The Amboise conspiracy, also called Tumult of Amboise, was a failed attempt by a Huguenot faction in France to gain control over the young king Francis II and to reverse the policies of the current administration of Francis, Duke of Guise and Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine through their arrest, and potentially execution. Malcontent factions of Huguenots had been chafing under the French crown since the reign of Henry II and with the arrival of a new young king, saw their chance to take power for themselves. However the plot was uncovered ahead of time, and the Guise were ready for them. As such hundreds would be arrested, and many killed. Louis, Prince of Condé was suspected of involvement, however he was able to flee south, and it was only after some months that the Guise were able to put him on trial. Shortly thereafter, the sickly Francis II died, their hold on the administration collapsed, and with it the conviction of Condé. This tumult would be one of the key steps in the collapse of crown authority that led to the French Wars of Religion. Background Death of the king On 10 July 1559, after a jousting accident, Henry II of France died suddenly. Premature as his death was, the crown fell to his young son, Francis II, who was only 15 years old. Francis' wife's maternal uncles, Francis, Duke of Guise and Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine moved into the power vacuum, taking control over the young and sickly king's administration. They were faced with a formidable crisis; France was 40 million livres in debt, of which 19 million was owed immediately, as a result of the Italian Wars. Many royal officials had been without pay for years. Alongside this fiscal crisis the Guise administration was faced with one of religion, despite the persecutions undertaken by Henry II, Protestantism had continued to grow towards the end of his reign, leaving the new administration the crisis of solving the religious question. Religious policy To solve these twin problems, the Guise set upon a course of religious political continuity, and fiscal cost cutting. The former embodied in four laws in the latter half of 1559, with landlords to be prosecuted if they harboured heretics and meeting houses to be razed to the ground among other provisions. Raids were conducted of suspected Protestant homes, and in Paris these found pamphlets, lambasting the Guise.