History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 41

[865] Froude, Hist. of England, x. 230. This statement, in itself sufficiently credible in view of Leicester's subsequent career, rests on a pa.s.sage in a MS. from Simancas, which Mr. Froude inserts in a foot-note.

[866] Despatch of March 22, 1572, Digges, 197.

[867] Unless by means of La Mothe Fenelon's arithmetic, who, in conversation with Queen Elizabeth, maintained that, since her majesty was at least _nine_ years younger in her _disposition_, and Alencon _eight_ years older _in manly vigor_, both parties were of precisely the same age, namely, twenty-seven! Corresp. diplom., v. 91, etc.

[868] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 289; Dumont, Corps diplomatique, v., 211-215.

It cannot but be regarded as a singular instance of Elizabeth's irresolution and of that perversity with which she was wont to try the patience of her council almost beyond endurance, that she gravely proposed to include in the treaty an article providing for the _protection_ of the King of Spain--a stipulation against which Walsingham earnestly protested as the climax of folly, since it was certain "that the end of this league is onely to bridle his greatness." Digges, 175.

[869] "The like hath not been seen in any man's memory," wrote Lord Burleigh. Montmorency received "a Cupboard of Plate Gilt," "a great cup of gold of 111 ounces," etc. Digges, 218; De Thou, iv. (liv. li.) 537, 538.

[870] La Mothe Fenelon, vii. 292.

[871] Ibid., v. 13.

[872] Ibid., vii. 317-319.

[873] "Que Monseigneur le Duc vienne!" Despatch of Aug. 28, 1572. Corresp.

diplom., v. 111.

[874] Pius the Fifth--Saint Pius, for his name is commemorated in the prayers of the Church on the 5th of May--was, we are told by his biographer, a model of severity to his own kindred; and, if the fact that he elevated his grand-nephew, Michael Bonelli, to the sacred college should be alleged as casting some doubt upon this characteristic of his, we must hasten to add that he did so, we are a.s.sured, only in consequence of the urgent solicitations of Cardinal Farnese and others. He deserves the credit, however, of yielding to their persuasions with reasonable promptness, for the nomination of his nephew took place within two months of the Pope's accession. Michael, being like his uncle a native of the vicinity of Alessandria, in Piedmont, naturally succeeded to the designation of "il cardinale Alessandrino," which Pius relinquished on a.s.suming the tiara. Gabutius, Vita Pii Quinti Papae, _apud_ Acta Sanctorum (Bolandi) Maii, -- 48, p. 630.

[875] The Guises, in the same spirit, had at one time proposed as a candidate for Margaret's hand the Cardinal of Este, for whom they hoped easily to obtain from the Pope a dispensation from his vow of celibacy.

Walsingham to Cecil, Feb. 18, 1571, Digges, 42.

[876] Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1573, Orig. edit., p. 11; Gabutius, Vita Pii Quinti, _ubi supra_, -- 244-246, p. 676.

[877] So also says Tavannes: "Il est renvoye avec paroles generales que Sa Majeste ne feroit rien au prejudice de l'obeissance de Sa Sainctete."

Memoires (ed. Pet.i.tot), iii. 198. Tavannes is explicit in his declarations that the ma.s.sacre was not premeditated. "Tant s'en faut que l'on pensast faire la Sainct Barthelemy a ces nopces, que sans Madame, fille du Roy, qui y avoit inclination, il se deslioit" (iii. 194). "L'entreprise de la Sainct Barthelemy, qui n'estoit pas seulement pourpensee, et dont la naissance vint de l'imprudence huguenotte." Ibid., iii. 198.

[878] _E.g._: "Si j'avois quelque autre moyen de me vanger de mes ennemis, je ne ferois point ce mariage; mais je n'en ai point d'autre moyen que cetui-ci." Cardinal D'Ossat's letter of Sept. 22, 1599, to Villeroy, Lettres (ed. of 1698), ii. 100. It must be noticed that D'Ossat had a particular purpose in producing testimony to show that Charles IX.

_constrained_ his sister to marry, as it would a.s.sist him in obtaining a divorce for Henry IV. If, as D'Ossat affirms, the Cardinal of Alessandria exclaimed, on hearing of the ma.s.sacre, "G.o.d be praised! The King of France has kept his word to me," this would agree equally well with the supposition that Charles IX. had contented himself with general promises.

[879] "_The foolish cardinal_," wrote Sir Thomas Smith, English amba.s.sador at the French court during Walsingham's temporary absence (March 3, 1571/2), "went away as wise as he came; he neither brake the marriage with Navarre, nor got no dismes of the Church of France, nor perswaded the King to enter into the League with the Turk, nor to accept the Tridentine, or to break off Treaty with us; and _the foolishest part of all, at his going away, he refused a diamond which the King offered him of 600 crowns_, yet he was here highly feasted. He and his train cost the King above 300 crowns a day, as they said." Digges, 193. Gabutius adds that after the death of Pius V.--probably after the ma.s.sacre--Charles IX. sent the ring to the cardinal with this inscription upon the bezel: "Non minus haec solida est pietas, ne pietas possit mea sanguine solvi." Vita Pii Quinti, _ubi supra_, -- 246, p. 676. The inscription had doubtless been cut since the first proffer of the ring. It appears to me most probable that the ring was offered by Charles to the cardinal with the idea that its acceptance would bind him to support the king in his suit for a dispensation for the marriage of Henry and Margaret, and that the prudent churchman declined it for the same reason. Subsequently, with the same view, Charles sent it to his amba.s.sador at Rome, M. de Ferralz, instructing him to give it to the Cardinal of Alessandria. But Ferralz, on consultation with the Cardinal of Ferrara and others in the French interest, came to the conclusion that the gift would be useless, and so retained it, at the same time notifying his master. The reason may have been either that Alessandria had too little influence, since his uncle's death, to effect what was desired, or that the matter was of less consequence when once Charles had resolved to go on with the marriage without waiting further for the dispensation. So I understand Charles's words to Ferralz (Aug. 24, 1572): "J'ai aussi sceu par vostre dicte memoire, que par l'avis de mon cousin le cardinal de Ferrare, _vous avez retenu le diamant que je vous avois envoye pour le donner de ma part au cardinal Alexandrin_, puisque mon dict cousin et mes autres ministres trouvent que _le don seroit inutile et perdu_." Mackintosh, iii., App. C., p. 348.

[880] Despatch of March 29, 1572, Digges, 182, 183. It must be noticed that the permission to have ma.s.s celebrated in Bearn had been purposely left out in the original basis.

[881] Jeanne d'Albret to Henry of Navarre, Tours, Feb. 21, 1572, Rochambeau, Lettres d'Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret (Paris, 1877), 340.

[882] Jeanne d'Albret to M. de Beauvoir, Blois, March 11, 1572, ibid., 345.

[883] "'Il m'a donc dit quelque chose.' 'Je croy bien qu'ouy, Madame, mais c'est quelque chose qui n'approche point de cela.' Elle se prist a rire, car nottez qu'elle ne parle a moy qu'en badinant." Same letter, ibid., 348. How keenly Jeanne felt this treatment may be inferred from a characteristic sentence: "Je vous diray encores que je m'esbahis comme je peux porter les traverses que j'ay, car _l'on me gratte, l'on me picque, l'on me flatte, l'on me brave, l'on me veult tirer les vers du nez_, sans se laisser aller, bref je n'ay que Martin _seul qui marche droict, encores qu'il ait la goutte_, et M. le comte (Na.s.sau) qui me faict tous les bons offices qu'il peut." Same letter, ibid., 353.

[884] The letter is inserted entire in La Laboureur, Additions aux Mem. de Castelnau, i. 859-861. There is much in this letter that lends probability to Miss Freer's view (Henry III., i. 89) that Catharine had at this time begun to be opposed to an alliance which she feared might result in the diminution of her influence at court, and that she therefore "sought, by denying all that had before been conceded, and by proposing in lieu conditions which she knew Jeanne could not accept, to throw the odium of a rupture on the Queen of Navarre."

[885] The contract of marriage was signed at Blois, April 11th.

[886] Jehan de la Fosse (Journal d'un cure ligueur), 143, 144.

[887] See an interesting account of the Queen of Navarre's last days, her will, etc., in Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, iii. 179-188.

[888] He is said already to have obtained the surname of "l'empoisonneur de la reine." Vauvilliers, iii. 193.

[889] Vauvilliers, Hist. de Jeanne d'Albret, _ubi supra_. Unfortunately for the "glove" theory, the Reveille-Matin des Ma.s.sacreurs, written within the next year (see p. 172, Cimber and Danjou, "du mois d'aoust _dernier pa.s.se_"), makes Jeanne to have died in consequence of a drink (un boucon) given her at a festival at which Anjou was present. So in the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, 1574 (the same book virtually), Jeanne dies, "veneno in quibusdam epulis propinato, quibus Dux Andegavensis intererat, ut quidem mihi a domestico ipsius aliquo narratum est," i. 25, 26. The testimony of the physicians, who seem to have been unprejudiced, is given in a note in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vii. 170, 171.

[890] It is said that Charles IX. suggested to him the propriety of this visit, accompanying the suggestion by the words: "I know that you are fond of gardening"--a sly reference to the occasion when Coligny, just before the explosion of the second civil war, was found by the royal spies busily engaged in his vineyards, pruning-hook in hand, and, by his apparent engrossment in the labors of the field, dispelled the suspicions of a Huguenot rising. It was ominous, according to these writers, that Charles should at this moment recall the circ.u.mstances of that narrow escape at Meaux from falling into the hands of the Huguenots. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. univ., ii. 6.

[891] "Estant nostre vouloir et intention le retenir pres de nous pour nous servir de luy en nos plus graves et importans affaires, comme ministre digne, la vertu duquel est a.s.sez cogneue et experimentee." MS.

pa.s.sport dated September 24, 1571, Biblioth. nat., _apud_ Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, xvi. (1867) 220.

[892] Le Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs (orig. ed., Rheims, 1579), 77.

[893] Le Reveille-Matin des Francois et de leurs voisins. Compose par Eusebe Philadelphe Cosmopolite, en forme de Dialogues. A Edinbourg, de l'imprimerie de Jaques James. Avec permission. 1574. _Apud_ Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, vii. 171. Dialogi Euseb. Philadelphi.

Edimburgi, 1574, i. 26.

[894] Le Tocsain contre les ma.s.sacreurs, 40 (Archives curieuses). So Jean de Tavannes--a writer certainly not prejudiced in Coligny's favor--gives him credit for preferring to hazard his life rather than renew the civil war. Yet he adds: "Il ne voyoit ny ne prevoyoit ce qui n'estoit pour lors, d'autant plus qu'il n'y avoit encor rien de resolu contre luy, quoy que les ignorans des affaires d'estat ayent escrit ou dit." Memoires de Gaspard de Tavannes (Ed. Pet.i.tot), iii. 257.

[895] These were four in number: that Navarre should make a secret profession of the Catholic faith, express a desire for the dispensation, restore ecclesiastical property in his domains, and marry Margaret before the Church. Charles IX. to Ferralz (Ferrails), July 31, 1572, _apud_ Mackintosh, iii., Appendix III.; Fr. von Raumer, Briefe aus Paris (Leipsic, 1831), i. 292.

[896] Journal de Lestoile, p. 24; Le Reveille-Matin des Francais, etc.; Arch. curieuses, vii. 172; Dialogi Eusebii Philadelphi, i. 31; Vauvilliers, iii. 177; Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 12:--"Ce vieux bigot avec ses cafarderies fait perdre un bon temps a ma grosse soeur Margot."

[897] Charles IX. to Mandelot, Blois, May 3, 1572, Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot, Gouverneur de Lyons, edited by P.

Paris (Paris, 1830), pp. 9-11. Also Charriere, Negociations du Levant, iii. 228.

[898] "Toutes mes fantaisies sont bandees pour m'opposer a la grandeur des Espagnols," etc. Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572, par le Marquis de Noailles (3 vols., Paris, 1867), i. 8.

[899] De Noailles, i. 10.

[900] "De tenir le Roy Catholique en cervelle, et donner hardiesse a ces gueulx des Pas-Bas de se remuer et entreprendre," etc. Ibid., i. 9.

[901] De Thou, iv. 674; Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 369, etc.

[902] "Thence with great celerity the Count Lodovick should send 500 horse to Bruxels under the conduct of M. de la Nue (Noue), where if he hap to find the Duke of Alva, it will grow to short wars, in respect of the intelligence they have with the town, who undertook with the aid of 100 soldiers to take the duke prisoner. If he retires to Antwerp, as it is thought he wil, then it is likely that all the whole country will revolt.

I the rather credit this news for that it agreeth with the plot laid by Count Lodovick, before his departure hence," etc. Walsingham to Burleigh, Paris, May 29, 1572, Digges, 204.

[903] Queen Elizabeth to Walsingham, July 23, 1572, Digges, 226-230.

[904] "More tremendous issues," Mr. Froude forcibly remarks, "were hanging upon Elizabeth's decision than she knew of. But she did know that France was looking to her reply--was looking to her general conduct, to ascertain whether she would or would not be a safe ally in a war with Spain, and that on her depended at that moment whether the French government would take its place once for all on the side of the Reformation." History of England, x. 370.

[905] In fact, he was acting in violation of the instructions of Louis of Na.s.sau, by whom he had been despatched for aid to France. Apprehending danger, Na.s.sau repeatedly bid him avoid the direct road to Mons, and make a circuit through the territory of Cambray, and effect a junction with the Prince of Orange. Genlis justified his neglect of these directions by alleging the orders of Admiral Coligny. De Thou, iv. 680.

[906] Motley, Dutch Republic, ii. 383, 384; De Thou, iv. 680, etc.

[907] It may be noted, by way of antic.i.p.ation, that Genlis, after an imprisonment of over a year, was secretly strangled by Alva's command, in the castle of Antwerp. With characteristic mendacity, the duke spread the report that the prisoner had died a natural death. Ibid., _ubi supra_.

[908] Walsingham to Burleigh, July 26, 1572, Digges, 225.

[909] It was such arguments as these that afterward, when everything that might be so employed as to justify or palliate the atrocity of Coligny's a.s.sa.s.sination was eagerly laid hold of, were construed as threats of a Huguenot rising, in case Charles should refuse to engage in the Flemish war. Compare, _e.g._, the unsigned extract found by Soldan (ii. 433) in the National Library of Paris, No. 8702, fol. 68. But does it need a word to prove that the reference was to a _papal_ rising, or, at least, papal compulsion to violate the edict of toleration?

[910] Walsingham to Leicester, July 26, 1572, Digges, 225, 226.