There, the Protestants captured Montmorency. The young Admiral de Coligny managed to withdraw most of the Protestant forces to Orleans, which was then besieged during the winter of 62-63.
At Orleans, an assassin killed the Duc de Guise. Antoine de Bourbon had been killed at the siege of Rouen, and this last casualty eliminated the first generation of Catholic leadership. With the Huguenot heartland in the south untouched and the royal treasury becoming impoverished, the crown's position was weak and Catherine leaned towards a settlement. The noble prisoners were exchanged, and the Edict of Amboise issued in March 63. This restricted Protestant freedoms somewhat, allowing worship outside the walls of only one town per hailliage, although the nobility still had the freedom to do as they would on their estates. This increased the resentment and tension in the towns and was generally unsatisfying to most.
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The Second War (1567-1568).
Even though the Duc de Guise had died, the Guise faction remained powerful and the Cardinal de Lorraine consolidated his power even more. He argued for vigorous suppression of the Huguenots in response to Protestant insurrection in the neighboring Low Countries, where outbreaks of iconoclasm were met with fierce repression by Spain. Catherine began a two-year tour of the provinces with her son Charles the Ninth, in an effort to establish unity with the nobility. During this tour, she passed through Bayonne and met with the Duke of Alva, the King of Spain's "hard man" in the subjugation of the Netherlands. This spread alarm through the Protestant community. When the Spanish marched troops along the "Spanish Road", their presence on the Eastern borders added to the panic. The rumor that Catherine was plotting with Spain to exterminate them caused the Huguenots to attempt a coup at Meaux, to seize the person of the king and get him away from the Guises.