6. Jacques Necker- became the new director general of finances and produced a report to the French public that said the financial situation was not so bad and was not to be feared. In his report he suggested that a large portion of Royal expenditures went to pensions for aristocrats. This Necker to soon leave office. His actions made it difficult for government officials to claim a need to raise taxes…
The Massacres of 1572 had, to some extent a devastating effect to the Huguenot movement. The most significant of these was the loss of leadership within the movement, especially the nobility. Nobles can give the movement political, militaristic and financial strength as well as providing it with a sense of structure. The most important of these nobles was Admiral Coligny. He was the leader of the movement, head of the Army and was very close to the King. With his death the Huguenots lost royal protection as the King would have been more sympathetic with Coligny. The loss of nobles also brought a loss in political influence. There were now less members of the Conseil d’en Haut, which made it easier to pass acts against the Protestants. This is a significant blow as before 1572 they had been given a number of concessions by Catherine de Medici. Another significant loss was in 1577 when Henri de Navarre was forced to stay at court and convert to Catholicism, which looked like he had betrayed the Huguenots.…
Louis 2 did not support the Edict of Nantes that had been adopted in the previous century. Protestant clergy men were exiled from the land, and supporters of this faith were condemned to live a life of slavery and their children were baptized as Catholics against their…
| Charles V & Luther = Edict of Worms... Henry VIII defended 7 sacraments against Luther... Phillip II sent Spanish Armada to invade England's Protestanism... Edict of Nantes granted religious tolerance (Henry IV)... Mary burned hundreds of protestants at the stake…
In many ways Louis XIV had successes in his aim for religious unity, as his earlier tactics to persecute the Huguenots seemed to be working. Between 1661 and 1679 successful restrictions were made on Huguenot activity and many were bribed to abandon their faith. The casse des conversions resulted in a steady pace of conversions, its leader, Paul Pellisson, claimed to have converted 50,000 Huguenots at ten livres a head. Along with this in 1668, one of the Kings best generals converted from a Huguenots to a Catholic, a major setback to Huguenot morale in France. Between these earlier years the size of Huguenot numbers fell from 2 million to 1 ¼ million and it seemed to be continuing; Louis attempt to gain religious unity was succeeding. The Edict of the Fontainebleu which made Protestantism illegal was well supported in France with many who agreed with Louis that there should be only one religion.…
In 1572 Admiral Gaspard II de Coligny supported a war that the French king, Charles IX, was going to approve. Fearing the Admiral was having an increasing amount of influence on her son and the dislike of him from the Catholics, Catherine de Médicis supported the Roman Catholic house of Guise plan to assassinate Coligny. This would then lead to St. Bartholomew’s Massacre that started August 24, 1572. Tensions had already been high in France since the early 16th century concerning religion. In September 1568, Charles took away the rights of the Protestants and told them they could have them back if they followed orders of the royal family, which they did not get back until 1598 when Henry of Navarre converted to Catholicism and crowned Henry IV.…
Henry IV a Huguenot prince inherited the French throne in 1589. For four years, right after he took up the throne he fiercely fought for control of France against catholic oppression, and to end the fighting finally he changed to Catholicism. Even though he was now officially a catholic, he issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598 that provided Huguenots religious freedom. After all, of that Henry IV set out to fix all the damage he had done. He said his goal was not the victory of one sec over another but “a chicken in every pot”-a good sun-day dinner for every peasant. While Henry ruled, the Government was everywhere officials administered justice, improved roads, built bridges, and revived agriculture. Henry IV was assassinated in 1610 twenty-one years after he inherited the throne which was passed down to his nine year old son Louis XIII.…
He tried to accomplish the goal of one faith by revoking the Edict of Nantes. This revocation caused a religious upheaval and was a huge blow to the French people. Protestants were found in each level of French society and one of the most mobile when it came to commercial and industrial classes. The French lost their most useful class. Although they had lost this important class the Huguenots began to convert to Catholicism. He held back by an act of volition the Jansenism movement within the Catholic Church but caused the Protestants to suffer. Louis wanted one faith but it was almost impossible for him to fully achieve it. Everyone would never be one…
In the later portion of the 1600’s, the monarchial systems of both England and France were changing. England strayed away from an absolute monarch and ran toward a mightier parliament instead. The opposite was occurring in France as Louis XIV strengthened his own office while weakening the general assembly of France, the Estates General. Absolutism, the political situation in which a monarch controls makes all political, social, economic, and cultural decisions in a government without checks or balances, had been introduced by Charles I and James I. However, it never took hold. In France, Louis XIV took absolutism to extremes, claiming to be a servant of God. A limited monarch, England’s monarchial system, is a government in which a monarch…
France was also a strictly all-Christian country as well. During the sixteenth century, France was beginning to explore the Saint Lawrence River and leading to the cession of New Frances and Great Britain in 1793. Back in France, the Protestant Reformation was going strong. Many Protestants resided in France at the time, although they were persecuted by the state and angered the Catholics. This persecution of Huguenots and Protestants was a bloodbath of sorts, leading up to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572. Very strong ideas of what religion was and what it should be were circulating in full force among the French during this…
The exclusion crisis stemmed from the fact that James, the Duke of York was a catholic and the only legitimate heir to the throne in a country which greatly feared Catholic absolutism and the universal monarchy of Louis XIV. Furthermore, James marriage to Catholic Mary of Moderna who was also a client of Louis XIV was a pivotal factor in creating the crisis as it resulted in fears of a Catholic succession line. Historians debate how far the exclusion crisis strengthened or undermined his position, some suggest that it increased his power by allowing a working relationship with the Tory Anglicans where he successfully implemented his prerogative powers and made the Whigs seem radical, whilst other argues that it showed how Charles could not…
When Martin Luther posted the 95 theses in 1517, he had changed the entire path of European politics and religion. He sparked a thought in the region that in many cases, converted people’s basic Christian beliefs. At the time, the Roman Catholic Church was the most powerful Institution. However, there were many corruptions and problematic doctrines, which Luther opposed. Though most commoners became followers because of faith, political leaders sometimes became protestant for other reasons. One important figure that was influenced by this protestant reformation was King Henry VIII of England. A monarch, he had a great desire to have a son that would be his heir, the next king. Unfortunately, his first wife was only able to birth one daughter. By then Henry VIII had formed a relationship with another woman. This one promised him a son. However, the Catholic Church forbade divorce and Henry VIII was Catholic at the time. To resolve this issue, England separated from the church and began the Anglican Church, a church headed by Henry VIII himself. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 officially began England’s Protestant Reformation. With this new power of the state over the church, the head of the King’s Council, Thomas Cromwell, carried out new government policies which included new taxes, increased power of the monarchy in Northern England, dissolution of Roman Catholic monasteries, and confiscation of the lands that belong to the Church. Enraged, commoners and nobles alike began marching and protesting in what was known collectively as the Pilgrimage of Grace. These individuals that numbered in the tens of thousands, marched for political and religious reasons, while the opposition also claimed political and religious reasons for the protests to stop.…
The first area, and the area that affected the monarchs decisions in other areas the most, was religion. While Philip II and Louis XIV were both catholic, Queen Elizabeth was protestant, and were Philip II and Louis XIV were both very strict in enforcing a state religion Queen Elizabeth was much more lax. Because of their religious policy both Philip II’s and Louis XIV’s economy was irrevocably influenced. Philip II lack of religious tolerance combined with constant suspicion of the Marranos and the Moriscos both had immense effects on his economy. The constant support of the inquisitions tactics and suspicion caused the Moriscos to revolt. The Moriscos were defeated and expelled from the country. The animosity towards the Protestants caused a revolt by the Dutch and a humiliating defeat dealt to the Spanish Armada by the English Navy. The defeat of the Armada marked the decline of Spain’s naval power while the Dutch revolt marked the start of both English and Dutch “Sea Dogs” reign of terror on Spanish ships. Louis XIV was also apposed to Protestants and this also had devastating affects on his country. In sixteen-eighty-five the Edict of Nantes was repealed. This meant the Huguenots would no longer be able to practice their Protestant religion in…
In the latter half of the 16th century, France was torn by a religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, called Huguenots, which mainly referred to French Calvinists. Catherine de Medici, the mother of the young king Charles IX hit upon a plan to finally exterminate the Protestants; she proposed that a marriage should be arranged between Margaret, the catholic sister of King Charles, and Henry de Bourbon, the Huguenot king of Navarre. All the notable leaders of the land were invited to the wedding including Gaspard de Coligny the foremost Huguenot. The stage was for one of the most horrible crimes in recorded history: Saint Bartholomew's day Massacre.…
During the French Revolution, everything and everyone was impacted in one way or another. It didn’t matter your social ranking or position in something, the rebels were only interested in changing France for what they the thought was the better. Before the Revolution, the Catholic faith was the most widely studied religion in France, but the tables soon turned after the revolt.…