142

EDICT OF ROMORANTIN.

[BOOK III. possessed. He was one of the few enlightened spirits in those days of bigotry and fanaticism, who held that toleration was not incompatible with true religion; his grand scheme was to let Catholicism and Protestantism subsist side by side; whence by some he was regarded as a Hugonot, by others as an Atheist. A man of these moderate views had necessarily many difficulties to contend with in those days of excitement. Flushed with their recent triumph, the Guises wished to use the power which the abortive conspiracy had thrown into their hands, in order to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into France; nor could L'Hôpital divert them from this project, except by consenting to the EDICT OF ROMORANTIN (May 1560). It was with great reluctance that the Parliament of Paris registered an edict, which transferred all trials for heresy from the civil to the episcopal jurisdiction. L'Hôpital somewhat modified the law by his interpretation of it, and introduced a clause by which false accusers were subjected to the lex talionis.

The policy of the Guises was not so successful abroad as at home. The death of their sister the Queen Regent of Scotland (June 10th 1560), the dispersion by a storm of the French fleet, with a considerable army on board, and the vigorous assistance afforded by Queen Elizabeth to the Congregation, obliged the French in Leith to capitulate; and the Guises found themselves compelled to sanction a treaty by which the French were to evacuate Scotland; while King Francis II. and his consort Mary Stuart agreed to renounce the arms and title of sovereigns of England (July 5th). Thus the Reformation was established in Scotland, and the Scots were now inclined towards the English alliance in preference to their ancient one with France.

The affairs of France itself, however, sufficed at this period to engross the attention of the Guises. The French Protestants were preparing to take up arms; Condé had retired to the court of his brother Antony at Nérac, and endeavoured to stir into action his sluggish nature; the Guises on their side were arming for the struggle, and treating with German counts and barons for mercenary troops. Their great difficulty was the empty state of the Royal exchequer; nor in the present state of parties dared they venture on assembling the Etats-Généraux or States-General, in order to lay on new taxes. As a preliminary step, it was determined to call an assembly of Notables, which met at Fontainebleau, August 20th 1560. At this meeting, over which the young King presided, Montmorenci and his nephews, the Admiral Coligni, d'Andelot and the Cardinal de Châtillon, the Vidame de Chartres, and others, appeared, on the side of the Protestants, escorted by a

CHAP. V.]

NOTABLES OF FONTAINEBLEAU.

143

strong body of cavalry: the King of Navarre and his brother Condé were invited, but refused to attend.

Before business began, Coligni surprised the assembly by suddenly rising and presenting a petition from the Protestants of Normandy, whose prayer was that they might be allowed to meet for worship in the face of day, and thus avoid the calumnies that were spread respecting their nocturnal meetings. Coligni proceeded to complain of the young King's education; that his person was surrounded with guards, and that he was thus taught to look upon his subjects as enemies, instead of seeking to live in their affections. This speech excited the rage of Guise and his brother the Cardinal. The Duke having observed that the petition had no signatures, the Admiral replied that he would soon get it signed by 10,000 men; upon which Guise furiously retorted, "And I will put myself at the head of 100,000 men, who will sign the contrary with their blood."8

The result of the deliberations at Fontainebleau, was that the States-General should be assembled, and that a National Council should be called for the discussion of the religious differences: the States were to meet at Orleans in October, the Council at Paris in the following January. But before they met, events took place which changed the whole aspect of affairs.

Although Condé did not himself attend at Fontainebleau he had sent an agent named La Sague to come to an understanding with the Constable and the Châtillons. This man was arrested by order of the Guises, and revealed all the plans of Condé. It appeared from despatches written in sympathetic ink, that Montmorenci had advised the Bourbons to come to the court in great force, and to overpower and arraign the Guises. In consequence of these disclosures the Vidame de Chartres was thrown into the Bastille; several other distinguished persons were arrested, and Francis II. cited the King of Navarre to bring his brother to court, in order that Condé, might justify himself from the designs that were imputed to him against the safety of the state.

To disconcert the measures of their enemies, the Guises conceived a plot of wonderful audacity and extent. Protestantism was to be put down with a high hand, and its principal leaders destroyed, by a movement in which the Pope, the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, and other Italian princes were to participate. The National Council was to be refused on the ground that the Council of Trent was about to be reopened; the States when they assembled were to

Calvin, Epist. 300; Beza, Hist. des Lettres, liv. iv. t. i. p. 183 (ed. 1619). Eglises Réf. t. i. p. 173 sq.; Pasquier,

144

RETURN OF PHILIP II. TO SPAIN.

[Book III. abstain from discussing any point of religion, and a confession of faith was to be handed to the deputies, as well as to all nobles, prelates, officers and others who attended. Laymen who refused to sign it were to be instantly condemned and burnt; while ecclesiastics were to be handed over to their own order for punishment. Coligni, d'Andelot, and probably their brother, the Cardinal Châtillon, were to be involved in this extermination, and as Montmorenci and his sons could not be charged with heresy, they were to be accused of a plot against the state. The executions at Orleans were to be repeated throughout the kingdom; French troops were join those from Italy and Savoy, to massacre the Vaudois, and to attack Geneva; while the Spaniards were to invade Bearn, and to find occupation for the vassals of the heretic Bourbons. The plan, however, was only very partially executed. In order to understand the causes which encouraged its formation, as well as led to its failure, we must cast our eyes for a moment on the position of the potentates who were expected to co-operate in it.

It was not till the summer of 1559 that Philip II. quitted the Netherlands, to which he never returned. One of the causes of his departure was the intelligence which he had received of the progress of the Reformation in Spain, the consequence of the close connection between that country and Germany during the reign of Charles V. Bibles in the Castilian tongue and other prohibited books printed in Germany had found their way into Spain; but as the study of them was chiefly confined to the higher and more educated classes, the progress of the new tenets had long remained undiscovered. It was immediately combated by the Bulls of Pope Paul IV. and the edicts of Philip II. The chief inquisitor, Fernando Valdés, Bishop of Seville, a fierce and cunning fanatic, was a fitting instrument to carry out the views of Rome and of his master. The fires of the Inquisition in Spain were no longer lit for Jews and Moors alone, and in May 1559 took place the first auto de fé of Spanish Protestants.

Philip II. having embarked at Flushing August 20th arrived off Laredo in Biscay on the 29th. A violent storm had nearly delivered Europe from almost half a century of oppression. The vessel which had brought Philip, freighted with a large collection of valuables, as well as several others of his fleet, foundered in sight of port; more than 1000 persons perished, and Philip himself only escaped by landing in a boat. From Laredo he proceeded to

On this subject see Mc Crie, Hist. of the Reformation in Spain.

CHAP. V.]

PHILIP MARRIES ELIZABETH OF FRANCE.

145

Valladolid, where he received his sister Joanna's resignation of the regency, and feasted his eyes with seeing some of his heretical subjects burnt. These measures of severity proved successful in Spain, and in a few years all traces of the Reformation were obliterated, but with it was also extinguished the future prosperity of Spain. To a victim who had implored his mercy, Philip exclaimed that he would send his own son to the flames were he convicted of being an impenitent heretic. Don Carlos was indeed suspected of sympathising with the reformers; and Philip was afterwards accused of having fulfilled his horrible threat.

Early in 1560 the Spanish King consummated at Guadalajara, in New Castile, his marriage with Elizabeth of France, whose espousal by proxy at Paris we have already related. Elizabeth, who was now fifteen, while Philip was thirty-four, had been previously betrothed to his son, whose age was more suitable to her own; and though the story of a mutual passion between Don Carlos and the French princess seems to be devoid of foundation, it is not improbable that he was annoyed and offended at being thus supplanted by his father. Elizabeth, from the circumstances of her marriage, was called by the Spaniards, Isabel de la Paz, or Isabella of the Peace.10

Philip II. was not averse to the scheme of the Guises. He had again accorded his friendship to that family after the revolution in Scotland, which removed his distrust of French policy in that quarter; but the Spanish arms had just experienced great reverses in Africa, the finances were in a bad state, and Granvella dissuaded Philip from taking any active part in the plot. Nor did the Guises obtain anything more than good wishes from Rome, where another and milder Pontiff now occupied the Papal chair.

The last year of Paul IV.'s pontificate was marked by a singular revolution. This Pontiff, who, suddenly raised from the cloister to the crown, had used his new dignity with insatiable greediness, began now to reign as had been at first expected of him, and returned to his old plans of reform. The change was specially signalised by his renunciation of nepotism and the disgrace of his nephews. He had been estranged from Cardinal Caraffa by his unsuccessful embassy to the court of Philip II., and from the young Cardinal Del Monte by his riotous conduct in drawing his sword in a midnight brawl. At a meeting of the Inquisition,

10 Isabel is equivalent in Spanish to Elizabeth. In 1563 Philip took up his permanent residence at Madrid, which henceforth became the Spanish capital; previously there had been no fixed capi

VOL. II.

L

tal. The population of Madrid, which was only 12,000 in 1563, rose by the end of Philip's reign to 30,000; and the town was of course adequately enlarged and improved, Prescott, Philip II. vol. i. p. 377.

146

LAST DAYS OF POPE PAUL IV.

[BOOK III. January 9th 1559, Paul rebuked Del Monte in violent terms, and thundered out "Reform! Reform." His agitation was so extreme that it deprived him of appetite and sleep, and threw him into a violent fever. On the 27th of January having summoned a consistory, he passionately denounced the immoral lives of his nephews, called on God and man to witness that he had been ignorant of their conduct, dismissed them from their posts and sent them into banishment; retaining only the son of Montorio, whom he had made a cardinal in his eighteenth year.

Paul IV. now entered on an entirely new course of government. He abandoned his hatred of Spain, and zealously assisted the Spanish Inquisition in repressing heresy. The secular affairs of the Roman State were intrusted to entirely new hands; many abuses were abolished, the sale of places was restricted, and a chest, of which he alone kept the key, was erected in public, into which every man might throw his petitions and complaints. As a token of these reforms, he caused a medal of himself to be struck, having on the reverse the subject of Christ driving the money changers from the temple. His ecclesiastical reforms kept pace with the civil. He never missed attending the weekly meetings of the Roman Inquisition; and in a Bull, which he issued respecting that institution (February 15th 1559), he declared that if the Roman Pontiff himself should be found to have lapsed into heresy before his election, the election itself, as well as all his acts, should be annulled. His deeds corresponded with his words, and his last days were occupied with arrests and excommunications. At the same time he increased the pomp of divine worship, embellished the decorations of the Sixtine Chapel, and instituted the representation of the Holy Sepulchre, still exhibited in Catholic churches at Easter. The people, however, did not forget the war that he had brought upon Rome; and the reign of informers and executioners had become so terrible that they conceived an implacable hatred against him. Paul IV. died August 18th 1559, at the age of eighty-three. As he lay expiring, the populace broke open the dungeons of the Inquisition, delivered the prisoners, burnt the prison and the acts of the Holy Office, tore down the arms of the Caraffas from the public places, overthrew the statue of the Pope, and breaking off the head with the triple crown, rolled it with shouts and execrations into the Tiber.

The choice of Paul IV.'s successor was violently contested by the French and Spanish parties. The conclave lasted four months; and at length Gian Angelo Medicino was elected (December 26th 1559), who assumed the title of Pius IV. He was, as already