Charles IX of France Charles IX ( 27 June 1550 – 30 May 1574 ) was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1560 until his death . He ascended the throne of France upon the death of his brother Francis II . After decades of tension , war broke out between Protestants and Catholics after the massacre of Vassy in 1562 . In 1572 , after several unsuccessful peace attempts , Charles ordered the marriage of his sister Margaret of Valois to Henry of Navarre , a major Protestant leader and the future King Henry IV of France , in a last desperate bid to reconcile his people . Facing popular hostility against this policy of appeasement , Charles allowed the massacre of all Huguenot leaders who gathered in Paris for the royal wedding at the instigation of his mother Catherine de ' Medici . This event , known as the St . Bartholomew ' s Day Massacre , crippled the Huguenot movement . Charles sought to take advantage of the disarray of the Huguenots by ordering the Siege of La Rochelle , but was unable to take the Protestant stronghold . He died without legitimate male issue in 1574 and was succeeded by his brother Henry III . Life . Childhood . He was born Charles Maximilian , third son of King Henry II of France and Catherine de ' Medici , in the royal chateau of Saint - Germain - en - Laye . He was immediately created Duke of Orléans at birth , succeeding his older brother Louis , his father ' s second son , who had died in infancy the year before . He visited England and on 14 May 1564 was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter at St . George ' s Chapel , Windsor Castle , along with Francis Russell , 2nd Earl of Bedford , and Sir Henry Sidney . Accession to the throne . His father died in 1559 , followed in December 1560 by his elder brother , King Francis II . The ten - year - old Charles was immediately proclaimed king and , on 15 May 1561 , consecrated in the cathedral at Reims . The government was dominated by his mother , Catherine de ' Medici , who at first acted as regent for her young son . Antoine of Bourbon , himself in line to the French throne and husband to Queen Joan III of Navarre , was appointed Lieutenant - General of France . First war of religion . Charles ' reign was dominated by the French Wars of Religion , which pitted various factions against each other . The Huguenots , the French adherents of Calvinism , had a considerable following among the nobility , while their enemies , later organised into the Catholic League , were led by the House of Guise , a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine . Queen Catherine , though nominally a Catholic , tried to steer a middle course between the two factions , attempting to keep ( or restore ) the peace and augment royal power . The factions had engaged in violence even before Charles ' accession : a group of Huguenot nobles at Amboise had tried to abduct King Francis II and arrest the Catholic leaders Francis , Duke of Guise , and his brother Charles , Cardinal of Lorraine , followed by cases of Protestant iconoclasm and Catholic reprisals . The regent Catherine tried to foster reconciliation at the Colloquy at Poissy and , after that failed , made several concessions to the Huguenots in the Edict of Saint - Germain in January 1562 . Nonetheless , war broke out when some retainers of the House of Guise , hoping to avenge the attempt of Amboise , attacked and killed or wounded over 100 Huguenot worshipers in the Massacre of Vassy . Louis of Bourbon , Prince of Condé , brother of the Lieutenant - General and the suspected architect of the Amboise conspiracy , had already prepared for war and , taking Vassy as the pretext , assumed the role of a protector of Protestantism and began to seize and garrison strategic towns along the Loire Valley . In return , the monarchy revoked the concessions given to the Huguenots . After the military leaders of both sides were either killed or captured in battles at Rouen , Dreux , and Orléans , the regent mediated a truce and issued the Edict of Amboise ( 1563 ) . Armed peace . The war was followed by four years of an uneasy " armed peace " , during which Catherine tried to unite the factions in the successful effort to recapture Le Havre from the English . After this victory , Charles declared his legal majority in August 1563 , formally ending the regency . However , Catherine would continue to play a principal role in politics and often dominated her son . In March 1564 , the King and his mother set out from Fontainebleau on a grand tour of France . Their tour spanned two years and brought them through Bar , Lyon , Salon - de - Provence ( where they visited Nostradamus ) , Carcassonne , Toulouse ( where the King and his younger brother Henry were confirmed ) , Bayonne , La Rochelle , and Moulins . During this trip , Charles IX issued the Edict of Roussillon , which standardised 1 January as the first day of the year throughout France . Second and third war of religion . War again broke out in 1567 after reports of iconoclasm in Flanders prompted Charles to support Catholics there . Huguenots , fearing a Catholic attack was imminent , tried to abduct the king at Meaux , seized various cities , and massacred Catholics at Nîmes in an action known as the Michelade . After the Battle of Saint - Denis saw both a Huguenot defeat and the death of the Anne de Montmorency , the royal commander - in - chief , the short war ended in 1568 with the Peace of Longjumeau . The privileges granted to Protestants were widely opposed , however , leading to their cancellation and the resumption of war , in which the Dutch Republic , England and Navarre intervened on the Protestant side , while Spain , Tuscany and Pope Pius V supported the Catholics . Finally , the royal debt and the King ' s desire to seek a peaceful solution in August 1570 led to yet another truce , the Peace of Saint - Germain - en - Laye , which again granted concessions to the Huguenots . Marriage and children . On 26 November 1570 Charles married Elisabeth of Austria , with whom he fathered one daughter , Marie Elisabeth of Valois . In 1573 , Charles fathered an illegitimate son , Charles , Duke of Angoulême , with his mistress , Marie Touchet . Coligny ' s ascendancy and the massacre . After the conclusion of the Peace of Saint - Germain - en - Laye in 1570 , the king increasingly came under the influence of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny , who had succeeded the slain Prince of Condé as leader of Huguenots after the Battle of Jarnac in 1569 . The Catherine , however , became increasingly fearful of Coligny ' s unchecked power , especially since he was pursuing an alliance with England and the Dutch . Coligny was also hated by Henry , Duke of Guise , who accused the Admiral of having ordered the assassination of his father Francis of Guise during the siege of Orléans in 1562 . During the peace settlement , a marriage was arranged between Charles ' sister Margaret of Valois and Henry of Navarre , the future King Henry IV , who was at that time heir to the throne of Navarre and one of the leading Huguenots . Many Huguenot nobles , including Admiral de Coligny , thronged into Paris for the wedding , which was set for 18 August 1572 . On 22 August , a failed attempt on Coligny ' s life put the city in a state of apprehension , as both visiting Huguenots and Parisian Catholics feared an attack by the other side . In this situation , in the early morning of 24 August 1572 , the Duke of Guise moved to avenge his father and murdered Coligny in his lodgings . As Coligny ' s body was thrown into the street , Parisians mutilated the body . The mob action then erupted into the St . Bartholomew ' s Day massacre , a systematic slaughter of Huguenots that was to last five days . Henry of Navarre managed to avoid death by pledging to convert to Catholicism . Over the next few weeks , the disorder spread to more cities across France . In all , up to 10 , 000 Huguenots were killed in Paris and the provinces . Though the massacres severely weakened Huguenot power , it also reignited war , which only ceased after the Edict of Boulogne in 1573 granted Huguenots amnesty and limited religious freedom . However , the year 1574 saw a failed Huguenot coup at Saint - Germain and successful Huguenot uprisings in Normandy , Poitou and the Rhône valley , setting the stage for another round of war . Decline and death . In the aftermath of the massacre , the king ' s fragile mental and physical constitution weakened drastically . His moods swung from boasting about the extremity of the massacre to exclamations that the screams of the murdered Huguenots kept ringing in his ears . Frantically , he blamed alternately himself – " What blood shed ! What murders ! he cried to his nurse . What evil council I have followed ! O my God , forgive me . . . I am lost ! I am lost ! " – or his mother – " Who but you is the cause of all of this ? God ' s blood , you are the cause of it all ! " Catherine responded by declaring she had a lunatic for a son . Charles ' physical condition , tending towards tuberculosis , deteriorated to the point where , by spring of 1574 , his hoarse coughing turned bloody and his hemorrhages grew more violent . On his last day , 30 May 1574 , Charles called for Henry of Navarre , embraced him , and said , " Brother , you are losing a good friend . Had I believed all that I was told , you would not be alive . But I always loved you . . . I trust you alone to look after my wife and son . Pray God for me . Farewell . " Charles IX died at the Château de Vincennes , aged twenty - three years . As his younger brother , Henry , Duke of Anjou , had recently been elected King of Poland and was away from France , their mother Catherine resumed the regency until Henry ' s return from Poland . Book on hunting . Charles had an interest in hunting , and he wrote a book on the subject , " La Chasse Royale " , which was published long after his death , in 1625 . It is a valuable source for those interested in the history of hounds and hunting . In fiction . Charles IX is a supporting character in Alexandre Dumas ' s historical novel " Queen Margot " , which focuses on the marriage between Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois . The book depicts Charles as both a cold - hearted king who takes pleasure in the hunt , and a lonely and vulnerable man , influenced in politics by his relatives and allies . In this work of fiction , he is a frail and sickly ruler , and dies after reading a book poisoned with arsenic , which his mother intended for Henry of Navarre . He has a small role in the " Doctor Who " story " The Massacre of St Bartholomew ' s Eve " , portrayed by Barry Justice . The story portrays him as a kindly but weak - willed king who is dominated by his mother and persuaded by her to authorise the massacre despite his friendship with Coligny .