Volume II Part 40 (1/2)

[819] Digges, 27.

[820] Catharine to La Mothe Fenelon, Feb. 2, 1571, Corresp. diplom., vii.

179; and Walsingham to Cecil, Feb. 18, 1571, Digges, 43.

[821] Catharine, _ubi supra_.

[822] La Mothe Fenelon, March 6, 1571, ibid., iv. 11, 12. The amba.s.sador exhibits his own incredulity respecting the stories circulated to the queen's disadvantage.

[823] To La Mothe Fenelon, Feb. 18, 1571, ibid., vii. 183.

[824] To the same, March 2, 1571, ibid., vii. 190.

[825] Walsingham to Burleigh, May 25, 1571, Digges, 101.

[826] Digges, 96.

[827] Ibid., 55.

[828] ”So it doth appear, if he would omit that demand, and put it in silence, yet will her Majestie straitly capitulate with him, that he shall in no way demand it hereafter at her hands. Which scruple, I believe, will utterly break off the matter; wherefore I am in small hope that any marriage will grow this way.” Leicester to Walsingham, July 7, 1571, Digges, 116.

[829] Digges, 119, 120.

[830] A league with France, Walsingham maintained, would be an advancement of the Gospel there and everywhere, and ”though it yieldeth not so much _temporal_ profit, yet in respect of the _spiritual fruit_ that thereby may insue, I think it worth the imbracing.” Ibid., p. 121.

[831] Digges, 120.

[832] Anjou's humor, she told him, ”me faict bien grande peyne.” Letter of July 25, 1571, Corresp. diplom., vii. 234.

[833] Ibid., _ubi supra_. This expression deserves to be noticed particularly, inasmuch as it effectually disposes of the story--which can scarcely be regarded otherwise than as a fable--that the a.s.sa.s.sination of Lignerolles, a little over four months later (December, 1571), was compa.s.sed by Charles IX. and his mother, because they discovered that he had become possessed of the secret of the projected ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew. If these royal personages had anything to do with the murder, which is very improbable, they hated Lignerolles for marring the plan of the English match, which they so much desired.

[834] ”Je suis resolue de faire tous mes efforts pour reheussir pour mon fils d'Alencon, qui ne sera pas si difficile.” Ibid., vii. 235.

[835] It must be admitted that some indignation on Queen Elizabeth's part was pardonable, if, as we learn from La Mothe Fenelon (despatch of May 2, 1571), she had heard that a certain person of high rank in the French court had recommended Anjou to marry the English ”granny”--”ceste vieille”--and administer to her, under some pretext, a ”French potion”--”un breuvage de France”--so as to become a widower within six months of the wedding day. Then he might marry Mary, Queen of Scots, and reign with her peaceably over the whole island! Correspondance diplomatique, iv. 84. However sincere or zealous Elizabeth may have been previously, I doubt whether she ever forgave the suggestion, or the fair princess whose charms were thus exalted above her own.

[836] De Thou, iv. (liv. l.) 492.

[837] ”I would your lords.h.i.+p knew the gentleman,” enthusiastically writes Walsingham (August 12th, 1571) to the Earl of Leicester. ”For courage abroad and counsell at home they give him here the reputation to be another [name in cipher]. He is in speech eloquent and pithy; but which is chiefest, he is in religion, as religious in life as he is sincere in profession. I hope G.o.d hath raised him up in these days, to serve for an instrument for the advancement of His glory.” Digges, 128. In another letter, without date, the amba.s.sador speaks of him as ”surely the rarest gentleman which I have talked withal since I came to France,” Ibid., 176.

[838] The substance of Louis of Na.s.sau's secret interviews is best given by Walsingham in a long communication, of August 12, 1571, to Lord Burleigh, Digges, 123-127.

[839] ”Contre les deffences et proscriptions de son duc, qui a plat avoit refuse le Roi de souffrir ce mariage, elle s'en vint a la Roch.e.l.le pour avoir nom avant de mourir (ainsi qu'elle disoit) la Martia de Caton.”

Agrippa d'Aubigne, ii. 5.

[840] ”A quoi ses ennemis trouverent a redire, publiant qu'il n'apartenoit qu'aux _princes_ d'epouser par procurateur. Mais ceux qui parloient des choses sans pa.s.sion, imputoient ces sortes de discours a medisance, soutenant de leur cote qu'il ne pouvoit faire autrement, puisqu'il n'y avoit pas de surete pour lui a l'aller epouser,” etc. Vie de Coligny, 386.

[841] A very interesting account of the long imprisonment of Coligny's widow is to be found in Count Jules Delaborde's monograph, ”Jacqueline d'Entremont,” _apud_ Bulletin de la Societe de l'hist. du prot. fr., xvi.

(1867) 220-246.

[842] A few months before the admiral's departure from La Roch.e.l.le, there had been held in this Huguenot asylum a convocation of historical importance. The sessions of the seventh national synod, lasting from the second to the eleventh of April, 1571, were consumed in important deliberations respecting the doctrines and discipline of the reformed church (see Aymon, Tous les synodes, i. 98-111). The Queen of Navarre, the Princes of Navarre and Conde, Count Louis of Na.s.sau, and Admiral Coligny were present. At the request of the synod, they added their signatures to those of the ministers and elders, upon three copies of the Confession of Faith, engrossed on parchment, which were to be kept at La Roch.e.l.le, in Bearn, and at Geneva respectively (see the eighth general article). The moderator on this occasion was Theodore Beza, who had been specially invited to France. The reformer was certainly not dest.i.tute of courage, for he could not have forgotten the dangers to which he had been exposed on previous visits to France. They were even greater than Beza himself probably knew. In June, 1563, after the conclusion of the first civil war, there was a rumor at Brussels that Beza could not return to Geneva, because of a quarrel he had had with Calvin. Thereupon, the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma, Regent of the Netherlands, suspecting that he might be tempted to come through the Spanish dominions, issued secret orders that the frontiers should be watched, and offered a reward of one thousand florins to any one who should bring him, dead or alive. He was described as ”homme de moenne stature, ayant barbe a demy blanche, et le visage hault et large.” Letters of the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma, June 11th and 25th, 1563, _apud_ Charles Paillard, Histoire des troubles religieux de Valenciennes (Paris and Brussels, 1875, 1876), iii. 339, 340, 356.