“Edict of Nantes” – granted

ON THIS DATE

Henry IV (of Navarre) King of France, 4/13/1598, granted Huguenot Believers “The Edict of Nantes” (rhymes with font) a city in Brittany. This “too little, too late” law granted a degree of liberty to his “Protestant” subjects upholding some freedom of conscience and permitting Believers to hold public worship in parts of France – but not in Paris. “Protestants” could keep places they held in August 1597.

Catholicism was restored in ALL places where its practice had been interrupted & expanding true worship in France was made legally impossible. Cardinal de Richelieu & Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes.  The Huguenots remembering the “St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre” (8/23/1572) in which thousands (estimates run from 5000 to 30,000 were killed) emigrated—to the British Isles, Prussia, Holland, & the New World, leaving France 400,000 people short in the very important industrious/commercial groups.

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Henry IV, Edict of Nantes – Apr. 13, 1598

On this date, 4/13/1598, Henry IV (of Navarre) King of France granted the Huguenot Christians “The Edict of Nantes.”  This granted his non-catholic subjects a larger measure of religious freedom.  It lacked a few weeks of being 26 years since the infamous “St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre” (8/23/1572) in which thousands of Christians were assassinated by Roman Catholic mobs. (Thousands? – the estimates run from a conservative 5000 to as high as 30,000.)  The massacre happened just six days after the wedding of this very leader, later Henry IV.

Sadly, this “Edict” only remained in effect for 87 years.

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