into the midst of the enemy. The Spaniards fled with disorder and precipitation; the English commanders fell upon them while in confusion; and, besides doing great damage to their whole fleet, took twelve ships.

It was now evident that the purpose of the armada was utterly frustrated; and the duke of Parma, whose vessels were calculated for transporting soldiers, not for fighting, refused to leave the harbour, while the English were masters of the sea. The Spanish admiral, after many unsuccessful rencounters, prepared, therefore, to make his way home; but, as the winds were contrary to his return through the Channel, he resolved to take the circuit of the island. The English fleet followed him for some time; and had not their ammunition failed, they would have obliged the armada to surrender at discretion.

Such a conclusion of that vain-glorious enterprise would have been truly illustrious to the English; but the event was scarcely less fatal to the Spaniards. The armada was attacked by a violent storm in passing the Orkneys; and the ships, having already lost their anchors, were obliged to keep at sea, while the mariners, unaccustomed to hardships, and unable to manage such unwieldy vessels, allowed them to drive on the western isles of Scotland, or on the coast of Ireland, where they were miserably wrecked. Not one half of the fleet returned to Spain, and a still smaller proportion of the soldiers and seamen; yet Philip, whose command of temper was equal to his ambition, received with an air of tranquillity the news of so humbling a disaster. "I sent my fleet," said he, "to combat the English, not the elements. God be praised that the calamity is not greater 1."

While the naval power of Spain was receiving this signal blow, great changes happened in France. The Huguenots, notwithstanding the valour of the king of Navarre, who had gained at Coutras, in 1587, a complete victory over the royal army, were reduced to extremities by the power of the League; and nothing but the exorbitant ambition of the duke of Guise, joined to the idolatrous admiration of the Catholics, who considered him as a saviour, and the king as unworthy of the throne, could have preserved the reformers from utter ruin. The citizens of Paris, among whom the duke was most popular, took arms against their sovereign, and obliged him to abandon his capital at the hazard of his life; while the doctors of the Sorbonne declared, that a

1 Ferreras.-Strada.

weak prince might be removed from the government of his kingdom, as justly as a tutor or guardian, unfit for his office, might be deprived of his trust.

Henry's spirit was roused, by the dread of degradation, from that lethargy in which it had long reposed. He dissembled his resentment; negotiated with the Guise faction, and seemed outwardly reconciled, but harboured vengeance in his heart. And that vengeance was hastened by an insolent speech of the duchess of Montpensier, the duke's sister, who, showing a pair of gold scissors, which she wore at her girdle, said, "The best use that I can make of them is, to clip the hair of a prince unworthy to sit on the throne of France, in order to qualify him for a cloister, that ONE more deserving to reign may mount it, and repair the losses which religion and the state have suffered through the weakness of his predecessor 2.

After Henry had fully taken his resolution, nine of his guards, singled out by Loignac, first gentleman of his bedchamber, were introduced to him in his palace. He gave a poignard to each, informed them of their business, and concluded thus: "It is an execution of justice, which I command you to make on the greatest criminal in my kingdom, whom all laws, human and divine, permit me to punish; and not having the ordinary methods of justice in my power, I authorize you, by the right inherent in my royal authority, to strike the blow." They were secretly disposed in the passage which led from the king's chamber to his cabinet; and when the duke came to an audience, six poignards were at once plunged into his breast. He groaned and expired.

Dec. 13.

"I am now a king, madam!" said Henry, entering the apartment of the queen-mother," and have no competitor; the duke of Guise is dead." The cardinal of Guise also was dispatched, a man more violent than even his brother. Among other insolent speeches, he had been heard to say, that he would hold the king's head between his knees till the tonsure should be performed at the monastery of the Capuchins *.

These cruel executions, which necessity alone could excuse, had an effect very different from what Henry expected. The partisans of the League were inflamed with the utmost rage against him, and every where flew to arms. Rebellion was reduced to a system. The doctors of the Sorbonne had the

1 Cayet.

3 Davila.-Du Tillet.

2 Daniel.
4 Thuận. Histo

arrogance to declare, "that the people were released from their oath of allegiance to Henry of Valois ;" and the duke of Mayenne, brother to the duke of Guise, was chosen by the confede- A.D. rates, Lieutenant-General of the State Royal and Crown 1589. of France; an unknown and unintelligible title, but which was meant as a substitute for sovereignty'.

In this extremity, the king, almost abandoned by his Catholic subjects, entered into an association with the Huguenots and the king of Navarre. He enlisted large bodies of Swiss infantry and German cavalry; and being still supported by his chief nobility, and the princes of the blood, he was enabled to assemble an army of forty thousand men. With these forces the two kings advanced to the gates of Paris, and were ready to crush the League, and subdue all their enemies, when the desperate resolution of one man gave a new turn to the affairs of France.

James Clement, a Dominican friar, inflamed by that bloody spirit of bigotry which distinguished the age, and of which we have seen so many horrid examples, had embraced the pious resolution of sacrificing his own life, in order to save the church from the danger which now threatened it, in consequence of the alliance between Henry and the Huguenots; and being Aug. 1. admitted into the king's presence, under pretence of important business, he mortally wounded that prince, while reading some supposed dispatches, and was himself instantly put to death by the guards'. This assassination left the succession open to the king of Navarre, who assumed the government under the title of Henry IV. But the reign of that great prince, and the various difficulties which he was obliged to encounter, before he could settle his kingdom, must be reserved for a future letter.

In the mean time, I cannot help observing that the monk who had thus imbrued his hands in the blood of his sovereign, was considered at Paris as a saint and a martyr: he was exalted above Judith, and his image was impiously placed on the altars. Even pope Sixtus V., so deservedly celebrated for his dignity of mind, as well as for the superb edifices with which he adorned Rome, was so much infected with the general contagion, that he compared Clement's enterprise to the incarnation of the Word, and the resurrection of the Saviour.

This observation leads me to another. These holy assassina

1 Mezeray.

2 Thuan.-Davila.-Mezeray.

tions, so peculiar to the period that followed the Reformation, proceeded chiefly from the fanatical application of certain passages in the Old Testament to the conjunctures of the times. Enthusiasm taught both Protestants and Catholics to consider themselves as the peculiar favourites of Heaven, and as possessing the only true religion, without allowing them coolly to reflect, that the adherents of each had an equal right to this vain pretension. The Protestants founded it on the purity of their principles, the Catholics on the antiquity of their church; and while impelled by their own vindictive passions, by personal animosity or party zeal, to the commission of murder, they imagined that they heard the voice of God commanding them to execute vengeance on his and their enemies.

LETTER LXXII.

The general View of Europe continued, from the Accession of Henry IV. to the Peace of Vervins, in 1598.

THE reign of Henry IV., justly styled the Great, forms one of the most memorable epochs in the history of France. The circumstances of the times, the character of the prince and of the man, conspire to render it interesting; and his connexions with the other Christian powers, either as allies or enemies, make it an object of general importance. The eyes of all Europe were fixed upon him as the hero of its military theatre, and the centre of its political system. Philip and Elizabeth were now but secondary actors.

The prejudices entertained against Henry's religion induced one half of the royal army to desert him on his accession; and it was only by signing propositions favourable to their creed, and promising to listen to the arguments of their divines, that he could engage any of the Catholic nobles to support his title to the crown. The desertion of his troops obliged him to abandon the siege of Paris, and retire into Normandy. Thither he was followed by the forces of the League, commanded by the duke of Mayenne, who had proclaimed the cardinal of Bourbon king, under the name of Charles X.; although that old man, thrown

into prison on the assassination of the Guises, was still in confinement 1.

In this extremity Henry had recourse to the queen of England, and found her well disposed to assist him; to oppose the progress of the League, and of the king of Spain, her dangerous and inveterate enemy, who entertained views either of dismembering the French monarchy, or of annexing the whole to his own dominions. Elizabeth gratified her new ally with twenty-two thousand pounds, to prevent the desertion of his Swiss and German auxiliaries; and embarked, with all expedition, a reinforcement of four thousand men, under the command of lord Willoughby, an officer of abilities. Meanwhile the king of France had been so fortunate as to secure Dieppe and Caen, and to repulse the duke of Mayenne, who had attacked him under the cannon of Arques. On the arrival of the English forces, he marched immediately towards Paris, to the great consternation of the inhabitants, and had almost taken the city by storm; but the duke entering it soon after with his army, Henry judged it prudent to retire.

The king's forces were still much inferior to those of the League; but the deficiency of number was compensated by valour. He attacked the duke of Mayenne at Ivri, and gained a A.D. complete victory over him, though supported by a select 1590. body of Spanish troops detached from the Netherlands. Henry's behaviour on this occasion was truly heroic. "My lads," said he to his soldiers, "if you should lose sight of your colours, rally towards this," pointing to a large white plume, which he wore in his hat :-" you will always find it in the road to honour. God is with us!" added he emphatically, drawing his sword, and rushing among his foes;-but when he perceived their ranks broken, and great havoc committed in the pursuit, his natural humanity and attachment to his countrymen returned, and induced him to cry out, Spare my French subjects?!" forgetting that they were his enemies.

Soon after this victory died the cardinal of Bourbon; and the king invested Paris. That city contained two hundred and twenty thousand souls, animated by religious enthusiasm, and

1 Davila, lib. x. Mezeray, Abrégé Chronol. tome vi.

2 Davila, lib. xi.-The same great historian tells us, that when a youth, who carried the royal white coronet, and a page who wore a long white plume, like that of the king, were slain, the ranks began to give way-some falling to the right, some to the left-till they recognized Henry, by his plume and his horse, combating in the first line; they then returned to the charge, shutting themselves close together, like a wedge.