This book tells the story of the historic events that led to the writing of the first document guaranteeing freedom of worship and civil rights to a minority group. Set against a background of civil and religious strife, it focuses on the opposing forces of men and creeds that divided reformation Europe in the sixteenth century.

After the rise of Protestantism, the European continent was plagued with a series of religious wars that pitted nation against nation and citizen against citizen. In France, the huge Huguenot minority was not allowed to worship as it wanted and it was also deprived of the ordinary rights due all subjects of the king. Throughout the century powerful factions, political and religious, tore at each other. After the death of the cruel Catherine de Médicis and her weakling son, Henry III, a new king, Henry of Navarre, mounted the throne as Henry IV, renouncing Protestantism in the process.

This wise monarch knew that France could not long withstand external threats, especially from Spain and Austria, as long as Frenchmen were fighting each other. The issuing of the Edict of Nantes, an important step toward establishing internal peace and security, was his great triumph. For the next hundred years, until Louis XIV revoked this document, Huguenots lived on an almost equal basis with their Catholic neighbors.

From the dust jacket