The Duke of Anjou and the Politique Struggle during the Wars of Religion

Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History

by Mack P. Holt

From the beginning of the French Wars of Religion a small minority of toleration-minded Protestants and Catholics sought out a via media to end the civil wars which were destroying France. Later called politiques by their more zealous Catholic opponents, this group turned to François de Valois, duke of Alençon and Anjou in the 1570s, to champion their cause. Youngest son of Henry II and Catherine de Medici and heir to the throne himself after 1574, Anjou was also sought out by William of Orange and a similar group of politiques in the rebel provinces of the Netherlands, where the Dutch Revolt had virtually become a civil war. Anjou never became the saviour that either group had looked for, however. This book analyses why he nevertheless became the focus of such attention, and tries to explain why he never joined the politique struggle of the later sixteenth century.

Genres: History

260 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 1986

About the author

Mack P. Holt is Professor of History and received his Ph.D in History from Emory University in 1982. Before coming to George Mason in 1989 he taught at Harvard and Vanderbilt universities. From 1998 to 2002 he was also Director of the Honors Program in General Education, and he served as the department’s Director of Graduate Studies from 2004 to 2010.

Reviews

[Ben Gerber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book.

Holt tackles the figure of Francis, Duke of Anjou (1555 - 1584). The youngest son of Henry II (r. 1547 - 1559), he watched as three of his brothers (Francis in 1559, Charles in 1560, and Henry in 1574) took the throne one after the other. He predeceased the last, thus never became King of France.

Anjou is, overall, an unimpressive figure. He is militarily incompetent, naive, and untrustworthy. But he is also, after the death of Charles IX in 1574, the heir to the throne. This position, along with his wealthy apanage, gives him considerable power and leads a group of malcontents to rally behind him. Promising to aid them in their struggle against the Crown, Anjou rallies Huguenot rebels and their German allies to his banner. These forces compel the Crown to capitulate, and give Anjou just about everything he wants (more titles, land, and a big pension) in the so-called "Treaty of Monsieur" (1576) along with concessions to the Protestants.

Holt details Anjou's reconciliation with the Crown and his (largely symbolic) command of the main Royal army in the Sixth War of Religion (1577), fighting against his erstwhile Protestant allies.

The greater part of the book is devoted to Anjou's involvement in the Netherlands. To make a long story short, he is invited to defend the Dutch rebels from the Spanish by the States-General of the Netherlands. The treaty between Anjou and the States-General stipulated the payment of 200k livres a month for the upkeep of Anjou's army (along with funds from France and England). Anjou marches into the Netherlands, and sets up near Antwerp. But the money doesn't come. The Calvinist provinces (particularly Zealand and Holland) are reluctant to fund the intervention of a Catholic prince, and even the Catholic rebels are dismayed by the poor behavior of Anjou's troops. Anjou's army starves and withers away over the winter of 1582-83, despite the attempts of the Prince of Orange (Stadholder of Holland) to get the States-General to fund it. In January 1583, Anjou leads his *starving* soldiers in a desperate attempt to sack Antwerp, which goes about as well as one might expect. He returns to France, but manages to make a new deal with the Dutch and expects to return to the Netherlands. Anjou never returns, however, as he dies of chronic tuberculosis in June 1584.

Holt points out that Anjou's time in the Netherlands has been dealt with largely by hostile Belgian and Dutch historians. While Holt does not absolve Anjou of incompetence (particularly with regard to the attempt against Antwerp), he notes that the odds were stacked heavily against him in the Netherlands. He was facing, after all, Spain's best army led by the best commander of the age (the Duke of Parma). His brother, the king of France, wanted to avoid open involvement and this limited the amount of money that could be sent to him. While England proved comparatively generous to Anjou's project in the Netherlands, the Prince of Orange could not manage to accrue enough money from the States General to support the French army. Money, not incompetence, appears to have doomed Anjou from the start.

Despite the title, this book doesn't say that much about the "Politique Struggle." It affirms, in fact, that Anjou had almost nothing to do with the Politiques and that he spurned the opportunity, presented during the Estates General of 1576, to place himself at the head of their faction. Nonetheless this book is great and the writing is excellent. A lot of original research seems to have gone into it as well. Anjou's dismal career is difficult to understand at first glance and Holt does an excellent job explaining it. Highly recommended.