Gaspard de Coligny

"Victorious at Arnay-le-Duc, (Gaspard de Coligny) obtained in 1570 the Peace of St Germain. Returning to the court in 1571, he grew rapidly in favour with King Charles IX. As a means of emancipating the king from the tutelage of his mother and the faction of the Guises, the admiral proposed to him a descent on Spanish Flanders, with an army drawn from both sects and commanded by Charles in person. The king's regard for the admiral, and the bold front of the Huguenots, alarmed the queen-mother; and the massacre of St Bartholomew was the consequence. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots (French Protestants) starting on August 24, 1572, and lasting for several months. It marked a turning-point in the French Wars of Religion by stiffening Huguenot intransigence."

Source: The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.


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