The Catholic League of France
by When the duc d’Anjou died unexpectedly in June 1584, Henri de Navarre became presumptive heir to the French throne, then occupied by Henri III. The Guise grew in power as Henri III weakened, and Catholic militants rose in ferocious opposition to the idea of a Protestant succession.
This was the essential, perhaps the only, common goal of the Catholic League: spiritual predecessors of the 17th-century de´vots/ de´votes joined with Guise schemers and Catholic Royalists to block the ascension of a Protestant king to a throne they regarded as uniquely Catholic and sacral, a common purpose made clear in a manifesto of 1585. Philip II of Spain lent support to these ”guerriers de Dieu” (”warriors of God”) in the Treaty of Joinville (December 1584). The Guise and other aristocrats provided the officer corps of the League’s military wing. The higher bourgeoisie, led by lawyers and magistrates, formed the main body within the towns and cities. All members swore an oath to take up arms to defend Catholic control of the throne. Heavily armed fanatics partook of violent self-abnegation, marching in flagellant processions, beating themselves bloody to accompaniment of martial music. As the movement grew, not all League cells were controlled by the Guise. Most importantly, in Paris the ”Sixteen” (named for ”committees of public safety” set up in the 16 quarters of the city) was controlled by some 255 upper bourgeoisie. This key cell had wide public support inside Paris. It was politically independent and more radical than the Guise.
The League forced the Treaty of Nemours (July 1585) on the king, who capitulated to demands for revocation of all prior concessions to the Huguenots. This launched the eighth of the French Civil Wars (”War of the Three Henries”), in which Leaguers promised to ”exterminate the heretics by blood and fire.” In this project they were opposed by the king and more moderate Catholic politiques. In April 1588, Henri III ordered Henri Guise to stay out of Paris, but the king lost control of the city on May 12, the Day of the Barricades, when the Sixteen and the Catholic League rose against him. He was driven from the city in favor of Henri Guise. For the next five years the Sixteen and Leaguers ruled Paris and several other Catholic cities. Their grip was made tighter by Henri III’s disastrous decision to murder the duc and the Cardinal of Guise in December 1588, which deed was followed by a League rebellion and inspired assassination of the king (August 1, 1589). League dictatorships were set up in most Catholic towns, no longer under the Guise but run by local bourgeoisie.
Afterward, ascetic radicals in the League became near-hysterical in their millenarianism and hatred for the Huguenots and their prince, Henri de Navarre. The League refused to accept this heretic and excommunicate on the sacral throne. Instead, Leaguers seized the major cities and launched a terror purge of Protestants and Catholic compromisers. However, the League lost on the field of battle to newly combined armies of Huguenots and royalist Catholics. In September 1589, Mayenne lost 10,000 League troops in battle with Henri IV at Arques. Six months later, Henri pushed aside the last Leaguer army at Ivry-la-Bataille, and besieged Paris. In desperation, the League turned once more to Philip II, who ordered Parma to relieve Paris with a Spanish army from the Netherlands. Die-hard Leaguers looked to seat a foreign Catholic on the throne after 1590, but most French Catholics balked at such an assault on the grand tradition of the Gallican Church. When Henri abjured Calvinism and reconverted to Catholicism on July 25, 1593, the political fight was over. During the next two years League military bitter-enders were run down by royalist troops.
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