the Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria, who was the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. The marriage produced a daughter, Marie-Elisabeth, who was five years old when she died. In addition, the King maintained an eight-year-old relationship with his mistress, Marie Touchet, who gave him an illegitimate son, Charles d'Angoulême, who was granted the title of Duc d'Angoulême in 1619. Charles IX is the only one among the sons of Henri II and Catherine de' Medici to have produced offspring. While the King spent his time hunting, the Queen Mother pursued reconciliation between the Catholics and Protestants. In the fall of 1571, the Protestant leader Gaspar II de Coligny met with the King for a few days. De Coligny promoted a policy that would free the United Netherlands from Spanish rule, win religious freedom for the co-religionists in the Netherlands, and break the Spanish-Portuguese monopoly on colonies in America. Charles IX supported de Coligny's policies as he wanted to break away from his mother's dominance. An alliance with England was also considered. De Coligny wanted to establish the Huguenot as the party to represent the French national interests. National reconciliation was to be definitively sealed by the marriage between the King's sister, Margaret of Valois, and the 18-year-old Henri de Navarre of the Protestant House of Bourbon, who would later become Henri IV of France. Admiral de Coligny grew very close to the King, which alarmed the Queen Mother, who saw her influence over her son endangered. During the wedding celebrations of Henri de Navarre and Margaret of Valois in August 1572, an assassination attempt on de Coligny, commissioned by either Catherine herself or the House of Guise, failed. Charles visited de Coligny and promised him to punish the culprit. His mother, however, persuaded the King that the Huguenots were planning a revenge attack on him. As a result, on Saint Bartholomew's Eve, Charles had the leaders of the Huguenots, who had gathered in Paris for the wedding, murdered. His friend de Coligny was also killed. The violence spread to other cities and thousands of Huguenots lost their lives. Saint Bartholomew's Night marked a turning point in the reign of Charles IX. The abandonment of the Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the atrocities committed by the royal entourage caused the King to lose the confidence of the Protestants for good. After these events, the monarchy intended to put an end to Protestantism. The war resumed and led to the siege of La Rochelle. The Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre has always been the subject of debate because of its unexpected and confusing nature. Historians had to determine the responsibility of the King. For a long time, it was believed that the massacre had been prepared and provoked by Charles himself, but the collective responsibility of the King, his advisors, his mother and his brother Henri, the Duc d'Anjou, seems more likely. Either way, the massacre left the young King traumatized for the remaining two years of his life. He became increasingly depressed and his health, which was already weak, deteriorated rapidly. Charles IX of France died at the Château de Vincennes on March 30, 1574 at the age of only 23. Due to rumors of poisoning, an autopsy was performed which confirmed that the King had died of tuberculosis. His brother, the Duc d'Anjou, who had left for Krakow in the fall of 1573 following his election as King of Poland, relinquished the Polish crown and returned to France where he succeeded Charles as Henri III of France. Charles IX was buried in the crypt of the Basilica of Saint-Denis. During the looting of the royal tombs at Saint-Denis during the French Revolution, Charles' tomb was emptied on October 18, 1793, and his remains were buried in a mass grave outside of the church. During the restoration after 1815, all remains in the mass grave were exhumed. Since it was no longer possible to precisely identify the individuals, they were buried in an ossuary in the crypt of the cathedral. The widowed Queen, Elisabeth of Austria, refused to remarry and returned to Austria in 1567 and retired to a convent. The daughter of Charles IX, Marie-Elisabeth of France, died four years after the death of her father. Thank you for watching.