280Chapter 15
early modern state still depended to an extraordinary
degree upon the character and abilities of its ruler.
Could its basic institutions continue to function if the
prince were a child or an incompetent? Some even
doubted that they could survive the accession of a
woman.
The French Wars of Religion and the Revolt
of the Netherlands
The peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was sealed by the mar-
riage of Isabel of Valois, daughter of Henry II of France,
to Philip II of Spain. The celebrations included a tour-
nament in which the athletic, if middle-aged, Henry
died when a splinter from his opponent’s lance entered
the eye socket of his helmet. The new king, Francis II,
was a sickly child of fifteen. The establishment of a re-
gency under the leadership of the Guise family marked
the beginning of a series of conflicts known as the Wars
of Religion that lasted until 1598. The Guise were from
Lorraine and unrelated to the royal family. Their ascen-
dancy threatened the Bourbons, a clan descended from
Louis IX and headed by the brothers Antoine, king of
Navarre, and Louis, prince of Condé. It was also a
threat to Henry’s widow, Catherine de Médicis
(1519–89), who hoped to retain power on behalf of her
son Francis and his three brothers. Yet another faction,
headed by Anne de Montmorency, constable of France,
sought, like Catherine, to play the Guise against the
Bourbons for their own advantage.
At one level the Wars of Religion were an old-
fashioned struggle between court factions for control of
the crown, but the Guise were also devout Catholics
who intensified Henry II’s policy of persecuting Protes-
tants. Most French Protestants, or Huguenots, were fol-
lowers of John Calvin. In 1559 they numbered no more
than 5 or 10 percent of the population, but their geo-
graphic and social distribution made them a formidable
minority. Heavily concentrated in the south and west,
Calvinism appealed most to rural nobles and to the arti-
sans of the towns, two groups with a long history of
political, regional, and economic grievances (see docu-
ment 15.3). The nobles were for the most part trained
in the profession of arms; unhappy artisans could easily
disrupt trade and city governments.
Searching for allies, the Bourbons found the
Huguenots and converted to Protestantism. The conflict
was now both religious and to a degree regional, as the
Catholics of Paris and the northeast rallied to the house
of Guise, who were secretly allied with Philip II of
Spain. Francis II died in 1560, shortly after Condé and
DOCUMENT 15.3
The Defense of Liberty
Against Tyrants
In both France and the Netherlands, the Protestants had to
justify their revolt against the monarchy. One of the most im-
portant theorists to do so was Philippe du Plessis-Mornay, a
councillor to Henry of Navarre, the leader of the Bourbon
faction who later became Henry IV. Plessis-Mornay based
his argument on an early version of the social contract theory,
which argued that all rulers received their power from the peo-
ple. His ideas would have a powerful impact on the political
thinkers of the Enlightenment and on the framers of the United
States Constitution. This is an exerpt from his treatise, Vin-
diciae contra tyrannos.Thus, at the beginning all kings were elected. And
even those who seem today to come to the throne
by succession must first be inaugurated by the peo-
ple. Furthermore, even if a people has customarily
chosen its kings from a particular family because of
its outstanding merits, that decision is not so un-
conditional that if the established line degenerates,
the people may not select another.
We have shown... that kings receive their
royal status from the people; that the whole peo-
ple is greater than the king and is above him; that
the king in his kingdom, the emperor in his em-
pire, are supreme only as ministers and agents,
while the people is the true proprietor. It follows,
therefore, that a tyrant who commits felony
against the people who is, as it were, the owner of
his fief; that he commits lèse majesté[treason] against
the kingdom or the empire; and that he is no bet-
ter than any other rebel since he violates the same
laws, although as king, he merits even graver pun-
ishment. And so... he may be either deposed by
his superior or punished under the lex Julia[the Ro-
man law on treason] for acts against the public
majesty. But the superior here is the whole people
or those who represent it.... And if things have
gone so far that the tyrant cannot be expelled
without resort to force, they may call the people
to arms, recruit an army, and use force, strategy,
and all the engines of war against him who is the
declared enemy of the country and the common-
wealth.
du Plessis-Mornay, Philippe. “Vindiciae contra tyrannos.” In
Constitutionalism and Resistance in the 16th Century,trans.
and ed. Julian H. Franklin. New York: Macmillan, 1969.