122 MARY DECLARES WAR AGAINST FRANCE. [Book III. in what they called the interests of religion, but which in reality they considered as the interests of their thrones. In France the return of Guise was awaited with anxiety. Henry II. had, at first, pretended that he had not violated the truce in sending an army into Italy to the assistance of his ally the Pope when attacked by the Viceroy of Naples; but this excuse was soon belied by further acts. Admiral Coligni, now governor of Picardy, was directed to commence hostilities in the north; and after an abortive attempt to surprise Douai (January 6th 1557) he captured and burnt Lens. After these violations of the truce, war was declared, January 31st; but for the next six months nothing of importance was attempted on either side. During this period, however, Philip had not been idle. In March 1557 he repaired to England, in the government of which country he exercised a secret but considerable influence. The minutes of the proceedings of the Privy Council were regularly forwarded to him, which he returned with manuscript notes; and he even required that nothing whatever should be submitted to the Parliament without having been first seen and approved of by him.33 By his influence over the mind of Mary, who, in spite of his coldness and neglect, doated on him with the most extravagant fondness, he prevailed on her to disregard the wishes of her council and of the nation, and to declare war against France (June 20th 1557); and levying large sums by her own authority, she despatched an army of 10,000 men into the Netherlands, under the command of the Earl of Pembroke. These forces joined Philip's army under the Duke of Savoy, which now numbered upwards of 50,000 men. Meanwhile, little had been done to recruit the French army. In spite of its almost constant wars, France seemed to grow every day less military. With the exception of a few Gascons, the best part of Henry's troops consisted almost entirely of Germans; the ban and arrièreban had been called out, but assembled slowly and reluctantly; the flower of the veteran bands was in Italy with Guise and Brissac. In July, Emmanuel Philibert was in motion. After threatening Champagne he turned suddenly to the right and invested St. Quentin. At great risk, Coligni succeeded in throwing himself into the town with a small body of troops on the night of the 2nd of August, and thus revived the spirits of the garrison. Montmorenci, who had advanced with the French army as far as La Fère, ordered d'Andelot, Coligni's brother and his successor in the command of the French infantry, to force his way into the town 33 Tytler, England under Edward VI. and Mary, vol. ii. p. 484. CHAP. IV.] BATTLE OF ST. QUENTIN. 123 with 2000 men; but he was repulsed with great loss. In a second attempt, covered by Montmorenci with a rash and unexpected audacity, who, holding cheap the youth and inexperience of the Duke of Savoy, made a demonstration with his whole army, d'Andelot succeeded in penetrating into the town with 500 men. But this small success was purchased with a signal and disastrous defeat. Montmorenci had neglected to secure the road by which the enemy might penetrate to his rear; and as he was withdrawing his forces after the success of his manoeuvre, the Duke of Savoy ordered large masses of cavalry, gallantly led by Count Egmont, to cross the Somme and precipitate themselves on the retreating columns of the French. In a moment they were overthrown and dispersed. The Duke d'Enghien, brother of the King of Navarre, and several other chiefs, were slain; Montmorenci himself, and his youthful son, De Montberon, the Duke of Montpensier, the Duke of Longueville, the Marshal St. André, together with many other persons of distinction, were made prisoners. After overthrowing the gendarmerie, the victors attacked the French infantry, who were broken and dispersed, and either cut to pieces or driven away prisoners, like flocks of sheep. It was with difficulty that the Duke of Nevers and the Prince of Condé succeeded in regaining La Fère with a handful of soldiers, whilst François de Montmorenci, the Constable's eldest son, escaped in another direction. All seemed lost for France. The only army on which it relied for defence was almost annihilated, its commander in the hands of the enemy. Paris trembled for its safety; and some of the courtiers already talked of removing to Orleans. But France was saved by Philip himself, who, at the news of the victory, hastened from Cambrai to the camp just in time to prevent the Duke of Savoy from reaping its fruits. The battle of St. Quentin was fought on St. Laurence's Day (August 10th), and Philip determined to commemorate it in a manner worthy of his bigotry and superstition. He vowed to erect a church, a monastery, and a palace in honour of that saint; their form was to be the appropriate one of a gridiron, in memory of Laurence's martyrdom; and after twenty-two years' labour and the expenditure of vast sums of money, the Escurial rose at Madrid. But his own conduct rendered the victory unworthy of this sumptuous monument. Philip II. had all the obstinacy of his father, without his talent or enterprise; and, contrary to the advice of the Duke of Savoy and his ablest generals, he forbade the army to push on for Paris till St. Quentin and the, neighbouring places had been taken. Coligni, however, obstinately defended St. Quentin nearly three weeks. At last, eleven breaches 124 GUISE LIEUT.-GENERAL OF FRANCE. [BOOK III. having been effected, the town was carried by assault, August 27th, while Philip looked on from a neighbouring eminence. Coligni was made prisoner, and St. Quentin, which as an entrepôt of the trade between France and the Netherlands, possessed considerable wealth, was abandoned to pillage. The Spaniards then took Ham, Noyon, and Chauni. But the time thus lost proved fatal to the main enterprise. The English, with whom the war was unpopular, insisted on going home; and Philip was obliged to dismiss them for fear of worse consequences; while the Germans, who were badly paid, mutinied and deserted in great numbers. On the other hand the French had time to repair their losses, and Henry II., as already related, summoned Guise to return from Italy. Charles, who in the bosom of his retirement had received the news of the Duke of Savoy's victory early in September, was calculating that his son must be already at Paris; instead of which, Philip, before the middle of October, had returned to Brussels, where he ordered part of his army to be dismissed, and put the remainder into winterquarters. The disasters of the French army and the captivity of Montmorenci, were destined to compensate Guise for the ill success of his Italian expedition. He was received with acclamation in France. The King bestowed upon him new honours and dignities, and named him lieutenant-general of the kingdom, a post which conferred upon him a power almost regal. Henry II. thus made a plain and public declaration of his own incapacity to reign. Guise's brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, had obtained the administration of the interior and of the finances; the third brother commanded the galleys; another was destined to replace Brissac in Piedmont. The Cardinal of Guise alone was without ambition, and distinguished only by his dissoluteness, whence he obtained the name of the "Cardinal des Bouteilles." In short, in the absence of the Constable, the Guise family reigned in the name of Henry II. The Duke of Guise hastened to take the command of the army of the north, and, although the winter had set in, he resolved on commencing operations. But he was too prudent to attempt the recovery of St. Quentin, or to enter on a winter campaign in a country that was already exhausted. He despatched the Duke of Nevers with a strong division towards the Meuse, to engage the attention of the enemy on the side of Luxembourg, but with orders to turn suddenly to the west and join himself and the rest of the army on the coast of Picardy. When the junction was effected, the French army unexpectedly presented itself before Calais (January 1st 1558), CHAP. IV.] CALAIS TAKEN BY GUISE. 125 The surprise of that place had been long meditated. In the preceding November, Marshal Strozzi accompanied by an engineer had entered the town in disguise, and observed the insufficient precautions which had been taken for its defence. Indeed, the English deemed it impregnable34; and in the winter time, when the surrounding marshes were overflowed, they were accustomed, out of a false economy, to reduce the numbers of the garrison, who were now only 500 men. Of this practice Lord Wentworth, the commandant, had complained in vain; the Privy Council replied to his remonstrances that at that season they could defend the place with their white rods. Calais was protected by two forts: that of Newnham bridge, or Nioullai, which commanded the only causeway through the marshes on the land side; and that of Risbank towards the sea, which protected the port. The French having carried by a coup de main the little battery of St. Agatha, which formed a sort of outpost to the fort of Newnham bridge, one part of their army sat down before the latter, while the rest, filing to the left, took up a position before Risbank. Both these forts were taken the first day the batteries of the French opened upon them (January 3rd). The town itself was then bombarded during three days. On the evening of the 6th January, Guise himself led at low tide a chosen body across the harbour, the water reaching to their waists, and carried the castle by assault; nor could the English with all their efforts succeed in recapturing it. Lord Wentworth now found it necessary to capitulate; the inhabitants obtained leave to retire. with their property, but all the cannon and warlike stores were surrendered. Guines was next invested and taken January 21st. Thus were the English finally deprived of every foot of land in France, after holding Calais, the fruit of Edward III.'s victory at Crécy, more than two centuries. Its loss occasioned the greatest discontent in England: for this irreparable disgrace was the only fruit of the needless and unpopular war in which Mary had involved the country. The Queen herself was overwhelmed with confusion and remorse at so unexpected a blow; and was often heard to say, that if her heart were opened after her death the name of Calais would be found engraved upon it. On the other hand this achievement saved the reputation of Guise, and more "They had inscribed over one of the gates the following couplet: "Il sera vraisemblable que Calais on assiége, Quand le fer ou le plomb nagera comme De Bouillé, Hist. des Ducs de Guise, ap. 126 THE DAUPHIN MARRIES MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. [Book III. than counterpoised in the minds of the French the memory of their defeat at St. Quentin. The power and influence of the Guises was soon after further increased by the marriage of the Dauphin Francis with their niece the young Queen of Scots (April 24th 1558). Francis was then only fourteen years of age, whilst Mary, who had been educated in France, was in her sixteenth year. A few days before the Guises had made their niece sign two secret acts, by one of which, in the event of her death without children, she bequeathed her kingdom to be inviolably united with that of France; by the other she abandoned the revenues of Scotland to Henry II. till he should have been repaid a million crowns expended in succouring that country. Yet in her marriage contract, Mary and her youthful husband were to take an oath to maintain the laws, the liberty, and the independence of Scotland! Such was the early initiation of the unfortunate Queen of Scots into that course of duplicity and fraud which at length terminated in her destruction. From this time the Court of France gave the Dauphin the title of King of Scotland, which was confirmed by the Scotch Parliament, in spite of the opposition of a numerous party, who feared that their country would become a mere province of France. In May some conferences were held with a view to peace at Marcoing near Cambray, between the Cardinal of Lorraine and Granvella, Bishop of Arras, now chief minister of Philip II., as he had before been of Charles V. The pretensions of the Spanish monarch were too haughty to admit of an immediate accommodation; but the two churchmen here laid the foundations of a league against heresy destined in time to bear its fruits. In proof of his sincerity, Granvella denounced to the cardinal as followers of the new doctrines the nephews of the Constable; a fact which he had discovered from an intercepted letter, as well as some Genevese books, which d'Andelot had endeavoured to convey to his captive brother, the Admiral Coligni. The Duke of Guise having represented to the French King that he could not hope to prosper in his campaign if a heretic remained in command of the French infantry, Henry sent for d'Andelot and interrogated him as to his opinions concerning the mass. The blunt and honest soldier was not the man to disguise his opinions. "There is," he cried, "but one sacrifice made once for all, that of our Lord Jesus Christ; and to make of the mass a sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead is detestable and abominable." At these words Henry could no longer control his anger, and snatching up a plate, he hurled it at d'Andelot's head, which it missed, and struck the |