Cardinal Guise actively involved himself in the first Catholic Ligue that rose up in opposition to the generous Peace of Monsieur which brought the fifth war of religion to a close in 1576.

Over the following years of peace, he would feud with Épernon, and receive Henri III's new honour when he was made a chevalier de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit in 1578 among the first cohort.

Finally reaching the ecclesiastical age at which he could assume his responsibilities as Archbishop of Reims in 1583 he entered the city in triumph and oversaw a council at which he pushed for the promulgation of the Tridentine Decrees.

Cardinal Guise and his brother marched on Reims and succeeded in gaining entry, assuming authority over the religious capital of the kingdom for the ligue.

His pursuit of the war was half-hearted, and in 1586 Cardinal Guise met with his brothers at the Abbey of Ourscamp where they affirmed that even if the king made peace with the Protestant Navarre they would defy him and continue the fight regardless.

Guise and Cardinal Bourbon the ligueur candidate to succeed Henri, published a remonstrance in which they denounced the court as a sinful place and advocated reform on the lines of the Council of Trent.

The Cardinal now had grander ambitions, and he headed to Troyes where after gaining entry, he effected a ligueur coup and purged the administration of royalists while urging his brother to march on the king in Chartres and force him into a monastery.

With Troyes in hand, Cardinal Guise integrated the city into the ligueur Sainte-Union, alongside Chaumont, Reims and Paris, but was frustrated by the reticence of Châlons-sur-Marne.

[6] Cardinal Lorraine had worked hard even in his final year, to ensure that Henri would agree to the transfer of his benefices upon his death, including the critical Archbishopric of Reims.

[3] He would abide by the traditional rules of canonical age requirements, only assuming the authority he inherited as Archbishop of Reims in 1583, making a triumphal entry into the ancient city that year.

[3] Now invested with the authority of Archbishop, he held a provincial synod in May that looked towards Trent as a model for church reform, and put himself at the centre of a penitential procession movement that was blooming, with thousands of pilgrims descending on Reims.

[9] With the formation of the first national Catholic ligue in 1576, formed in opposition to the Peace of Monsieur which afforded generous provisions to Protestants generally and their aristocratic leaders in particular, Cardinal Guise saw advantage for his family in affiliation.

The civil war would continue for several more months before the disintegration of the royal army due to lack of finances led to the conclusion of the Treaty of Bergerac in September.

Henri was furious at what had transpired, and the Guise family, equally frustrated with the court, and fearful of royal retribution, decided to stage a grand departure en masse.

[20] While the first ligue had collapsed after the Treaty of Bergerac, the death of Alençon and the resulting situation in which Navarre, a distant cousin of Henri and a Protestant was now heir to the throne, revitalised the movement in 1584.

The manifesto expounded on the problems facing the kingdom from Protestants at arms, to the lack of a dauphin, to the monopolisation of access to the king by a small handful of favourites.

[30] On the happy occasion of their political victory, Cardinal Guise met with his two brothers, the Prince of Joinville son of the duke and Esclavolles for a series of festivities.

[33] Despite these declarations, when Henri attempted to raise funds to prosecute the war through the alienation of church land, Cardinal Guise vehemently opposed any suggestion of the project.

On 5 June the king was forced to concede to the ligue, agreeing to establish an Edict of Union by which he would affirm the exclusion of Navarre from the succession, and forgive all those who had participated in the disorder in Paris.

On 9 June he attempted a new strategy, conscious that he might not have the advantage for long if the lieutenant-general Dinteville arrived he requested an interview with several officials of the town so that he might make the will of Henri and the duke of Guise known to them.

By now his plans for a coup were underway and the following day he gained entry with the aid of ligueur sympathisers inside who were in control of Croncels and allowed him to enter alongside Esclavolles and an armed escort.

He quickly set about consolidating his authority over Troyes, first through the installation of Nicolas de Hault as mayor, a man with long connections to the Guise family, and then a week later, a general purge of the administration, to remove all the councillors who were hostile to the ligue.

Cardinal Guise arranged for the restoration of the water supply to Troyes, which he had previously cut off, and set about instilling fervour through regular religious processions.

Guise and his brother the duke were increasingly frustrated by Châlons' various stalling tactics, the city only making a tentative agreement with the ligue after the king had already conceded signing the Edict of Union on 21 July while staying in Rouen.

At a meeting with La Chapelle-Marteau, the ligueur mayor of Paris and président of the Third Estate, Cardinal Guise tried to convince him that his deputies inflexibility in their fiscal demands, would destroy the French state.

[66] The sacrilegious prospect of murdering a Cardinal did not appeal to even the members of his personal bodyguard and only one of the Quarante Cinq could be convinced to carry out the deed.

[71] The doctors of the Sorbonne certainly took this view and in anticipation of the imminent excommunication of the king for the murder of the Cardinal, they declared Henri deposed, and elaborated that it was the duty of all Frenchman to resist him forcefully.

[72] Pope Sixtus V was sympathetic to these efforts, and commented that Henri's murder of Cardinal Guise was a sacrilegious act that carried with it the possibility of excommunication.

[73] As early as 24 December Henri had requested a meeting with the Papal Legate Morosini to explain his actions, he asserted he would have preferred to deal with the Guise brothers via the normal legal process, but their threats to his authority were too immediate.

[77] Claude d'Angennes the bishop of Le Mans was dispatched the following month to continue entreating with the Pope, he was received several times into Sixtus' presence, but failed to achieve absolution for the king.