In this welcome next installment in his ongoing research project on the early French Reformation, Philip Benedict focuses on the web of conspiracies to remove the Guise from power and secure a more hospitable legal environment for Protestant worship in France during the brief reign of Francis II (1559–1560). As one might expect, the famous debacle known as the Conspiracy of Amboise of March 1560 looms large in this study. However, many of Benedict's most important insights come from his focus on further Protestant conspiracies that stretched into the late summer of 1560, and especially the often-neglected Maligny affair that aimed to seize the city of Lyon before being called off in early September. Drawing heavily on the long-neglected testimony under interrogation of Gilles Triou, a cabinetmaker who was arrested shortly after authorities broke up the Maligny affair, Benedict makes a convincing case that the Reformed church in France and the Reformed leadership in Geneva, including John Calvin himself, were more active in planning and supporting the conspiracies of 1560 than traditionally thought. The evidence that Benedict marshals is particularly strong in showing that John Calvin played an active role in promoting and supporting conspiracies during the summer months, including the Maligny affair.

Benedict's central conclusions are important because they challenge the almost exclusive focus of historians to date on the Conspiracy of Amboise and reject the widely held interpretation that the conspiracies were conceived and organized primarily by discontented nobles with Reformed churches and the leadership in Geneva either opposing rebellion or playing only minor roles in the conspiracies. “Any account that ends the story with Amboise underestimates the scale and persistence of Protestant conspiratorial activity, yields an incomplete picture of Calvin's involvement in it, and invites misjudgments of his political sagacity and views on armed resistance,” concludes Benedict. “Furthermore, little doubt can remain anymore: Not only did considerably more Huguenoterie than discontentment animate the plotting, its organizers and financiers included ministers and leading townsmen as well as nobles, all of whom claimed to be acting in the name of the Reformed churches when they recruited participants” (167). For Benedict, Calvin's persistence in supporting conspiracies after the Amboise debacle “may well have helped bring the French Reformed churches to the brink of catastrophe” if the death of Francis II had not averted that outcome (6).

Benedict lays out his argument in five meticulously researched chapters, framed by an introduction and conclusion. By some distance the longest chapter in the book follows the introduction and examines in detail the historiography of Protestant conspiracies from 1560 to the present. While specialists might be tempted to skim this section, I would urge them not to since Benedict's most important new conclusions rely on rediscovered evidence, and thus the contexts in which earlier historians integrated new evidence into established narratives are important for fully engaging with his argument. The next chapter focuses on a careful analysis of the testimony of Gilles Triou, the key piece of rediscovered evidence on which Benedict bases his reinterpretation of Protestant conspiracies. Chapters 3 through 6 then explore Triou's testimony through the prism of other surviving evidence, testing the veracity of Triou's account and Benedict's theses. A substantial conclusion draws the many strains of Benedict's analysis together.

Season of Conspiracy is a model of historical research, and the care that Benedict takes in assessing earlier historiography, analyzing individual documents, and knitting together evidence from a broad range of sources to build his argument makes this study useful to those who teach historical method. Benedict's step-by-step analysis of historiography in chapter 2 offers a case study into how new archival discoveries often fail to have the impact one would expect on established narratives, and how rediscovery of sources can be as important as discovering new sources for historians. Meanwhile, Benedict's masterful analysis of Triou's testimony provides a fascinating window into the challenges of reading and interpreting sixteenth-century texts with their lack of punctuation and irregular spelling, especially of names. A full transcription of the document located in an appendix only strengthens the teaching potential of this analysis, allowing students to follow along as Benedict grapples with interpreting this rich source. I just wish that images of the original document could have been reprinted next to the transcription so that students could also engage with the paleographical challenges that Benedict discusses. Finally, throughout the text, Benedict offers examples of both the challenges and rewards on offer to historians who attempt to corroborate evidence, especially when he identifies individuals mentioned in Triou's testimony. This careful study has much to offer in terms of modelling good historical method.

This important revisionist study is a must read for anyone interested in the formation of the French Reformed church, Calvin's Geneva, and the French Wars of Religion. It will also leave readers, like myself, even more impatient for Benedict to complete his promised narrative history of the Reformed church from the foundation of its first congregations in the mid-1540s through the conclusion of the first religious wars in the early 1560s. If the conclusions drawn in this study are anything to go by, there is still much to be learned about the critical early years of the French Reformation.