Massacre of Vassy

Second; 1567–1568Saint-Denis; Chartres Third; 1568–1570Jarnac; La Roche-l'Abeille; Poitiers; Orthez; Moncontour; Saint-Jean d'Angély; Arney-le-Duc Fourth; 1572–1573Mons; Sommières; Sancerre; La Rochelle Fifth; 1574–1576Dormans Sixth; 1577La Charité-sur-Loire; Issoire; Brouage Seventh; 1580La Fère War of the Three Henrys (1585–1589)Coutras; Vimory; Auneau; Day of the Barricades Succession of Henry IV of France (1589–1594)Arques; Ivry; Paris; Château-Laudran; Rouen; Caudebec; Craon; 1st Luxembourg; Blaye; Morlaix; Fort Crozon Franco-Spanish War (1595–1598)2nd Luxembourg; Fontaine-Française; Ham; Le Catelet; Doullens; Cambrai; Calais; La Fère; Ardres; Amiens The Massacre of Vassy (French: massacre de Wassy) was the murder of Huguenot worshippers and citizens in an armed action by troops of the Duke of Guise, in Wassy, France on 1 March 1562.

[7] The Guise family also possessed part of the town in the form of the castle district overseen by the Captain Claude Tondeur, in which the Protestant meeting house where the massacre occurred was located.

[11] In the wake of Gravelle's open baptism, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise's brother, intervened, sending a delegation under his client the bishop Jerôme Bourgeois to bring the community back into the Catholic fold.

[14] This achieved, Guise began the return to Paris to which he had been called on 28 February by the kingdom's lieutenant-general, the King of Navarre, to aid him in opposing Catherine's Edict of January.

[9][16] Reaching Brousseval a short distance away he heard the church bells of Wassy ringing, at a time in the day which precluded the possibility it was for Mass, enraging him.

[17] On the pretext of desiring to hear Mass in the town, Guise and his entire gendarme company entered Wassy by the south gate and headed for the church.

[21] The exact nature of the events, in particular in relation to whether it had been a Huguenot or a member of Guise's party who had begun the violence at the door, immediately became a source of disagreement between Protestant and Catholic polemics and contemporary histories.

[23] In Guise's recollections to Duke Christophe of Württemberg, which formed the basis for the Catholic account, he reported that upon trying to inspect the temple he was resisted, and arquebuses were fired from the inside at his men, who had only swords to defend themselves.

[27][28] Having committed the massacre, and despite resulting instructions from Catherine to immediately come to court, Guise continued on to Paris, where the Catholic population, upon hearing the news of his actions, gave him a hero's welcome.

[29] Catherine, as regent, seeing the dangerous potential of the magnates in the city, ordered him and the leader of the Huguenot party, the Prince of Condé, to vacate Paris, Guise however refused to do so.

[29] In response to this and the massacre, Condé marched on Orléans seizing it on 2 April and several days later released a manifesto which in justifying his rebellion cited the "cruel and horrible carnage wrought at Vassy, in the presence of M. de Guise".

[33] The popular unrest caused by the assassination, coupled with the resistance by the city of Orléans to the siege, led Catherine de' Medici to mediate a truce, resulting in the Edict of Amboise on 19 March 1563.