Amboise conspiracy

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The Amboise conspiracy, or Tumult of Amboise (1560), was a failed attempt by Huguenots and the house of Bourbon to wrest power over France by abducting the young king, François II and arresting François, duc de Guise and his brother Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine). It was an event that presaged the coming Wars of Religion that divided France from 1562 to 1598, and was rooted in the same causes.

[edit] Background

At the death of Henri II in 1559, the Protestants of France looked forward to a relaxation of stringent policies against the Reformed religion, but the young king, François II, left the course of government in the hands of the House of Guise, the supporters of militant Catholicism, led by the two maternal uncles of the Queen, Marie Stuart:^[1] through the Queen, François, duc de Guise and his brother, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, exercised great influence with the King.

The Huguenots on the other hand looked to two princes of the blood, Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme and his brother Louis, prince de Condé, who both refrained from exercising their positions at court to moderate official policies towards the "heretics". In the exigencies of the moment, a group of provincial aristocrats decided to take matters into their own hands, by kidnapping the King and the brothers Guise. Chief among the conspirators was Godefroy de Barry, seigneur de La Renaudie, of Périgord.

[edit] The Tumulte

La Renaudie gathered round him like-minded Huguenot gentlemen representing various regions of France: Charles de Castelnau de Chalosse, Bouchard d'Aubeterre, Edme de Ferrière-Maligny, Captains Mazères, Sainte-Marie and Lignières, Jean d'Aubigné (father of Agrippa d'Aubigné) and Ardoin de Porcelet. Paulon de Mauvans, whose brother had been executed, rallied the Huguenots of Provence at Mérindol, 12 February 1560, promised 2000 men and sent 100 to Nantes.^[2]

John Calvin and the majority of other Protestant pastors refused the path of violence and condemned the project, as did Admiral Coligny, who discouraged the nobles of Normandy from involving themselves in the plot. Condé himself preserved a distance from the plot, though he stood at the ready at Orléans, le capitaine muet, the "silent captain" of the plotters' correspondence.^[3] Leading Protestant bourgeois of Orléans, Tours and Lyon were apprised of developments.

Under the circumstances, increasingly specific rumors of the plot reached the Cardinal of Lorraine well ahead of time. On 12 February a detailed report was received through Pierre des Avenelles, a lawyer of Paris. On the 22nd, the Guises decided to transfer King and court from Blois, in the center of a city, to the château of Amboise, a more defensible site raised above its small village. Defenses were strengthened.

The conspirators delayed their plan of action from 1 March to the 16th, but the first of the plotters' contingents arrived in the village early, and were quietly arrested from 10 March.

On 17 March 1560, the conspirators, led by La Renaudie, attempted to storm the Château d'Amboise. Though the court was thrown into panic, the plotters' forces were easily defeated. Godefroi de La Renaudie, caught on the 19th, was drawn and quartered and his flesh displayed at the gates of the town. In the following weeks, 1200^[4] to 1500^[5] bodies were hung on iron hooks on the façade of the Château d'Amboise and from nearby trees; others were drowned in the Loire or exposed to the fury of the townspeople of Amboise. The severity and extent of reprisals enraged the Huguenot opponents of the house of Guise. The King and Queen were seen to personally witness many of the executions. The Guise brothers suspected Louis de Bourbon, prince de Condé, of leading the plot. He was arrested but eventually freed for lack of evidence, adding to the tensions which culminated in the French Wars of Religion.

[edit] Notes