The Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was signed on 8 August 1570 by Charles IX of France, Gaspard II de Coligny and Jeanne d'Albret, to end the third war (1568-70) of the French Wars of Religion.
The Peace went much further than the March 1568 Peace of Longjumeau by establishing specific rights and responsibilities for French Protestants, generally known as Huguenots. Freedom of worship was permitted in two towns per gouvernment, while the Huguenots were allowed to maintain armed garrisons in four towns for a period of two years, after which they had to be returned to Royal control. However, the civil war resumed in 1572 after the targeted assassination of Huguenot leaders assembled in Paris spiralled into the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
Third civil war
Following the outbreak of civil war in 1568, the Huguenots under Coligny and Condé opted to defend the south-west by fortifying towns such as Angoulême and Cognac. As they moved south in March 1569, their rear guard was trapped by the Royalists at Jarnac, with Condé cut down after surrendering. However, the bulk of the Huguenot army reached Cognac, with Coligny assuming leadership on behalf of Henry of Navarre and Condé's son Henri.
At Châlus on 11 June, Coligny joined up with 14,000 German mercenaries financed by Elizabeth I of England, originally led by the Duke of Zweibrücken who died shortly before their meeting. This combined army of 25,000 defeated a slightly larger royalist force at La Roche-l'Abeille on 25th. They then laid siege to Poitiers, which was held by Henry I, Duke of Guise; it was still resisting when the main Royal army under Tavannes invested the nearby Huguenot town of Châtellerault.
Forced to withdraw from Poitiers, on 3 October Coligny's forces were decisively defeated at the Battle of Moncontour, but although his army incurred heavy casualties, the remnants were able to retreat in good order. Rather than pursuing Coligny, Tavannes moved onto Saint-Jean-d'Angély, whose possession would enable him to break the Huguenot hold on Aquitaine. Although the town surrendered on 2 December, the Royalists lost thousands of men to disease or hunger, while many of their Swiss and German mercenaries mutinied after not being paid.
Coligny and his remaining troops had moved into Languedoc, where he linked up with 4,000 men led by Montgomery. After an unsuccessful siege of Toulouse in January 1570, their combined force marched north through the Rhone valley towards Paris and reached Montbrison in May. Learning that a Royalist force under Brissac was advancing on the nearby Huguenot stronghold of La Charité, Coligny intercepted and defeated him at Arnay le Duc on 25 June 1570. With Paris under threat, the state bankrupt and the Royal army in ruins, this gave him a strong position to negotiate with Charles IX of France.
Negotiations
Early doubts
No sooner had the war begun than moderate Politique voices on the royal council advocated for a return to status quo ante bellum. The bishop Jean de Monluc as early as 2 December 1568 argued for a restoration of the edict of Longjumeau, and the provision of a governorship to Condé, Armand de Gontaut, baron de Biron likewise refused to serve in a war he felt was unjust. Hôpital too advocated for such a settlement, however he had been marginalised from the government by the beginning of the war, and had lost his seals to the chancellorship. The financial difficulties that had forced the crown to conclude the peace of Longjumeau the prior year also played upon the king, who considered in January the possibility of a temporary truce until proper funding for the armies and mercenaries could be arranged.
Jarnac to Poitiers
When the battle of Jarnac was not followed by a disintegration of the Protestant army, as expected, the crown's army itself began to fall apart in the summer, mutinous for lack of pay and suffering from disease. This motivated more serious outreaches of peace, and Catherine broached the idea of a marriage between Margaret of Valois-Angoulême and Henry IV of France to seal away the civil war, whilst the Huguenot army was encamped outside of Poitiers. Coligny was likewise interested in peace at this time, and advocated for full freedom of religion, and the declaration of a war against Spain to take advantage of the situation in the Netherlands. The king rebuffed these attempts, offering amnesty to the leadership if they laid down their arms.
Moncontour to Saint-Jean-de-Angély
With the crushing victory at Moncontour the crown again hoped it represented the end of Huguenot resistance. Tavannes and Cossé wanted to use the opportunity to establish a peace, however the crown pressed on with its attempts on Saint-Jean-d'Angély, hoping for a final victory. The baron de Castlenau offered to negotiate favourable terms for Navarre and the Huguenot subjects, provided they throw down their arms and petition the crown as loyal subjects. Meanwhile, as the siege stretched on with no victory in sight, the moderates on the council again petitioned for peace on 24 November. Charles was more open to the idea than he had been a month ago, with the loss of Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc who had been fighting Jeanne d'Albret in the south, the ravaging of the royal army outside Saint-Jean-de-Angély by disease and famine and the comparatively growing strength of the Protestant viscounts in Languedoc. Consequently he sent Cossé and de Losses to negotiate, their delegation meeting with Albret and Rochefoucault. The Huguenot nobility, largely tired of war, was eager to accept but on certain conditions. The nobility deputised Teligny to seek assurances from the king and negotiate a full liberty of conscience, restitution of property and office and a rescinding of sentences against the Huguenot leadership (Coligny had forfeited his title and been sentenced to death by the Parlement of Paris.) These terms had been agreed upon by the Princes and approved by Jeanne d'Albret. Albret meanwhile wrote to Catherine, announcing she would rather die than compromise on the issue of public worship.
Toulouse to Arnay-le-Duc
For the moment however the crown felt its position was strong enough to reject such terms, and negotiations ceased until February. A new attempt was made by the Huguenots to push for their terms in February 1570, with La Noue, Téligny and Bricquemault negotiating for the Huguenots, and the moderates Biron and de Mesmes for the crown. Conscious of the difficult international situation these more serious attempts put her in Catherine wrote to Philip in Madrid, explaining the extreme circumstances that necessitated negotiation with heretics. Charles went further in his letters to the Spanish court, describing the kingdom as being practically in ruin, and negotiation necessary to maintain France as a state. Regardless the crown rebuffed the Huguenots again over their demands regarding worship. In March the Huguenot Princes met at Montreuil to reaffirm their commitment to free exercise of religion being a pre-requisite to peace negotiation.
Biron would plead with the king in March, arguing there was no harm in listening to the demands of the Huguenots. The king relented, and in April talks resumed to tackle the gaps between the sides on matters of surety towns, payments of Coligny's reiters and free exercise of religion. Téligny was instructed not to meet the crown's negotiators in the presence of Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine who was considered by the Huguenot camp to be the head of the most reactionary elements of the Catholic camp. Whilst Téligny would meet Charles, and Biron would meet Coligny, consensus could still not be reached on the sticking point issues. Rumours in May that Henri de Navarre desired to run away from the rebel camp to court enlivened the interest of Charles in a royal marriage proposal to draw him away, which would extinguish a key source of legitimacy for the rebel forces enabling far more stringent negotiations. For now though the marriage proposal came to nought.
In July Cossé warned the king that the crown's army was on the cusp of disintegration unless peace was signed shortly. Coligny, who had grown weary of the war, was also in a mood to compromise on the red lines the Huguenots had drawn regarding exercise of religion, and the leadership of the Huguenots agreed to accept public worship on the lines of the Edict of Saint-Germain. Resultingly the Huguenots offered to accede to worship in three towns per gouvernment, amnesty for past actions and the restoration of property. The crown countered with an offer of two towns and also insisted on an exclusion zone around Paris in which worship would be prohibited, but offered worship in all cities currently held by the Huguenots to sweeten the deal. The crown demanded that the Huguenots pay part of the cost of their reiter's wages; however, it eventually agreed to shoulder the entire burden. Concerning surety towns the crown offered La Rochelle, Angoulême and Montauban, countering the Huguenot demands for La Charité with offers of Perpignan or Lansac. The crown would later change its offer from Angoulême to Cognac, but relented to the Huguenots on their demand for La Charité.
The Protestant nobility accepted this compromise, which favoured their heartland in the south at the expense of Huguenots in the north and east, and on 8 August 1570 peace was signed at the royal residence of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Terms of the peace
Past wrongs
Article 1 of the peace deal concerned crimes and other wrongs committed during the course of the prior three wars of religion. These were to be quenched and forgotten. Article 2 forbade the making of trouble over disputes that had arisen during the wars; the crown beseeched its subjects to live peacefully with one another. The next article mandated that the Catholic religion be restored in all regions where Huguenot ascendency during or prior to the civil war had seen it suppressed in sole favour of Huguenot worship. Article 4 built upon a concept that had been established first in the Edict of July, prohibiting subjects from investigating their neighbours' religions.
Parameters of worship
Article 5 allowed all gentlemen exercising high justice over their estates to practice the Huguenot faith when present on their estates, likewise their subjects who lived on the estates would be permitted practice of the religion. Article 6 outlined that when high justice was not enjoyed, religious worship was only to be in one's own house, for the members of the household up to ten people, assuming guests were present. Article 8 was a list of the two suburbs per gouvernment where Protestant worship would be permitted in churches and other open displays. Article 9 included the compromise worked out in August, allowing worship to also be conducted in those towns that the Huguenots held on 1 August 1570. Article 10 established that outside of the above towns there was to be no preaching or religious teaching elsewhere. Article 10 created a further prohibition: Protestant worship was to be forbidden within two leagues of wherever the court was currently residing, including for members of the court. Article 12 built upon this, as Protestant worship was outlawed within 10 leagues of Paris, as it had been after Longjumeau, but also the towns of Senlis, Meaux, Melun and Chartres. In keeping with prior edicts, however, house searches for Huguenot worship would not be permitted in any of these towns.