History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume II Part 10

[161] Jean de Serres, De statu relig. et reip., ii. 258, 259.

[162] This conclusion was arrived at as early as Aug. 29th. Froude, Hist.

of England, vii. 433. Seventy thousand crowns were to be paid to the prince's agents at Strasbourg or Frankfort so soon as the news should be received of the transfer of Havre, thirty thousand more within a month thereafter. The other forty thousand were in lieu of the defence of Rouen and Dieppe, should it seem impracticable to undertake it. Havre was to be held until the Prince should have effected the rest.i.tution of Calais and the adjacent territory according to the treaties of Cateau-Cambresis, although the time prescribed by those treaties had not expired, and until the one hundred and forty thousand crowns should have been repaid without interest. The compact, signed by Queen Elizabeth at Hampton Court, Sept.

20, 1562, is inserted in Du Mont, Corps Diplomatique, v. 94, 95, and in Forbes, State Papers, ii., 48-51.

[163] See the declaration in Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 415, 416; and Forbes, State Papers, ii. 79, 80. J. de Serres, ii. 261, etc. Cf.

Forbes, State Papers, ii. 60, 69-79.

[164] Throkmorton to the queen, Sept. 24, 1562. Forbes, State Papers, ii.

64, 65.

[165] Froude, _ubi supra_. In fact, Elizabeth a.s.sured Philip the Second--and there is no reason to doubt her veracity in this--that she would recall her troops from France so soon as Calais were recovered and peace with her neighbors were restored, and that, in the attempt to secure these ends, she expected the countenance rather than the opposition of her brother of Spain. Queen Elizabeth to the King of Spain, Sept. 22, 1562.

Forbes, State Papers, ii. 55. It is not improbable, indeed, that there were ulterior designs even against Havre. "It is ment," her minister Cecil wrote to one of his intimate correspondents, "to kepe Newhaven in the Quene's possession untill Callice be eyther delyvered, or better a.s.surance of it then presently we have." But he soon adds that, in a certain emergency, "I think the Quene's Majestie nead not be ashamed to utter her right to Newhaven as parcell of the Duchie of Normandy." T. Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times (London, 1838), i. 96.

[166] Froude, History of England, vii. 460, 461.

[167] Catharine to Throkmorton, etampes, Sept. 21, 1562, State Paper Office.

[168] Mem. de la Noue, c. vii.; De Thou, iii. 206, 207 (liv. x.x.xi).

Throkmorton is loud in his praise of the fortifications the Huguenots had thrown up, and estimates the soldiers within them at over one thousand horse and five thousand foot soldiers, besides the citizen militia.

Forbes, ii. 39.

[169] Cuthbert Vaughan appreciated the importance of this city, and warned Cecil that "if the same, for lack of aid, should be surprised, it might give the French suspicion on our part that the queen meaneth but an appearance of aid, thereby to obtain into her hands such things of theirs as may be most profitable to her, and in time to come most noyful to themselves." Forbes, ii. 90. Unfortunately it was not Cecil, but Elizabeth herself, that restrained the exertions of the troops, and she was hard to move. And so, for lack of a liberal and hearty policy, Rouen was suffered to fall, and Dieppe was given up without a blow, and Warwick and the English found themselves, as it were, besieged in Havre. Whereas, with those places, they might have commanded the entire triangle between the Seine and the British Channel. See Throkmorton's indignation, and the surprise of Conde and Coligny, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 193, 199.

[170] In a letter to Lansac, Aug. 17, 1562, Catharine writes: "Nous nous acheminons a Bourges pour en deloger le jeune Genlis.... L'ayant leve de la, comme je n'y espere grande difficulte, nous tournerons vers Orleans pour faire le semblable de ceux qui y sont." Le Laboureur, i. 820.

[171] Mem. de Francois de la Noue, c. viii. (p. 601.)

[172] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 375, 376, 383; J. de Serres, ii.

181; De Thou, iii. 179-181.

[173] It was undoubtedly a Roman Catholic fabrication, that Montgomery bore on his escutcheon _a helmet pierced by a lance_ (un heaume perce d'une lance), in allusion to the accident by which he had given Henry the Second his mortal wound, in the joust at the Tournelles. Abbe Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 97, who, however, characterizes it as "chose fort dure a croire."

[174] Mem. de la Noue, c. viii.

[175] When Lord Robert Dudley began to break to the queen the disheartening news that Rouen had fallen, Elizabeth betrayed "a marvellous remorse that she had not dealt more frankly for it," and instead of exhibiting displeasure at Poynings's presumption, seemed disposed to blame him that he had not sent a thousand men instead, for his fault would have been no greater. Dudley to Cecil, Oct. 30, 1562, Forbes, State Papers, ii.

155.

[176] De Thou, iii. 328; Froude, vii. 436; Sir Thomas Smith to Throkmorton, Paris, Oct. 17, 1562, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 117.

[177] "But thei will have there preaching still. Thei will have libertie of their religion, and thei will have no garrison wythin the towne, but will be masters therof themselves: and upon this point thei stand."

Despatch of Sir Thomas Smith, Poissy, Oct. 20, 1562, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 123.

[178] The plundering lasted eight days. While the Swiss obeyed orders, and promptly desisted, "the French suffered themselves to be killed rather than quit the place whilst there was anything left." Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 13. The _cure_ of Meriot waxes jocose over the incidents of the capture: "Tout ce qui fut trouve en armes par les rues et sur les murailles fut pa.s.se par le fil de l'espee. La ville fut mise au pillage par les soldatz du camp, qui se firent gentis compaignons. _Dieu scait que ceux qui estoient mal habillez pour leur yver_ (hiver) _ne s'en allerent sans robbe neufve._ Les huguenotz de la ville furent en tout maltraictez,"

etc. Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 288.

[179] On the siege of Rouen, see the graphic account of De Thou, iii.

(liv. x.x.xiii.) 328-335; the copious correspondence of the English envoys in France, Forbes, State Papers, vol. ii.; the Hist. eccles. des egl.

ref., ii. 389-396 (and Marlorat's examination and sentence _in extenso_, 398-404); J. de Serres, ii. 259; La Noue, c. viii.; Davila (interesting, and not so inaccurate here as usual, perhaps because he had a brother-in-law, Jean de Hemery, sieur de Villers, in the Roman Catholic army, but who greatly exaggerates the Huguenot forces), ch. iii. 73-75; Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 13.

[180] It is to be noted, however, that the order of the Prince of Conde, in the case of Sapin (November 2, 1562), makes no mention of the judicial murder of Marlorat, but alleges only his complicity with parliament in imprisoning the king, his mother, and the King of Navarre, in annulling royal edicts by magisterial orders, in constraining the king's officers to become idolaters, in declaring knights of the Order of St. Michael and other worthy gentlemen rebels, in ordering the tocsin to be rung, and inciting to a.s.sa.s.sination, etc. Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 115, 116.

See Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 100. When Conde was informed that the Parisian parliament had gone in red robes to the "Sainte Chapelle," to hear a requiem ma.s.s for Counsellor Sapin, he laughed, and said that he hoped soon to multiply their _litanies_ and _kyrie eleysons_. Hist.

eccles., _ubi supra_.

[181] As early as October 27th, Navarre sent a gentleman to Jeanne d'Albret, then at Pau in Bearn, "desiring to have her now to cherish him, and do the part of a wife;" and the messenger told Sir Thomas Smith, with whom he dined that day in Evreux, "that the king pretendeth to him, that this punishment [his wounds] came to him well-deserved, for his unkindness in forsaking the truth." Forbes, State Papers, ii. 167. The authenticity of the story of Antoine of Navarre's death-bed repentance is sufficiently attested by the letter written, less than a year later (August, 1563), by his widow, Jeanne d'Albret, to the Cardinal of Armagnac: "Ou sont ces belles couronnes que vous luy prometties, et qu'il a acquises a combattre contre la vraye Religion et sa conscience; comme la confession derniere qu'il en a faite en sa mort en est seur tesmoignage, et les paroles dites a la Royne, en protestation de faire prescher les ministres par tout s'il guerissoit." Pierre Olhagaray, Histoire de Foix, Bearn, et Navarre (Paris, 1609), p. 546. See also Brantome (edition Lalanne), iv. 367, and the account, written probably by Antoine's physician, De Taillevis, among the Dupuy MSS. of the Bibliotheque nationale, ibid., iv. 419.

[182] Lestoile (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat), 15; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 397, 406-408; De Thou, 336, 337; Relation de la mort du roi de Navarre, Cimber et Danjou, iv. 67, etc.

[183] I am convinced that the historian De Thou has drawn of this fickle prince much too charitable a portrait (iii. 337). It seems to be saying too much to affirm that "his merit equalled that of the greatest captains of his age;" and if "he loved justice, and was possessed of uprightness,"

it must be confessed that his dealings with neither party furnish much evidence of the fact. (I retain these remarks, although I find that the criticism has been antic.i.p.ated by Soldan, ii. 78). Recalling the earlier relations of the men, it is not a little odd that, when the news of Navarre's death reached the "holy fathers" of the council then in session in the city of Trent, the papal legates and the presidents paid the Cardinal of Lorraine a formal visit to _condole_ with him on the decease of his dear relative! (Acta Conc. Tridentini, _apud_ Martene et Durand, Amplissima Collectio, tom. viii. 1299). The farce was, doubtless, well played, for the actors were of the best in Christendom.

[184] Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 1, 1562, Baum, iii., App., 190.

The Huguenots had sustained a heavy loss also in the utter defeat and dispersion by Blaise de Montluc of some five or six thousand troops of Gascony, which the Baron de Duras was bringing to Orleans.

[185] The sentiments of well-informed Huguenots are reflected in a letter of Calvin, of September, 1562, urging the Protestants of Languedoc to make collections to defray the expense entailed by D'Andelot's levy. "D'entrer en question ou dispute pour reprendre les faultes pa.s.sees, ce n'est pas le temps. Car, quoy qu'il en soit, Dieu nous a reduicts a telle extremite que si vous n'estes secourus de ce coste-la, on ne voit apparence selon les hommes que d'une piteuse et horrible desolation." Bonnet, Lettres franc., ii. 475.

[186] Hist. eccles., ii. 421.

[187] See "Capitulation des reytres et lansquenetz levez pour monseigneur le prince de Conde, du xviii. d'aoust 1562," Bulletin, xvi. (1867), 116-118. The reiters came chiefly from Hesse.

[188] Claude Haton, no friend to Catharine, makes the Duke d'Aumale, in command of eight or nine thousand troops, avoid giving battle to D'Andelot, and content himself with watching his march from Lorraine as far as St. Florentin, in obedience to secret orders of the queen mother, signed with the king's seal. Memoires, i. 294, 295. The fact was that D'Andelot adroitly eluded both the Duke of Nevers, Governor of Champagne, who was prepared to resist his pa.s.sage, and Marshal Saint Andre, who had advanced to meet him with thirteen companies of "gens-d'armes" and some foot soldiers. Davila, bk. iii. 76; De Thou, iii. (liv. x.x.xiii.) 356.

[189] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 114, 115. The writer ascribes the fall of Rouen to the delay of the reiters in a.s.sembling at their rendezvous. Instead of being ready on the first of October, it was not until the tenth that they had come in sufficient numbers to be mustered in.

[190] Eighty thousand, according to the Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii.

91, 92; twenty-five thousand, according to Claude Haton, Memoires, 332, 333.

[191] Letter of Beza to Bullinger, Sept. 1st, Baum, ii., App., 191; Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 114, 115; Davila, bk. iii., 77; De Thou, iii.

355, 356.

[192] Letter of Beza to Calvin, Dec. 14, 1562, Baum, ii., App., 196. The authority of Beza, who had recently returned from a mission on which he had been sent by Conde to Germany and Switzerland and who wrote from the camp, is certainly to be preferred to that of Claude Haton, who states the Huguenot forces at 25,000 men (Memoires, i. 298). The prince's chief captains--Coligny, Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, and Mouy--Haton rates as the best warriors in France after the Duke of Guise. According to Throkmorton's despatches from Conde's camp near Corbeil, the departure from Orleans took place on the 8th of November, and the prince's French forces amounted only to six thousand foot soldiers, indifferently armed, and about two thousand horse. Forbes, State Papers, ii. 195. But this did not include the Germans--some seven thousand five hundred men more. Ibid., ii. 196. Altogether, he reckons the army at "6,000 hors.e.m.e.n of all sorts and nations, and 10,000 footmen." Ibid., ii. 202.

[193] Mem. de La Noue, c. viii., p. 602.

[194] The Protestants of Languedoc held in Nismes (Nov. 2-13, 1562) the first, or at least one of the very first, of those "political a.s.semblies"

which became more and more frequent as the sixteenth century advanced.

Here the Count of Crussol, subsequently Duke d'Uzes, was urged to accept the office of "head, defender, and conservator" of the reformed party in Languedoc. To the count a council was given, and he was requested not to find the suggestion amiss that he should in all important matters, such as treaties with the enemy, consult with the general a.s.sembly of the Protestants, or at least with the council. By this good office he would demonstrate the closeness of the bond uniting him as head to the body of his native land, besides giving greater a.s.surance to a people too much inclined to receive unfounded impressions ("ung puple souvent trop meticulleux et de legiere impression"). Proces-verbal of the a.s.sembly of Nismes, from MS. Bulletin, xxii. (1873), p. 515.

[195] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 117; De Thou, iii. 357. Calvin's, or the Geneva liturgy, was probably used but in part. Special prayers, adapted to the circ.u.mstances of the army, had been composed, under the t.i.tle of "Prieres ordinaires des soldatz de l'armee conduicte par Monsieur le Prince de Conde, accomodees selon l'occurrence du temps." Prof. Baum cites a simple, but beautiful evening prayer, which was to be said when the sentinels were placed on guard for the night. Theodor Beza, ii. 624, note.

[196] Throkmorton (Forbes, ii. 195, 197) represents the executions as more general, and as an act of severity, "chiefly in revenge of the great cruelty exercised by the Duke of Guise and his party at Rouen against the soldiers there, but specially against your Majesty's subjects."

[197] Throkmorton was convinced of the practicability of capturing Paris by a rapid movement even from before Corbeil: "The whole suburbes on this syde the water is entrenched, where there is sundry bastions and cavaliers to plante th' artillerye on, which is verey daungerous for th'

a.s.saylantes. Nevertheles, if the Prince had used celeritie, in my opinion, with little losse of men and great facilitie he might have woon the suburbes; and then the towne coulde not longe have holden, somme parte of the sayd suburbes havinge domination therof." Forbes, ii. 217.

[198] Memoires de Francois de la Noue, c. ix., p. 603 (Collection Michaud et Poujoulat). See also Davila (bk. iii. 77), who represents the advice of the admiral rather to have been to employ the army in recapturing the places along the Loire, while Conde insisted on trying to become master of Paris. De Thou, iii. 358. Beza, in his letter of Dec. 14th, says: "Quum enim urbs repentino impetu facile capi posset, etc." So also the Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 118.