Onsen Bathall in New Year's Day, the 24th of August 1572, French Protestants, also

known as Huguenots, were slaughtered in vast numbers in Paris and across France, in episodes

of brutal, sickening violence.

The massacre took place just a few days after the wedding of the King's Catholic sister,

Marguerite, to the Protestant King Ari of Navarre, an event that had been designed to

quail religious tensions not to exacerbate them.

It was the worst religious massacre in this century of religious violence.

To discuss the road to the St. Bathall in New Year's Day Massacre, I'm joined by Dr.

Sophie Nichols.

She took her PhD at Cambridge and is a lecturer in early modern history at St. Anne's College

Oxford.

She's the author of Political Thought in the French Wars of Religion, and is writing a book about

the Wars for a general audience called the Midnight Bell, which will be out in 2023.

And I asked her to introduce us to France in the 16th century and then take us up to the

events of 1572.

Sophie, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about something that we both find

utterly fascinating.

So perhaps you could start by introducing us to France in the 16th century?

Certainly.

So France has just come out of the Hundred Years War with England and is actually looking

pretty robust, so it's very surprising actually that we end up at this sort of moment of crisis

in the middle of the century.

...