The French Wars of Religion

Timeframe: Early 1600s [when?]
Belligerents: Three major factions: the Guisards, the "Legitimists," and the Unitas Fidelium.
Outcome: The passage of the French throne to the Guisard faction.

THE FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION

It is a dark time for the Kingdom of France. The throne in Paris sits empty, as the armies of three pretenders endlessly battle against each other for the destiny of France. The winner of this struggle will choose the fate of France. Will that fate be Catholic, Farrellite, or Iberian?

Well, I've talked about this before. I've written about it, before (and since.) It occurs to me (after this newest edit, to get rid of the Star Wars joke) that I should probably write about it. And with that said, here's the writing.

Where it begins: the Hungarian Curse

As with a lot of the wars that went on in 17th-century Europe, the blame for this one falls ultimately on the hapless head of the Kingdom of Hungary. Specifically, on the hapless head of a King of Hungary, one Konstantin by name. (Or possibly on his wife. The family tree there is a bit ambiguous.)

This is the age before genetic testing. That's why the Curse was able to do so much damage: it took generations to discover it, and during those generations the women carrying Curse married into some interesting families. One of them in particular [who?] married the king of France. [who?]

And while I'm by no means certain, because that's what happens when all the names change, I do like to imagine that the Curse is discovered right around the time that one particularly long-lived French king, the last of his dynasty, has entered his death spiral, leaving absolutely no hope of a male heir before he dies. Because about ten minutes after that becomes common knowledge, all relevant parties are going to gear up for the inevitable war of succession.

The Big Three Factions

When the war starts up, there are basically three contenders:

• The King of Castille. As an adult male who's plenty close to the throne, the King of Castille actually has a very good legal claim to the Crown of France. (So do his successors ever afterwards, and "Legitimism" is a perennially popular fringe political theory.)
• The Unitas Fidelium. There actually is a direct male heir: an unacknowledged bastard son of the last king, by name Jean (quickly styled "the Beloved.") Not exactly cut out for the role (two massacres short of a St. Bartholemew's Day, maybe), but exactly the kind of perfectly legitimate, very weak king that some particularly powerful nobles would like to have reigning over them.
  
  This would be all well and good, except that a fair number of those nobles are also devout Farrellites, and their counterpoint is...
• The Ligue Catholique. The name is almost certainly going to stay, simply because it's so true. As a working name, ever since I became aware of the IRL French Wars of Religion, I've always called the Ligue leadership "the Guises," and at this point in time I'm not sure if it's worth the effort to go back and actually name them something else.
  
  By the time the tyrants from Picardy lose the throne in the French War of Succession, it's pretty much acknowledged that the Guises were the only serious faction that had no blood claim to succession. (They did have a legal claim, but legal, schmegal, blood is what counts.) What matters is that they were the faction that was supported by the Papal States, a fair number of the French parts of the Holy Roman Empire, and (in theory) Catholics the world over. And, in practice, it's worth noting that the Guises always had worryingly close ties to the Sodality, meaning that their support base was broader than anybody might have imagined...

In which France turns into a Catholic dystopia

SPOILER: the Guises win. France turns into a Catholic dystopia. Centuries later, nobody will expect the French Inquisition, but until that time it will not only be expected, but dreaded. Montagnards living under Moorish rule will name cities Toussaints-Veclangues, "All the Saints with their tongues," because so many of their ancestors were silenced by suffering just that fate before they burned at the stake. It was the only way to make them stop singing. The Inquisitors hated Farrellite hymnography.

My problem is that I'm not totally sure what happens between the start and the end. Oh, I have a few ideas. Simon-Pierre the Apostate, for instance, and the... unique impact he makes on postwar French heraldry. The siege he breaks, during which he composes what later becomes the royal anthem, still sung centuries later in 1930. The atrocities that the Ligue commits in the process of seizing power. The chaos that erupts when the Legitimist faction winds up making a peace treaty, or another makes a bad move on the world stage, and for the first time Christian and Moorish Spains unite and fight side by side.

But that's all for another day, isn't it?