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processions. Rouen, however, like the metropolis, could only be saved from the monarch who beleaguered it by the Prince of Parma again marching into the centre of France. The Spanish king had received so few advantages from his first interference, Mayenne, instead of displaying gratitude, having hanged the partisans of his crown, that the prince now required some more definite and solid concessions than the chiefs of the League had yet made.

In December, 1591, the Prince of Parma crossed the French frontier with his army, and proceeded to Guise, where he found the young duke of that name with his mother and the Bishop of Piacenza. They expressed their discontent of Mayenne and were in great straits for money, the old duke having wasted the family property, and Champagne, a poor country, being still more impoverished by the war.* Farnese gave them 6000 crowns in lieu of the 20,000 they expected, in order to prevent the duke from "giving himself to despair."† Mayenne joined the prince at Guise in the worst possible humour, complaining of his envoy, Ibarra, for having favoured the Seize, and of Spain for refusing to continue to him the disposal of the 600,000 crowns monthly, which he had hitherto enjoyed. He had made over the fortress of La Fere to the Prince of Parma, with liberty to put what garrison he pleased, and they spent Christmas together in that town. The prince's purpose was, as he informed Philip, to introduce as many Spanish soldiers as he could into Paris, as well as into Orleans.‡

Towards the middle of January solemn conferences took place between President Jeannin and La Chatre, representing Mayenne, and the Spanish envoys, Ibarra and Richardot. The demands of the former were the

* The gentry of Champagne, who held for Henry, are represented as so poor, as to be obliged to sell their horses. Letters, De Mesmes, 8431, 9.

† His letters to Philip the Second, MSS. Bethune, 8476, p. 62, dated Nesle, January 15, 1592.

Ibid.

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CHAP. march of the Prince of Parma to raise the siege of Rouen XXVI. and the immediate payment of 4,000,000 livres. Ibarra

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asked, as the price of these succours, the instant summoning of the estates, and the election in parliament of the infanta as Queen of France. Mayenne had represented at La Fere that it would be dangerous to summon the estates, without first winning the chief personages, and being well provided with money for the purpose. The Spaniard thought that the lieutenant-general and the Parisians might anticipate the estates in proclaiming the infanta. To refuse was to lose Rouen, and Mayenne's negotiators consented to the acknowledg ment of the infanta as queen, on the condition that she should come and reside in France for six months, and then choose a husband with the consent of the council of chiefs. She was to observe the laws of the kingdom, put no foreign garrison in its towns, and ten millions were to be spent by Philip in two years for the support of the throne. For this pecuniary arrangement, the Spanish envoy substituted the payment of but 4,000,000 and the supply of an army of 20,000 foot and 500 horse for two years.

The negotiations were interrupted by the approach of Henry. He left some 12,000 infantry under Biron to maintain the blockade of Rouen, and marched with 9000 horse and arquebusiers to reconnoitre, and, if possible, engage the army of Farnese and Mayenne. They mustered 20,000 infantry and 5000 horse, and marched in order too admirable to be surprised. Henry came up with them near Aumale, marching from Amiens to Neufchâtel in the first days of February, and was amused to see the Prince of Parma, with his gouty limbs swathed, carried about in an open carriage, and thus performing the office of general. Henry had four squadrons of cavalry with him, but seeing the Spaniards

* Letter of Prince of Parma and Duc d'Ibarra to Philip the Second, both in MSS. De Mesmes, 8931.

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protected by their waggons, and their artillery playing CHAP. upon him through the interstices, he dismissed the greater number which followed him, and, retaining about 120, hoped thereby to draw forth the enemy to a skirmish. He had previously ordered Lavardin to support him with 500 arquebusiers; that officer brought but eighty, and the Spaniards seeing Henry's force so small came out in a large body. There ensued a brief but unequal combat, in which the king showed even more than his wonted bravery, but in which he was worsted, wounded, and compelled to leave sixty of his followers on the field," of his bravest though not his grandest.'

The king, obliged to withdraw for a time to have his wound healed, learned the still worse tidings that, during his absence, Villars had made a sortie from Rouen, and surprised at Darnetal the lansquenets who had the guard of the guns and ammunition. These he blew up, and penetrating into the trenches from behind, killed the three or four hundred who mounted them, and proceeded to destroy the works. The brothers, De Piles, young sons of the captain, who had perished at St. Bartholomew, alone stood on the defence, and with a group of brave comrades around them perished, and so gave time for Biron to come to the rescue. It was too late; the destruction was completed and the guns brought off, Biron himself being wounded in his efforts to redeem the loss. The Prince of Parma and Mayenne approached within four leagues of Rouen. They found, however, Henry there nearly cured of his wound, and strengthened by some 3000 Walloons, and a reinforcement of some 2000 English. Mayenne and Parma thought it imprudent to attack the king, at least until they had weakened his army by artifice, and deprived it of those troops whose impetuous attacks they most dreaded. For this purpose, they feigned a retreat, and gave the appearance of an intention to abandon the attempt to raise the siege. This, however, they did not effect until

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CHAP. they had succeeded in throwing 800 men into Rouen to reinforce Villars, with, no doubt, a certain quantity of provisions. They then withdrew in considerable haste beyond the Somme, pursued by Henry, who congratulated himself on a campaign so bootless to the enemy, and falling so short of the rescue of Rouen. But no sooner had the king returned to the camp than he was assailed by the demands and declarations of the mounted gentry, that the Prince of Parma having with drawn to Flanders, and no longer a chance of an engagement, they must return home to refresh themselves from fatigue and expense. Henry had sufficient foot, they said, to prosecute the siege. To this general defection the lukewarm Catholics such as D'O and the Cardinal of Vendôme were no strangers. They had the indecency, after the successful sortie of Villars, to object to the burial of the two brothers, De Piles, who had fallen there so gloriously, in any of the cemeteries within the king's quarters. They were Huguenots, and the interment of heretics could not be suffered. There was as much treason as bigotry in this objection, which was intended to hasten the dispersion of the army, and thus afford the opportunity which was sought for the Prince of Parma and Mayenne, with whom Vendôme and D'O were no doubt in intelligence.* Henry, unable to retain his cavalry, saw them disperse. The Prince of Parma and Mayenne, instantly informed of events, hurried back from the Somme, and in three days' march brought their large army within sight of Rouen. Henry had but his foreign foot and reistres. He was, in consequence, compelled to withdraw, the Prince of Parma making his entry into Rouen on April 20, 1592.†

The more honest and loyal of the gentry who had deserted Henry's standard, thinking the campaign over,

* Elizabeth asked Henry, was it true that his Catholic followers refused to capture Rouen. Her

letter. S. P.

† Sir H. Unton's letters. S. P. France, 102.

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were shamed as well as surprised by the Prince of CHAP. Parma's sudden and successful return. They flocked back to the royal camp, and ere ten days had elapsed since the raising of the siege, Henry, was able to attack Prince's outposts near Ivetot. The English, under Sir Roger William, forced their way into the quarter of the Spaniards, who fled when it came to the "push of the pike."* The Prince of Parma

saw again that formidable cavalry, whose encounter he dreaded, roam around his camp. Mayenne had, contrary to the Prince's custom, stationed some 2000 Walloons in a wood outside his camp entrenchments. Young Biron attacked them, put them to the rout, and took their baggage. From the 10th to the 18th of May, Henry's generals, day after day, carried some post and cut off some detachment, till the Prince of Parma, forgetting his wound, and dispensing with the care and repose it required, himself undertook to rescue the combined army from the assaults of the king. He brought it back to Caudebec, on the Seine, which he had captured after the relief of Rouen. And whilst Henry surrounded him, and felt certain to reduce by force if not crush him by assault, the prince caused a number of boats and planks to be floated down to him from Rouen, passed the Seine, very wide at that part, in the night, and completely escaped the royalist army.

Baffled and mortified at this clever escape of his foe, Henry hoped to redeem it by ascending the river, arossing it at Pont de l'Arche or Vernon, and getting between the Prince of Parma and Paris, so as to compel him to accept battle. · With officers and an army completely at his disposal, Henry would have pursued this plan. But even he acknowledged the necessity of allowing the mounted gentry to go home. The English

* Unton.

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