READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE RISE OF THE LEAGUE IN FRANCE

WHEN the massacre was ended, the first impulse of the French Court, alarmed at its own deed, was to deny having originated it; and in the instructions sent to the Governors of Provinces, to the “good towns”, and to the ambassadors at Protestant Courts, the Guises were designated as the authors of it. It was very far from Catharine’s wish to break with the Protestant powers, and thus chain herself to the policy of Rome and Spain. Her first project had been to excite between the Guises and the Huguenot chiefs a strife that should prove fatal to the latter, and in which the King should not appear; and she would willingly have continued this plan after the massacre had been perpetrated; but it was frustrated by Marshal Montmorency, who, finding that the King denied all participation in the massacre, prepared to unite his party of the Politiques with the remnant of the Huguenots, in order to take vengeance on the Guises. This step would have placed Catharine between two parties, neither of which adhered to the King; and it therefore became necessary for Charles to avow an act which he had not feared to perpetrate. Fresh letters contradictory of the former ones were dispatched, stating that the execution was necessary to prevent an accursed conspiracy of the Admiral and his adherents against the royal family; and on the 26th of August the King, after hearing a solemn Mass, proceeded to hold a lit de justice, when he declared that all that had occurred on the 24th of August had been done by his command. The Court, however, were heartily ashamed of themselves, and when the Legate Orsini, whom the Pope had sent to congratulate them on the occasion, arrived at Paris, he was requested not to talk too much of the “great day”, and the King and Queen-Mother absented themselves when he entered the capital. On passing through Lyons, Orsini had complimented the citizens on the zeal which they had displayed for the Catholic faith, and publicly absolved all those who had been concerned in the massacre, as they knelt before him at the cathedral.

Although the lives of Henry of Navarre and the Prince Condé had been spared, a watch was kept over them, and they were importuned to change their religion. Henry, who had and early been bred a Catholic, and whose faith always sat easily upon him, went over. Condé at first displayed more firmness. Charles IX having sent for him and proposed the choice of three things, Mass, death, or Bastille, Condé replied by refusing the first alternative and leaving the choice of the other two to the King. He subsequently yielded, however, to the exhortations of the Jesuit Maldonato and of Sureau des Rosiers, an apostate Calvinist minister; and the two “converted” Princes wrote to the Pope to receive them back into the fold of the Church (October 3rd). Their conversion was followed by that of many others; but the Princes were insincere, and contemplated revoking their compulsory recantation on the first opportunity. Their conduct shows a sad falling off from the earnestness and courage of the early Huguenots. In fact, as M. Michelet well remarks, the French wars of religion end with the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the ardor of fanaticism was succeeded by the indifference of skepticism, and the history of the subsequent struggle is only that of political intrigue under religious pretenses.

1573. Siege of la Rochelle.

The princes and grandees of the “cause” were now for the most part either dead, or in exile, or turned renegades; but the principles of the Reformation found support in the citizen class, among whom they had engendered a spirit of republican liberty, and a desire to revive the municipal institutions of the Middle Ages; and though the higher classes in the Protestant towns and districts seemed inclined to submit to the royal ordinances, their selfish and timid egotism was borne down by the enthusiasm of their inferiors. La Rochelle, La Charité, Montauban, and Nimes were the principal towns in the hands of the Huguenots, who likewise held many fortresses in the Cevennes; but La Charité was soon taken by the royal forces. After the St. Bartholomew, a considerable body of Huguenot soldiers, as well as all the reformed ministers of the surrounding country, had thrown themselves into La Rochelle, which seemed capable of sustaining a long siege; and as the Court at this period, being engaged in canvassing for the Polish Crown for the Duke of Anjou, were desirous of appearing to treat the Huguenots with moderation and clemency, they employed La Noue to conciliate the Rochellois and negotiate the terms of their surrender. That commander, who, as already related, had just escaped from Mons, plainly told the King when he accepted the office that he would do nothing detrimental to the liberties of the citizens; and the ambassador finished by taking the command of those with whom he had been sent to treat. The negotiations with the Huguenots continued, however, till the winter. Meanwhile their towns were agitating the scheme of a federative Republic with a sort of Roman dictatorship; and though the plan came to nothing, it served to breed an indomitable spirit of resistance. La Rochelle attracted all eyes. After taking the command. La Noue strengthened the fortifications; the mayor, Jacques Henri, stored the town with provisions, and upwards of fifty Calvinist ministers excited by their discourses the religious enthusiasm of the inhabitants. Biron and Strozzi, the commanders of the royal forces, made their first approaches in December; and in February, 1573, the Duke of Anjou came to take the command in chief, accompanied by the Duke of Alençon and all the Princes, including the King of Navarre and Condé. These latter, however, are said to have given the citizens information of all that was passing in the royal camp.

La Rochelle was left entirely to its own resources; it received no help from England; for Elizabeth found it necessary at this period to keep on good terms with the Court of France. The party of Mary was becoming troublesome in Scotland; they had seized and fortified themselves in the Castle of Edinburgh; Elizabeth was fearful that they might obtain the assistance of the French King, and she was obliged to send a force into Scotland to reduce them. With a view to conciliate Charles IX she consented to become godmother to his infant daughter, and dispatched the Earl of Worcester with the present of a gold font to be used at the baptism. The French Huguenots, enraged at what they considered an act of apostasy, intercepted the English squadron, killed some of Worcester’s suite, and captured and plundered one of his ships. While Elizabeth was still irritated by this hostile conduct, Charles sent De Retz to London, who in a great measure succeeded in pacifying her respecting the late massacre, and persuaded her to refuse a loan which some envoys from La Rochelle were soliciting. But her ministers would not consent to arrest the ships which the Count of Montgomery was collecting at Plymouth for the succor of La Rochelle : an expedition, however, which proved almost abortive; for though Montgomery succeeded in throwing some provisions into the place, he was prevented by the royal fleet from entering the harbour; and as he was forbidden to return to the English ports, he was obliged to take refuge in the roads of Belle Isle. The heroic defence of the Rochellois has been described by De Thou. Their town, naturally very strong, the ramparts being surrounded with marshes, was assailable at only one point, so that four thousand men could repel five times their number. The garrison were animated with the most courageous spirit; even women and children took part in the defence. On the other hand Anjou was now deprived of the military talent of Tavannes; a great many of the nobility were slain or wounded in the trenches; and the royal army was decimated by a terrible malady whose symptoms resembled those of the cholera morbus. Under these circumstances the French Court was glad of the pretense of the Duke of Anjou's election to the Crown of Poland, in order to renew the negotiations for a peace.

Death of Sigismund II of Poland

Sigismund Augustus, or Sigismund II, the last King of the House of Jagellon, had died in the preceding year. During a reign of nearly a quarter of a century, Sigismund had ruled the half republican, half monarchical Poland with considerable glory; he had augmented its territory by the acquisition of Livonia, and had reduced the Dukes of Courland to acknowledge the supremacy of the Polish Crown. The Kingdom, however, was distracted both by the restless turbulence of the nobility and by religious quarrels. The Lutheran doctrines, which had been particularly furthered and protected by Prince Radzivill, had made great progress in the Polish dominions; Courland and Livonia were altogether of that persuasion; and although a religious toleration had been agreed on, the Papal Nuncios and the numberless priests, who had considerable influence in the Senate, were constantly sowing the seeds of dissension. When Catharine de' Medici learnt that the Poles were at variance respecting the election of a King, she recommended her favorite son, the Duke of Anjou, and dispatched Schomberg, a German in the service of France, and Montluc, Bishop of Valence, to canvass in his interest. His competitors were a son of the King of Sweden, the Duke of Prussia, a son of the Tsar of Muscovy, Stephen Bathory, Voyvode of Transylvania, and, the most formidable of all, the Archduke Ernest, son of the Emperor Maximilian. Montluc, a prelate whose moderation caused him to be suspected of heresy, secured the Protestant party among the Poles by concessions which the French Court was afterwards obliged to disavow, even engaging among other things that vengeance should be taken on the perpetrators of the St. Bartholomew.

The Turks, the Pope, and the German Lutheran Princes, fearful of seeing an Austrian Archduke seated on the throne of Poland, united in recommending Anjou; and after an interregnum of ten months the French Prince was elected for their Sovereign by 30,000 or 40,000 armed and mounted Polish nobles assembled in the field of Wola, near Warsaw, the place of election (May 9th, 1573). They had previously made him sign an agreement prepared by the States that nobody should be punished or persecuted on account of his religious tenets, although the Polish bishoprics and prebends were to remain in the hands of the Catholics. They had also required him to subscribe a capitulation, or Pacta Conventa, which, as in most instances of the same kind, augmented the power of the nobles, while it encroached upon that of the Crown. The prevailing anarchy was increased by its regulations, by which it was provided that no King should ever be chosen during the lifetime of another, and that even the form and order of election should remain unsettled. In September, Montluc returned to Paris accompanied by a numerous and splendid deputation of Polish nobles, who had come to escort their new Sovereign to his dominions. The Poles, who entered Paris in fifty carriages-and-four, excited the astonishment of the Parisians by their half-fantastic, half Oriental costume. Their dresses were adorned with costly furs and numerous jewels; their red beards and heads shaved behind after the Tartar fashion gave them a half savage aspect, which was still further increased by their bows, their enormous quivers, and their grotesque crests of widespread eagle’s wings with which both themselves and their horses were accoutered. But if their outward appearance provoked the wonder of the multitude, the French Court was still more surprised at the variety and extent of their intellectual attainments, which formed so strong a contrast with the ignorance of the young courtiers. The liberal toleration of the Polish government, and the cosmopolitan spirit of the people, assisted by that facility for acquiring foreign languages which distinguishes the Slavonic races, had rendered Poland the center of the intellectual movement of Europe; and even the disciples of Socinus and Servetus, who met at Geneva only persecution and death, found there a refuge and a home.

Peace with the Huguenots

The French Court had concluded a peace with the Huguenots before the arrival of the Polish embassy. From the wording notes of the treaty, it seemed to be only a capitulation of the three towns La Rochelle, Nimes, and Montauban, which, indeed, derived the chief advantages from it, and remained as it were three independent republics; but the royal edict, dated from the Castle of Boulogne in July, 1573, extended much further, and secured to the remainder of the Huguenots liberty of conscience, and an amnesty for everything that had occurred since the preceding 24th August. The privilege of worship was, however, very much restricted; La Rochelle, though not required to admit the Duke of Anjou or any of his troops, was obliged to recognize the authority of a royal governor; and the three towns engaged to keep envoys at Court for two years, as hostages for their fidelity. The Duke of Anjou lingered as long as he could at Paris. The Polish Crown had been procured for him through the love and ambition of his mother Catharine, and the hatred and jealousy of Charles IX; he himself was loth to quit France, as the declining health of his brother promised a speedy vacancy of the Crown. But Charles insisted on his departure, and told Catharine that either he or his brother must quit the kingdom.

Meanwhile, in spite of the peace, the Huguenots of Languedoc and Guienne had assembled at Montauban and Nimes on the anniversary of the St. Bartholomew, and rejecting with disdain the edict of July, they drew up and adopted the scheme of a confederate republic, by which those provinces were to be formed into two great governments. Their forces numbered near 20,000 men, and their demands — such was the abortive result of the wicked policy of the Court — were greater than what they had made before the massacre. At the same time the party of the Politiques or “Peaceable Catholics” had increased, and was more than ever disposed to form an alliance with the Huguenots and with the House of Nassau. France was inundated with revolutionary pamphlets and with works of a deeper kind, such as the Franco-Gallia of Hotman, the fundamental principle of which, supported by researches into the early history of France, is an elective monarchy and the sovereignty of the people in their national assemblies. Till the Contrat Social of Rousseau, the Franco-Gallia has not been surpassed, for the boldness of its political theories, by any work published in France.

Early in 1574 Poitou and other south-western provinces joined the union with Languedoc and Guienne. The Duke of Alençon and the King of Navarre had intended to escape from Court in Lent and put themselves at the head of the movement; but their design was discovered, and they were placed under surveillance at Vincennes. Alençon betrayed all his associates in the most cowardly manner. The Prince of Condé escaped into Germany; Marshals Montmorency and Cossé were arrested, but nothing could be proved against them. A few subordinates were put to death. Catharine sent the accomplished assassin Maurevert to murder La Noue, whom the Poitevins had elected for their leader; but he did not succeed; and Catharine also failed in an attempt to poison Marshal Damville. Alençon and Navarre were cited to answer before a commission, when Margaret wrote an excellent defence for her husband, though there was no great love between them. The seizure of the Princes did not prevent the insurrection in the south, which, from the season, obtained the name of the Prise d'armes du mardi gras. It was headed by La Noue, who with some difficulty persuaded the Rochellois of the necessity of again taking up arms; and a great part of Poitou, Saintonge, and Languedoc was once more brought under the power of the Huguenots.

1574. Death of Charles IX

Charles IX expired in the midst of these disturbances, May 30th, 1574, at the age of twenty-three. His miserable end moved even some of his enemies with pity. The short and broken sleep which rarely visited him was troubled by the most hideous visions. His only consolation was that he left no heir. Thus perished a King whose name will always be associated with one of the greatest political crimes that stain the pages of modern history. He had some brilliant qualities; that love for art which distinguished his grand-father Francis I, a lively imagination, poetical talent, and a taste for music, which afforded him some relief in the torments of his last illness. By his wife, Elizabeth of Austria, Charles IX left a daughter who died young, and by his mistress, Mary Touchet, an illegitimate son.

Charles, before his death, signed an ordinance appointing his mother Regent till the return from Poland of the Duke of Anjou, who now succeeded to the throne of France with the title of Henry III. Catharine wrote to him to come back without delay, nor was Henry disinclined to follow this advice. He was as little pleased with the Poles as they were with him; yet they kept him a sort of prisoner in his palace at Cracow, lest by a hasty escape he should expose the Kingdom to the confusion and anarchy of an interregnum. He contrived however to slip away secretly, like a criminal, on the 17th of June, carrying off with him Crown jewels to the value of 300,000 crowns. He rode twenty leagues almost without drawing bridle, till he reached the frontier of Moravia, pursued all the way by the Poles; but although the distracted state of France required all his cares, he made no haste to return thither. After enjoying himself at Vienna, where the Emperor Maximilian II used every endeavor to wean him from the fanatical party, and thus assuage the civil wars of France, Henry proceeded to Venice; which city, in spite of its commercial and political decline, was famed, down to the eighteenth century, for its high play, its balls, its operas, and other dissipations. Henry lingered two months in Italy, and at Turin was induced by his favorite, whom the Duke of Savoy had bought, to surrender to that Sovereign the few places which France still possessed in North Italy, except the Marquisate of Saluzzo. He did not arrive at Lyons till September, but even then, although his name still retained some prestige as the reputed victor of Jarnac and Moncontour, instead of attending to the war he spent two months in regulating the etiquette of the Court and other frivolities. His character presents a strange mixture of the most effeminate luxury and the most abject superstition.

Proceeding from Lyons to Avignon, he enrolled himself among the Flagellants, an order of fanatics introduced from Italy into that city when it was the residence of the Papal Court. The Flagellants, clothed in a sort of sack, either black, white, or blue, according to the company, and having a cowl with apertures only for the eyes, were accustomed to traverse the streets of an evening by torchlight, singing the Miserere and inflicting upon themselves the discipline of the lash. The example of the King was followed by the whole Court, and even Henry of Navarre enrolled himself among the penitents. These mummeries cost the Cardinal of Lorraine his life. As he followed the procession with bare shoulders and half-naked feet he was seized by the evening dew, which is extremely dangerous in that climate, and died on the 26th December. It was not till January, 1575, that Henry III turned his face to the north. On the 13th of February he was crowned at Rheims, and two days after he married Louise of Lorraine, a daughter of the Count of Vaudemont. He had seen and admired Louise when on his way into Poland, and rejected in her favor the offer of a daughter of Philip II.

Anarchy in France

After the death of Charles IX, Catharine de' Medici had made a truce with the Huguenots till the end of August, in order to await the return of Henry III; and she even consented to give them 70,000 livres to pay their troops. Nevertheless, in July and August, 1574, they held a great meeting at Milhaud, in Rouergue, where, as Henry of Navarre was still detained at Court, they chose the Prince of Condé for their leader; and they collected funds to pay an army which Condé, now in Germany, was to raise in that country. Their league was shortly after subscribed by the late Constable Montmorency’s second son, Marshal Damville, who was Governor of Languedoc. When Henry III was at Turin, the Duke and Duchess of Savoy invited Damville to their Court, and endeavored to reconcile him with his Sovereign; but Catharine and Birago advised Henry to the contrary; and, on his return into France, Damville hoisted the standard of the confederates at Montpellier, Beaucaire and Lodève. Thus, while the King was sunk in folly and dissipation, all was anarchy in France.

The Catholics themselves were divided, part of them following the young Duke Henry of Guise, now aged twenty-four, who, though superior to his father Francis in personal appearance and address, and in the arts that acquire popular favor, was not equal to him in military talent. The Politiques', or more moderate Catholics, called also the “Malcontents”, inclined rather to the Huguenots than to the party of the Guises. The members of the different alliances made war or concluded separate peaces with one another; fortresses were attacked and taken, and the authority of the King and of the royal tribunals was only so far respected as they could enforce their decrees by arms.

The centralization which it had been the aim of Louis XI to establish was threatened with dissolution. Not only the governors of provinces but even the commandants of towns and castles felt themselves almost independent of the Crown, and compelled the King to continue their commands to their sons or nearest kinsmen; a state of things which lasted down to the reign of Louis XIII. The different leagues, of their own authority, named officers and placemen, raised and administered taxes, directed the proceedings of the law as well as the operations of the military force, and especially all that concerned the exercise of the Protestant religion.

Henry of Navarre and the Duke of Alençon went to meet the King on his return into France at Pont de Voisin, and excused themselves as well as they could from the practices with which they were charged; but though Henry III declared that they were free, a watch was still kept upon them. Between the King and his brother Alençon a mutual hate prevailed, which rendered it easy for their followers to use them both in the cabals and intrigues with which the Memoirs of that period are filled; and the mortal nature of their enmity may be judged from the circumstance that the King, being attacked with a disorder in the ear, concluded that he had been poisoned by his brother, and urged the King of Navarre to murder him.

After the accession of Damville to their cause, the deputies of the Huguenot towns who resided at the Court as hostages easily persuaded Alençon to make his escape, and he at length joined the Protestant army in Poitou; though he sent a secret message to the Pope that it was not his intention sincerely to embrace their cause. The deputies just mentioned played a singular part. Being commissioned by the King to proceed into Germany and dissuade Condé from the plans he was meditating, they employed themselves instead in negotiating with the Count Palatine, John Casimir, to raise an army for him. John Casimir insisted upon hard conditions. He would have security for the payment of his troops; he insisted upon being the arbiter of peace and war; and he stipulated that in the event of a reconciliation he should have the government of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. These terms were accepted, and Condé assumed the title of Lieutenant of the Duke of Alençon.

The King abandoned to the Guises the conduct of the war in 1575. After his return Henry sank lower and lower in a despicable profligacy and imbecility. His only serious pursuit seemed to be the study of the Latin grammar. He was entirely engrossed by youthful favourites, or mignons, of whom there were about a dozen that vied with him in dress and foppery. Four of these, St. Luc, D'O, Arques, and Caumont, were remarked gradually to obtain the ascendancy, and were called the “four Evangelists”. Arques became Duke of Joyeuse and Governor of Normandy and Havre de Grace; Caumont was made Duke of Epemon, and successively Governor of Metz, Boulogne, Calais, and Provence. By these favorites Henry was entirely governed, and he affected not to obey his mother, although he is said to have been the only person for whom she had ever felt any affection.

As Henry would not return at the summons of the Poles, they the Poles, deposed him, July 15th, 1575. The French envoy persuaded the Diet to defer the election of another King till December; yet Henry took no steps to second the wish of his mother and procure the election of the Duke of Alençon. The Poles elected, as we have said, Stephen Bathory, Voyvode of Transylvania; who, after marrying Anne Jagellon and returning to the Catholic faith, was, after the death of the Emperor Maximilian II, his competitor, generally recognized as King.

In the autumn of 1575 the German auxiliaries began to enter France. On the 10th of October, Guise and his brother Mayenne defeated at Dormans their advanced guard of 4,000 or 5,000 men under Montmorency de Thore, who had embraced the Calvinist faith at Geneva. In this encounter Guise received a wound in the cheek, which entitled him, like his father, to the surname of the Balafré. The Court hung undecided between the parties. The King feared the exploits and the popularity of Guise, and dreaded at the same time the triumph of the Huguenots. Under these circumstances, Marshals Montmorency and Cossé were dismissed from custody to mediate a peace, and they succeeded in effecting a truce of seven months — from November 21st, 1575, to June 25th, 1576 — on conditions which excited the anger and jealousy of the ultra-Catholics. The King undertook to pay the Count Palatine's troops; to grant the Huguenots and Politicians six cautionary towns, Angouleme, Niort, La Charité, Bourges, Saumur, and Mézières; and to pay the garrisons which Alençon and Condé might place in them, as well as a Swiss guard for his brother. But the truce was observed by neither party. The commandants of Bourges and Angouleme would not obey the King’s orders to surrender those towns to Alençon, who received instead Cognac and St. Jean d'Angely.

In February, 1576, Condé and John Casimir, at the head of 18,000 German troops, marched through Champagne and Burgundy, crossed the Loire and Allier, and formed a junction with the army under Alençon in the Bourbonnais. At the same time the King of Navarre, on pretense of a hunting party, contrived to escape from Court, and succeeded in reaching his government of Guienne. It was several months, however, before he returned to the Huguenot confession, nor would he join the generalissimo, Alençon; but he sent deputies to a congress which met at Moulins to consider of the conditions to be prescribed to the King. These amounted to an almost complete surrender of the royal authority; yet a peace was concluded, and on the 14th of May the King in person laid before the Parliament an edict embodying its conditions, the fifth which had been promulgated in the short space of thirteen years.

This peace, called La Paix de Monsieur, was the most advantageous one the Huguenots had yet made. The exercise of their religion was to be freely allowed throughout the Kingdom, except at Paris and in the precincts of the Court, till a General Council should be assembled; mixed chambers (chambres mi-parties), or courts composed of an equal number of Catholics and Protestants, were to be instituted in all the Parliaments of the realm; and the massacre of St. Bartholomew was disavowed. The interested aims of the Huguenot leaders appeared in the advantageous conditions which they secured for themselves. Each strove to turn the King's embarrassment to his own advantage. Alençon obtained as an appanage the provinces of Anjou, Touraine, and Berri, with complete jurisdiction both in civil and military affairs, the right of presentation to all royal prebends, and a pension of 100,000 crowns. From this time he assumed the title of Duke of Anjou, formerly borne by his brother. The King of Navarre, the Prince of Condé, and Marshal Damville were re-established in their offices and governments; John Casimir received a sum of money and the promise of a still larger one, and other leaders were gained by assurances of future favors.

The succession

The Court was not sincere, as the ultra-Catholics must have known, in its negotiations with the Huguenots. But Guise and his party had gained nothing, and the conditions of the peace afforded an excellent theme by which the Jesuits might arouse the fanaticism of the people. The question of the succession to the Crown was also a good handle for exciting jealousy and alarm. The King was childless, and, as many believed, impotent; his brother, the Duke of Anjou, the next heir, had declared himself the protector of the Protestants; and if he also should die without children, the Crown devolved to the House of Bourbon, the heads of which, the King of Navarre and Condé, were Huguenots. But what gave the ultra-Catholics the most immediate cause of offence was a secret article in the treaty by which Condé was to have the government of Picardy; and it was principally this that called the LEAGUE into existence. Picardy was again become completely Catholic, and one of its principal nobles, the Baron d'Humières, governor of Péronne, Montdidier, and Roye, was not only a zealous Papist, but had also a personal feud with Condé.

There can be no doubt that the first foundation of the great Catholic League may be traced back to a much earlier period. Some associations to protect the old religion had been formed as early as 1563 by the guilds and other civic unions, and especially by the spiritual brotherhoods, which attracted the Court and the nobility by their penances and church goings, and the populace by the spectacle of their gorgeous processions. But the League was now first formally organized by the Baron d'Humières with the assistance of the Jesuits. The neighboring nobility and the principal citizens of the towns of Picardy were convened in secret meetings, and an act of union was framed which was intended to be submitted to the King. A still more important document, however, drawn up apparently by the Duke of Guise and his friends, and addressed not only to the Leaguers of Picardy, but also to all the Catholic nobility of the kingdom, must be regarded as the real constituent act of the League. This act, which begins like a formal treaty, “In the name of the Holy Trinity”, and concludes with the formula of an oath to be taken by all those who joined the League, professes its object to be to restore the entire Word of God, and to uphold the service of the Holy Roman Catholic Church; to maintain the King in his authority, but as subordinate to the States-General; to restore the ancient liberties enjoyed under Clovis; and to assert these objects to the death against whomsoever it might be.

Thus it is plain that the Catholic chiefs had taken a leaf from their adversaries’ book, and designed to entice the people by the hope of a political revolution combined with the maintenance of the ancient religion. The League soon acquired numerous adherents. It was eagerly signed by the Parisians, who were followed by the people of Picardy, Poitou, and Touraine; and it had already received the signatures of considerable towns, and even whole provinces, before the King was aware of its existence. The moment was well chosen, as the States were to assemble at Blois early in the winter. But before they met, a Huguenot publication acquainted the King with his real situation. The papers of an advocate named David, a man of ill reputation who had died at Lyons on his return from Rome, fell into the hands of the Huguenots, and were immediately published by them. They contained a plan for exterminating the Huguenots, and seizing and bringing to trial the King's brother. When this had been accomplished, the Duke of Guise, as rightful heir to the Crown by descent from Charlemagne, was, with the Pope’s sanction, to shut up the King in a monastery, in like manner as the Duke’s ancestor Pipin had formerly treated Childeric. Guise was then to be proclaimed King, and the authority of the Holy See was to be fully restored through the abolition by the States of the liberties of the Gallican Church. How far the Duke was connected with the origin of this paper does not appear; he probably merely connived at the plan; but it is certain that the Cardinal de Pellevé, a creature of the Guises, who was then at Rome, cordially promoted David's project, spoke of it in the Consistory, and communicated it to Philip II. It is by no means improbable that the Guises had formed an ulterior plan to seize the Crown. They had hoped to enjoy a large share of the government under Henry III, especially as that King had chosen his consort from their house; yet they found themselves elbowed out by the King’s minions. They were fond of tracing the antiquity of their descent, as superior to that of the reigning dynasty; yet, even if their pretensions be allowed, it was not the Duke of Guise, but the Duke of Lorraine, of the elder branch of the family, who would have been entitled to the Crown. Henry III at first deemed the papers of David to be a Huguenot forgery, till St. Goard, his ambassador in Spain, sent him another copy, which had been forwarded to Philip II.

Henry III joins the League

These discoveries tended to increase the alarm of Henry III, who could think of no other means of combating the League than by placing himself at the head of it. The assembly of the States-General was a stormy one. The cowardly act of which the King had been guilty in subscribing the League deprived him of all respect. All that he gained by it was, that everything militating against the royal authority should be struck out of the document; which was then laid before the States for their acceptance, and ordered to be signed throughout the kingdom. The new act excluded the Bourbons from the throne by limiting the succession to the House of Valois. Many of the deputies signed it, while others refused. The States forbore to vote the King any supplies, and would not even consent to the alienation of the Crown lands; but they insisted on the extirpation of Protestantism.

As the conditions of the peace had not been observed, the Huguenots were still in arms, and had been making conquests while the States were sitting. The King of Navarre, who had been declared chief of the counter-league, and Condé, his Lieutenant-General, had subdued and occupied many places in Guienne, Poitou, and the neighboring provinces, while Marshal Damville had done the like in Languedoc. The King had sent deputies from the States to negotiate with them, but without effect. Condé and Damville at once refused to recognize the assembly at Blois. The answer of the King of Navarre was somewhat milder and more politic. “Tell the assembly”, said he, “that I constantly pray to God to bring me to a knowledge of the truth, and, if I am in the right way, to maintain me in it; if not, to open my eyes. Inform them that I am prepared not only to renounce error, but also to stake my possessions and my life for the extirpation of heresy out of the realm, and if possible out of the world”. Thus even at this period we see Henry of Navarre, who had already been twice a Catholic and twice a Protestant, wavering between the two religions, and prepared to accept either as circumstances might direct. His answer was highly unpalatable to the Calvinist ministers.

1577. Peace of Bergerac

The Court had fulfilled its engagements with the Duke of Anjou, who not only deserted his former friends, but also took the command of an army to act against them, although he owed everything he had obtained to his having joined their party. The Court also succeeded in seducing Marshal Damville from the “cause”. An aristocrat and a soldier, Damville was little inclined to obey the commands of stormy meetings of civilians and to connect himself with the democratic republic of the Huguenots. More difficulty was experienced in treating with the King of Navarre; but at length he also was induced to accept the terms of a peace which was published at Bergerac in September, 1577. There were two treaties, one public, the other secret; but it is unnecessary to detail conditions which were only meant to be observed so long as might be convenient, and it will suffice to state, that, on the whole, they were less favorable to the Protestants than those of the Peace of Monsieur. The only point to be remarked is, that by one of the articles, the King, as it were by a side wind, suppressed the Catholic League as well as the Huguenot confederations.

The Pope and the King of Spain, as well as the Guises, had used their utmost endeavors to prevent the concluding of this treaty and Gregory XIII had offered King Henry III 900,000 livres towards the expenses to be incurred by continuing the war. But many circumstances combined to incline the French Court to peace; particularly the refusal of the States to vote any money, the menaces of John Casimir, and the disclosures respecting the projects of the Guises.

The King, instead of availing himself of this interval of repose to fortify himself against his enemies, only sank deeper and deeper into vice and infamy. His conduct can be compared only with that of the weakest as well as the worst of the heathen Roman Emperors. At the opening of the States-General he appeared in diamond earrings; and though the national exchequer was empty, he and his mother gave fêtes that cost 100,000 livres. The minions by whom Henry was surrounded were ferocious as well as profligate; duels and murders were of everyday occurrence; and amid all this corruption, the King was the slave of monks and Jesuits, whom he implicitly obeyed. It was about this time (December, 1578) that he instituted the Military Order of the Holy Ghost, that of St. Michael having of late years fallen into contempt through being bestowed too lavishly on unworthy persons.

1579. Treaty of Nérac

Meanwhile the Guises were using every effort to rekindle the war, which Catharine, on the other hand, was endeavoring to prevent. With this view she travelled, in August, into the southern provinces, and had an interview with Henry of Navarre at Nérac, bringing with her Henry’s wife, her daughter Margaret; a circumstance, however, which did not add to the pleasure of their meeting. Henry received the ladies coldly, and they retired into Languedoc, where they passed the remainder of the year. Nevertheless the negotiations were sedulously pursued; for a peace with the Huguenots was, at this time, indispensable to the Court. The exactions of the King, were met with resistance, especially in the more Catholic provinces, where the dissatisfaction was fomented by the Guises : and Henry was obliged to purchase from that influential family a sort of tacit truce, by according to them pecuniary favors. In February, 1579, a secret treaty was signed at Nérac, by which the concessions granted to the Protestants by the peace of Bergerac were much extended. Catharine spent nearly the whole of the year 1579 in the south, endeavoring to avert a renewal of the war by her intrigues, rather than by a faithful observance of the peace. But the King of Navarre saw through her Italian artifices, and was prepared to summon his friends and captains at the shortest notice.

The hostilities which he foresaw were not long in breaking out, and in a way that would seem impossible in any other country than France. When the King of Navarre fled from Court, in 1576, he expressed his indifference for two things he had left behind, the Mass and his wife. The Duke of Anjou being at this time disposed to renew his connection with the Huguenots, Margaret served as the medium of communication between her brother and her husband; while Henry III, with a view to interrupt this good understanding, wrote to the King of Navarre to acquaint him of the intrigues of his wife with Turenne. Henry was neither surprised nor afflicted at this intelligence; but he laid the letter before the guilty parties, who both denied the charge, and Henry affected to believe their protestations. The ladies of the Court of Nérac were indignant at this act of Henry III, “the enemy of women”; they pressed their lovers to renew hostilities against that discourteous monarch; Anjou added his instances to those of the ladies; and in 1580 ensued the war called, from its origin, la guerre des amoureux, or war of the lovers : the seventh of what are sometimes styled “the wars of religion!”

The Prince of Condé, who lived on bad terms with his cousin, had already taken the field on his own account, and in November, 1579, had seized on the little town of La Fère, in Picardy. In the spring of 1580 the Protestant chiefs in the south unfurled their banners. The King of Navarre laid the foundation of his military fame by the bravery he displayed at the capture of Cahors; but on the whole the movement proved a failure. Henry III had no fewer than three armies in the field, which were generally victorious, and the King of Navarre found himself menaced in his residence of Nèrac by Marshal Biron. But Henry III, for fear of the Guises, did not wish to press the Huguenots too hard, and at length accepted the proffered mediation of the Duke of Anjou, who was at this time anxious to enter on the protectorate offered to him by the Netherlanders. Anjou set off for the south, accompanied by his mother and her flying squadron; conferences were opened at the Castle of Fleix in Perigord, and on November 26th, 1580, a treaty was concluded which was almost a literal renewal of that of Bergerac. Thus an equivocal peace, or rather truce, was re-established, which proved of some duration.

At this period the conquest of Portugal by Philip II, by adding a new force to his already almost irresistible power, diverted for a time the attention of the French from their own domestic troubles to the affairs of Spain, and revived in them all that ancient jealousy of the House of Austria, which seemed to have slumbered while they were invoking the aid of Philip in support of bigotry and faction.

It was during the reign of Emanuel I, or the Great, as we have already seen, that Portugal laid the foundation of its greatness, by its conquests in Asia, Africa, and America. Emanuel was succeeded by John III, who reigned from 1521 to 1527. Under this King Portugal attained its highest pitch of commercial prosperity, and Japan was added to the countries with which it traded in the East (1542). The seeds of its decline, were, however, already sown, and partly by the policy of John himself. That monarch had shown much favor to the Jesuits, even before they were definitively established, and had caused two of Loyola’s first companions, Francis Xavier and Simon Rodriguez, to be sent for missionary purposes into Portugal. Xavier repaired to the East Indies and to Japan as a missionary, and helped wonderfully to spread Christianity and civilization, while Rodriguez went as a missionary to Brazil. But the footing which this Society obtained in Portugal, and the fanaticism which they necessarily introduced, gave a fatal blow to the prosperity of the country, where, under John’s successors, the persecution of the Inquisition became even more intolerant than in Spain. The authority of the Jesuits increased during the long minority of King Sebastian who, at the death of his grandfather, John III, was a child only three years old. His bigoted grandmother, Catharine, a sister of Charles V, on whom devolved his guardianship, placed him under the direction of the Jesuits; and when, in 1561, Catharine retired into a convent, the same course was pursued by his new guardian, Cardinal Henry, a brother of John II, and Archbishop of Braga, Evora and Lisbon, and also Grand-Inquisitor of Portugal. Cardinal Henry was entirely a churchman. In his view the material prosperity of the kingdom was but as dust in the balance when compared with the interests of the Church; and instead therefore of entrusting Sebastian’s education to statesmen and men of the world, he placed him under a fanatical gentleman, Dom Alexis de Menezes, who acted as his chamberlain, and a Jesuit father, Luis da Camara, as his teacher and confessor. By these men the mind of Sebastian was filled with romantic and fantastical views of religion. The Pope and his glory formed the chief object of his contemplation; he dreamt of nothing but acquiring the crown of Christian Knighthood by crusades against the Moslems, and of reducing East and West under the Cross of Christ and the victorious banner of Portugal. This martial and religious ardor found, however, an opportunity to exert itself nearer home. In 1574 Dom Sebastian undertook an expedition into Africa, where for some time he waged with the Moors an indecisive war; which a few years after he was tempted to renew, to his own destruction and the downfall of his Kingdom.

1578. Fatal expedition of King Sebastian

Muley Mohammed, Sultan of Morocco, by altering the law of succession, and appointing that the Crown should fall, on the death of the reigning Sovereign, to his eldest brother instead of to his son, had filled that empire with civil tumult, conspiracy, and murder. Muley’s son, Abdallah, in spite of his father’s law, contrived to seize and retain the scepter; and in order to transmit it to his son, Muley Mohammed, he murdered all his brothers except two; of whom one had escaped to Constantinople, and the other, Muley Hamet, on account of his seemingly harmless character, was suffered to live. On the death of Abdallah, his son, Muley Mohammed, also put his brothers to death, and attempted to seize his uncle, Muley Hamet, who, however, escaped to Constantinople; and returning in 1575 with a Turkish force, defeated his nephew in two battles, and seized the throne. Muley Mohammed now sought foreign assistance; first from Philip II, by whom it was refused, and then from Sebastian. The prospect thus opened to that adventurous and fanatical King of subduing Africa and vanquishing the Moslems proved irresistible. It was in vain that his grandfather's counsellors, as well as his grandmother Catharine and Cardinal Henry, dissuaded him from so wild a project; he had determined to venture his whole kingdom on the enterprise, and he applied to the Catholic King, his maternal uncle, to help him in it. At an interview which he had with Philip I, at the shrine of the Virgin at Guadalupe, that Sovereign, as well as the Duke of Alva, also counselled Sebastian to abandon the undertaking; but finding his nephew's resolution unalterable, Philip at length promised to support him with 50 galleys and 5,000 men. Sebastian sailed from Tangiers, the residence of Muley Mohammed, June 24th, 1578, with an army consisting of Portuguese, Castilians, and Germans, and a large body of volunteers, including most of the Portuguese nobility and many prelates. Among his forces was a body of 600 Italians, commanded by Thomas Stukely, an Englishman, who had been destined by the Pope for an expedition to Ireland. The point of attack was El Arish, or Larache, which might easily have been reached by sea. Sebastian, however, preferred to march through the sandy desert of Alcacerquivir, where he was encountered by 40,000 Moorish cavalry. A battle ensued at Alcacer, three or four days' march from El Arish, in which Dom Sebastian was defeated and slain, and his whole army nearly annihilated. The French traveller, Le Blanc, who was present at the battle, says that he saw the corpse of Sebastian in a chest filled with quicklime; but the Portuguese believed their King to have escaped alive, and that he would reappear among them; an opinion which caused many pretenders to spring up after the Spaniards took possession of Portugal.

As Sebastian did not make his appearance, Cardinal Henry assumed the regency, and was at length proclaimed King. As the Cardinal was old and childless, many claimants to the claimants throne appeared, the chief of whom were Philip II of Spain, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, Catharine, Duchess of Bragança, and Antonio, Prior of Crato. Philip II's claim was founded on his being son of the eldest sister of John III. The Prince of Parma and the Duke of Bragança had severally married daughters of John III's youngest brother, but the Duke of Bragança asserted that his offspring had a better claim to the throne, as there was an ancient law excluding all foreigners from the succession. Antonio was the illegitimate son of Louis, the next brother of John III; but he endeavored to show that he was born in lawful wedlock; and further maintained that, as the founder of the dynasty was a bastard, an illegitimate origin would not unconditionally exclude him from the throne. King Henry would not declare himself for any of the claimants; and though, at an assembly of the States at Almeria, a considerable part of the clergy and nobles inclined to favor the pretensions of Philip, the great body of the citizens and people appeared to be against him. Under these circumstances no resolution was come to, and soon afterwards King Henry died, January 31st, 1580.

Conquest of Portugal by Philip II

In anticipation of this event, Philip II had prepared to seize the Portuguese Crown by assembling an army of 24,000 Spanish and Italian veterans, on pretense of a threatened invasion by the Sultan of Morocco. The command of this force was entrusted to the Duke of Alva, as we have mentioned in a former chapter, although that veteran captain was then in such disgrace that Philip would not admit him to an interview, but communicated his orders in writing. Meanwhile the Portuguese had declared themselves in favor of Dom Antonio, who had been taken prisoner in Morocco, but contrived to escape after a slavery of forty days. Antonio was declared King at a popular meeting at Santarem; was after- wards proclaimed in Lisbon, June 24th, 1580, and was soon surrounded by a large body of citizens and peasants who flocked to his standard. But these undisciplined bands were incapable of making head against Alva and his veterans. Antonio, who displayed great personal valor, was defeated and wounded in a bloody battle at Alcantara, and the Spaniards successively took possession of Coimbra and Lisbon. In this campaign Alva displayed the same cruelty that he had shown in the Netherlands, though it took a different direction; and we are surprised to hear that this unrelenting champion of the orthodox Church caused 2,000 monks to be put to death in Portugal. Antonio, who had assembled 5,000 or 6,000 men at Oporto, found resistance hopeless. He fled to Viana, intending to escape by sea, but failing in the attempt, hid himself several months in different parts of the country; and although Philip offered a reward of 8,000 ducats for his discovery, nobody was found base enough to betray him. At length, in January, 1581, he succeeded in escaping in a Netherland ship to Calais, where the French government afforded him protection.

Philip II, who, during Alva’s campaign, had repaired to Badajoz in order to be nearer to the scene of action, entered Portugal after its conquest had been achieved; and in April, 1581, he received the homage of the Portuguese States assembled at Thomar. The youthful son of the Duchess of Bragança, who, during the Spanish invasion, had been kept a prisoner by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, sent to Philip an act renouncing his pretensions to the Crown, which the Spanish King, while affecting to consider it as unnecessary, nevertheless took care to lay up among the archives of Simancas. From Thomar, Philip proceeded to Santarem, where by an affected display of benevolence he attempted to make the people forget the cruelties they had suffered at the hands of Alva and his soldiers. Philip spent about two years in Portugal in consolidating his new conquest. His eldest surviving son Dom Diego, whom the Portuguese States had recognized as their future Sovereign, having died at Lisbon in November, 1582, he caused them to do homage to his next son, Philip, at another assembly held January 26th, 1583. In the following February he returned into Spain, after appointing Cardinal Albert, brother of the Emperor Rudolph II, Governor of Portugal.

Gregory XIII plots against Elizabeth

Nothing can show more strongly the want of a combined political action — the abeyance, so to speak, of the European System — than the apathy and indifference with which the great Powers regarded the subjugation of Portugal by Spain; a conquest which annexed for more than half a century to the already overgrown power of the Spanish monarchy, not only the remaining western portion of the Iberian peninsula, with its fertile fields and noble harbours, but also the rich and extensive possessions of Portugal in America and the Indies. It was not till after the conquest was irrevocably completed that France and England began to show any anxiety about its results. The affairs of Portugal, indeed, tended to divert awhile from England those plots of the Pope and the Spanish Bang which so seriously menaced the safety of Elizabeth. In 1578 Gregory XIII began to renew his designs against the English Queen; and one of his favorite projects was to seize Ireland for his nephew Buoncompagni. Ireland was represented to Gregory as the victim of English cruelty and rapacity, as a country so ripe for rebellion that an army of 5,000 men would easily secure its liberation. With a view to this conquest the Pope took into his service one Thomas Stukely, the English refugee before mentioned, bestowed on him the title of Marquis of Leinster, gave him 40,000 crowns, and raised for him several hundred Italian troops. Gregory also sent Sega as his Nuncio into Spain, to gain over Philip II to the project, who promised to assist it with men and money; and Stukely sailed from Civita Vecchia with his Italians to join a small Spanish and Portuguese force in the Tagus. But Dom Sebastian persuaded Stukely to join him, as we have already seen, in his wild enterprise in Morocco, where both he and Stukely perished; and as Philip’s subsequent invasion of Portugal led him to diminish his army in the Netherlands, the romantic zeal of Sebastian had the unforeseen effect of promoting the cause of Protestantism and liberty. Part of Stukely’s plan was, however, carried into effect. James Fitzgerald, an Irish refugee, whom he was to have taken up at Lisbon, landed in Kerry in 1579; the powerful Earl of Desmond rose, and some advantages were gained. But reverses followed : Desmond was overthrown and hunted to death; the rebellion was put down, and the leaders who were taken hanged and quartered without mercy.

Establishment of English Catholic Colleges.

Rome was pursuing at this time other plots against Elizabeth, of a slower and more insidious, but not less dangerous kind. As Catholic worship and education were proscribed in England, the Catholic priests who fled the country founded, in 1568, under Dr. Wm. Allen, afterwards a Cardinal, a college at Douay, which the Pope supported with a monthly pension. The establishment attracted many English Catholic youths; till Requesens, at the instance of Queen Elizabeth, who complained of it as a seminary of treason, ordered it to be removed. It was then transferred (1578) to Rheims, where it was patronized by the Guises as well as the Pope; but in 1593 it went back to Douay. Gregory XIII endowed another English college at Rome, under the direction of the Jesuits, and others were established at St. Omer, Valladolid, and Seville. From these seminaries numerous priests went every year to England, wandering about the country in disguise, and ministering secretly to the Catholic population. The Jesuits themselves first entered England in 1580, and commenced their traitorous conspiracies. The Guises took an active part in all projects against the life and throne of Elizabeth. It was chiefly through their influence and machinations that the destruction of Morton, the Regent of Scotland, was accomplished. After the failure of the Irish plot, the Jesuits urged Guise to make an attempt on England itself (1583). This could not be accomplished without the help of Spain, and Guise urged Philip to aid him with 4,000 men; but Philip put an end to the scheme on hearing that Guise had agreed with some of the English Catholics to assist in expelling the Spaniards after the invasion had succeeded.

But although Elizabeth had much reason to complain of the conduct of Philip, she dreaded to involve herself in an open war with him, and when the Prior of Crato arrived in London in June, 1581, to solicit her assistance, although she received him honorably and relieved him bountifully, yet she refused to take up arms in his behalf. In France he succeeded better. Although the French Court had not ventured to aid Dom Antonio during the struggle in Portugal, it resolved to help him in holding some of the Portuguese colonies. Catharine de' Medici even put in a claim to the Crown of Portugal, as a descendant, through her mother, of Robert, Count of Bologna, son of Alfonso III; but the claim could only have been urged as some slight pretext for hostilities, or more probably still, with the view of inducing the Catholic King to buy her off; for by aiding Antonio she virtually recognized his pretensions as superior to her own. Although Africa and the Brazils submitted to Philip II, a great part of the Azores declared for the Prior of Crato. Those islands were then the chief place of rendezvous for vessels bound to either Indies; and, if occupied by a hostile force, would have rendered almost useless to Philip both his own colonies and the Portuguese. In 1581 some succors were dispatched from France to the Azores; and in the following year Catharine fitted out a fleet of fifty-five sail, with 5,000 troops on board, which she entrusted to the command of her relative, Philip Strozzi. A descent was effected; but the Spanish fleet under Santa Cruz soon afterwards appeared; a bloody battle ensued, July 26th, 1582, in which Strozzi was defeated and slain; most of the French vessels were either taken or sunk, and the Spanish admiral put to death all the prisoners he made, declaring that as no regular war had been proclaimed between France and Spain, he could regard them only as pirates. The Prior of Crato succeeded in escaping to Terceira, which, with the help of Emanuel da Silva, and a few hundred French, he defended some time against the Spaniards. In 1583, however, Philip dispatched an overwhelming force which reduced the Azores to subjection. Dom Antonio escaped to France, and died at Paris in 1595, after having made in 1589, with the help of the English admiral, Drake, as will be related in the sequel, another fruitless attempt to wrest Portugal from the Spanish Crown.

The conquest of Portugal and its magnificent possessions Conspiracy tended to revive the prestige of Spanish power, then somewhat waning through the revolt in the Netherlands. It was on this side that Spain was most vulnerable; and hither, for a few years after Philip's conquest, as we have related elsewhere, the force of France was directed, but with that underhand system of warfare which characterizes the latter portion of the sixteenth century; while Philip retaliated by drawing closer his alliance with the House of Guise. The fruits of this connection appeared in a terrible conspiracy. One Salcède, a Spaniard by origin, but remotely connected on the female side with the House of Lorraine, offered to the Duke of Anjou, now also Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders, etc., the services of the regiment of volunteers which he had levied in Champagne. As Salcède’s father had been one of Guise’s victims of the St. Bartholomew, his advances were received without suspicion. The infamous character of the man, however — he had been condemned to death by the Parliament of Rouen for forgery and arson — and some other circumstances, excited the notice of the Prince of Orange, who caused Salcède to be apprehended at Bruges, July 21st, 1582. Being put to the torture, he revealed the plan of a vast conspiracy, organized by the Guises in the interest of Philip II, by which the Duke of Anjou and Prince of Orange were to be assassinated, and Henry III was to be seized and placed in the hands of the Catholic King. At the request of Henry, Salcède was sent from Bruges to Vincennes, where he was examined by torture in the King's presence, and was afterwards handed over to the Parliament for prosecution. His confessions, which, however, he retracted more than once, implicated in the conspiracy some who professed the greatest attachment to the King, and even his favorite, the Duke of Joyeuse himself. Many of these accusations were, perhaps, calumnious, yet of the main outlines of the conspiracy there can be little doubt. Salcède was condemned to be torn to pieces by four horses.

Philip II intrigues with the Huguenots

After the failure of this plot, Philip II, dissatisfied with the inactivity of the League, and alarmed by the entry of the Duke of Montpensier and Marshal Biron into Flanders, endeavored to excite disturbances in France by means of the Huguenots; and, early in 1583, he offered the King of Navarre a considerable subsidy to renew the war against Henry III. Thus even the bigoted Philip could make religion bend to policy. The King of Navarre played with the offer; thanked Philip for his good intentions, and communicated them to Henry III, in order to dispose that Sovereign to prolong the term for the surrender of the cautionary towns. Sometime after, Philip II renewed his offer on the occasion of an insult offered to Henry of Navarre's wife by the King her brother. Margaret, tired of the little Court of Nèrac after the departure of most of the young lords for the Netherlands, had returned to the Court of France early in 1582, where she entered into a thousand cabals, quarreled with the King, and rallied his minions. Stung by her insolence, one day, in the presence of all the Court, overwhelmed his sister with reproaches and abuse, and concluded by ordering her to return into Gascony. On the road, she and her ladies were overtaken by some archers of the guard, who detained two of her suite as prisoners, and did not suffer them to proceed till they had been subjected to a strict interrogatory respecting the conduct of their mistress. The King of Navarre refused to receive back his wife after this insult : a step necessary to his dignity, though in reality he was totally indifferent about her behavior. Such was the occasion on which Philip renewed his offers to Henry. On his refusing, the Spanish agents observed, “You know not what you are doing; we can soon find another market”; alluding to the Guises. But Henry again acquainted Henry III with the designs of the Spanish King, as well as of a plot of the Duke of Savoy to enter Provence.

The proceedings of the Duke of Anjou in the Netherlands, his ill success, return to France, and death, will be related in another chapter. By his decease Henry of Navarre became the second person in the kingdom, as heir presumptive of the Crown, although the branch of Bourbon was separated from the royal stem by a lapse of three centuries. But his heresy stood in the way. Henry III, who was really inclined to support the King of Navarre in preference to the House of Guise, sent to him the Duke of Epernon to exhort him to change his religion. On that head Henry of Navarre was probably indifferent, though, as a modern historian observes, he compensated for his lukewarmness by believing in two dogmas unknown either at Rome or Geneva — toleration and humanity. He listened not, however, to the King’s exhortations, though he offered his services and those of his party against the enemies of the Crown. The change in the King of Navarre's position had also excited the solicitude of his friends, and Du Plessis Mornay addressed to him an eloquent letter exhorting him to avoid the public scandal of his numerous amours.

The most important consequence of the death of the of Anjou was the revival of the League, which faction had hitherto proved abortive. Philip II now seized the opportunity to promote it. The accession of a Protestant King to the throne of France would render inevitable a war between that country and Spain, and might threaten the whole European system, as well as the existence of the Spanish monarchy. Philip himself was growing into years; his son was an infant of seven; during a long minority what would become of Spain with a Huguenot King for neighbor? Bernardino de Mendoza, one of the most incendiary of all Philip's tools, and lately his ambassador in England, whence he had been dismissed for his plots against Elizabeth, was sent to Paris to stimulate Guise and the ultra-Catholic party. It was in this capital that the League was reorganized. Paris was at first divided into five arrondissements, or districts, under five leaders, who afterwards associated with themselves eleven more, in order that each quarter of the city might have its director. This was the origin of the Sixteen, who afterwards acquired so redoubtable a celebrity. Their policy was to gain over the heads of the different guilds and corporations, and of the spiritual brotherhoods, who were generally followed by the other members; and by degrees the great judicial and financial bodies were drawn into the League. From Paris its ramifications were extended to the principal cities of France. Its main objects were the disinherison of Henry of Navarre and the overthrow of the King’s minions. The League would willingly have transferred the succession to the Duke of Guise, and such a contingency was doubtless in the thoughts of that Prince; but he dared not yet avow it. A stalking-horse was found in the Cardinal of Bourbon, uncle of the King of Navarre, a weak, bigoted old man, who, if the claims of his nephew were set aside on the score of heresy, was undoubtedly next heir to the Crown. Guise, who meant to reign under his name, tried to persuade him to renounce his ecclesiastical dignities, and marry the Duchess-dowager of Montpensier, Guise's sister. Catharine de' Medici herself was more than half gained over to the League by the dazzling prospect of the Crown's descent, after the death of Henry III, to her grandson, the son of her eldest daughter, the Duchess of Lorraine; though with an absurd inconsistency Catharine retained her hostility towards Philip, and was inclined for a war with Spain. The situation of Christendom seemed to promise the success of the League. In France itself the Protestants were estimated to have decreased seventy per cent. In Germany, under the bigoted Emperor Rodolph II, Protestantism was losing all the ground it had gained after the peace of Passau. In the Low Countries, Farnese was advancing from one conquest to another; and the great hero of Protestantism, the Prince of Orange, had fallen by the hand of an assassin a month after the death of Anjou.

Despicable character of Henry III

Henry III, without money or resources, and despicable by his want of moral courage, seemed to present no obstacle to the progress of the League. So afraid was he of the King of Spain that he did not venture to accept Cambray, which the Duke of Anjou had bequeathed to him as a legacy; and Catharine took possession of it as a guarantee for her claims on Portugal. Henry had been striving to regain the affections of the fanatical Parisians, of the clergy and the Court of Rome, by extraordinary acts of devotion. After the masquerades and carnival of 1583 he had celebrated Lent with unusual strictness, and introduced at Paris the Blancs-Battus or Flagellants of Avignon, under the title of the Penitents of the Annunciation; but the Parisians saw in the affair only another masquerade. After the death of his brother, and the rumors respecting the League, he attempted to conciliate the people by many ordinances of reform. He affected at this time a great attention to business. Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador, writes, that the French King was continually occupied from two o'clock after midnight, his usual time of rising, till eight, shut up in his cabinet “scribbling” with two or three secretaries under him. He now added to his ordinary guard another of forty-five Gascon gentlemen, called Taillagambi, who wore cuirasses under their coats. These men were constantly about his person, were maintained in the palace, and were not suffered to visit out of it. Henry felt that he was in a completely false position, and knew not how to extricate himself, dreading alike the Huguenots and the League. The Duke of Guise was a most formidable adversary; there was a grandeur in his nature that captivated the people. The Pope compared him to Judas Maccabaeus.

In December, 1584, a meeting of the Catholic leaders was held at Guise's castle of Joinville; Philip II sent plenipotentiaries, and a regular treaty, offensive and defensive, was concluded. Its professed objects were, the maintenance of the Roman Catholic religion; the complete extirpation of all heresy in the Netherlands as well as in France, and the exclusion of heretical Princes from the throne. Philip’s envoys made several advantageous stipulations. The Cardinal of Bourbon, who had accepted the post assigned to him by the Guises, agreed to ratify after his accession the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, to renounce all alliance with the Turk, and to put an end to all illicit navigation towards the Indies; that is, to submit to the monopoly of Spain. The French Princes engaged to assist Philip to recover Cambray; and he, on the other hand, undertook to pay them 600,000 crowns during the first six months of the war, and afterwards 60,000 crowns monthly, as long as it lasted. Cardinal Bourbon further promised to cede Lower Navarre and Bearn; and Guise and his brother Mayenne engaged to deliver up Dom Antonio to Philip.

Before the execution of the treaty, Père Mathieu, who from his indefatigable activity obtained the name of the “courier of the League”, was dispatched to Rome to obtain for it the approbation of the Pope. Gregory XIII, who had sanctioned all the most violent acts of the ultra-Catholics in France, appears to have given a verbal approval of the League; but he would not authorize it by a formal bull, nor would he consent to the murder of the King, — which must, therefore, have been one of the projects submitted to him — though he did not object to the seizing of his person.

By the establishment of the League France became divided into three parties : that of the King, the weakest and most contemptible of all; that of Henry of Navarre; and that nominally of the Cardinal of Bourbon, but in reality of the Guises and the King of Spain. Henry III wavered some time as to the course he should adopt. Towards the end of January, 1585, an embassy from the patriots in the United Provinces of the Netherlands solicited his intervention, offering him twelve cautionary towns and 100,000 crowns a month; the Queen of England, who was now prepared to prevent, at any price, the triumph of Philip, urged Henry to accept these offers, which she partly guaranteed, and sent him the order of the Garter. Philip’s general, Alexander Farnese, was at that time engaged in the siege of Antwerp; to prevent its being succored, Philip pressed the League to commence operations; and Henry III, alarmed at their movements, dismissed the Dutch ambassadors, and declared that he meant to keep peace with the King of Spain. At Péronne, the League published their manifesto, March 31st. It was in the name of the Cardinal of Bourbon; but with it was circulated a list of the chiefs of the League, including all the Catholic Princes of Europe. The name of the Duke of Lorraine appeared, coupled with that of Guise, as lieutenants of the League. It was the first time that the Duke of Lorraine had taken part in the civil wars of France, into which he was enticed by the promise of Toul and Verdun. The King’s answer to the manifesto of the League resembled that of an arraigned criminal.

He dispatched his mother to Epernay, to negotiate with the Guises; who, however, as a considerable part of the Kingdom had declared for the League, rose in their demands in proportion to their success. The negotiations were transferred from Epernay to Nemours; and though the King's arms had met with some partial success, a treaty was concluded in July, which amounted to a virtual surrender of the royal authority as well as a complete prohibition of the Protestant faith. All former edicts in favor of the Huguenots were revoked; the Chambres mi-parties were abolished; the reformed ministers were to quit the realm within a month, and all other obstinate heretics within six months. The Dukes of Guise, Mayenne, Elbeuf, Aumale, Mercoeur, were not only to retain their governments, but nine cautionary towns were also to be assigned to them and to the Cardinal of Bourbon for five years; viz., Soissons, Dinan, Le Conquet, Châlons, Verdun, Toul, St. Dizier, Beaune, and Rue. This peace was proclaimed July 7th, by the Edict of Nemours. On the 13th the King joined his mother at St. Maur, where he received the homage of the Cardinals of Bourbon and Guise, and of the Dukes of Lorraine and Guise. On the 18th he held a lit de justice in the Parliament of Paris to register the revocation of all former edicts of toleration, and the suppression of the (pretended) reformed religion.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC