Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe Read Online Free PDF Page B

in that fateful decision. A no-nonsense man of action, he had been present with the duke in all his major triumphs of the past fifteen years and had achieved recognition as the most experienced and respected captains of his day and ‘the most sweet and gracious man of war that one had ever known’. 23 The rise of these two outsiders was due to talent: the sentiments of kinship and neighbourliness that were providing the Protestants of Wassy a measure of protection from other ducal servants were entirely lacking. There were many others whose goal in entering Wassy had little to do with faith or thoughts of order, especially ‘the lackeys who rejoiced at this enterprise saying that there’d be pillage for them’. 24
    The duke resolved to go and hear Mass at Wassy. It is here that his protestations of innocence ring hollow. He could have stayed at Brousseval but he was not welcome there, as the local lord of the manor was yet another convert to Protestantism, and he had encouraged many of the inhabitants of the village to go to the Protestant service at Wassy. 25 By opting to go and hear Mass sung at Wassy with his full retinue, the duke was fully aware of the dangers. But the risks were overridden by the knowledge that everywhere in this region his rights were being challenged. He felt betrayed. If he could not hear Mass at Wassy, his niece’s property, where else would soon be off limits? The duke was also aware that the Edict of Toleration provided for Protestant worship outside of towns, and the bell-ringing made it clear that Wassy’s Protestants were holding their services inside the town. He may have gone with the intention of arresting Minister Morel, a policy he had backed before the Edict of Toleration. When the duke passed through Wassy’s south gate he undoubtedly felt that he was doing his duty in upholding the law. Almost certainly lacking was any sense of the spirit in which those laws were enacted.
    As the host entered the town at around 8 am, la Montaigne pointed out a Protestant rope-maker in the street who was interrogated before being released. The duke was apparently looking for the Protestant minister. 26 It is from here that Protestant sources become less reliable.
    The duke is supposed to have launched a surprise attack on the barn where the Protestants were meeting, but if this were so it was not a particularly successful enterprise: out of a congregation of several hundred, the duke’s heavily armed retinue, most of them veteran soldiers and hired thugs, could only manage to kill a fraction of that number.
    The duke did not head towards the barn, but instead made straight for the parish church of Wassy, where he intended to investigate the bell-ringing and do his devotions. A further irritation to the duke’s mood came from the location of the barn. More provocative than the ringing of bells to announce a public service within the town walls was the fact the meeting house lay not one hundred yards from the church along a street that ran to the south-eastern quarter of the town. This part of town fell within the jurisdiction of the imposing royal castle. In his attempts to justify the events that were to follow, the duke made no mention of the fact that Protestants were worshipping within the city walls and therefore acting illegally under the terms of the Edict of Toleration. 27 Rather, he made much of the fact that the barn belonged to him and that they were worshipping on his property. In those days the castle quarter was clearly separated from the rest of the town by a ditch. The Protestants claimed that they were in the castle compound, technically outside the town’s jurisdiction and therefore acting lawfully. But legal quibbles were not what provoked the duke’s anger. The castle and its environs had been entrusted to his protection by his niece and he was furious that one of his subordinates, the captain of the castle, Claude Tondeur, should permit such an outrage to occur. (The