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St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre

1:13:17 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

The 1572 St Bartholomew's Day massacre convinced Elizabethan England that Catholic priests were agents of foreign subversion.

  1. Atrocity became England's proof of conspiracyParis in 1572 confirmed every Protestant suspicion that Catholics would kill them all if given the chance.
  2. Walsingham built the spy service himselfWith a stingy queen he funded agents in 40 locations overseas partly from his own fortune.
  3. Priests were tried as traitors, not hereticsElizabeth avoided her sister's burnings by condemning Campion under a treason statute from the reign of Edward III.
Executive Summary AI
  • Opening with Christopher Marlowe's 1593 play The Massacre at Paris, the hosts turn to the pogrom against French Protestants, or Huguenots, that began on the 24th of August 1572, St Bartholomew's Day, when the Duke of Guise had the Admiral of France, Gaspard de Coligny, murdered and trampled his corpse.3:58
  • Up to 5,000 Protestants were murdered in Paris and tens of thousands more in copycat massacres across France, with Catholic as well as Protestant witnesses describing castrations, slashed bellies and children thrown into the Seine, while the Pope ordered a te deum and struck a commemorative medal and Philip II of Spain gave thanks to God.10:46
  • In England, William Cecil, Lord Burley, and Francis Walsingham, who sheltered Huguenots and English Protestants in his Paris residence as ambassador, read the massacre as proof of a Catholic international conspiracy to murder Elizabeth, excommunicated by the Pope in 1570, and to replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots.18:33
  • Walsingham returned to become principal secretary in 1572 and effectively the queen's spymaster, building networks from almost nothing and, as Robert Beale recorded, recruiting agents in 40 locations overseas with Her Majesty's allowance and his own purse.24:02
  • From a Rome dinner in September 1579, William Allen and the Jesuit Robert Persons drove a mission of priests into England; their courier Charles Sled turned out to be Walsingham's man and handed over lists of some 300 English Catholics, and Edmund Campion was captured at Lyford Grange, repeatedly racked and executed as a traitor on the 1st of December 1581.38:30
Key Quote
“And what that play describes is the most infamous bloodbath in all 16th century European history.”
— Tom3:49
Key Quote
“so it's treason so he's going to be targeting them not for their religious beliefs, but as traitors.”
— Tom51:18
Key Quote
“Is it to convert or is it to subvert?”
— Tom56:55