Hansen
AP Euro
Wars of Religion- the First Half
Name ______________
Period _______
France – Background
Wars of Religion- Background as a whole- ___Will European
Christiandom Remain Split? _____
•The central monarchy reached its lowest point of authority during the ___1st
Hundred Years’ War____________
Basic teams- Catholic ___Habsburg Spain, France (sorta), Holy
Roman Emperor and many of its states
•Afterwards it began a recovery, but unfortunately for the French, the Valois
monarchs Francis I and Henry II had the taste, but not the ____$____ to live
as ‘Renaissance Princes’.
Protestant ____England, Netherlands, parts of the HRE,
Scandinavia____
1st Half #1- _1520s___ AD to __1590s____ AD
The H.R.E. Background
•Ruling Habsburgs are connected to Spain, Papal States, New World, the
Netherlands, but remain weak in the H.R.E.
•Charles V took power 2 years after ____Luther published his theses__
•Charles V believed God wanted him to _____reunite European
Christendom/ roll back the Protestant Tide____
•Nevertheless, Charles V had trouble extinguishing the Protestant
Reformation, because his attention was distracted by ___Ottoman
Empire on the East, feuding nobility in HRE, tension with France
(Habsburg-Valois Wars), race for the New World___
•HRE Princes used these distractions to seize __Catholic Church _lands
The H.R.E. Religious/Political Wars
•France, though officially _Catholic _in religion, supported the
rebellious HRE nobility (which was _Protestant_religiously). This
demonstrates France’s central foreign policy, which was: _Keep
HRE Weak and Divided____
•Ultimately, Charles V was forced to sue for peace, because he
needed his military and economic resources elsewhere. He signed
the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which said: ___HRE princes could
choose the religion for their entire state- as long as they only
chose Lutheranism or Catholicism (not
Calvinism)_____________________________________________
___________
•The French were also weakened on account of their long war with the
Habsburgs over control of ___the Papal States ____
•How did the French kings attempt to solve the problem in the previous
blank? (3 reasons) 1_ taxing and borrowing ________________________
2) __selling noble titles (newer Nobility of the
Robe)____*Problems?______________ 3) ___Concordat of Bologna__French kings would keep the country Catholic, in return for the right
to appoint French bishops__
•Angry at the corruption and rising power of the central monarchy, many
French nobles turned to ____Protestantism ___because they saw this as a
road to _political, as well as religious___independence
•The French nobility usually decided to follow the teachings of ___Calvin_,
particularly because he wrote in French. These French were called
_Huguenots__
French Civil Wars
•,Made possible partly because of a string of weak French kings, namely ____Francis II ,
Charles IX, and Henry III__
•Catherine de Medici - ___Yes, that Medici- __served as regent for her sons, who were
weak- was Machiavellian- cared not for France, but for power__
•Huguenot strove particularly to destroy Catholic __icons________, which they saw as
blasphemous
•In the _St. Bartholemew’s Day___massacre, Protestants in Paris were slaughtered
•Touched off the War of the Three __Henry’s__________: ___Henry III (Catholic
King)____,__Henry of Guise (Catholic) __, and __Henry of Navarre _(Protestant)__
•Finally, a group, known as the __politiques_____arose, led by __Henry of Navarre__who
saw the continued bloodshed as a bigger deal than __religious__differences. When this
group’s leader inherited the throne, he famously __converted__,saying, “Paris is worth _a
mass__.”To calm the tensions, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which said ____Protestants
would be tolerated in certain areas in France___
The Netherlands- Background
•Terminology- The Netherlands__all 17 provinces__, Belgium ___important southern
province- French speaking__, Holland __largest, wealthiest Northern province- often
used as a term for all of the Netherlands- culturally Dutch ___, Flemish __synonym for
Belgian__
•__Banking___and _Trade___capitals of Europe, partially thanks to the country’s natural
__harbors_____________ and __ culture of tolerance__
(cont.)
•In deciding whether to help, this called-upon leader had to weigh _____helping and
getting involved in a war with mighty Spain_ against __not helping, and maybe
having to face Spain alone later__
•Her hand was ultimately forced by _______the assassination of William ‘the
Silent’ of Orange___________________ and she decided to___send
aid_____________________________________________
•Political system __’States General’ Parliament, but each province has more power
than the S.G. __
•Protestantism was __attractive___________ to the Dutch for many of the same reasons it
was attractive in the _HRE- namely- praised the pursuit of wealth, made more sense for
Humanist intellectuals, provided a break with papal ‘Italian’ power_____________
•Charles V, helped to make this situation __less___ (more/less) tense because __he was
culturally Flemish (raised there)_However, under Philip II , who got power when
__Charles V retired and divided his empire between Austrian branch (Ferdinand I)
and Spanish Branch (Philip II) ___, the story shifted, because __Philip was culturally
Spanish and a Catholic Zealot______________________________
Religious Wars in the Netherlands
•__Calvinism___was the Protestant faith that really caused social turmoil in the
Netherlands, mainly because ___there was a large money hungry merchant middleclass___
Spanish Armada- Background
•Philip II was King of __Spain____ and much of the rest of the world, to boot
•Philip saw religious toleration as a road to ____Chaos_________
•___Mary, Queen of Scots______ was implicated in a plot to overthrow
Elizabeth and Protestantism in England. She’d had the full support of Philip II.
When the plot was discovered, Elizabeth _killed Mary__ and Philip responded by
___launching an invasion of England__with the support of the __Pope_
•There were numerous reasons this invasion made sense to Philip II. First, he
could cut English aid to the __Netherlands__. He could also restore
__Catholicism _ to England. In a larger sense, it might be a step towards
restoring ____Catholicism__________________ to all of Europe.
•Philip II assigned __his sister Margaret___to quiet the Protestant threat in the
Netherlands. Her high taxes linked the religiously motivated Protestant Dutch with
Dutch who simply wanted __political independence___
Spanish Armada- The Invasion
•In 1566, Calvinists began to rebel against Spanish rule, usually not be attacking
Catholics, but instead by attacking their _icons_. (famous example?) Notre Dame
•British fleet stats: # of British vessels _150_ # of Spanish vessels _130__
•Philip II responded by ramping up repression in the Netherlands. His military leader,
__Duke of Alva__set up both a _Council of Blood and the Inquisition__to restore
discipline. A civil war ensued.
•The Spanish managed to pacify the _Southern__ provinces, which were culturally
__French_________, but not the _Northern__ provinces, which were culturally
__Dutch________________________
•Spain decided to sail its army from the ___Netherlands__to England
•Which side had the better ships?
England’s- more firepower and faster
•The course of the battle… England got the wind at their back.
Attacked and
broke up the Armada. Armada’s
only route back without fighting the English was
around Ireland through Atlanticshiprwrecks/Protestant Wind
•The southern parts would later become the nation of _Belgium___, while the northern
parts became _the Netherlands___. The northern parts were partially easier to defend
because __The Dutch could open their dikes and flood their land___.
•A Protestant Wind – God’s punishment on the Spanish (from English POV)
•The stalemate in the middle of the Netherlands helps explain the religious divide in
the area today, which is _north= Protestant__South= Catholic___
Spanish Armada- Impact
•The northern group, worried about a total military defeat, called on ___England
(under Elizabeth I)___ for help
•England will survive as a ___Protestant___ nation and Protestantism will survive.
•Black eye for Spain, but not the end of Spanish __Power__
•Beginnings of English rise to __Naval_________ dominance