The Edict of Amboise is signed, ending the first phase of the French Wars of Religion and granting certain freedoms to the Huguenots.

Catherine de Medici's thirteen-year-old son Charles IX sat on the throne of France as his mother negotiated the Edict of Amboise, signed on March 19, 1563, ending the first of eight religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots that would tear France apart for the next thirty-five years. The edict granted Huguenots limited freedom of worship, and neither side considered the compromise satisfactory. The First French War of Religion had erupted in March 1562 after the Duke of Guise's troops massacred a Huguenot congregation at Vassy, killing approximately sixty worshippers. The massacre triggered open warfare between Catholic and Huguenot forces across France. Louis, Prince of Conde, led the Huguenot military response, seizing several cities and appealing to Protestant England for assistance. Elizabeth I sent troops and money in exchange for the port of Le Havre. The war produced atrocities on both sides and devastated the French countryside. Neither Catholic nor Huguenot forces achieved a decisive military victory, though the death of the Huguenot leader the Duke of Guise during the siege of Orleans in February 1563 removed the most militant Catholic commander and created an opening for negotiation. Catherine de Medici, ruling as regent for the young Charles IX, brokered the Edict of Amboise as a practical compromise. The edict permitted Huguenot worship on the estates of nobility and in one town per administrative district, but banned it in Paris and most major cities. The restrictions satisfied neither Huguenot leaders, who wanted broader religious freedom, nor Catholic hardliners, who wanted Protestantism eliminated entirely. The peace lasted five years. The Second War of Religion broke out in 1567, followed by six more wars over the next three decades. The cycle of violence culminated in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when Catholic mobs killed thousands of Huguenots across France in the most notorious act of religious violence in French history. The Edict of Amboise was the first of many truces that France needed but could not sustain.