page_title: French Wars of Religion
section_title: Chronology
hierarchical_section_title: French Wars of Religion / Chronology
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Gravure protestante représentant les dragonnades en France sous Louis XIV.
context_page_description: The French Wars of Religion were a prolonged period of war and popular unrest between Catholics and Huguenots in the Kingdom of France between 1562 and 1598. It is estimated that three million people perished in this period from violence, famine, or disease in what is considered the second deadliest religious war in European history.
  Much of the conflict took place during the long regency of Queen Catherine de' Medici, widow of Henry II of France, for her minor sons. It also involved a dynastic power struggle between powerful noble families in the line for succession to the French throne: the wealthy, ambitious, and fervently Catholic ducal House of Guise and their ally Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France versus the less wealthy House of Condé, princes of the blood in the line of succession to the throne who were sympathetic to Calvinism. Foreign allies provided financing and other assistance to both sides, with Habsburg Spain and the Duchy of Savoy supporting the Guises, and England supporting the Protestant side led by the Condés and by the Protestant Jeanne d'Albret, wife of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, and her son, Henry of Navarre.
context_section_description: 17 January 1562: Edict of Saint-Germain, often called the "Edict of January"
  1 March 1562: Massacre of Vassy (Wassy)
  March 1562 – March 1563: First War, ended by the Edict of Amboise
  19 December 1562: Battle of Dreux
  September 1567 – March 1568: Second War, ended by the Peace of Longjumeau
  10 November 1567: Battle of Saint Denis
  1568–1570: Third War, ended by the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
  March 1569: Battle of Jarnac
  June 1569: Battle of La Roche-l'Abeille
  October 1569: Battle of Moncontour
  1572: St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
  June 1572: Death of Jeanne d'Albret
  1572–1573: Fourth War, ended by the Edict of Boulogne
  November 1572 – July 1573: Siege of La Rochelle
  May 1573: Henry d'Anjou elected King of Poland
  1574: Death of Charles IX
  1574–1576: Fifth War, ended by the Edict of Beaulieu
  1576: Formation of the first Catholic League in France
  1576–1577: Sixth War, ended by the Treaty of Bergerac (also known as the "Edict of Poitiers")
  1579–1580: Seventh War, ended by the Treaty of Fleix
  June 1584: Death of François, Duke of Anjou, heir presumptive
  December 1584: Treaty of Joinville
  1587–1598: Eighth War, ended by the Peace of Vervins and the Edict of Nantes
  October 1587: Battle of Coutras, Battle of Vimory
  December 1588: Assassination of the Duke of Guise and his brother
  August 1589: Assassination of Henry III
  September 1589: Battle of Arques
  March 1590: Battle of Ivry, Siege of Paris
  1593: Henry IV abjures Protestantism
  1594: Henry IV crowned in Chartres
  June 1595: Battle of Fontaine-Française
  April–September 1597: Siege of Amiens
  April 1598: Edict of Nantes issued by Henry IV
  October 1685: Edict of Fontainebleau issued by Louis XIV
caption: Protestant engraving representing 'les dragonnades' in France under Louis XIV.
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