The state of the kingdom was not such as to warrant more severity. The executions of Amboise, joined with the report that the victims had merely intended to present a petition to the king, stirred up the discontent of the provinces. Guyenne and Berry, and even Normandy, wrote Andelot*, were likely to follow the example of Dauphiné. When the court quitted Amboise, the first care of the cardinal was that the king should make a solemn entrance into Tours. On this occasion a baker placed his child, with his eyes bound, on an ass, a red hooded bird standing on his head and pecking at it. The crowd took the child to represent the king, and the bird the cardinal. It turned the whole procession into ridicule. As the court advanced, the spirit of the people showed itself more and more disrespectful. The Guises themselves did not know how to deal with it. Condé asked to be set free, which request the duke was for granting, the cardinal for refusing. Catherine, alarmed, sent for the Huguenot minister, Chandieu, to hear his opinions. As he refused to obey her summons, she consulted La Planche, who pointed out to her that all France was becoming hostile to the court on account of the Guises, some on religious, others on political grounds. He recommended a council of French clergy to consider the demands of the one, and the states-general to remedy the grievances of the other. The dispositions of foreign powers also embarrassed the Guises. Their sister, mother of queen Mary, in ruling Scotland after their advice, had provoked the reformers of that country to rebellion. On the accession of Francis and Mary to the crown, their obvious policy was to conciliate the government of England, and prevent its supporting the malcontents. Elizabeth, who, above all feelings, had those of a queen, was most * Letters of March 26, in Lettres et Mémoires de Guise. し CHAP. СНАР. reluctant to aid the rebellious subjects of another monarch. But the French court left her no choice. In quartering the arms of England with their own, these princes put forward a claim even to the English throne. Elizabeth, therefore, with the advice of Cecil*, despatched efficient succours into Scotland, which completely overcame the army sent by Guise. She at the same time entered into communications with the French Protestants, and was probably not a stranger to the enterprise of Amboiset, sending forth almost simultaneously with it a declaration against France (March 1560), and more especially against the Guises, as the influence at its court which provoked war. Whilst making an enemy of England, the Guises had not secured an ally in Spain. The king's sister had indeed espoused Philip the Second early in the same year, but Elizabeth flattered the house of Austria with hopes that she would marry an archduke, and Philip deprecated her being as yet made the object of open hostility. Nay, Chantonnay, Philip's ambassador in France, gave his advice to Catherine, that the Guises had better withdraw for a time, from the general animosity which their domination excited.‡ Under the pressure of these circumstances, the milder policy of Catherine prevailed. An envoy was sent to Scotland with full powers to conclude a treaty with Elizabeth and with the Scotch. And this indeed he *Cecil's Memoir. Council to Queen. State Papers. †Throgmorton's relations with Navarre and Condé are detailed in his correspondence. But the Vidame de Chartres was more peculiarly in English confidence. Forbes' Elizabeth, Corres. vol. i. Still there is no proof of Elizabeth's complicity. All that the Cardinal of Lorraine could affirm was the giving of money, and that much later. He also complained, that the English envoy, who had just returned from England, held aloof from court, and deferred paying his respects to the king previous to the affair of Amboise.-Négociations, folio xi. p. 284, &c. The occasion on which the English arms were quartered with the French was at Orleans and Chenonceau. The mode of quartering them is given in Strype's Memorials, anno 1558. + De Thou. XXIII. lost no time in arranging in order to save the 4000 CHAP. French troops who ran hourly the risk of being forced in Leith.* Michel de l'Hôpital began in these difficult times to acquire ascendency in the councils of the queen mother. He was the son of the Constable Bourbon's physician. For a time he followed Charles the Fifth's court, and became an auditor of the Rota at Rome. Returning to France, he married the daughter of the Lieutenant Criminel Morin, and received for her dowry a place of counsellor in parliament. Sent by Henry to the council of Bologna, his tolerant spirit stopped his advancement at the French court, and Margaret, Duchess of Savoy, took him into her employ.† Soon after, Catherine appointed De l'Hôpital to succeed Olivier in the chancellorship. Almost his first appearance in the council brought him into antagonism with the Cardinal of Lorraine, who, although he had succeeded in expelling the Huguenot judges from every parliament, still thought the forms of the tribunals tedious, and their spirit too lenient. He preferred the summary mode of procedure prescribed by the Spanish Inquisition, to which De l'Hôpital rejoined, that, however such a system of terror might have succeeded in the first buddings of the Reformation, it could now but irritate the evil, and even provoke resistance. Anxious, nevertheless, to meet the wishes of the cardinal, and at the same time secure the judges of parliament from being converted into inquisitors, he drew up, and caused to be promulgated, the Edict of Romorantin (May 1560). This law transferred the power of examining and pronouncing upon heresy to the bishops, whilst it limited the jurisdiction of the civil magistrates to cases of turbulence and sedition. This Montluc and Randan's Letters to the Queen Mother. MSS. Baluze, 8471. + Testament du Chancelier de l'Hôpital. XXIII. CHAP. might appear an aggravation of severity towards the Huguenots; but in reality it proved the contrary. The bishops in the provinces were less fanatical than those judges whom the Guises had advanced; they had not the prisons at their disposal, nor the civil power always ready to execute their behests, so that the greater part of the Huguenot prisoners were enabled to escape. * But De l'Hôpital's counsels went farther, and coincided with the opinion of La Planche, that a national council, as well as the states-general should be convoked. Coligny, who as admiral had been visiting the seaports of Normandy, wrote in the same terms. And in July the king came to the determination of first summoning the Pope to call a general council, not like that of Trent, exclusive and fulminating, but one which Protestants might attend.† If that failed, a council of the French Church was to be convoked, composed of such "worthy churchmen, as might place the consciences of the king's subjects in repose, purge the Church of abuses, and establish a good reformation."I The sincerity of the monarch appears from his letters to the French envoys at the Spanish and imperial courts. But the cardinal and his brother had other views. And they at once proposed anticipating the states-general by an assembly of the chief nobles and officers of the crown at Fontainebleau. From this the cardinal hoped to receive financial and the Guises the means of raising a military force to oppose the Prince of Condé, whom they knew to be meditating Should the prince and his brother obey the war. * Vie de Nicholas Pithou:— succou Châtre were so prosecuted; but the council liberated them all."-De Bèze, liv. iii. King's letters. Négociations sous François II. p. 452. Ibid. XXIII. summons to Fontainebleau, the design of entrapping CHAP. and arresting them was no doubt also entertained. Letters of convocation were accordingly issued for the assembly to take place on the 21st of August. The Bourbon princes at once declined to attend. If the constable and Coligny appeared, it was with a number of followers almost amounting to an army. The first day of the assembly was occupied with formal harangues and official statements. But the second meeting was opened by Coligny's presenting a request in the name of 50,000 Norman Protestants, who professed themselves loyal subjects of the king, and ready to contribute to his wants, but demanding the liberty of performing their worship publicly and by day. The tolerance, if not favour, with which the queen mother heard these demands of Coligny, encouraged others of moderate and liberal opinions. Two counsellors who bore the title of bishops, but who were old diplomatists, rewarded for their labours by episcopal dignity and revenues, the Bishops of Valence and Vienne, spoke at length, and recommended that the affairs of religion should be settled in a national council of the clergy, those of finance and domestic policy discussed in the Three Estates of the kingdom, which from time immemorial had existed, and which could alone afford the means of making known the complaints and desires of the people. This proposal excited universal approbation, and the Guises at first remained silent. Coligny afterwards came forward with more precise and personal demands. He insisted on the convocation of the states-general, a complete suspension of persecution till the national council assembled, and upon the dismissal of the king's guard. This, consisting of 100 arquebusiers, had been newly established by the Guises, and the command given to Plessis de Richelieu, grandfather of the famous |