it, and had not that party some reason to reckon on the support of Anjou. They even held out to Elizabeth, as a bait, that the young French prince might be induced to forego the public exercise of his religion, in order not to shock the fanaticism of the English reformers.* These efforts of the Duke of Anjou to take the Protestants for a stepping stone, since the king, his brother, seemed determined to be the Catholic champion, were made at first apparently without the cognisance of Catherine. When she did learn it, she placed herself at once in opposition, and bade her envoy, La Mothe Fenelon, support Leicester's claim to espouse Elizabeth. Later, she recommended that Anjou should marry some princess of the Seymour family whom Elizabeth might declare her heir, and thus knit the alliance of the two countries and two royal families. She soon, however, learned that Anjou himself was at the bottom of the intrigues, and that the king favoured them, whereupon she wrote to La Mothe to consider all she had said, as unwritten, and to keep her once offered advice profoundly secret. CHAP. XXIV. The king was very zealous for the marriage of his brother with the English queen, which would remove him from court and from the lead of French armies and French politics. But when Anjou opened to him that portion of his plan which related to Flanders, the monarch was not so acquiescent. Henry of Anjou represented how facile would be the conquest of a province which Alva had irrecoverably alienated from the Spanish crown. Philip the Second, he said, had certainly caused their sister Elizabeth's death. And the d. 1568. Cecil's letter, instructions to Walsingham. Harl. MSS. 260. † La Mothe Fenelon, t. iii. p. 464. We learn from the correspondence of the Spanish ambassador Alava VOL. III. I (Simancas Papers, B. xxix., Arch. French mounted gentry were eager, he represented, to follow any prince who would lead them to the reduction of the French provinces. of Flanders. However zealous to promote his brother to a foreign throne, Charles was not prepared to re-invest him with the command of French armies, or facilitate for him the conquest of countries not very remote from his capital. Moreover, he liked as little seeing Henry at the head of the Huguenot party in France, as he had before contemplated his military chiefdom of the Catholics. And as jealousy had led him to deprive his brother Henry of the one, so he was determined to supersede him in the other also. Charles liked very well the idea of filching the Low Countries from Philip of Spain; but this project he proposed to execute himself, and to make use, in order to it, of the same Protestant alliance which Anjou had prepared. In January of 1571, Cossé Brissac was despatched to La Rochelle for the avowed purpose of hearing the complaints and satisfying the grievances of the Huguenots-but really to sound them on the subject of a cordial alliance with the king, based on the marriage of the King of Navarre with the Princess Margaret, and a war with Spain for the Low Countries. Cossé met with much distrust, at which he was far from astonished. "The ground, however dry," observed he, "cannot all at once drink up the effects of the storm."* One of Cossé's difficulties was no doubt the previous understanding of the Huguenot chiefs with Anjou. But the king was so much better able to accomplish these designs, and he gave proof of such ardour to undertake them, that the Huguenots, after hearing the report of provided he could find for it a po- to get rid of his wife summarily, as the cause of religion was the pretext for getting rid of his son Don Carlos. * Pour-parlers de Cossé. Printed Papers in MSS. Fontanieu, p. 323. several envoys*, civil and military, whom they had sent to court to acquire information and form a judgment, were of opinion that the offers of Charles ought to be accepted. The king was careful to give every possible satisfaction. In a great many towns and districts the Catholics remained armed, and kept watch night and day at the gates to prevent the exiled Huguenots returning. Charles issued an edict ordering all to disarm, and allow the religionists to regain their homes.† The Catholics of Rouen having risen in tumult to assail the Protestants proceeding to the place appointed in the suburbs for their worship, the Maréchal de Montmorenci was sent to curb and punish their fanaticism. Troubles of a similar kind disturbed the town of Orange, and a similar remedy was not refused. The Huguenots were much harassed by the fifth levied upon them for repayment of the sums furnished to the reistres. Indulgence was shown them. They were allowed to hold a synod at La Rochelle at the very time when Charles, with the young queen, made his solemn entrance into his capital. On this occasion the monarch, instead of chiming in with the ultra Catholic zeal of the magistracy and the inhabitants, took the opportunity of reading the former a severe lecture for demurring to his edicts, and dispensed with the citizens forming a guard for his person, as had been their habit or their privilege.§ As the summer of 1571 opened, Charles made a progress through several châteaux and royal residences, * Téligny, Bricquemaut, and Cavagnes were the envoys. These three names will re-occur upon a melancholy occasion. + Memoirs of Claude Haiton, p. 605. Notwithstanding these conciliatory acts of Charles, others betray precaution and mistrust. Jeanne СНАР. XXIV. СНАР. and summoned the Prince of Nassau, brother of the Prince of Orange, and recently in the command of the French Huguenots, to meet him at Lumigny, in order to discuss with him the facilities of reducing the Low Countries. Prince Ludovic offered the co-operation of the German Protestant princes towards the conquest of Flanders and Artois for France; Brabant, Guelderland, and Zealand falling to England*; and portions of this scheme for dividing the Low Countries between the House of Orange, France, and England, were the marriage of Queen Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou, and that of the King of Navarre with the Princess Margaret. Coligny's presence and co-operation were necessary for this, and he and the Queen of Navarre were accordingly bidden to court. The admiral felt a natural reluctance to trust himself amongst enemies who had so often sought to entrap him. The Cardinal of Lorraine was, however, no longer dominant, and the Duke of Guise himself withdrew on learning that the arrival of the admiral was expected. The Maréchal de Montmorenci seemed to succeed at court to the military and political influence which the Guises had once held†, and he recommended Coligny as the most valuable of political councillors. The latter, therefore, notwithstanding many warnings of his friends, repaired to the court at Blois in September, declaring that anything, even the chance of being deceived and sacrificed was preferable to a renewal of the civil war.‡ The king received Coligny with an effusion of tenderness and respect. The monarch called him his father, and exclaimed, "Now we have you, you shall not again quit us." The admiral's domains of Chatillon sur Loing were small, and had been ravaged, as well as his château plundered, during the war. The king insisted on indemnifying him by a pension, and bestowing upon him a year's receipt of the ecclesiastical revenues of his brother, the Cardinal of Chatillon, who had lately died in England.* The admiral made use of his influence to press the king to the invasion of Flanders, arguing that he could never hope to allay domestic troubles without the distraction of foreign war.† The king seemed fully to adopt his views, which he proposed to carry out by the aid of the Huguenot party. The marriage between the King of Navarre and his sister Margaret was finally agreed. And when Coligny summed up the grievances of his fellow-religionists, Charles granted what was demanded in their General Articles. He withdrew the garrisons which oppressed the Protestant towns of Languedoc. Several severe and ultra Catholic governors were recalled. Those of Provence and Dauphiné who had not yet appointed places me to that of the queen mother.' During this period Alava represents Catherine as far more eager for the Huguenot alliance and the war against Flanders than King Charles. Alava depicts him as the povre rey, with whom Catherine did what she liked, and relates that Phizes, the king's secretary, had expostulated with him on his favouring heresy. Catherine was angry with Phizes, and threatened to have him executed, while Charles, to screen himself, threatened to stab him. The account is in a letter dated November 6, 1571 (Simancas Papers, B. 30). It is strong testimony that up to that period Catherine was more CHAP. XXIV. |