Antoine de Bourbon

Antione de Bourbon, King of Navarre, but not France:

Welcome back. Thank you for understanding while I took a break. I needed some time to catch up on things after my husband recovered from the flu. I have also messed up my timing around my daughter’s school holidays, thankfully she will let me record. Patrons I’m sorry about the delay with Marguerite of Angouleme, her episode is up now. Just a heads up for anything who prefers listening on YouTube, I have started uploading episodes onto YouTube! If I’ve done things correctly they should be set as a playlist. This has also motivated me to rerecord the first miniseries since my sound quality was questionable then. I’ll start doing that over my Christmas holiday. I do have one small requests, if you are a YouTube user would you please visit the show’s page and subscribe, it would mean so much and help the channel grow. Oh, and before I forget to tell you I have recently done two guest spots with Battle Royale as part of their Regency Madness series covering the regents of Charles VI of France. For my first episode I covered Louis II of Bourbon and Ben covered John of Berry. For my second visit I covered Charles of Orleans and Ben covered John Duke of Bedford. I hope you will all give those and the other Battle Royale episodes a listen. I’ll be including links in the show notes. Okay, and one more thing. After this episode, the one coming out next week, will be about the French Wars of Religion, because it sets up the next two Passed well. After that episode I’ll be covering Antoine’s brother, Charles, Archbishop of Rouen, Cardinal Bourbon, sometimes known as Charles X, and then and episode about Isabella Clara Eugenia. Patrons in the heir apparent and usurped tiers will get an episode about Catherine de’Medici, so I hope you’re all looking forward to that. And don’t forget, I will be doing an episode or two or three about Charles of Valois, because I totally forgot him while planning this series, yet, again, please don’t poison me Charles. As for sources on Antoine, well, there isn’t a proper biography of him in English, so I have so many minor sources. I’ll include them all in my show notes, like many of my subjects I have to look through the biographies of others to find information about my subject. Finally before getting to Antoine, I have so many sources for this episode because, well, Antoine doesn’t have a biography and he’s kind of a side character in the story of many main characters, so here were go, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France by Kathleen Wellman, The Age of Catherine de Medici by J.E. Neale, Frederic J Baumgartner’s Radical Reactionaries: the political thought of the French catholic league, and two books called the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, one by Barbara B. Diefendorf, and the other by Arlette Jouanna. Okay, now onto Antoine.

Antoine de Bourbon, eventually King of Navarre juri ux oris, was well, to put it honestly, rather unimportant when he was born on the 22nd of April 1518, at least in terms of French royalty. In addition to his own father, Charles IV de Bourbon, who was only the Duke of Vendome at the time, he was also behind Charles III de Bourbon, who was the actual duke and only 25 and married. Oh, and then in front of them was Charles of Alencon, who was married to Marguerite of Angouleme, and Antoine’s uncle via his mother. And then finally Francis, son of Francis I, who was two months older than him. So, that’s three healthy men who could have their own sons, plus, the king, Francis would have two further sons. There is no way that in 1518 anyone would have thought Antoine would have come one musket shot and twenty years away from being king or imagine that his oldest son would actually rule. Of course, we can never see the future and no one in the past could either. 

(If you hear this you are listening to an AI stolen copy of this Passed episode. Please visit passedpod.com for links to this show by it’s creator, Veronica Fortune)

Antoine, was, as I mentioned, the son of Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome and Francoise of Alencon. This meant at the time of his birth his aunt, by marriage, was Marguerite of Angouleme. Antoine was the second son, but his older brother, Louis, died before his second birthday. His parents had a total of 13 children, including Antoine’s four brothers who survived to adulthood. I’m actually even more impressed to report that Antoine’s parents only lost two children before the age of twenty. Oh, and his mother actually had two older children from her first marriage, yes, she gave birth 15 times and lived about 18 years after her final birth, she was actually 42 when she had her youngest child. Sorry, totally distracted by Antoine’s mother, she must have been so tired. Antoine, and his father, were descended from a junior branch of Robert, Count of Clermont, the youngest son of Louis IX, Saint Louis. I have included a family tree screen recording that shows how much work it takes to get here, a lot of people failed to have sons for this to happen. 

A quick bit about Antoine’s father, since his life sets his son up to have an excellent future. Charles had been elevated to the dukedom of Vendome, the first to hold the title, by Louis XII. I can’t find the precise reason, but I assume he helped Louis in his Italian campaigns. He had previously been the Count of Vendome, which had been a title held by the junior line of the Bourbons. Not long before Antoine’s birth his father, had been appointed to Francis’ council. In 1525 he was one of the few high ranking men to avoid capture, and unlike his brother-in-law, Charles of Alencon, he wasn’t accused of cowardice. Due to Francis being captured after the Battle of Pavia, and Alencon’s disgrace, Charles was appointed to lead the council. He, of course, approved of Louise of Savoy’s management of the country. Don’t forget, if you’re looking up the Battle of Pavia, there are two Charles de Bourbons at the battle, one on the French side, this one, and one on the Imperial side, the son-in-law of Anne of France. The one on the Imperial side was a traitor, and would eventually be posthumously stripped of his lands and title. Now, when the traitorous Charles de Bourbon switched sides the Bourbon title should have gone to Antoine’s father, but, it didn’t. Due to the traitors treason it couldn’t be inherited by the junior line, and we know the traitor was posthumously attainted, or the French equivalent. Despite not holding the title Duke of Bourbon the family’s name was Bourbon (though remember, they’re all Capet). 

(If you hear this you are listening to an AI stolen copy of this Passed episode. Please visit passedpod.com for links to this show by it’s creator, Veronica Fortune)

Not long after the Battle of Pavia Charles of Alencon died, when combined with the treasonous Charles this moved the junior Bourbon line to the front of the line. While in theory the treasonous Charles was next in line until his death in 1527 I feel like there was no chance the leaders of France would have welcomed him back. So, let’s just go with 1525 as the year Charles, Antoine’s father, became the next in line after the king’s three sons. While searching online I find a lot of statements that Antoine’s branch of the Bourbon dynasty was disgraced due to the traitorous Charles’ treachery, but based on Antoine’s father’s position I think this is more mild that implied. Plus, this junior line of the Bourbon family was basically not related to the treacherous line (other than the fact that everyone is related, but really, these are two of the least related-related lines). While this moment may not have made things super difficult for Antoine someone much closer to him will make his life very difficult later. 

(As I mentioned earlier, I will be doing an episode about the French Wars of Religion, but I think I should quickly talk about politics, which will include a bit of religion. In general the Parliament of Paris, the oldest Parliament in France, is often the most conservative of the various Parliaments in France. Also, Henri II is not exactly my favourite French king, he was a bit too conservative for my liking, but I want to give him a shout out for his initiating of patent law in France! Honestly, I’m all about making sure the people who invent things receive, reasonable, exclusive rights to their invention for a reasonable amount of time.) I might remove this. 

Okay, back to Antoine. His father’s closeness to the crown, as in being close to Francis and supporting Louise during Francis’ captivity, meant that when Antoine became the Duke of Vendome when Charles died in 1537 at the age of 47. Antoine was only 19, this also made him the premier prince du sang. His mother, Francis, hadn’t received the Alencon family inheritance due to Marguerite of Angouleme, also known as Marguerite of Navarre, taking it after Marguerite’s first husband’s death, in 1525. Who was Marguerite’s first husband, and why did she get away with this? Well, her first husband was Charles of Alencon, the disgraced former premier prince du sang. And as mentioned earlier, Charles of Alencon was the brother-in-law of Francis, which means that Marguerite was the sister of the king. The king had basically dispossessed the Alencon family for his sister’s benefit. But, as chance would have it this means that in the long run the family properties and titles came back through Antoine, because everyone is related. Marguerite’s only surviving child, Jeanne, had been married to William, Duke of Cleves in June 1541. This marriage was never consummated, and the bride protested it both verbally, physical (she literally refused to walk to the alter), and by writing. Their marriage was annulled four years later in 1545. Antoine married Jeanne in 1548, apparently Jeanne was rather enamoured with Antoine. They had known each other as children, at the time of their marriage Antoine was 30 and Jeanne was 20. Jeanne’s parents hadn’t actually supported this wedding because they wanted her to marry Philip, the future Philip II of Spain, and Antoine just wasn’t good enough. When Marguerite of Navarre died in December 1549 her Alencon holdings would have gone to Jeanne, and therefore to Antoine and their heirs. 

Now, patrons in the heir apparent and usurped tiers already know a bit about Jeanne and a bit more about her mother, Marguerite, from the latter’s recent special episode. Please come see us on Patreon if you’re interested in hearing special episodes. Marguerite had been a known Catholic reformer, I phrase this carefully because by all account Marguerite was Catholic, thought the pope was the head of the church, and probably most importantly, accepted transubstantiation (the idea that the bread and wine of communion are literally changed into the body and blood of Christ and not metaphorically those). Despite this Marguerite also believed that scripture should be read and readable by all, meaning translated into the vernacular, that corrupt monastic houses should be reformed, and priest and theologians should be held to a higher standard. Jeanne’s father, Henri of Navarre was a bit more traditional and seemed to want to avoid rocking the religious boat. Antione on the other hand had been raised by traditional Catholic parents, his maternal grandmother even joined a monastic order towards the end of her life. This means that Antoine went into his marriage as an orthodox Catholic. 

Antoine and Jeanne had their first son, Henry in 1551, no not the Henry that makes Antoine and passed, that Henry’s older brother. This first son died in 1553, right before his younger brother, Henry, was born. This second Henry will become Henry III of Navarre in 1572 and Henry IV of France in 1589. They would have three further children, Louise, Madeleine, and Catherine, though only Catherine, born in 1559, would survive to adulthood. Antoine would have one illegitimate child, Charles, who was the Archbishop of Rouen from 1594-1604. It appears that Antoine’s illegitimate son was close to his legitimate siblings. I don’t know what Jeanne thought of this, she may not have been as thoughtful as her great great—grandmother, Valentina Visconti, but she was deeply in love with her husband. 

In 1555 Antoine became a king, well sort of. Unlike the rest of the world Navarre seemed to have figured out the naming thing for monarch, women were Queen if they were Queen Regnant and men were King, not Prince Consort if they were married to the queen. This may be because the first Navarrese Prince Consort was also a king in his own right, Philip IV, Jeanne’s seven times great grandfather (hopefully I got those number’s right). Once Navarre’s second queen regent, Joan II of Navarre, you may remember her, her husband was called the king. In their case he did do a lot to manage the country and they were properly co-rulers. By the time Jeanne became queen of Navarre it was just normal to call the consort king. So, while Antoine was king juri uxoris, by right of his wife, he was just called the king of Navarre. The couple were crowned in a joint, Catholic, crowning. Unlike earlier King consorts of Navarre, Antoine wasn’t that active. Jeanne was the active member when it came to Navarre. Antoine on the other hand needed to be active in French court, which means he spent a great deal of time there. 

I need to talk about Jeanne a bit more before getting back to Antoine. Her mother, Marguerite, had welcomed reform priests into her household, including her chaplain. There is a story that while France was dealing the fallout from the Affair of the Placards in late 1534, that Henri II of Navarre slapped Marguerite across the face when he caught her praying with some of her reform chaplains. Let me mention quickly, slapping your wife is not okay in any century, and would have been just a shocking then. Due to this Marguerite’s biographers,  Patricia and Rouben Cholkain, think Jeanne may have waited until her father’s death to convert to Calvinism. And that’s just what she did in the first year of her reign, publicly converted of Calvinism, I’ll be using the words Calvinist and Huguenots interchangeably throughout this episode and the future ones. The gasps and the pearl clutching would have been so much fun to watch. Today, most of us, don’t think religion should have anything to do with politics, okay, we wish religion didn’t have anything to do with politics. In this period though there was no way for politics to not involve religion. The king of France wasn’t just the king of France, he was the protector of the Catholic Church in France. His coronation included mainly religious aspects. I’m sure plenty of you saw the coronation of Charles III, the king of my country and just a few others. It was very religious, and that’s in a time when religion isn’t in our everyday lives, well, for most of us. In the late middle ages though religion was everywhere. The various bishops carried assorted royal vestments and most importantly the king is anointed with holy oil. This anointing raised the king to a higher, more holy level, remember, Robert Curthose wouldn’t attack Henry I because Henry was the anointed king. Curthose was a man who respected the religious rules of the day. The full title of the French king, in English was, from 1422 some version of By the Grace of God, Most Christian King of France followed by his subsidiary titles. If a king allowed faiths other than the orthodox Catholic faith to flourish under his rule then it could be seen that his rule didn’t have the full support of god. In addition, having everyone follow the same religion brought the support of the church and in many ways helped with cultural cohesion and stability.

His oldest and only surviving son, Henri, was baptised Catholic, but raised, primarily by Jeanne, which explains his Calvinist faith. When Henri was still a child Antoine and Jeanne took him to French court, this isn’t odd, Navarre was a client kingdom of France. In 1557 Antoine had suggested that Henri be betrothed to Henri II and Catherine de’Medici’s daughter Margaret. This marriage would eventually happen and it will be intense, I will cover it at the end of this episode. Just something I didn’t want to forget to mention. 

Now, the last episode on the public stream was Charles of Angouleme, the father of Francis I, who died in 1496, 22 years before his future grandson-in-law, Antoine was born. At this point, around 1555, leadership in France has changed, a bit. Francis I, Charles of Angouleme’s son and Antoine’s uncle-in-law had ruled from 1515 until 1547, at which point his son, Henri II, became king. Henri was actually a second son, but his older brother won’t be getting an episode, yet. Henri’s wife was Catherine de’Medici, and they had ten children, though only seven survived childhood. Henri, as a traditionalist, did not support reforms within the church and as most assuredly not in favour of allowing the growing Calvinist movement, called the Huguenots, to enjoy any royal protection or acknowledgement. Ha allowed the burning of heretics and issued the Edict of Chateaubriant, issued in June 1551, which called for the punishment and smoking out of heretics. Henri didn’t seem to appreciate his aunt, Marguerite of Angouleme’s reforms within her holdings or anywhere else and truly looked to bring the church in France back to the 1400s. The edict even demanded that books being shipped to France be searched by a theologian from the University of Paris, to look out for heretical works, you know, bibles that people can actually read included. Edicts like this are a nice thing to feel like something is being done, but they rarely actually do anything. Huguenots continued to convert and spread their message of reform. I’ll be covering more of this in the Wars of Religion episode coming soon. Henri’s rule lasted until the 10th of July 1559, less than two weeks after he had received a wound through the eye while jousting. He was only 40 and succeeded by his 15 year old son, Francis II. Francis’ mother, the afore mentioned Catherine de’Medici, was unable to act as his regent due to his in-laws, the Guise family, basically coup d’étating the government. Francis was old enough to rule on his own, but this wasn’t to prove to be his strength. Oh, for patrons, Anne Montmorency, who had played a large role in Henri II’s reign, was asked to go have a rest at the start of Francis II’s reign. 

What does this change in government have to do with Antoine? There are two things, the first is religion, the second is precedence. Remember, Antoine’s wife, Jeanne, was publicly a Huguenot. Antoine himself had shown Huguenot sympathies since at least 1557, but I can’t find a date of public conversion. In 1558 he attended a religious celebration that indicates that he was likely a practicing Huguenot. I mentioned in Marguerite of Angouleme’s episode that Catherine de’Medici, unlike her late husband, had been a reformer, again, not a Protestant, but open to reforms of the church. She had the audacity at one point to write to the pope requesting some reforms. I should let all of you know that Marguerite of Angouleme was also important in Catherine’s life and Catherine had lived in her household. Patrons will know that Marguerite was one of the leading French reformers of her generation. But unlike the potentially Protestant Antoine and the reform-minded Catherine the Guise were hard-line Catholics with no room for reform. Charles, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was also the Archbishop of Rheims, whom I’ll call Cardinal de Lorraine, and his brother, Francis, Duke de Guise, were both cousins to Antoine, through their mother Antoinette of Bourbon, and the uncles of Mary, Queen of Scots, Francis II’s wife. They were also not royal, as in, not prince du sang. This is where precedence comes in. In theory Antoine should have been leading the council. He was the premier prince du sang. Instead, the Guise were able to well, buy him off. He was given a wealthy governorship and sent to escort Catherine de’Medici’s oldest daughter, Elizabeth, to Spain. Fun note Elizabeth’s oldest daughter is Isabella Clara Eugenia, yes, until I go back to Charles of Valois, each subject is basically a seven-degrees game from each other, including the special episodes. 

The Guise rule saw stricter anti-Calvinist laws brought into effect. Landlords could be punished for harbouring Huguenots, attempts at controlling the ownership of guns, and the banning of wearing masks, along with plenty of other rules. In addition they were big on responsible finances, I’m just kidding. They wanted to appear to be fiscally responsible, in fairness to them, France was in a massive level of debt, thanks to the Italian wars. Their way to this was cutting the army and its budget, administration budgets were cut, except on Guise land, and taxes were increased. And this lead to well, a conspiracy to install new regents, the Amboise conspiracy.

While Antoine was out of power and literally out of court, he was still important. Remember, premier prince du sang, and a king. Plus, he was a nominal Calvinist in a Catholic country, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a rallying point. However, Antoine turned down this offer, I think he was more motivated to sort of a few things out in Navarre which I’ll get to in a few minutes. There was one other thing I should bring up here, his youngest brother, Louis I, Prince of Conde. Unlike Antoine Prince Conde had deeply held religious beliefs, he was a Huguenot. Conde had been bought off by the Guise, like his brother, at the start of Francis II’s reign. Unlike his brother though he wasn’t going to just sit around and take the Guise money. Prince Conde was, as Antoine’s brother, a prince du sang, but, he had two surviving older brothers, Antoine, and Charles, he was a minor prince du sang. But Conde was the most senior prince willing to join. Conde had been hoping that Antoine would actually make sure their family held power during Francis II’s minority. Conde had even gotten Antoine to court to try to claim the regency before this conspiracy got going and Antoine lost his nerve and, as I mentioned earlier, just went along with the Guise. This left Conde with only one option in his mind. One of the leading conspirators claimed to have John Calvin’s support, don’t worry, Calvin will get plenty of time when I talk about the religious wars. This was proper coup attempt, the conspirators were bringing soldiers who hadn’t been paid or had been dismissed due to Guise policy. Check this: The goal of the conspiracy was the replace the Guise at Amboise while the king was on progress through the area. The Guise brothers would be killed if they resisted. Conde was, after things had been sorted out, was to appear and be presented as a new regent. This conspiracy wasn’t kept quiet though, various groups on military members were arrested. Various pamphlets the group were going to release were found, and these were both anti-Guise and pro-Calvinist. The conspiracy seems, at least to me, to be motivated both by politics and religion. Oh, and this conspiracy gave Catherine de’Medici the chance to actually take more active control of her son’s government. The Guise were still around, but Catherine was no longer on the out. And during this time she was rather moderate in her religious policy. To note, she was actually listening to Francis II’s wishes with this decision. 

What does any of this conspiracy have to do with Antoine? Well, despite him not being a part of it and in general staying out of power he would still be dragged into it. His brother, Conde, was able to avoid a charge for this conspiracy, but he decided that he wasn’t done trying to gain power in France. Conde made plans to take Lyon and then march to Paris both to remove the Guise and to support Protestantism in general. And this is where Antoine comes in again. He was ordered by Catherine to bring Conde to court for arrest, and he did so. In his defence for selling out his brother, the Guise had a much larger army, and Conde was destabilising the country. Sadly, with Conde’s arrest Catherine became less consolatory towards Huguenots. His rebellion also further removed Antoine from power and led to the Guise being more powerful. Conde was sentenced to death, and I’ll get to this in a moment. 

Catherine was able to basically get Antoine to do her bidding in many ways after this. He had adopted his late father-in-law’s wish to reclaim the totality of Navarre. In 1512 Ferdinand of Aragon had defeated the Navarrese army and took possession of, well, most of Navarre. So, while Henri II and in turn Jeanne, rule Navarre they ruled a much reduced kingdom. Henri II had spent years negotiating with Charles V, the HRE who was also the king of Spain, to try to gain back in territory. Antoine continued this with Charles V’s son, Philip II, and Catherine de’Medici was able to use this to her advantage. She would distract him from leading his faction by bringing up Navarre. In December of 1560 France was dealt a blow, Francis II, only 16 years old, died. He and his wife, Mary Queen of Scots, had no children and so he was succeeded by his younger brother, Charles, now Charles IX, who was only 10. We don’t know what killed Francis II, possibly an infection of some type, sadly, due to the political climate at the time his death was blamed, by some Catholics, on Calvinists. I’m going to point out that poisoning is everyone’s favourite options for deaths that had no obvious cause.

Francis’ death was lucky for Antoine, his brother, Conde, was released by Catherine, was the undisputed regent. You’ll remember, the major claim to regency the Guise held was through Francis II’s marriage to Mary their niece and their influence over him through her. Francis had been considered by some to be of legal age. While the Guise were no longer acting as regents that doesn’t mean they were gone, the Duke de Guise was still a respected military leader and Cardinal de Guise was still a leading churchman. Catherine was also able to convince Antoine to renounce his rights regency, remember, he’s still premier prince du sang. He was appointed lieutenant general of France, which honestly, isn’t a bad title. Patrons should know that Anne Montmorency was also recalled. Catherine wasn’t trying to include Antoine in government out of the goodness of her heart, she was hoping that having a Protestant faction would act as a counterbalance to the Catholic factions of the Guise and protect her power. Sadly, Antoine just wasn’t the man to do this. It does appear that she was trying to remove religion from politics, at least at this point, she was a woman ahead of her time. Patrons, I’m really looking forward to getting to her special episode. 

Antoine took part on the Colloquy (ka luh kwee) of Poissy. A colloquy is a gathering to discuss theological issues. This one was called to try to sort of the issues between the Catholic and Huguenot leaders in France. In began in September of 1561, and Antoine had supported Catherine in calling this gathering. In news that will surprise no one this meeting sorted out nothing. It appears that it stayed civil, but neither side could agree on anything. As many of you may know already, the differences between the Catholics and Huguenots were not something that could easily be sorted out. 

Obviously this will come up in next week’s episode, which will cover the religious issues and the Wars of Religion, but the wars start now. In January of 1562 Charles IX, meaning his mother, Catherine, issued the Edict of Saint-Germain or the Edict of January. This Edict was a more detailed and precise update to an earlier Edict, the Edict of July also known as the Edict of Saint-Germain, yes, these both had the same name. Antoine did actually play a part in this, as in he used his position on the privy council to recommend this edict. This edict gave Huguenots the right to practice, but didn’t recognise that the religion had approval from the king. Worship could occur on noble estates, so all of Antoine’s wife, Jeanne’s holdings would allow worship. Worship could happen in a private home, if it were for the members of that household. Worship could not occur in former churches or within cities, except for noble estates. This means that worship was allowed outside of cities and in open areas. No one was to interfere with worship other than the King’s officers and magistrates were expected to help if worshipers were harassed. The ultimate hope was that there would be a reconciliation between the two churches, yes, people were a bit too hopeful. Obviously these rules wouldn’t make either side happy, Catholics didn’t think Protestant worship was valid and saw it as heresy, and Protestants thought the Catholic church was a corrupt, superstitious, rotting institution. Of course there was resistance on both sides. While Antoine had encouraged the crown to update the Edict of July, he voted against the new edict in council. His younger brother, Conde, totally supported it. Parliaments outside of Paris supported the edict quickly, but Paris, as you might have guessed was slow to register the edict. Oh, there will be a This Too Shall Passed explaining French Parliaments coming on Wednesday.The edict was finally registered with the Paris Parliament on March 6th, and even with this it was still not popular. In fact, despite this attempt to protect both sides of the religious divide things went more wrong before the edict was registered.

On the 1st of March 1562 the Duke de Guise was travelling to Paris through Wassy-sur-Blaise, or just Wassy. As I’ve mentioned multiple times, men like Guise don’t travel alone, he had his forces with him. By the way, he was travelling to Paris to help Antoine put a stop to the Edict of Saint-Germain. Wassy was a royal town and one that the Guise family had a connection to. Despite this the town had an extensive Huguenot presence and he had tried, halfheartedly, to remove the heresy from the city. On the 1st of March there was a large Calvinist service, with about 500 worshippers, taking place in a barn near the Catholic church and Guise Castle district. Guise was apparently enraged by this service and called a meeting at the local church with the local Catholic priest and provost. These men told Guise that he should break up the heretical worship. Guise sent one of his leading men, named Gaston, to enter the barn where the Huguenots were worshiping. Gaston’s entry was barred, so he forced the door and started killing worshipers. With his attack the rest of Guise’s men followed, now, note, I haven’t mentioned an order from Guise. It appears that he didn’t actively order an assault, but regardless of his culpability for the attack he apparently didn’t step in to stop it. Fifty of the worshipers, including one child, were killed in the massacre. Interestingly this event, called the Massacre of Vassy may be the first use of the word massacre in the sense of the killing of a great number of people in a short period of time. This massacre is likely the match to the powder keg of religious strife in France. 

As expected this was a shocking event in France. One of the leading military leaders in France had allowed an attack on unarmed civilians to happen on his watch, in his family’s holdings. Guise was ordered to Paris immediately by the dowager queen-regent. He was welcomed as a hero by the conservatives in Paris, as would be expected. Catherine, realising things were going very wrong ordered both Guise and Conde to leave Paris, Conde complied, Guise refused. Conde then marched on Orleans. This is where Antoine had the chance to prove himself. He could have stood up for his Huguenot beliefs, supported his brother, who had originally gone to Paris to assist Catherine, and possibly find a middle ground in France for religion. Hahahaha, I know, it sounds great, but that’s not even a little of what happened. Instead Antoine chose Catherine’s side, and in doing so reconverted to Catholicism. This would lead to his estrangement to his wife, Jeanne, who had been at court with him. I can only imagine how devastating this would be for her, it would be like Phil suddenly liking Joe Rogan. Jeanne, as imagined, stood by her religious convictions. Jeanne actually left Paris not long after for Bearn. This was a moment that Antoine truly could have helped Catherine, who had tried to thread the needle of toleration actually succeed. His choice to change religion at this moment will be contrasted with someone very close to him at the end of this episode. He seemed to have not held his Calvinist beliefs closely, and he set them aside in the moment of that group’s most need. 

With his decision to follow Catherine’s lead Antoine made some interesting decisions. He ordered all Protestants out of Paris, probably a good thing his wife had already left (I’m going to assume his son, who was almost ten, had left with Jeanne, Henri’s Calvinism will come up again soon). Antoine was originally sent to Orleans in June to try to capture his own brother. Conde retreated and royal forces then retook Bourges. Antoine’s wife, Jeanne, while traveling to Bearn, allowed her troops to sac Vendome, you know, his ancestral city. He ordered her arrest, with plans to put her into a convent. She managed to avoid his men and reached Bearn before they could take her. Allowing her men to sac Vendome wasn’t exactly her finest moment.  

Antoine was then sent to Rouen to besiege Huguenot forces there. The city had a growing population of Huguenots and on the 15th of April 1562, after growing resentment and fear on the part of Calvinists, the Protestants in the city overthrew the legitimate government of the city. They swore allegiance to Charles IX, and allowed the Catholic members of their council to remain at first. Things started to go poorly when hardline reformers started rather public iconoclasm, breaking idols from Catholic churches and melting down gold ornamentation, there will be more detail in the next episode, I promise. At this point the Catholic councillors stopped attending council. I should note that Rouen as a city was a commercial centre, so its government was a bit different than other cities. The first royalist commander, the Duke of Aumale, who was the younger brother of the Duke de Guise and, obviously, Cardinal de Guise, arrived in Rouen on the 28th of May. He asked for the rebels to be turned over and the gates to be opened. He was refused, I know, he had to be expecting it. Aumale’s force was small and he apparently forgot to bring the heavy artillery, so when he started besieging the city it went poorly. Antoine arrived at the city on 28th of September. And this is where we come to the literal end of Antoine’s story. He died on the 17th of November 1562, a bit more than a month after being shot by a musket while inspecting his fortifications. Jeanne, who remember, loved him dearly, despite all his flaws, requested safe passage to be with him at the end, but didn’t received permission in time. His mistress did make it there in time. There are rumours that his last rights were Calvinist, not Catholic, which leaves Antoine’s religious convictions a bit of a mystery. 

Conclusion:

So, would Antoine have been a better king that the king who ruled instead of him?

Antoine was only 44 at the time of his death. His son, Henry III of Navarre would become Henry IV of France in 1589. Had Antoine been alive to rule, for even a moment, he would have been 71. So, like the first Charles of this series (really, Antoine and Isabella Clara are the only people not named Charles in this series, at least on the main feed), Antoine would probably have been too old to rule by the time he had a chance. His son will receive something that only two other French monarchs received, the title ‘the Great’, he shares this with Charlemagne and Louis XIV. So, much like the first Charles in this series, Antoine’s son was amazing and unlike the first Charles Antoine himself wasn’t that impressive. I think the simple answer is no, Antoine would not have been a better king than his son, nor would he had been a better king than the other kings who ruled, Catherine de’Medici’s sons and her as regent. Catherine gets her own episode soon, so I’ll go over my thoughts on her then. But Antoine seemed to have no direction, he would blow in the wind. 

The thing I want to focus on was his reconversion. I will point out that if he had taken Protestant last rights this means he was a relapsed heretic, so if he’d live that means he would likely not have lived for much longer since that was a capital crime. His reconversion though was seemingly as insincere as his original conversion to Calvinism. He really doesn’t seem to have direction, almost like a directionless rich kid who never figured anything out. His son, Henry, will also convert to Catholicism, but he does it to end the French religious strife, or at least that was his goal, sorry, spoilers for the French Wars of Religion and our next two subjects. Henry’s conversion contrasts greatly with his father’s, Henry had direction, knew what he had to do and actually lost support from his major foreign ally, England for doing so. He was a hands-on monarch who did much to help his country recover from the religious wars. He was tolerant after his conversion and a great king overall. Antoine just doesn’t strike me as the same type of man as his son. Maybe it’s that we don’t know enough about him, but I feel like the two earlier fathers show us a bit more. Charles of Orleans happens to have been a thoughtful, intelligent, and competent man who did well in circumstances that most of us cannot imagine. Charles of Angouleme wasn’t exciting militarily, but he was an educated man who left his children in the care of his intelligent wife. Antoine flittered around French court, hoping to regain all of Navarre while doing nothing to make it happen. 

Now, I love historical fiction and I hope most of you do too. Antoine makes appearances in two of my favourite historical fictional shows, Reign and the Serpent Queen. Let me emphasise that neither of these are historically accurate, but if historical fiction gets you into history then I’m all for it. They’re both pretty fun. The reason I bring this up is Antoine’s representation in both isn’t the worst, at least when it comes to historical accuracy. In Reign he was a bit of a fun prince, and we know he cheated on his wife. He spent most of his time at court in France and away from Navarre. I actually enjoy his portrayal in the Serpent Queen slightly more, probably because he’s shown as an adult and not a young party boy. There is one scene that disturbs me to no end, despite it having the best line ‘Everyone’s related’, no I didn’t steal the line from there. The scene is disturbing because he’s making out with Antoinette de Bourbon, the mother of the Guise, who also happens to be his aunt, more disturbingly, the aunt in the scene doesn’t seem to know with certainty whether they related or not. When I originally watched I thought he was making out Anne d’este, Duke de Guise’s wife, who Antoine was only distantly related to, but upon rewatching I realised my mistake. Yeah, it’s shocking. 

Next week we’ll be learning all about religion in France, it’s going to be a bit of a ride. I will see you all next week.