Volume II Part 10 (1/2)

[161] Jean de Serres, De statu relig. et reip., ii. 258, 259.

[162] This conclusion was arrived at as early as Aug. 29th. Froude, Hist.

of England, vii. 433. Seventy thousand crowns were to be paid to the prince's agents at Strasbourg or Frankfort so soon as the news should be received of the transfer of Havre, thirty thousand more within a month thereafter. The other forty thousand were in lieu of the defence of Rouen and Dieppe, should it seem impracticable to undertake it. Havre was to be held until the Prince should have effected the rest.i.tution of Calais and the adjacent territory according to the treaties of Cateau-Cambresis, although the time prescribed by those treaties had not expired, and until the one hundred and forty thousand crowns should have been repaid without interest. The compact, signed by Queen Elizabeth at Hampton Court, Sept.

20, 1562, is inserted in Du Mont, Corps Diplomatique, v. 94, 95, and in Forbes, State Papers, ii., 48-51.

[163] See the declaration in Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 415, 416; and Forbes, State Papers, ii. 79, 80. J. de Serres, ii. 261, etc. Cf.

Forbes, State Papers, ii. 60, 69-79.

[164] Throkmorton to the queen, Sept. 24, 1562. Forbes, State Papers, ii.

64, 65.

[165] Froude, _ubi supra_. In fact, Elizabeth a.s.sured Philip the Second--and there is no reason to doubt her veracity in this--that she would recall her troops from France so soon as Calais were recovered and peace with her neighbors were restored, and that, in the attempt to secure these ends, she expected the countenance rather than the opposition of her brother of Spain. Queen Elizabeth to the King of Spain, Sept. 22, 1562.

Forbes, State Papers, ii. 55. It is not improbable, indeed, that there were ulterior designs even against Havre. ”It is ment,” her minister Cecil wrote to one of his intimate correspondents, ”to kepe Newhaven in the Quene's possession untill Callice be eyther delyvered, or better a.s.surance of it then presently we have.” But he soon adds that, in a certain emergency, ”I think the Quene's Majestie nead not be ashamed to utter her right to Newhaven as parcell of the Duchie of Normandy.” T. Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times (London, 1838), i. 96.

[166] Froude, History of England, vii. 460, 461.

[167] Catharine to Throkmorton, etampes, Sept. 21, 1562, State Paper Office.

[168] Mem. de la Noue, c. vii.; De Thou, iii. 206, 207 (liv. x.x.xi).

Throkmorton is loud in his praise of the fortifications the Huguenots had thrown up, and estimates the soldiers within them at over one thousand horse and five thousand foot soldiers, besides the citizen militia.

Forbes, ii. 39.

[169] Cuthbert Vaughan appreciated the importance of this city, and warned Cecil that ”if the same, for lack of aid, should be surprised, it might give the French suspicion on our part that the queen meaneth but an appearance of aid, thereby to obtain into her hands such things of theirs as may be most profitable to her, and in time to come most noyful to themselves.” Forbes, ii. 90. Unfortunately it was not Cecil, but Elizabeth herself, that restrained the exertions of the troops, and she was hard to move. And so, for lack of a liberal and hearty policy, Rouen was suffered to fall, and Dieppe was given up without a blow, and Warwick and the English found themselves, as it were, besieged in Havre. Whereas, with those places, they might have commanded the entire triangle between the Seine and the British Channel. See Throkmorton's indignation, and the surprise of Conde and Coligny, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 193, 199.

[170] In a letter to Lansac, Aug. 17, 1562, Catharine writes: ”Nous nous acheminons a Bourges pour en deloger le jeune Genlis.... L'ayant leve de la, comme je n'y espere grande difficulte, nous tournerons vers Orleans pour faire le semblable de ceux qui y sont.” Le Laboureur, i. 820.

[171] Mem. de Francois de la Noue, c. viii. (p. 601.)

[172] Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., ii. 375, 376, 383; J. de Serres, ii.

181; De Thou, iii. 179-181.

[173] It was undoubtedly a Roman Catholic fabrication, that Montgomery bore on his escutcheon _a helmet pierced by a lance_ (un heaume perce d'une lance), in allusion to the accident by which he had given Henry the Second his mortal wound, in the joust at the Tournelles. Abbe Bruslart, Mem. de Conde, i. 97, who, however, characterizes it as ”chose fort dure a croire.”

[174] Mem. de la Noue, c. viii.

[175] When Lord Robert Dudley began to break to the queen the disheartening news that Rouen had fallen, Elizabeth betrayed ”a marvellous remorse that she had not dealt more frankly for it,” and instead of exhibiting displeasure at Poynings's presumption, seemed disposed to blame him that he had not sent a thousand men instead, for his fault would have been no greater. Dudley to Cecil, Oct. 30, 1562, Forbes, State Papers, ii.

155.

[176] De Thou, iii. 328; Froude, vii. 436; Sir Thomas Smith to Throkmorton, Paris, Oct. 17, 1562, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 117.

[177] ”But thei will have there preaching still. Thei will have libertie of their religion, and thei will have no garrison wythin the towne, but will be masters therof themselves: and upon this point thei stand.”

Despatch of Sir Thomas Smith, Poissy, Oct. 20, 1562, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 123.

[178] The plundering lasted eight days. While the Swiss obeyed orders, and promptly desisted, ”the French suffered themselves to be killed rather than quit the place whilst there was anything left.” Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 13. The _cure_ of Meriot waxes jocose over the incidents of the capture: ”Tout ce qui fut trouve en armes par les rues et sur les murailles fut pa.s.se par le fil de l'espee. La ville fut mise au pillage par les soldatz du camp, qui se firent gentis compaignons. _Dieu scait que ceux qui estoient mal habillez pour leur yver_ (hiver) _ne s'en allerent sans robbe neufve._ Les huguenotz de la ville furent en tout maltraictez,”

etc. Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 288.

[179] On the siege of Rouen, see the graphic account of De Thou, iii.

(liv. x.x.xiii.) 328-335; the copious correspondence of the English envoys in France, Forbes, State Papers, vol. ii.; the Hist. eccles. des egl.

ref., ii. 389-396 (and Marlorat's examination and sentence _in extenso_, 398-404); J. de Serres, ii. 259; La Noue, c. viii.; Davila (interesting, and not so inaccurate here as usual, perhaps because he had a brother-in-law, Jean de Hemery, sieur de Villers, in the Roman Catholic army, but who greatly exaggerates the Huguenot forces), ch. iii. 73-75; Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 13.