Famous Men of the 16th and 17th Century
by Robert G. Shearer
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Robert G. Shearer, 2009
Published by Greenleaf Press
Lebanon, Tennessee
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
To Cyndy and the children
my life’s greatest
adventure
Table of Contents
Introduction
Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589)
Henry of Navarre (1553-1610)
Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
Sir Francis Drake (1540-1595)
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)
James I (1566-1625)
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Captain John Smith (1580-1631)
Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583-1634)
Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632)
Samuel de Champlain (1570-1635)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)
Charles I (1600-1649)
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)
William Bradford (1590-1657)
John Winthrop (1588-1649)
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Rembrandt (1606-1669)
John Milton (1608-1674)
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675)
Charles II (1630-1685) & James II (1633-1701)
Jan Sobieski (1629-1696)
William of Orange (1650-1702)
John Locke (1632-1704)
Johan Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Louis XIV (1638-1715)
Introduction
For the first half of the 16th century, students should read Famous Men of the Renaissance & Reformation (which covers the period from roughly 1350 to 1550). This volume begins with the first generation after the Reformation and the two key figures in England and France. I have chosen to begin with Catherine de’ Medici, (Queen of France from 1536-1559; then Regent & Queen Mother from 1559-1589) and Elizabeth I of England (whose reign began in 1559). These two powerful (and politically skillful) women dominated European dynastic and political affairs for most of the period from 1550 to 1600. And yes, I am aware of the irony of beginning a book titled Famous MEN with the biographies of two women. My hope is that the choice of Elizabeth and Catherine will provide confirmation of my assertion that the use of the phrase “Famous Men” has all along been intended in the generic, inclusive sense. My selection of figures ends with the life of Louis XIV, the Sun King, whose reign defined France from 1650 to his death in 1715.
The eleven chapters on Henry of Navarre, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Gustavus Adophus, Wallenstein, Galileo, Richelieu, Cromwell, Jan Sobieski, William of Orange, and Louis XIV were all originally published in Famous Men of Modern Times by John Haaren and A.B. Poland in 1909. I have taken the liberty of editing (and in some cases, completely re-writing) their work in order to bring it up to date with more recent scholarship and to adapt it to fit with the other 17 chapters in this work.
The Seventeenth Century has been unjustly overlooked in the history books. It was a critical time in the political and intellectual development of the modern world. Textbooks, and most survey courses, seem anxious to race from the Reformation to the French Revolution (only lightly touching on The Armada, Shakespeare and the Pilgrims). Only the English historians, because of the importance of the English civil war, have paid much attention to this period, and often their perspective is parochial and stops at the English Channel. The American historians are worse, seeming to assume that the world began in 1492 and skipping quickly through to the Pilgrims and then rapidly on to George Washington. Jamestown is mostly ignored, because, after all, the South lost the Civil War. It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. The teaching of history has fallen into neglect and disfavor. At the same time, there have been a number of new works of scholarship that have taken thoughtful, balanced, more sophisticated approaches. I have benefited immensely from recent works of scholarship on Bradford and Winthrop by Schmidt and Bremer which have sought to set them firmly in the context of the political and religious developments in their native England. My ability to gather information about the other 28 figures has been enhanced both by recent scholarship and by the increased ease of access to original source material made possible by the internet.
My plan is to follow this volume with three more: Famous Men of the 18th Century, Famous Men of the 19th Century, and Famous Men of the 20th Century. When they are all completed, Greenleaf will have published four books on the ancient world (Israel, Egypt, Greece, & Rome), two on the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, and four on modern times. These will form the backbone of an introduction to the history of Western Civilization suitable for students in grades K-12.
My experience in researching, and writing these biographies has confirmed the wisdom of Wordsworth’s line, “the child is father to the man.” Again and again, as I reviewed and selected details of each biography to retell, I was struck by how much each of these historical figures were shaped by their childhood experiences, especially their experience of father, mother, and siblings. It is, I believe, impossible to understand or make sense of these figures as adults unless you know what kind of childhood, upbringing, and education they had. And so, each of these biographies is weighted towards providing as much of the story of their youth as I could find out.
- Rob Shearer, August 2, 2009
Catherine de’ Medici
Lived from 1519-1589
Queen of France, 1547-1559; Queen mother, 1559-1589
In 1519, Cortez, the great Spanish conquistador, led a small band of mercenary adventurers in the conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico.
In Europe, the young Habsburg prince from Burgundy, Charles, already King of Spain by inheritance from his mother’s parents, Ferdinand & Isabella, was elected Holy Roman Emperor by the seven electors of the Empire, to succeed his grandfather, Maximillian.
All over the Empire (and also in France, England, & Italy) Martin Luther’s writings on the scandal of indulgences were being widely printed and read, and Pope Leo X, irritated and annoyed, was on the brink of excommunicating him.
In Florence, a baby girl named Catherine was born – a new princess in the famous Medici family. Her father, just 27 years old, was Lorenzo II, grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and nephew to the pope. Her mother was a beautiful 17-year-old French aristocrat, Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, Countess of Boulogne. Lorenzo and Madeleine had been married for just a little over a year. A month after the birth of their daughter Catherine, both Lorenzo and Madeleine were dead of the plague.
After the death of her parents, Catherine spent the first eight years of her life growing up in Florence, cared for by her aunts. When her great-uncle, Pope Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici), died, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici became the head of the Medici family. He was elected Pope Clement VII in 1524. In 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence by a popular uprising supported by the rivals of Pope Clement VII. The eight-year-old Catherine was taken hostage and placed in a series of convents. After three anxious years, Pope Clement, with the help of the Emperor Charles V, defeated his rivals and once again Florence was ruled by the Medici. The eleven-year-old Catherine was brought from the convent in Florence to live with her much older cousin, Pope Clement, in Rome.
When she was fourteen, Pope Clement arranged for her marriage to Prince Henry, Duke of Orleans, the second son of King Francis I of France.
Two years later, Prince Henry’s older brother, Francois, caught a chill after a game of tennis, contracted a fever, and died. Catherine’s husband, Prince Henry, was now the heir to the kingdom of France. In 1547, when her father-in-law, King Francis I, died, her husband became the King of France, and she became the Queen.
The France that Henry and Catherine (both now 28 years old) ruled over was bitterly divided over matters of religion. A French scholar, Jean Cauvin (John Calvin), had written an admirable summary of the protestant faith (The Institutes of Christian Religion). It was published in 1536 with a dedication to King Francis I (Catherine’s father-in-law). Francis rejected the appeal contained in the book and ordered Protestants arrested as heretics. Calvin fled France and wound up in Geneva – where he continued to write, preach, and teach French Protestants (also known as Huguenots) who returned to France to lead secret, underground churches.
When Henry became King in 1547, he vowed to rid France of all heretics. He instructed his officials to arrest and punish them, particularly their ministers. The punishment was often burning at the stake or having their tongues cut off for speaking heresies. Even those merely suspected of being Protestants could be imprisoned. The Edict of Chateaubriand (27 June 1551) called upon the civil and ecclesiastical courts to detect and punish all heretics. The Edict also prohibited the sale, importation, or printing of any unapproved book.
It didn’t work. In spite of the persecution by the King the number of Protestants continued to grow.
Henry and Catherine’s family also grew. They had had one son, Francis, before becoming King and Queen. Now they had three more sons (Charles, Henry, & Hercules) and three daughters (Elizabeth, Claude, & Margaret).
After 12 years as King and Queen, Henry and Catherine, each now 40 years old, were in the prime of life. In April of 1559 King Henry II signed a peace treaty with the Holy Roman Empire which brought to an end fifty years of war between the Valois Kings of France and the Habsburg Emperors of Germany (and Kings of Spain). As a part of the treaty, Henry and Catherine betrothed their daughter Elizabeth to King Philip II of Spain. King Philip II (then 32 years old) had been widowed the previous year when his wife, Queen Mary I of England, had died.
There was peace, and there was going to be a wedding. The wedding, in June of 1559, was celebrated with festivities, balls, masques, and five days of jousting. King Henry II took part in the jousting himself. He won his first two matches, but in the third match a young French knight, Gabriel, the Count de Montgomery, a member of the king’s Scottish guard, shattered his lance against the helmet of the King. One of the splinters pierced the king’s eye and entered his brain. He died ten days later.
Catherine was devastated. From that day on, until she died, she wore black in mourning for her husband.
Henry and Catherine’s eldest son became King Francis II at the age of 15. Catherine looked forward to watching him rule as king and assisting him from the background. But this was not to be. Seventeen months after becoming King, Francis II died of an ear infection just before his seventeenth birthday.
Catherine’s next son, Charles, only nine years old, now became King Charles IX of France. Catherine could not stand in the background. She decided she must rule as regent, in her son’s name, and keep France strong until he was old enough to rule on his own.
The biggest problem facing France continued to be the religious division between Catholic and Protestant. The majority of the country had remained Catholic, but there was a significant minority who had embraced the Protestant faith, including a number of influential nobles.
Catherine decided to call for a conference between the bishops of the Catholic Church in France and the leaders of the Huguenots. Six French cardinals and 38 archbishops and bishops attended the conference, held in a convent at Poissy, just outside Paris in September of 1561. The Huguenot delegation was led by Theodore Beza, Calvin’s successor in Geneva. Catherine was actively involved in the proceedings and wished desperately for some agreement which all French Christians could agree to. But the differences between the two sides were too great. After a month of meetings, the conference broke up without any agreement.
Six months later came a shocking incident that triggered 36 years of civil war. In March of 1562, one of the great nobles of France, François, the Duke of Guise, travelling with his troops to his estates, stopped in Vassy and decided to attend Mass. In the town, he found a congregation of Huguenots holding religious services. Outraged, he ordered their minister to stop. The Huguenots, outraged in turn by this rude interruption of their worship, began to throw stones at the Duke. His men then opened fire. When the shooting stopped, over sixty of the Huguenots had been killed and more than two hundred wounded.
The Massacre at Vassy began a civil war between Catholics and Protestants. The Protestants (or Huguenots) were led by a veteran soldier and nobleman, Gaspard de Coligny. He was joined by the young Henry of Navarre. The Catholic party was led by Henry, Duke of Guise – who was the son of that Francois, Duke of Guise who had been responsible for the Massacre at Vassy. Francois had been ambushed and shot outside the city of Orleans by a Protestant soldier.
In 1570, Catherine and her son King Charles realized that eight years of war had accomplished nothing. The kingdom was practically bankrupt and Catherine advised Charles that they must sign a treaty of peace with the Huguenots. The King agreed to allow the Huguenots the liberty to establish their own churches and to worship as they pleased everywhere in France, except the city of Paris. The Huguenots were allowed to keep control of four strong cities and to maintain a garrison of soldiers in each of them as a safeguard against any future conflict. Finally, the Peace of St. Germain proclaimed a general pardon to all who had taken up arms against the king.
Henry of Guise was not happy with the Peace of St. Germain. The Protestants were heretics and had been responsible for the death of his father. He thought that Catherine and King Charles should have continued the war until the Huguenots were defeated and forced to repent of their errors, or sent into exile. When Catherine announced that her youngest daughter Marguerite would marry the Huguenot Henry of Navarre, Henry of Guise left the court in anger and disgust. Both the Pope and King Philip of Spain condemned Catherine for her decision to arrange a marriage between her daughter and a Protestant heretic.
In August of 1572, the marriage of Marguerite of Valois, and Henry of Navarre took place just outside the cathedral of Notre Dame. The wedding could not take place inside the church, because Henry was not a catholic. Many of the Huguenot leaders had come to Paris to help celebrate the wedding. They hoped that this marriage would bring the wars of religion in France to an end.
Three days after the wedding, the veteran soldier Gaspard de Coligny, leader of the Huguenots, was walking back to his rooms from the royal palace when a shot rang out from a house and wounded him in the hand and arm. Coligny was carried back to his rooms, but his physicians soon determined that the wounds were not serious, and he was expected to recover quickly.
It is not clear if Catherine was responsible for the plot to assassinate Coligny. The Guise family were certainly behind it. They may have been supported and assisted by the King of Spain. There is some evidence that Catherine knew about the plot, but did nothing to stop it.
But Catherine was involved in what happened next. She and her son, King Charles IX met to discuss what they should do. The Huguenots were angry and demanding vengeance for the attack on Coligny. The Guise family were angry and wanted to end all toleration for the Protestant heretics. Catherine and Charles made a fateful decision. They would take advantage of the fact that all the Huguenot leaders were still in Paris for the wedding of Henry of Navarre. They would have them all arrested and executed.
The King’s personal guard were given a list of leading Protestants who were to be killed. The signal to begin would be the ringing of the church bells for matins, which occurred early in the morning, shortly after midnight – on the feast of St. Bartholomew.
Catherine brought the Guise family into the plot. When the bells rang, Henry, Duke of Guise was directed to personally supervise the capture and execution of Gaspard de Coligny.
Catherine dispatched further orders to the commander of the militia in Paris to close the city gates and guard all entrances & exits from the city. She also gave orders that her new son-in-law, Henry of Navarre (and his cousin, the Prince de Conde) were to be spared – though their companions should be killed.
Catherine believed perhaps that by killing a hundred or so of the leading Huguenots, she could protect her son the King and remove the threat to his reign by these rebellious heretics. But her terrible decision led quickly to a massacre that killed thousands.
Gaspard de Coligny was killed first. Just after midnight, as the bells rang, the Duke of Guise and his followers arrived at his hotel, broke down the door and trapped him in his rooms on the second floor. He was stabbed repeatedly, and then his body hurled from a second story window into the street where Duke Henry stood waiting. Then the king’s guards began to hunt down the Huguenot nobles in the palace. Henry of Navarre was separated from his followers and friends, and locked in a room. His companions were slaughtered. Not just the men were executed, but entire families of Huguenots perished, including women and children. By dawn there was a large pile of corpses in the courtyard of the Louvre.
The violence quickly spread beyond the attacks on the visiting Huguenot nobles. The militia of Paris began systematically killing Protestants throughout the city. They were joined by large crowds of citizens who attacked the homes of Protestants, drug the terrified inhabitants into the streets, and killed them all. For three days, the killing continued. When it was over, at least 3,000 Protestants had been killed in Paris.
The killing also spread to the other cities and provinces of France. No one, to this day knows how many were killed, but it was certainly many times the number who perished in Paris.
Protestants outside France were outraged and aghast. Queen Elizabeth of England was concerned that the actions of the King of France might be the beginning of a plot to kill Protestants all over Europe.
In France, civil war broke out again. The Huguenots were besieged in their chief cities of Sommieres and La Rochelle. For a year the siege continued, but neither side could gain an advantage. Finally, a truce was signed. The exhausted Huguenots were forced to give up their right to have their own churches. They were now restricted to worshipping publicly only in La Rochelle and two other smaller cities. But Catherine and Charles agreed that they were otherwise to be left alone.
Within a few months however, King Charles IX, never strong, weakened and died. He was only 23. He had been king for thirteen years. During most of his reign, Catherine de’ Medici had been the real power in France. She had controlled the king’s council. She had issued the orders which had gone out in his name. Even when he was declared old enough to rule on his own, she continued to control the kingdom.
Catherine had now buried a husband, and two of her four sons. Her third son, Henry now became King Henry III. He was 22 years old. Catherine was determined that he would be a strong King. Henry was determined to be his own master. Though he kept many of Catherine’s advisors as his own, he wanted to rule in his own name.
During the first ten years of Henry’s reign there were three outbreaks of civil war between Protestant and Catholic. By most historians, these are called the Fifth War (1575-76), the Sixth War (1576-1577), and the Seventh War (1579-1580) in the French “Wars of Religion.” Each of them involved fighting between the three factions in France: The French Protestants (known as the Huguenots), the Catholic League (an alliance of French nobles led by Henry, Duke of Guise), and the forces loyal to King Henry III. The Huguenots were supported by Protestant England and some of the Protestant princes in Germany. The Catholic League was supported by King Philip II of Spain and by the Pope. The French King was often in command of fewer resources, and fewer soldiers than either of the two rival parties.
Catherine did all she could to support her son, King Henry III. He married a princess from Lorraine, (named Louise), a year after becoming King. Unless he had a son, however, the next person in the line of succession would be Henry’s younger brother, Catherine’s fourth and youngest son, Hercule François, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, usually called Alençon.
In 1579, when Alençon was 24, Catherine made inquiries as to whether Queen Elizabeth of England would consider him as a suitor for her hand in marriage. The response from Queen Elizabeth was encouraging and the young man departed for England to court the 46-year-old virgin Queen. Elizabeth and Alençon quickly became friends and she seemed to be seriously considering giving her consent to marry him. But Elizabeth’s advisors were very much opposed. They objected to Alençon’s religion (Catholic), his nationality (French), and his mother (Catherine de’ Medici) – whom most Englishmen believed was a terribly wicked woman, personally responsible for the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. After two years in which Elizabeth expressed her affection to Alençon, but her reservations about marrying him, Alençon finally gave up and left. He was the only foreign suitor who had ever come to court her in person.
Alençon left for the Netherlands, where William the Silent had invited him to become the hereditary ruler of the United Provinces. The Spanish King Philip had inherited the territory from his father, Charles V, but had been unsuccessfully attempting to put down revolt and heresy for ten years. Alençon’s first action was to attempt to occupy Antwerp, the largest city of the seventeen provinces. It had been sacked by Spanish troops in 1576, but they had been withdrawn. However, the citizens of Antwerp were just as opposed to French troops as they were to Spanish.
On January 17 1583, Alençon asked to be permitted to enter the city and to honor them with a parade. As soon as the troops entered the city, the gates were slammed shut behind them. The French troops were trapped and began to be bombarded from windows and rooftops with stones, rocks, logs and even heavy chains. The city's garrison then opened a deadly, point-blank fire. Only a few Frenchmen, including the Alençon, escaped. Over 1500 troops perished, many of them hacked to death by the enraged citizens of Antwerp.
Alençon now fell ill with malaria. He was brought back to Paris, where his mother despaired over the prospect of burying another of her sons. In spite of her efforts to nurse him back to health, he died in February of 1584.
The situation in France now became grave for Catherine and her only surviving son, King Henry III. Henry and his wife had been married for nine years, but had no children. With the death of Alençon, the new heir to the throne was a distant cousin of Catherine’s dead husband Henry II, none other than Henry of Navarre, the leader of the French Huguenots.
Henry, Duke of Guise was furious at the prospect of a protestant king of France. He was determined that such a catastrophe could not be permitted to happen. He sought the support of the King of Spain, Philip II, who signed a secret treaty with Duke Henry, promising to support him with money and troops to fight against the heretic Protestants.
Thus began the war of the three Henrys: Henry of Valois, King of France; Henry Duke of Guise, leader of the Catholic League; and Henry of Navarre, leader of the Huguenots. This was the eighth and final war in the French wars of religion.
When King Henry III recognized Henry of Navarre as his heir, Duke Henry of Guise resolved to overthrow the King. In the summer of 1588, with the support of the Spanish, Duke Henry organized a popular uprising in Paris. The King issued orders forbidding Duke Henry from entering the city, but the Duke defied the King. King Henry, with his troops outnumbered, sent for his mother, Catherine and implored her to intervene and persuade Duke Henry to withdraw his troops. Catherine’s appeal was rejected by the Duke. King Henry was forced to sign a humiliating agreement in which he promised never to conclude a truce or peace with the "heretics", to forbid public office to any who would not take a public oath that they were a Catholic and never to leave the throne to a prince who was not Catholic.
King Henry was humiliated, but he swore he would have his revenge. Five months later, when Duke Henry paid a visit to the King at his castle of Blois, the King summoned him, alone, to a private visit. When the Duke entered the King’s rooms, nine of his guards leapt from behind the curtains and killed the Duke. The next day, they killed his brother, the Cardinal of Guise.
King Henry went to see his mother and proudly announced what he had done. “At last, I am truly King of France again.” Catherine is said to have replied, “God grant that you do not become king of nothing at all.”
One month later, Catherine died, at the age of sixty-nine. Born in Florence, brought up in Rome, a princess at the court in Paris, she had been Queen at twenty-eight, and then widowed at forty. She had buried three of her four sons and two of her three daughters. Three of her sons had been crowned kings of France. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth had married the King of Spain, but died when she was twenty-three. Her second daughter, Claude had married the Duke of Lorraine, but had died in 1575 at the age of twenty-eight. Only her son Henry III and her daughter Marguerite, married to Henry of Navarre, survived her.
Catherine’s life can only be described as tragic. She was a woman of great ability and had great ambitions for her husband and her children. But on more than one occasion she chose to order the murder of her enemies. Her reputation will forever be stained with the responsibility for the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. At her death, all that she had worked for seemed to be slipping away.
Henry of Navarre
Born in 1553, King Henry IV of France from 1589 - 1610
In the year 1569 the Catholics of France and the Huguenots had been engaged in a bitter and bloody war for seven years. Although religion played a great part in the war it was just as much about the rivalries between the great nobles of France.
In the early summer of that year the Catholics won a great victory near the town of Jarnac. Among those who fell in the battle was the great Protestant leader, Louis, Prince of Condé.
The remnant of the Protestant army lay in camp near the castle of Cognac. They were sad and dispirited. Suddenly trumpets and drums were heard in the distance. A sentry announced that a band of soldiers was approaching. It was soon learned that they were allies not enemies. The defeated Protestants were very glad to see them.
They proved to be the escort of Jeanne d'Albert, Queen of Bearn, a little kingdom in the extreme southwest of France. As soon as she had heard of the death of Condé she had hastened to the Protestant camp.
The army was drawn up to receive her. Stepping forward, and holding her son by the hand, she said, "My friends, our cause has not died with the Prince of Condé. We have still left us brave captains. I offer to you as leader, Condé's nephew, my son, the Prince of Navarre."
With loud shouts of "Long live Henry, the Prince of Navarre," the soldiers at once elected him as their commander-in-chief.
Prince Henry was the son of Anthony of Bourbon and Queen Jeanne. He was born in 1553, and therefore was but sixteen years old when called to fill this high position. He was too young to lead the troops in battle; but he was ready to learn how to do so. The brave Gaspard de’ Coligny agreed to instruct him, and to command the Protestant forces until he was able to do so.
Henry was a sturdy and well-grown lad. His life had been a simple one. His principal food had been the brown bread, the chestnuts, and such other plain fare as was eaten by the peasant boys who lived among the mountains of his mother's kingdom. He would have been glad to go out to battle at once; but the wise Coligny would not permit him.
Henry was very fond of reading. His favorite books were those containing the stories of the great conquerors of former times. He also read, many times over, the story of the good knight Bayard—the knight without fear and without reproach—who had lived not very long before.
When not yet twenty years old, Henry was married to Marguerite of Valois, sister of the king of France. The king’s family, especially his mother Catherine de’ Medici, hoped that this marriage would bring peace to the country. Many of the Huguenot leaders, and their families had come to Paris to attend the wedding. But a few days after the wedding, shortly after midnight, in the early morning hours of August 24, the great bell on the Palace of Justice awakened the people of Paris. This was a signal, and the soldiers of the Catholic party now began to attack the Huguenots. They were forced from the inns and mansions where they had been staying and murdered in the streets. When news of this massacre reached other French cities similar attacks were made and a great many Protestants were slain. The number has been variously estimated, some authorities stating that several thousand in all were killed, others that the number reached a hundred thousand. This was called the massacre of St. Bartholomew, because it happened on St. Bartholomew's Day.
The young Prince Henry was spared, but many of his friends were killed. He was afterwards kept a prisoner in the king's palace for nearly four years. Then he escaped and again became the leader of the Huguenots.
He was so anxious for the restoration of peace that he sent to Henry, the Duke of Guise, who commanded the Catholic army, this challenge: "I offer to end the quarrel. Either I will fight with you alone, or two on our side will fight with two on yours, or ten with ten, or whatever number you please; so as to stop the shedding of blood and the misery of the poor." But the duke would not accept the challenge, and the war went on.
Henry III, King of France, was a very weak and foolish man. So the Duke of Guise determined to dethrone him and make himself king. After the Duke seized control of Paris and many other parts of the country, King Henry summoned the Duke to his chambers where members of his bodyguard murdered the duke. Afterwards, the king said to his mother, who was very ill: "How do you feel?" "Better," she answered. "So do I," said the king. "This morning I have become king of France again. The king of Paris is dead."
The friends of the murdered duke at once took up arms against King Henry; and the Sorbonne—the great religious authority in Paris—declared that the people were no longer bound to obey him. Then King Henry III turned for help to his cousin, Henry of Navarre. They agreed to fight side by side against those who had revolted; and many of the Catholics joined with the Huguenots in order to bring about peace.
The Catholic rebels attacked King Henry near the city of Tours; but the Prince of Navarre marched to his aid, and the rebels left the field in great haste. As the Catholic rebels had failed to conquer the French king in battle, they determined to have him murdered. They found a man to carry out their plot. One morning, he gained admission to the king's presence by saying that he desired to see him on important business. As soon as they were left alone, the murderer handed Henry a letter. While the king was reading it, he drew a knife from his sleeve and plunged it into his body.
A messenger was sent in haste to tell Henry of Navarre. As he entered the king's room the tears gushed from his eyes, and he kissed the dying man with great tenderness. Many of the nobility of France had, by this time, come in to see their dying ruler. King Henry begged them to acknowledge Henry of Navarre as his lawful successor. All present agreed to do so. So the Prince of Navarre became king of France, with the title of Henry IV.
The Catholic rebels were not satisfied with this arrangement, since the law of the kingdom declared that no man could be king unless he were a Catholic. They demanded that Cardinal de Bourbon, Henry's uncle, should be made king with the title of Charles X.
Preparations were made for a great battle near the town of Arques. During the night the forces of the new king had dug trenches and thrown up earthworks so as to give them a greater advantage over the enemy. Next morning a rebel sentry, who had been captured during the night, was brought before him. As they talked together the man said, "We are about to attack you with thirty thousand foot and ten thousand horse. Where are your forces?"
"Oh," said the king, "you do not see them all. You do not count the good God and the good right; but they are ever with me."
A bloody battle followed, in which the king gained a wonderful victory. Soon after this he was joined by a body of English and Scotch soldiers sent him by Queen Elizabeth of England. His army was thus increased to over ten thousand men.
Then followed the famous battle of Ivry, in which the cannon, the colors, and nearly all the supplies of the Catholic rebels fell into the king's hands. On the rebel side the loss in killed, wounded and captured was over eleven thousand, while the king lost but five hundred men.
Very soon after the battle of Ivry, Cardinal de Bourbon died. At about the same time the king laid siege to Paris which was still in the hands of the enemy.
Before closing up all the avenues of approach to Paris he wrote a letter to the governor of the city, in which he said: "I am anxious for peace. I love my city of Paris. She is my eldest daughter, and I wish to do her more favors than she asks." But it was all in vain, and the siege went on.
King Henry's army prevented the carrying of food into the city, and the people soon began to suffer. Bread gave out and the people were glad to eat rats, cats, dogs, horses, or anything else they could find to prevent starvation.
King Henry could not bear to hear of the suffering in Paris. He relaxed the siege and allowed the women and children to leave the city. He even permitted supplies to pass through his lines to relieve the besieged, saying, as he did so, "I do not wish to be king of the dead."
But just as Paris was on the point of surrendering, the Duke of Parma, one of the ablest generals in the service of King Philip II of Spain, arrived with a large Spanish army and compelled Henry to raise the siege.
The king now felt that the only way in which he could give peace to his people was by uniting himself with the Catholic Church. At eight o'clock on the morning of July 23, 1593, robed in white satin, he marched with a bodyguard of soldiers to the church of St. Denis, near Paris. At the door of the church he was met by a cardinal, an archbishop, nine bishops and large numbers of clergy and monks.
"Who are you?" asked the archbishop.
"The king," replied Henry.
"What do you wish?" was the archbishop's next inquiry.
To this the king replied, "To be received into the Catholic Church." Then the king knelt and declared his belief, after which the archbishop forgave and then formally received him.
After this ceremony Henry was anointed at Chartres, and thus declared sovereign of the whole kingdom. Henry's great desire now was to make his people prosperous. He once said "I wish every peasant in France to have a fowl in the pot every Sunday."
To end all further wars about religion, he signed and published the famous Edict of Nantes, in 1598. This royal decree gave the Protestants equal rights with the Catholics. The government agreed to pay the salaries of their clergy as well as those of the Catholics. Protestant children were allowed to enter the universities and colleges; their sick were received into the hospitals. The two great religious parties of the nation were placed upon a common footing.
The last years of King Henry IV were years of peace and prosperity. The farmers and trades-people were happy. The heavy debt which had lain for so many years upon France was entirely removed. The taxes were reduced to a rate lower than ever before.
In the midst of this growing sense of security and comfort all France was suddenly shocked and distressed beyond measure. A madman, by the name of Ravaillac, stabbed the king to the heart; and the career of the noble and generous Henry of Navarre was at an end.
Queen Elizabeth I
Born in 1533, Queen from 1558-1603
Queen Elizabeth I is one of the most admired of all the rulers of England. During her long reign she avoided the religious civil wars which were raging in France and brewing in Germany. She skillfully navigated the contentious rivalries of the French, the Germans, the Spanish, and the Dutch and (with one or two exceptions) kept England from becoming involved in a war with any of them. The one serious military threat of her rule – the attempted invasion by Spain in 1588 - ended with the miraculous scattering of the great Spanish fleet (the Armada) by her own small ships and nimble sailors and then by the providence of storms at sea.
During her reign, literature and the arts flourished in England. Scholars call it the Elizabethan Renaissance. During her last years, London and the court were dazzled by the plays of William Shakespeare. She had three or four serious suitors – among them two English noblemen and a French prince. But in the end, she would not consent to marry any of them. She left no heir to the throne. And yet remarkably, the succession in 1603 from Elizabeth to her cousin James, the King of Scotland was peaceful.
We know now that she ruled for 45 years. No one in her youth could have foreseen it. She was born in 1533. Her father was King Henry VIII. Her mother was Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife. At the time of her birth, she became the heir to the throne. Her older half-sister Mary had been removed from the line of succession when Henry had his first marriage annulled. Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, was pregnant again in 1534 and in 1536, but had miscarriages both times. When Elizabeth was two-and-a-half, Henry became convinced that Queen Anne Boleyn had betrayed him. Anne was tried, convicted, and executed in May of 1536. Elizabeth was declared to be illegitimate and deprived of the title of princess. But her father did not send her away from court. Instead, she was brought up at the palace alongside her younger half-brother Edward, born when she was four. She was given an excellent education. By the time she was eleven, she could read and write English, Latin, and Italian. By the time she was seventeen, she was also fluent in French and Greek. In many ways, she was the best educated woman of her generation.
But though her father was King Henry VIII, it now seemed unlikely that she would ever be Queen. Henry VIII had three living children at the time he died in 1547. In his will he specified that he should succeeded by his son Edward, then nine years old, followed by his oldest daughter Mary (then 31) , if Edward should have no heir. And if Edward and Mary should both die without heirs, then and only then would his youngest daughter, Elizabeth (age 14) become Queen.
Edward ruled for six years, and then died in 1553, three months before what would have been his sixteenth birthday. Edward had followed the lead of the nobles who dominated the Regency Council; first Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and then John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. On religious matters, he was advised by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and authorized the continuation of the Protestant Reformation of the Church of England begun by his father.
When Edward died, his older half-sister Mary became Queen. She had both the Duke of Northumberland and Archbishop Cranmer executed for treason and heresy. She restored the relationship between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Those who stubbornly persisted in holding protestant views were persecuted and often executed, including four protestant bishops: Hooper, Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer.
Shortly after becoming Queen, Mary accepted a marriage proposal from Prince Philip of Spain, the son of the German Emperor Charles V. They were married in July of 1554. Philip stayed in England for only about a year and then left for Spain. Though he returned for a brief visit in 1557, they had no children. The marriage was very unpopular in England. Many of the nobles grumbled that Mary should have married an Englishman. When plans for the marriage were announced, there was a brief rebellion in Kent. Mary’s advisors suspected Elizabeth of having conspired with the rebels, and she was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London for two months. Then she was moved to a residence in Woodstock, near Oxford, where she was kept under house arrest for nearly a year.
In April of 1555, Mary announced she was pregnant. Elizabeth was recalled to court. If Mary and her child died, Elizabeth would become queen. If, on the other hand, Mary gave birth to a healthy child, Elizabeth's chances of becoming queen would become remote. But Mary was not pregnant. It now became clear to everyone that she was unlikely to have any children at all. Although Mary was not old, (she was just 39) she was not in good health. More and more, everyone in England now began to believe that Elizabeth would soon be Queen.
By the summer of 1558, it was known that Mary’s health was failing. In November, she officially designated Elizabeth as her heir. Eleven days later she died. Two members of the Privy Council traveled to Elizabeth’s residence in Hatfield to tell her the news. When they knelt in her presence and proclaimed her Queen Elizabeth, she was speechless. Then she knelt in prayer herself and quoted Psalm 118, verse 23: “This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
Queen Elizabeth was 25 when she became queen. She had grown up at the court of Henry VIII. She had seen the intrigues which swirled through the palace during the brief reign of her younger brother Edward. Though she had kept her own counsel, she had been imprisoned and suspected of treason by her older sister, Mary. Now she was Queen. Her first task was to settle the strife over religion which threatened the peace of her kingdom. Then she must seek to defend England, small and relatively weak, from the ambitions of the King of Spain, the King of France, and the German Emperor. And she must deal with the question of who would be her heir and successor. Unlike Edward and Mary, she had no other siblings who were obvious heirs.
To settle the question of religion, Elizabeth and her advisors submitted bills to Parliament which reaffirmed the independence of the English church from the Bishop of Rome, and named the Queen as the “Supreme Governor” of the English church – a slight alteration from the title claimed by her father as “Supreme Head” of the English church. The bills also revived and re-enacted the reforms of the English church which had been made by the martyred Archbishop Cranmer and by her younger brother Edward. Cranmer’s Prayer Book became the official and only authorized liturgy of the English church once again.
The religious reforms were greeted with relief by many. Those of the clergy who remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church resigned their positions or were removed. But none were executed. Those who thought that Elizabeth’s reforms did not go far enough were at least relieved that the persecution of Protestants and the revival of the Catholic Church in England had been brought to an end. Many of the leading Protestants who had gone into exile, to Lutheran German cities or to Calvinist Geneva, returned and hoped for a more far-reaching reformation of the church in England. In particular, many of them wanted to do away with bishops and implement congregational appointment of ministers. They continued to oppose many of the forms of the Roman Catholic worship service which Elizabeth’s reforms left unchanged. In time, those who wanted a more thorough-going reformation, who wanted to complete the purification of the English church, came to be known as Puritans. But for now, they were a small minority. Elizabeth’s reforms were favored overwhelmingly.
Elizabeth was cautious in her dealings with the other great powers of Europe. She turned down an offer of marriage from her former brother-in-law, the King of Spain – though she did so politely. She quietly offered her support (in the form of money and supplies) to the Protestants in the Netherlands (who were fighting for independence from Catholic Spain) and to the Protestants in France (who were fighting for their existence). Although she briefly sent a small force to the French channel port of Le Havre to assist the French Huguenots, she was much chastened when her small force was defeated and forced to evacuate. She remained ever after very cautious about sending English troops on any foreign expeditions.
In 1567, the Protestant nobles in Scotland overthrew their catholic queen, Mary and she fled to England, where she asked for (and received) a safe haven from Elizabeth. Although Elizabeth protected her from her Scottish enemies, she would not allow Mary to use England as a base to regain her throne.
During the 1560’s as Elizabeth celebrated her 27th, then 28th, then 29th, and then her 30th birthday, her advisors (and even occasionally, Parliament – much to her annoyance) continued to urge her to decide on a husband, so that she could marry and have children and be able to designate a young prince as heir to the throne. She continued to rebuff them. She was very close to one of her oldest friends, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and may have had romantic feelings for him. They were almost exactly the same age and had known each other since childhood. But when she was crowned Queen he was already married. It did not help matters any when Dudley’s wife was found dead, with a broken neck, at the foot of a shallow flight of stairs in 1560. Although she briefly considered marrying Dudley, Elizabeth seems to have realized that such a marriage would have provoked outrage and controversy. Nevertheless, they remained close. The only breach in their friendship came in 1573, when he re-married without giving Elizabeth any advance notice. Elizabeth banished him from court and it was years before she allowed him to return.
Robert Dudley
In 1585, Elizabeth appointed Dudley to command an English army she was dispatching to aid the Dutch Protestants in their protracted attempt to win independence from Spain. He and his small force proved unable to do much of assistance, and were defeated in their one battle with Spanish forces. He returned to England, and during the summer of 1588 as England anxiously prepared for the invasion forces carried by the Spanish armada, Elizabeth placed him in overall command of the troops along the coast of the English Channel. The armada was defeated in the channel and the Spanish troops never landed. Dudley died a month later. He was 55. Elizabeth was distraught when she was told that her friend had died. She had recently received a letter that he had sent her only days before his death, and she now wrote on it "His Last letter." She put it in her treasure box, and it was still there when she died 15 years later.
After she had decided against marrying Dudley in the late 1560’s, Elizabeth kept her own counsel about who she would marry and discouraged those around her from even bringing the subject up. And then, in 1579 she received a message from Catherine de’ Medici, the Queen mother in France. Catherine had been widowed in 1559, the same year that Elizabeth had been crowned. Two of her sons had become Kings of France and died after ruling for only a few short years. Her third son, Henry had been King of France for five years now. Her fourth son, Hercules Francois, the Duke of Alençon was 24 and she was seeking to arrange a marriage for him. Elizabeth was flattered, and though she was now 46, she took the suggestion seriously.
The Duke of Alencon, Elizabeth’s “little frog”
The Duke of Alençon was invited to visit England so that he and Queen Elizabeth might become better acquainted. He was the only one of her many foreign suitors who came to court her in person. She seems to have taken a liking to him, and did not discourage his suit. But as his visit stretched on, her advisors became more and more vocal in their opposition to the proposed match. He was Catholic. He was French. His mother was Catherine de’ Medici, who had plotted the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of French Protestants! At last, Elizabeth was forced to concede that the proposed marriage would be unwise. But she did like her “little frog,” as she playfully called him. He, in turn, gave her a frog-shaped earring which she often wore. When he left England in 1581, she wrote a poem, entitled “On Monsieur’s Departure,”
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.
The Duke of Alençon departed England for the Netherlands. There he took command of French troops on an expedition to help the Dutch Protestants in their rebellion from Spain. He did this not from any personal religious sympathy for the Protestant faith, but because Spain was the great rival and enemy of France. His expedition, as you have already read, ended in failure and he died shortly thereafter. At about the same time, the Dutch nobleman who had led the revolt for seventeen years, William of Orange, was assassinated. The Spanish general in the Netherlands, the Duke of Parma moved rapidly and occupied a number of key Dutch cities. The Dutch sent ambassadors to England begging Elizabeth to send help. Her advisors thought she should give it. If the Dutch were defeated, then the threat of a Spanish invasion of England would be large. As a result, Elizabeth sent a small military force under the command of one of her former suitors, Robert Dudley. The active intervention of the English in the Dutch rebellion, in turn, provoked Philip II to launch an invasion to conquer England with Spanish troops – for he had become convinced that his armies would never defeat the Dutch Protestants so long as the English continued to support them. Philip was also annoyed by the repeated attacks by English privateers on Spanish ships and possessions in the new world and against the annual Atlantic treasure fleets.
Relations between England and Spain had also been soured by the discovery of a plot by a group of English Catholic noblemen to assassinate Elizabeth, free Mary of Scotland from her “house arrest” in northern England and proclaim her the true Queen. The plotters wrote letters to Mary in which they assured her that King Philip of Spain had promised to send troops to support the plot. Fifteen noblemen were tried and executed. Mary of Scotland was also tried, found guilty and condemned to death. Elizabeth hesitated before giving her consent to Mary’s execution, but in the end she did so and Mary was beheaded in February of 1587.
Thus, the stage was set for the great Spanish Armada and the Spanish attempt to conquer England of 1588. Philip assembled a fleet of 130 ships, 8,000 sailors, and 18,000 soldiers. The plan was for this fleet to rendezvous with an additional 30,000 soldiers under the command of the Duke of Parma in the Netherlands and ferry them across the channel for a quick and overwhelming march on London.
The English ships were smaller than the Spanish galleons, but there were more of them – and they were faster. They repeatedly sailed in close to the Spanish galleons, fired their guns, and then darted away before the Spanish could close on them and board them. After five days of fighting in the channel, the Spanish were tired and frustrated. They attempted to regroup off the port of Calais, but during the night the English took their oldest ships, set them on fire and released them where the wind would carry them into the anchored ships of the Armada. Many of the Spanish captains panicked and cut their anchor cables, sailing away from the fireships as quickly as they could. The next day the English resumed their attacks and the Armada was slowly forced into the North Sea and up the coast of England – away from the Dutch coast where the Duke of Parma’s army waited. The Spanish abandoned their invasion plans and attempted to sail around the northern coasts of Scotland and Ireland and return to Spain. Half the ships were wrecked by storms and the treacherous rocks and reefs along the coast. In the end, only 54 of the 130 ships made it back to Spain.
Both Elizabeth and the English took the defeat of the Armada as a symbol of God’s favor and an elaborate thanksgiving service was conducted at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. There were also commemorative medals struck, including one playful one with the inscription “veni, vidi, fugit” (he came, he saw, he fled).
Elizabeth continued to reign for fifteen more years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The victory had stirred the population in England. They were now more fervently patriotic and Protestant – and they loved their Queen. It was in the last years of her reign that William Shakespeare appeared on the scene and began his twenty year career, writing a series of plays that charmed and dazzled audiences and celebrated the history and virtues of England.
In 1594, the Irish rebelled against English rule and English settlements. The rebellion was led by an Irish clan leader, Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone. He was joined by the leader of the O’Donnell clan, known as “Red Hugh.” At first, the rebellion did not seem serious to the English noblemen who had settled in Ireland, but the rebels gathered strength and support and their army grew rapidly in size.
After the Irish rebels had defeated the English in several battles, Elizabeth sent her court favorite, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex in command of an army of 17,000 men to put an end to the rebellion. Essex did not prove to be much of a military commander. He suffered a series of embarrassing defeats and eventually negotiated a truce with Hugh O’Neill and the Irish rebels, without seeking the Queen’s leave to do so. Then, to defend his actions, he left his post in Ireland and returned to London to seek an audience with the Queen. Although the Queen had expressly forbidden him to return, he presented himself in her bedchamber one morning at Nonsuch Palace and begged her forgiveness and favor. Although Elizabeth liked him, she was much annoyed at his behavior. She dismissed him and ordered him placed under house arrest until the Privy Council could decide what to do.
Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex