Paths to Peace

Abstract

The reconciliation of ideologically opposed sides sufficient that they might coexist peacefully with one another is always a challenge to those in authority. Such divisions destabilise social and political relationships within a polity and threaten the authorities’ ability to govern. Different strategies might work better than others in resolving and calming the situation but, even then, they might do so only for a time. Such was the challenge for the monarchy faced by the consequences of confessional hostility in sixteenth-century France. In order to understand the nature of the divisions which the French crown was trying to appease, it is necessary to consider the circumstances and events which shaped relations between the faiths in the decades preceding the wars. The progress of the Reformation in France was slow and piecemeal by European standards.¹ It was not until the mid-century that it would gain the momentum which established the Reformers as a formidable presence in the kingdom and, ultimately, made war possible. So why was the position of the Reformed Church sufficiently assured by the early 1560s that the crown felt it necessary to appease its adherents? How were royal policy decisions about the best way to proceed reached, and what obstacles were strewn along the contentious path to peace?