Sens Cardinal Guise was relieved of his authority over Albi in 1561, as it was felt that he lacked the energy to sufficiently prosecute a war against heresy in his diocese. He was replaced by
Lorenzo Strozzi, who had called royal troops in to crush suspected heretics in his previous residence at
Béziers. He received the
archbishopric of Sens on 9 May 1561 but resigned it in 1562 to
Cardinal de Pellevée. During Cardinal Guise's tenure as Archbishop of Sens, the Protestants of the town were massacred by militant elements of the populace in April 1562. With his departure from Sens, he retired from active involvement in the episcopacy.
Saverne In February 1562, he travelled to
Saverne to meet with
the Duke of Württemberg, along with his brothers
the Duke of Guise, Lorraine and
the Grand Prior. Cardinal Guise and the Grand Prior would largely be a peripheral presence in the discussions that followed, with Guise and Lorraine exploring the possibility of converting to Lutheranism with the Protestant German duke. Lutheranism was a far more agreeable creed for the
Guise than the Calvinism which dominated French Protestantism. The meeting ended positively, with Lorraine opining that he would trade his red robe for a black one. However the initiative of the meeting would be destroyed on the duke of Guise's return to France, his troops massacring a Protestant service as they passed through
Wassy.
Assassination of the Duke of Guise After the
assassination of the Cardinal's brother, the duke of Guise in March 1563, Cardinal Guise and his brother
Claude, Duke of Aumale hurried to the scene to see their brother off, and ensure his exit was stage managed in a suitably hardline Catholic fashion. The death of
Antoine of Navarre, their cousin in October 1562 had been plagued with rumours of religious unorthodoxy. To this end, they selected an arch conservative confessor for him the Bishop of Riez. He reported that the duke enjoyed the
Epistle of James in his final moments, a controversial epistile, described by
Martin Luther as an 'epistle of straw', and that the duke defended the
Real Presence. Those who were with Riez at the duke's deathbed disputed much of what he said, however by this point the words were already circulating in print. Aumale and Cardinal Guise had succeeded in their objective.
Peace With the first war of religion brought to a close by the
Peace of Amboise.
Catherine de Medici worked hard to secure the nobility was reconciled with each other. To this end she sort to rehabilitate
the Prince of Condé who had led the rebel army during the war. She proudly informed the
duchesse de Guise that Cardinal Guise and
Jacques, Duke of Nemours were reconciled with the Prince. In the years of peace that followed, Cardinal Guise would be a regular fixture on the
conseil privé. He and his brother Lorraine (after his return) represented the hardline Catholic position in the court, alongside
the Duke of Montpensier and
Nevers. During the
royal tour that circumnavigated the kingdom from 1564 to 1566, Cardinal Guise was the only member of his family who accompanied the court on its journey. The rest of his family, feeling the sting of royal displeasure having retreated to Joinville. In 1565 he was among the notables who attended the
Conference of Bayonne. During the meeting the
Duke of Alba, negotiating for the Spanish complemented Cardinal Guise on his steadfast Catholicism. While the subject of the meeting was the fairly uncontroversial matter of marriage arrangements between the royal families of the two kingdoms. This was misinterpreted, deliberately or otherwise by leading Protestant nobles who were not present as a meeting to discuss the liquidation of French Protestants. This would be one of the impetuses for the
Protestant coup that started the second war of religion. That same year, he attempted to prosecute a 'heretical' curate in the town of
Courtenay, his efforts were however confounded when the seigneur de Courtenay seized the official that the Cardinal had sent, holding him as a hostage until the curate was released.
Third war of religion At a council meeting in May 1568, the majority of the councillors present pre-occupied themselves with how best to ensure that the recent
Peace of Longjumeau was properly enforced, proposing various methods by which the king could make his authority on the matter clear. For Cardinal Guise and Lorraine there was a different priority. They spent the meeting discussing how it was important for the Protestants to be brought back to Catholicism, and that until such time as that could be achieved, they must be kept under armed guard. For the moment their advice was ignored. Cardinal Guise was among those in the procession in
Paris in 1568 at the outset of the third war of religion.
Charles IX had just recovered from a grave illness, and as such the symbols of monarchical authority were carried through the streets by clergyman. On 5 October 1568 he was made
Bishop of Metz. That same month, he and Lorraine travelled to
Étampes in the company of the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the king's brother,
Anjou who had set out to campaign against the Protestants. During the war he would be dispatched to
Spain to secure reinforcements for the crown from
Philip II. Catherine wrote frustratedly to him in June, inquiring as to why the troops had not yet arrived. At this time,
the Duke of Nevers had emerged as the leading adviser to Anjou, who would one day be king as Henri III. Nevers counselled Anjou that Cardinal Guise was a dullard, who had no place on the
conseil privé due to lacking the intelligence for matters of state.
Saint-Germain-en-Laye As a mechanism to secure the
Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye Catherine de Medici desired to establish a marriage between her daughter
Marguerite de Valois and the Protestant
King of Navarre. This was theologically difficult as such a marriage would require Papal blessing, due to involving a Protestant and Catholic. It proved impossible for the crown to acquire such dispensation. As a result, it was decided to do it on the authority of the king. To ensure this went over smoothly in the French church, pressure was applied to Cardinals
Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise and
Sens. All of them were eventually pressured into consenting. ==Reign of Henri III==