Battle of Orthez 1569

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 General Terride 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.

[edit] Background

In the later half of the sixteenth century, all Aquitaine above the Garonne except for Bordeaux was in Protestant hands. At that time, Orthez was the largest and most dynamic city of Béarn. It was a market town which served as the main funnel for products making their way to Bayonne for export. Orthez was therefore quite wealthy. One wealthy protestant, Adrien-Arnaud de Gachassin had gifted his mansion in Orthez 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). The Huguenots were therefore desirous of capturing the important and wealthy town of Orthez.

[edit] En route to Orthez and the massacre

Le Pont-Vieux over the Gave de Pau in Orthez. The opening in the parapet of the bridge is the point from which the Catholic priests of Orthez were thrown to their deaths during the massacre.

The Protestant forces of Montgomery and Montamat had left Castres around noon on July 27, 1569. They pillaged along the way, passing through Mazères in Foix. The troops crossed the Garonne and the Gave at Coarreze and by August 9, 1569, they reached Queen Jeanne d' Albret’s castle at Navarrenx. On August 11, the troops were on the move again and now headed for Orthez. By August 15, after a relentless siege, Montgomery had weakened Orthez 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 were Terride, Bassillon, governor of Navarrenx, as well as other leadership and troops in Terride’s defenses, local clergy and people of Orthez. A special death was contrived for the clergy - they were thrown to their deaths from the heights of Orthez's Le Pont-Vieux over the Gave de Pau. In addition to the massacre of the Catholics of Orthez, the town’s Moncade castle was torched as well as the town’s churches and many homes.

[edit] Aftermath and Epilogue

The massacres at Orthez and Navarrenx were not an anomaly. Montgomery’s Huguenot troops had committed subsequent massacres of Catholics in Artix, Tarbes and elsewhere.

In her 1568 memoirs, Jeanne d'Albret accepted responsibility for the killings at Orthez and Navarrenx which she said were carried out, “in the name of the Lord.”

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 of Guyenne in southwestern France. Her goal was to create a Protestant 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 to Orthez and Navarrenx by her direct orders, the historian Communay 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 the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris was in fact a revenge killing for the massacre of Catholics by Huguenot forces in Orthez three years prior. In all, both events fit into the bigger picture of the French Wars of Religion.