XXVII. CHAP. the restoring order to the finances, the project that pleased most was to establish a council called a Council of Reason, which was to assume the management of one-half the revenue, five millions of crowns, those spent in the payment of officers, functionaries, and debts; the other half was to be left to the king for his personal expenses and the defence of the state. Henry on first hearing of such a proposal was of the same opinion as the great ministers of his council, to reject it altogether. But Sully remaining silent, the king deferred his answer in order to consult the new finance minister. Sully could not but perceive that the notables were much influenced by his statements and disclosures, and that they purposed following up his plan of cancelling offices, sifting expenses, and controlling abuses. This was so good a purpose, though so vain for a number of men to attempt, that Sully advised the king to accept the offer, leaving the council of reason to grapple with the difficult and arduous task of financial reform; having at their disposal that half of the revenue which was difficult of collection and doubtful of amount, whilst the monarch and his minister took what was clear and led to no dispute. At the same time the revenue not being equal to the demands upon it, the notables voted an additional sum or fund to be levied on all rates throughout the kingdom, which they calculated would produce five millions. It was the intention of the king after these financial arrangements had borne their fruit, to lay siege to Arras, and Sully had collected and sent to Amiens a number of cannon and a quantity of ammunition for the purpose. The Spaniards in their previous campaigns had limited their efforts to the siege and capture of Hultz. They were not idle, however. They had discovered that Amiens was carelessly guarded, especially by day. The townspeople distinctly refused to receive a garrison, or even a few Swiss in their suburbs, as Henry begged of them, insisting on those privileges which had been conferred at the time of their return to allegiance. The Spaniards in the last days of February despatched an armed force by stealth to lay hidden in the environs of the town. On the morning of the 11th of March, the people being for the most part at matins, as it was Lent, a waggon entered by the gate, and a quantity of fruit, nuts and apples, escaping from a sack, the guard of the gate went to scramble for them. When the waggon had gone under the portcullis it stopped, the conductors of it firing at the guard. They dropped the portcullis, but it hung, upheld by the waggon. The Spanish troops imme. diately rushed from the neighbouring ambuscade, and were soon masters both of the gate* and town, the Count of Soissons, the governor, making his escape. The captors were but 3000 in number, but they were soon reinforced, and the town supplied by the Spaniards with everything that could conduce to a formidable defence. The capture of Amiens at any previous period would have endangered the king's authority. Even now, when all the chiefs of the League had submitted, except the Duc de Mercœur, the knowledge that Spain was master of so important a city, within so short a distance of the capital, made people suspend their growing belief of the complete restoration of monarchic ascendency. The king himself though roused rather than prostrated by the event, ("he had had such experience of good and evil fortune, that he yielded no more to this than to former blows,") † instantly left the court for the seat of war, exclaiming he had long enough played the king of France, and must now recommence the part of king of Navarre. His first care was to secure the other towns of Picardy, and place strong garrisons in Corbie and * Henry's letter to the Lyonnais. † His letter. CHAP. XXVII. CHAP. Picquigny, places on the Somme above and below Amiens XXVII. which blocked it by the river. Biron with 3000 in fantry, chiefly Swiss, took post at Longpré to intercept any aid from Flanders. He was soon joined by 4000 English, under Baskerville and Savage, who, according to De Thou, greatly distinguished themselves in repelling the sorties of the Spaniards, till they put an end to them altogether. The siege of Amiens lasted six months, and was less remarkable for its military exploits than for the regularity and order which the king, aided by Sully and Villeroy, was able to introduce into the payment, the provisioning, the artillery, and the hospitals of the army. In the procuring of money the king and his ministers certainly leant hard upon the towns, and upon his own functionaries, raising forced loans, selling, and creating in order to sell, new and needless offices of judicature, and above all sequestrating the money which the clergy furnished for the payment of the public debts. In previous years the king had seized the tenths in Picardy and Normandy. These acts recalled the worst days of Henry the Third, and resembled them except that he committed these extortions to gratify his pleasures, Rosny and Henry to drive the Spaniards from Amiens; still they excited serious disaffection amongst the citi zens and middle class. The parliaments were loud and extreme in their resistance, and expostulated against Sully's tyranny. And with an audacity not surpassed in the time of the League, they asked Henry to be allowed to appoint a council consisting of magistrates, nobles, and burgesses to give him better advice than he seemed to follow.* The Huguenots in their assemblies behaved much as the Catholic parliament, and sent statements of their own grievances instead of military aid to the king. * Remonstrance of Paris Parliament. MSS. Colbert, 32. One good and liberal piece of advice they on this occasion gave the king. It was to repeople Amiens by allowing artisans to settle there without being subjected to the old corporation impediments. His foreign allies were not more zealous in his behalf. The king had counted much upon the Protestant princes of Germany, but all, even the Landgravine of Hesse, refused succour* (March 1597). Elizabeth had done what she could, but her aims and energies were directed either to Ireland or to far and naval enterprises under Essex and Raleigh.† The military incapacity of the Spanish archduke served Henry more than his allies. The French king had made his approaches to the counterscarp of the town, when the enemy appeared to the number of 20,000. At the head of such an army the Prince of Parma would have infallibly raised the siege, but the archduke could do little more than reconnoitre the position of the king in his fortified camp behind the village of Longpré. Strange to say, Biron seemed to wish to let the Spaniards triumph, whilst Mayenne effectively prevented this by throwing up in the night an entrenchment about Longpré, which the marshal had neglected. The archduke tried to pass the river higher up, but was driven back; and not daring to assail the royal camp or force his way into Amiens, he withdrew on the 15th September. Four days after, Amiens capitulated. (1597.) The previous death of the brave Spanish commander, facilitated the surrender.‡ The king, anxious to follow up his success by a battle or by the siege of Dourlens was overruled in both by his chiefs and by the gentry quitting the army; and Rosny's efforts terminating with the siege, the towns and and garrisons of Picardy were as ill supplied and disorderly as before. Fortunately the troops and garrison of the Spanish *Rommel. † One of the chief accusations of M. Prevost-Paradol and others against Elizabeth is, her plotting to get possession of Calais. M. Prevost speaks of her fitting out an expedition against it. And yet repeatedly during 1597, about the same time, Henry made offers of Calais to Elizabeth, first by Fouquerolles, then Henry's letters, Sully. XXVII. XXVII. And CHAP. archduke were no better paid and disciplined.* the universal feeling prevailed that the war must die a natural death from the inability of both sides to continue it. The Pope (Clement the Eighth) had been for a long time anxious to put an end to a war which exhausted and disorganised the ecclesiastical as well as civil revenues of the two great monarchies. He took occasion as early as the spring of 1596† to represent to Henry that the Turks were seriously menacing Christian Europe, and that more glory and perhaps profit was to be obtained by a monarch of France in repelling them, than in crushing the most Catholic sovereign. Henry was not blind to the brightness of such prospects, which might bring even the Imperial crown of Germany within his reach.‡ But what he principally sighed after was peace-indispensable to the restoration of order in his government and finances, and allowing him leisure to obtain a divorce from Margaret de Valois, and from a second marriage, if Providence permitted, an heir to his throne. The cardinal, now Archduke Albert, to whom Philip the Second had committed the Low Countries, was, for similar reasons, equally desirous of peace. He, too, had felt his inability to contend at once with France and with England and Holland. Philip had offered him the Low Countries under Spanish suzerainty, with the infanta for a bride; and he was anxious to grasp so bright a guerdon whilst Philip yet reigned, and was able not only to grant, but to support such an arrangement; his failing health foreboded no long duration of his reign. The papal legate finding the two princes so willing, had no difficulty in engaging them to send plenipotentiaries to *The Archduke's bills on Lisbon were protested, and Philip could not pay them. During the negotiations for peace in 1598, it was impossible to prevent the soldiers of both sides from quitting the fortresses to gather plunder, and get wherewithal to live. Letters of De Chaunes, MSS. Bethune, 9659. Lilley, ditto, 9057. † Letters of Henry, Feb. 5, 1596. Ibid. |