- Battle of Orthez 1569
Infobox Military Conflict
caption=
conflict=Battle of Orthez 1569
partof=theFrench Wars of Religion
date=WednesdayAugust 24 ,1569
place=France
result=Huguenot victory
commander1=Gabriel de Montgomery
commander2=General Terride
strength1=
strength2=
casualties1=
casualties2=The Battle of Orthez occurred in
Orthez on Wednesday August 24, 1569. Huguenot forces under the leadership of Gabriel de Montgomery defeated Royalist forces under GeneralTerride in French Navarre. Catholics surrendered to the Protestant forces after having been assured that their lives would be spared. The Huguenots agreed, but then massacred the imprisoned Catholics anyway.Background
In the later half of the sixteenth century, all
Aquitaine above theGaronne except forBordeaux was inProtestant hands. At that time,Orthez was the largest and most dynamic city ofBéarn . It was a market town which served as the main funnel for products making their way toBayonne for export. Orthez was therefore quite wealthy. One wealthy protestant,Adrien-Arnaud de Gachassin had gifted his mansion inOrthez to Jeanne d' Albret in 1555 (today, it is called Maison of Jeanne d' Albret and has become a museum of how wealthy Protestants lived). TheHuguenots were therefore desirous of capturing the important and wealthy town ofOrthez .En route to Orthez and the massacre
The
Protestant forces of Montgomery andMontamat had leftCastres around noon on July 27, 1569. Theypillaged along the way, passing through Mazères in Foix. The troops crossed theGaronne and theGave atCoarreze and by August 9, 1569, they reached Queen Jeanne d' Albret’s castle atNavarrenx . On August 11, the troops were on the move again and now headed forOrthez . By August 15, after a relentless siege, Montgomery had weakenedOrthez greatly. The Catholics surrendered to the Protestant forces after having been assured that their lives would be spared. The Huguenots agreed, but then on August 24, 1569 massacred the imprisoned Catholics anyway. Among the massacred victims wereTerride ,Bassillon , governor ofNavarrenx , as well as other leadership and troops in Terride’s defenses, local clergy and people ofOrthez . A special death was contrived for the clergy - they were thrown to their deaths from the heights of Orthez'sLe Pont-Vieux over theGave de Pau . In addition to the massacre of the Catholics ofOrthez , the town’sMoncade castle was torched as well as the town’s churches and many homes.Aftermath and Epilogue
The massacres at
Orthez andNavarrenx were not an anomaly. Montgomery’s Huguenot troops had committed subsequent massacres of Catholics in Artix,Tarbes and elsewhere.Jeanne III d'Albret (1528-1572), queen of Navarre, and considered “queen of the Huguenots” played a leading role during the
French Wars of Religion in the vast territory ofGuyenne in southwestern France. Her goal was to create aProtestant Guyenne by force of arms. Based on correspondence and the memoirs of Jeanne III d'Albret, as well as the fact that the war was taken specifically toOrthez andNavarrenx by her direct orders, the historianCommunay posits that she herself may have ordered the slaughter of the Catholic prisoners. Whether the massacre was by Jeanne’s direct order or not, in her memoirs of 1568, she in fact accepted responsibility for the killings which she rationalized were carried out, “in the name of the Lord.” Doubtless, however, the Huguenots were so enraged from the persecution inflicted on them by the Catholics that they could not be restrained from the massacre.The massacre at Orthez on August 24, 1569 was in reality, the first
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , three years to the day before the massacres in Paris. Many historians posit that theSt. Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris was in fact a revenge killing for the massacre of Catholics by Huguenot forces inOrthez three years prior. In all, both events fit into the bigger picture of theFrench Wars of Religion .
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