How were the French Wars of Religion part of a larger framework of European wars and politics?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. While the wars of religion in France were ostensibly about maintaining the primacy of Catholicism and rooting out Huguenots, they were also political because the wars were often fought between the Habsburg and the Valois dynasties. The marriage of Philip II of Spain and the French princess Elizabeth secured an alliance between these two nations and the dynasties, and formed a front against the threat of Protestantism. However, the French had secretly supported Protestant rebellions in the Netherlands and in Germany in order to undermine Habsburg power, which the French felt posed a greater threat with its encirclement of France. At the wedding reception, the French king Henry II was mortally wounded in a tourney, leaving his young son to succeed him. The new king of France ruled with the guardianship of his mother and the advice of Henri de Guise, a virulently anti-Protestant French nobleman. When de Guise later initiated the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in his efforts to protect the king from an alleged assassination plot, it implied perpetuation of a religious war, but the pragmatic response taken by the king and his mother was really one more example of political finesse. Ultimately, Henry IV's issuing of the Edict of Nantes proved that what was really of concern was not the religion of the king, but his absolute control and power.