GARRISSON, Janine. A History of Sixteenth-Century France, 1483-1598. Renaissance, Reformation and Rebellion.
This book starts "from the commencement of the Italian Wars under Charles VIII through the near disintegration of the realm under the last Valois king to the restoration of royal power under Henry IV. Her analysis focuses on the development of the machinery of the French monarchy, which was first impelled by the foreign ambitions of the ruling house, and then impeded by a traditional provincial particularism which became aligned with baronial discontent and religious division"

