page_title: Huguenot rebellions
section_title: Third Huguenot rebellion (1627–28)
hierarchical_section_title: Huguenot rebellions / Third Huguenot rebellion (1627–28)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: ombat_et_victoire_obtenue_sur_les_Anglois_Michel_de_la_Mathoniere_1627
context_page_description: The Huguenot rebellions, sometimes called the Rohan Wars after the Huguenot leader Henri de Rohan, were an event of the 1620s in which French Calvinist Protestants, mainly located in southwestern France, revolted against royal authority. The uprising occurred a decade following the death of Henry IV, who, himself originally a Huguenot before converting to Catholicism, had protected Protestants through the Edict of Nantes. His successor Louis XIII, under the regency of his Italian Catholic mother Marie de' Medici, became more intolerant of Protestantism. The Huguenots tried to respond by defending themselves, establishing independent political and military structures, establishing diplomatic contacts with foreign powers, and openly revolting against central power. The Huguenot rebellions came after two decades of internal peace under Henry IV, following the intermittent French Wars of Religion of 1562–1598.
context_section_description: The third and last Huguenot rebellion started with an English military intervention aimed at encouraging an upheaval against the French king. The rebels had received the backing of the English king Charles I, who sent his favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham with a fleet of 80 ships. In June 1627 Buckingham organised a landing on the nearby island of Île de Ré with 6,000 men in order to help the Huguenots, thus starting an Anglo-French War (1627–1629), with the objective of controlling the approaches to La Rochelle, and of encouraging the rebellion in the city. Buckingham ultimately ran out of money and support, and his army was weakened by diseases. The English intervention ended with the unsuccessful Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré (1627). After a last attack on Saint-Martin they were repulsed with heavy casualties, and left in their ships.
  The English intervention was followed by the Siege of La Rochelle. Cardinal Richelieu acted as the commander of the besieging troops (during those times when the King was absent). Residents of La Rochelle resisted for 14 months, under the leadership of the mayor Jean Guiton and with gradually diminishing help from England. During the siege, the population of La Rochelle decreased from 27,000 to 5,000 due to casualties, famine and disease. Surrender was unconditional.
   
  Rohan continued to resist in Southern France, where the forces of Louis XIII continued to intervene in 1629. In the Siege of Privas, the inhabitants were massacred or expelled, and the city was burnt to the ground. Louis XIII finally captures Alès, in the Siege of Alès in June 1629, and Rohan submitted.
  By the terms of the Peace of Alais, the Huguenots lost their territorial, political and military rights, but retained the religious freedom granted by the Edict of Nantes. However, they were left at the mercy of the monarchy, unable to resist when the next king, Louis XIV, embarked on active persecution in the 1670s, and finally revoked the Edict of Nantes altogether in 1685.
caption: Marshall Henri de Schomberg and Toiras vanquishing the English army of Buckingham at the end of the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré (1627).
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