Part 4 (1/2)

Don Antonio remained in Paris, in a pitiable plight, and very much environed by dangers; for the Duke of Guise and his brother had undertaken to deliver him into the hands of Philip the Second, or those of his ministers, before the feast of St. John of the coming year. Fifty thousand dollars were to be the reward of this piece of work, combined with other services; ”and the sooner they set about it the better,” said Philip, writing a few months later, ”for the longer they delay it, the less easy will they find it.”'

The money was never earned, however, and meantime Don Antonio made himself as useful as he could, in picking up information for Sir Edward Stafford and the other opponents of Spanish policy in Paris.

The English envoy was much embarra.s.sed by the position of affairs. He felt sure that the French monarch would never dare to enter the lists against the king of Spain, yet he was accurately informed of the secret negotiations with the Netherlands, while in the dark as to the ultimate intentions of his own government.

”I was never set to school so much,” he wrote to Walsingham (27th July, 1584), ”as I have been to decipher the cause of the deputies of the Low Countries coming hither, the offers that they made the King here, and the King's manner of dealing with them!”

He expressed great jealousy at the mystery which enveloped the whole transaction; and much annoyance with Noel de Caron, who ”kept very secret, and was angry at the motion,” when he endeavoured to discover the business in which they were engaged. Yet he had the magnanimity to request Walsingham not to mention the fact to the Queen, lest she should be thereby prejudiced against the States.

”For my part,” said he, ”I would be glad in any thing to further them, rather than to hinder them--though they do not deserve it--yet for the good the helping them at this time may bring ourselves.”

Meantime, the deputies went away from France, and the King went to Lyons, where he had hoped to meet both the Duke of Savoy and the King of Navarre. But Joyeuse, who had been received at Chambery with ”great triumphs and tourneys,” brought back only a broken wrist, without bringing the Duke of Savoy; that potentate sending word that the ”King of Spain had done him the honour to give him his daughter, and that it was not fit for him to do any thing that might bring jealousy.”

Henry of Navarre also, as we have seen, declined the invitation sent him, M. de Segur not feeling disposed for the sudden flight out of window suggested by Agrippa D' Aubigne; so that, on the whole, the King and his mother, with all the court, returned from Lyons in marvellous ill humour.

”The King storms greatly,” said Stafford, ”and is in a great dump.” It was less practicable than ever to discover the intentions of the government; for although it was now very certain that active exertions were making by Des Pruneaux in the Provinces, it was not believed by the most sagacious that a serious resolution against Spain had been taken in France. There was even a talk of a double matrimonial alliance, at that very moment, between the two courts.

”It is for certain here said,” wrote Stafford, ”that the King of Spain doth presently marry the dowager of France, and 'tis thought that if the King of Spain marry, he will not live a year. Whensoever the marriage be,” added the envoy, ”I would to G.o.d the effect were true, for if it be not by some such handy work of G.o.d, I am afraid things will not go so well as I could wish.”

There was a lull on the surface of affairs, and it was not easy to sound the depths of unseen combinations and intrigues.

There was also considerable delay in the appointment and the arrival of the new deputies from the Netherlands; and Stafford was as doubtful as ever as to the intentions of his own government.

”They look daily here for the States,” he wrote to Walsingham (29th Dec.

1584), ”and I pray that I may hear from you as soon as you may, what course I shall take when they be here, either hot or cold or lukewarm in the matter, and in what sort I shall behave myself. Some badly affected have gone about to put into the King's head, that they never meant to offer the sovereignty, which, though the King be not thoroughly persuaded of, yet so much is won by this means that the King hearkeneth to see the end, and then to believe as he seeth cause, and in the meantime to speak no more of any such matter than if it had never been moved.”

While his Majesty was thus hearkening in order to see more, according to Sir Edward's somewhat Hibernian mode of expressing himself, and keeping silent that he might see the better, it was more difficult than ever for the envoy to know what course to pursue. Some persons went so far as to suggest that the whole negotiation was a mere phantasmagoria devised by Queen Elizabeth--her purpose being to breed a quarrel between Henry and Philip for her own benefit; and ”then, seeing them together by the ears, as her accustomed manner was, to let them go alone, and sit still to look on.”

The King did not appear to be much affected by these insinuations against Elizabeth; but the doubt and the delay were very harra.s.sing. ”I would to G.o.d,” wrote the English envoy, ”that if the States mean to do anything here with the King, and if her. Majesty and the council think it fit, they would delay no time, but go roundly either to an agreement or to a breach with the King. Otherwise, as the matter now sleepeth, so it will die, for the King must be taken in his humour when he begins to nibble at any bait, for else he will come away, and never bite a full bite while he liveth.”

There is no doubt that the bait, at which Henry nibbled with much avidity, was the maritime part of the Netherlands. Holland and Zeeland in the possession of either England or Spain, was a perpetual inconvenience to France. The King, or rather the Queen-Mother and her advisers--for Henry himself hardly indulged in any profound reflections on state-affairs,--desired and had made a sine qua non of those Provinces.

It had been the French policy, from the beginning, to delay matters, in order to make the States feel the peril of their position to the full.

”The King, differing and temporising,” wrote Herle to the Queen, ”would have them fall into that necessity and danger, as that they should offer unto him simply the possession of all their estates. Otherwise, they were to see, as in a gla.s.s, their evident and hasty ruin.”

Even before the death of Orange, Henry had been determined, if possible, to obtain possession of the island of Walcheren, which controlled the whole country. ”To give him that,” said Herle, ”would be to turn the hot end of the poker towards themselves, and put the cold part in the King's hand. He had accordingly made a secret offer to William of Orange, through the Princess, of two millions of livres in ready money, or, if he preferred it, one hundred thousand livres yearly of perpetual inheritance, if he would secure to him the island of Walcheren. In that case he promised to declare war upon the King of Spain, to confirm to the States their privileges, and to guarantee to the Prince the earldoms of Holland and Zeeland, with all his other lands and t.i.tles.”

It is superfluous to say that such offers were only regarded by the Prince as an affront. It was, however, so necessary, in his opinion; to maintain the cause of the reformed churches in France, and to keep up the antagonism between that country and Spain, that the French policy was not abandoned, although the court was always held in suspicion.

But on the death of William, there was a strong reaction against France and in favour of England. Paul Buys, one of the ablest statesmen of the Netherlands, Advocate of Holland, and a confidential friend of William the Silent up to the time of his death, now became the leader of the English party, and employed his most strenuous efforts against the French treaty-having ”seen the scope of that court.”

With regard to the other leading personages, there was a strong inclination in favour of Queen Elizabeth, whose commanding character inspired great respect. At the same time warmer sentiments of adhesion seem to have been expressed towards the French court, by the same individuals, than the mere language of compliment justified.

Thus, the widowed Princess of Orange was described by Des Pruneaux to his sovereign, as ”very desolate, but nevertheless doing all in her power to advance his interests; the Count Maurice, of gentle hopes, as also most desirous of remaining his Majesty's humble servant, while Elector Truchsess was said to be employing himself, in the same cause, with very great affection.”

A French statesman resident in the Provinces, whose name has not been preserved, but who was evidently on intimate terms with many eminent Netherlanders, declared that Maurice, ”who had a mind entirely French, deplored infinitely the misfortunes of France, and regretted that all the Provinces could not be annexed to so fair a kingdom. I do a.s.sure you,” he added, ”that he is in no wise English.”

Of Count Hohenlo, general-in-chief of the States' army under Prince Maurice, and afterwards his brother-in-law, the same gentleman spoke with even greater confidence. ”Count d'Oloc,” said he (for by that ridiculous transformation of his name the German general was known to French and English), ”with whom I have pa.s.sed three weeks on board the fleet of the States, is now wholly French, and does not love the English at all. The very first time I saw him, he protested twice or thrice, in presence of members of the States General and of the State Council, that if he had no Frenchmen he could never carry on the war. He made more account,” he said, ”of two thousand French than of six thousand others, English, or Germans.”

Yet all these distinguished persons--the widowed Princess of Orange, Count Maurice, ex-elector Truchsess, Count Holenlo--were described to Queen Elizabeth by her confidential agent, then employed in the Provinces, as entirely at that sovereign's devotion.