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Excerpts from:

Christ the King : Lord of History
by, Anne W. Carroll, pages 244-251.

Philip was crowned king of Spain in 1556. … In thanksgiving to God, Philip began the construction of a monastery-palace in honor of St Lawrence … This building symbolizes Philip’s character strong, unostentatious, centered on Christ. It contains his “throne”—a simple canvas stool under a painting of the Crucifixion, and the magnificent basilica where he would slip in quietly to pray as he bore the great burdens of his office. …

[After Philip’s wedding] Philip took his gentle, lovely wife [Isabel of Valois] home, leaving France under the rule of Francis II and Mary Stuart, assisted by the Guises.

Calvinism had made strong headway among French aristocrats (though the majority of the ordinary French people held to the Catholic Church), as nobles saw the new religion as a means of wresting political power from the crown and from the Catholic nobility. With Henry II dead and a weak, young king on the throne, the Huguenots (French Calvinists) under the leadership of Admiral Coligny saw an opportunity to seize power. In March 1560 came the shadowy plot known as the Conspiracy or Tumult of Amboise, in which certain Huguenots—probably with Cecil’s connivance and with the support of Calvin himself, who had said that it was lawful to slay those who hindered the preaching of Calvinism—attempted to kidnap Francis and murder the Guises. They hoped to control Francis and influence him to be Calvinist. The plot was uncovered and the head of the Guise family, Duke Francis, moved against the ringleaders.

Furious at the failure of their plot, and encouraged by Cecil, who urged them to make good use of “their pen and weapons,” the Huguenots began the Wars of Religion in France, sweeping the country with a wave of diabolical anti-Catholic atrocities during 1561 Churches were devastated; nuns and priests were scourged and killed; the tombs of saints were violated. At Montpellier the Huguenots sacked 60 churches and killed 150 priests and monks. The famous monastery of Cluny, from which had come the great reform of the Church in the tenth and eleventh centuries, was looted. All that remained of two of France’s most famous saints, Irenaeus of Lyons and Martin of Tours, was thrown into the Loire River, the incorrupt body of St Francis of Paola was taken from its tomb, dragged through the streets and burned.

By this time, Francis II had died; and Catherine d’Medici, Henry II’s widow, was ruling in the name of the young Charles IX. …

Catherine would wield power for thirty years, manipulating her children as so many pawns on a chessboard, seeking power for herself and her family, putting personal gain ahead of the rights of the Church.

Catherine was already well-practiced in defying the Church Forced into a political marriage at 14 (to further Francis I’s ambitions in Italy), she had felt her position threatened because she had borne no children after ten years of marriage. Prayers and pilgrimages had not relieved her barrenness. So she turned from God to a power she felt could get things done more efficiently witchcraft and devil worship. On January 19, 1544, Francis was born, and Catherine bore a child a year for the next decade.

But no one can defy the laws of God without eventually suffering the consequences. And the consequences for the children Catherine bore were frightening to behold: Francis, dead before he was 17, his brain half-rotted away; Isabel, a loving and loyal wife to Philip, but dead in her early 20’s; Claude, crippled from birth and welcoming her death at 27; Louis, Jean, Victor, all dead within a year of their baptisms Charles, insane and dead at 24; Hercule, stunted and misshapen, dead at 30; Marguerite, so beautiful that men traveled hundreds of miles simply to look at her, yet never able to bear children and pursuing a life of immorality with terrible energy until she grew old and sick and ugly and returned to the God her mother had forsaken; Henri, greedy, perverted, assassinated in his 38th year.

No one can sin except through his own free will choice, but sometimes the innocent suffer because of the sins of others. Catherine’s children were responsible for their own souls, but each one of them suffered because of their mother’s sins. And so, tragically, did France.

Following close upon Calvinist gains in France, Cecil begin stirring up trouble in the Low Countries (also known as the Netherlands, or Holland and Belgium). William of Orange, who took favors from Philip and promised loyalty, plotted against him behind his back with Cecil and Coligny. The Protestant nobles were against Philip for religious reasons primarily, but they also wanted political freedom and complete control of the wealth of the Low Countries. In 1566 a group of the noblemen came before Margaret of Parma, Philip’s governor in the Netherlands, with insolent demands. One of her companions said, “Don’t be afraid of these beggars,” so the next time they came dressed in rags. Their rebellion is therefore sometimes called the Revolt of the Beggars. Margaret was willing to consider such of their requests as were reasonable and Philip himself had made concessions, but they were not willing to compromise: they wanted Spain and the Catholic Church out of the Netherlands.

On August 16, 1566, the great cathedral of Antwerp was gutted by a Calvinist mob. They began by smashing the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that had been carried in solemn procession the preceding Sunday; they chopped off the heads of statues of Christ with axes and transfixed other images and pictures of Christ with swords; they assaulted a great old crucifix, which displayed the two thieves between whom Christ was crucified, leaving untouched the thieves, but hacking the form of Christ to pieces. They smashed stained glass windows and the great organ, and stole and defiled the vessels and plate. From Antwerp the destruction spread all over the Low Countries, until in the incredibly short time of six weeks the churches in more than 400 towns and villages had been sacked. In Antwerp alone more than 25 churches were devastated in the one terrible night of August 16-17. …

Meanwhile in France, Catherine d’Medici, who of course had sent no aid in response to the Pope’s call for a crusade against the Turks, was becoming fearful that the Huguenots were gaining too much power over Charles, as her son came to rely more on Coligny and less on his mother. On August 22, 1572, Catherine tried to have Coligny assassinated, but the assassin failed and only wounded hint Catherine now feared that her son would find out her involvement in the assassination attempt. So she deliberately provoked Charles—whose mind was unbalanced—into an insane rage, so that he ordered the murder of all the Huguenot leaders in Paris. Catherine and Henri of Guise, Duke Francis’ son, drew up the list. On August 24, the feast of St. Bartholomew, soldiers of the French king systematically struck down the Huguenot leaders. But having unleashed the violence, Charles and Catherine were unable to stop it, and the soldiers ran wild, killing nearly 5,000 Huguenots, including women and children, in what is known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. This atrocity gave the Calvinists further anti-Catholic propaganda, though Catherine had ordered the killings not for the sake of the Church but to increase her own power.

Christ the King : Lord of History
by, Anne W. Carroll