CHAP. VI.] HE EXCOMMUNICATES ELIZABETH. 197 soliciting pecuniary aid, and the employment of the Pope's influence in procuring military assistance from the Duke of Alva. But the insurrection was premature. Alva had not time to succour the rebels, even had he been so inclined; at the approach of the Queen's forces the insurgents dispersed themselves without striking a blow, and the two traitor earls escaped into Scotland. Exasperated at the failure of this conspiracy, Pius V. resolved to hurl against Elizabeth a bolt which he had been long preparing. On the 25th of February 1570 he signed and ordered to be published a Bull excommunicating the Queen of England, and deposing her from her throne.33 Alva sent some copies of the Bull to the Spanish ambassador at London, and one Felton, a gentleman of substance, had the audacity to affix one to the Bishop of London's palace; for which act he paid the penalty of his life. Rome still claimed the use of such weapons, though now nearly obsolete, as her legitimate prerogative; but Pius meditated also to employ against Elizabeth the surer but hardly canonical method of assassination.34 The Bull proved of no effect-a mere brutum fulmen. Elizabeth, however, was naturally annoyed at it, and requested, through the Emperor Maximilian, its revocation; but Pius refused.35 A fresh and more extensive conspiracy was concocted in 1571, in which the chief agents were the Bishop of Ross, the Spanish ambassador, and one Ridolfi, a Florentine merchant, whose extensive commerce served to screen his movements from suspicion. The scheme of the marriage between Mary and Norfolk was renewed, and the Duke, who, though dismissed from the Tower, was still in custody in his own house, found means to communicate with the Queen of Scots, through one of his gentlemen and the Bishop of Ross. Ridolfi, being furnished with credentials from Mary and Norfolk, proceeded into the Netherlands, and endeavoured to persuade Alva to send an army of 8000 men and 33 The Bull is in Laderchii, Ann. Eccl. t. xxiv. p. 218, and in Camden, Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 245 (ed. 1625). Pius also sent the defeated rebels 12,000 crowns. Gabutius, Vita Pii V. p. 106 (ed. 1605). "Of this we are assured by his biographer Catena :-"Pensando Pio di socorrore la reina di Scotia, di restituir la religione in Inghilterra, e di levare a un tempo la sentina di tanti mali (Elizabetta)," p. 113. The meaning of levare here is illustrated by the Latin of another biographer, Gabutius: "Et illam malorum omnium sentinam seu, ut appellabat ipse, flagitiorum servam, de medio tollere." Vita Pii V. c. ix. p. 102. If 35 Dr. Lingard (vol. vi. p. 224) seems to regard as a logical triumph the dilemma put by Pius in reply: Did Elizabeth deem the sentence valid or invalid? valid, why did she not seek a reconciliation with the Holy See? If invalid, why did she wish it to be revoked? A good specimen of papist sophistry; the real grievance being, that though Elizabeth herself regarded it as invalid, many of her subjects, besides foreign enemies, were of a contrary opinion, and resolved to act accordingly. 198 SPANISH PLOT AGAINST ELIZABETH. [BOOK III. 25 guns, with a store of extra muskets and ammunition, either to Harwich or Portsmouth, where Norfolk would join with a force of 20,000 foot and 3000 horse. Alva, however, who was at that time advocating a marriage between Queen Mary and Don John of Austria, conceived a contempt for Ridolfi as a weak prating creature, and dismissed him with an evasive answer, in which the affair was referred to the King of Spain. Ridolfi next went to Rome, and had an interview with Pius V. The Pope entered warmly into the scheme, furnished Ridolfi with money and letters of recommendation to Philip II., urging that monarch to embark in the plot, and stating that he himself was ready to forward it by selling the plate of the churches, and even his own garments. The plan was to seize and murder Elizabeth when proceeding to one of her residences in the country, in the month of August or September. Philip did not need much persuasion. The affair was to his taste. It involved a conspiracy and a murder, and being recommended by the Pope, he adopted it as the cause of God. He instructed Alva secretly to pursue the scheme, subject, however, to the Duke's final judgment; and appointed Vitelli, a distinguished Spanish officer, who had been employed in England in a diplomatic capacity, to command the expedition.36 Alva proposed to the Spanish Court his own son instead of Vitelli, but this was refused.37 Queen Elizabeth, however, received information of the plot from some unknown personage abroad 38; Norfolk's agents being arrested and tortured, confessed their master's guilt; the Duke was again committed to the Tower, and a closer guard was placed over the Queen of Scots. The trial, condemnation, and execution of Norfolk, we pass over as belonging to English history. Philip II. still clung to the scheme, even after it was exploded, and in December 1571 Alva sent two Italian assassins into England to take, by poison or otherwise, the life of Queen Elizabeth, besides planning other attempts of the like kind.39 That the French Government was concerned in Norfolk's plot, even so late as September 1571, when La Mothe Fénélon supplied him with money, appears from Fénélon's correspondence, as well as from the confession of Barker, one of the agents in the plot.40 CHAP. VI.] TREATY OF MARRIAGE WITH ANJOU. 199 The French share in the scheme was, however, totally unconnected with Spain, and does not appear to have gone further than the liberation of the Queen of Scots by means of her marriage with Norfolk; in order that the ancient relations between France and Scotland might be maintained, by the restoration of Mary to the throne of the latter country.41 The French Court was indeed at this time negociating a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou, while Philip II. was doing all in his power to prevent it. Although engaged in secret plots against the English Queen, Philip sought, in his public negociations, to gain her favour and alliance; he even consented that she should retain the money consigned to the Duke of Alva, which she had impounded, and to make compensation for the English merchandise which had been seized at Antwerp in retaliation42; and he endeavoured to influence her mind against the match, through her own courtiers and ladies, to whom he gave presents and gratuities.43 But his surest card was the Duke of Anjou himself. That prince was by no means desirous of the match. It had been chiefly concocted by Charles IX., who, jealous of the military reputation acquired by his brother in the civil wars, would have been glad to get rid of him at any price. When the marriage treaty had been nearly arranged, it ultimately went off on Anjou's insisting on a clause, or at least a written promise, that he should be secured in the free and public exercise of his religion."4 Nevertheless the alliance of England was still courted by France. It was necessary to the altered policy adopted, in appearance at least, by the French Court, since the peace of St. Germain, and which we must now proceed to explain. After that peace, La Rochelle, one of the four cautionary towns granted to the Hugonots, had become their head-quarters and, as it were, metropolis. A mutual distrust continued to prevail between the parties, and in spite of the peace, massacres of the Protestants were perpetrated early in 1571 by the Catholic population at Rouen, Orange and Dieppe. Nevertheless, much negociation took place between the Court and the Hugonots at La Rochelle, where the leaders of that party were gathered round Jeanne d'Albret and the Admiral Coligni. Charles IX. as well as his mother seems at this time to have regarded the Spanish Court with suspicion and dislike. Walsingham, the English ambassador, "See Turner, Mod. Hist. of Eng. vol. V. p. 256. See the next chapter. 43 Fénélon, t. iv. p. 220. 200 CHARLES IX. LURES THE HUGONOTS. [BOOK III. writes, June 25th 1571: "There rise daily new causes of unkindness between the two princes (Charles and Philip). Spain seemeth to set the King here very light, which engendereth in him a great desire of revenge." And in August he says: "The Queen-mother is very much incensed against Spain, being thoroughly persuaded that her daughter was poisoned." 45 Hence the French Court was for a while disposed to conciliate the Hugonots; and, except in the matter of the seals, favoured all their views. The Protestants naturally wished to see L'Hôpital restored to the chancellorship, which, however, Catherine bestowed on René Birago, an Italian, and creature of her own. On the other hand the Hugonots were authorised to hold a synod of the reformed churches at La Rochelle, to preside over which Beza came from Geneva; Charles IX. backed the application of Coligni and Louis of Nassau to the Duke of Florence for a secret loan in support of the insurrection in the Netherlands; and the hand of Queen Elizabeth, a heretic sovereign excommunicated and deposed by the Pope, was, as we have said, solicited for Henry of Anjou. The Court also seemed to show its sincerity by entertaining the project of a marriage between young Henry of Navarre, the head of the Hugonot party, and the King's third sister, Margaret; which indeed had been contemplated from their infancy, before the civil wars had yet broken out. Both were now about eighteen years of age, and Margaret had already begun her career of gallantry. Her heart was engaged to the young Duke Henry of Guise, to whom it is said she had even surrendered her person. In 1570, a marriage between them had nearly been arranged; but the King, as well as his mother and Anjou, denounced the audacious pretensions of Guise; and Charles ordered his brother, the bastard of Angoulême, grand-prior of the Order of Malta in France, to make away with him while on a hunting party. The bastard failed from cowardice, not conscience, and Guise eluded the impending danger by marrying Catherine of Clèves. In July 1571 Count Louis of Nassau, who was at La Rochelle with the Protestants, with whom he had fought after his retirement from the Netherlands 46, repaired to Paris, and had a secret interview with Charles IX. and his mother, and the Montmorencis, in which he held out to the King the possession of Flanders, and the inheritance of the House of Burgundy, as the price of his assistance against Spain. Charles was struck with the tempting offer, but replied that it was too late to do anything this year against Spain. 46 See the next chapter. 45 Walsingham's Letters, in Digges, Compl. Ambassador, p. 111, 122. CHAP. VI.] MANNERS OF THE FRENCH COURT. 201 These negociations transpired. Alava, the Spanish ambassador at the Court of France, threatened war; Catherine protested to Philip II. that Alava's information was false; and the Spanish King, who wished to avoid a rupture with France, superseded him. The French Court then made advances to Coligni, who, always slow to form resolutions, long distrusted their professions. Jeanne d'Albret was not disinclined to the proposed marriage for her son; but with the view that immediately after its consummation he and his wife should retire from court. Jeanne trembled for Henry's morals as well as his religion. At that period the Court of France was indeed a sink of iniquity and corruption, nothing less than an open brothel, the scene of murder, fornication, adultery, and incest.48 Charles IX. and his brother Anjou, of opposite tempers, distinguished themselves by opposite crimes. Impetuous, and to appearance frank, though capable of the deepest dissimulation, Charles IX. possessed some brilliant qualities. He was expert in all the exercises of a cavalier, understood music, had a good voice, spoke well, and was even a tolerable poet. In November 1570 he had espoused, at Mézières, Elizabeth, the second daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, and, considering the manners of the day, appears to have been tolerably faithful to his nuptial vow. He had little sense of religion, and swore and blasphemed like a trooper. He was fond of violent bodily exercises, of which his constitution seemed to stand in need, and his chief recreation was hunting, which he followed with a sort of fury, killing numberless horses and dogs. When engaged in this sport he displayed a frantic love of blood; he would tear out with his own hand the viscera of the wounded animals, and delighted in cutting the throats of the asses and mules which he met with on his road.49 Henry of Anjou, on the other hand, though cruel, was effeminate, and shunned all active sports. Sunk at once in the basest superstition, and the most unbridled licentiousness, he is said to have entertained an incestuous passion for his sister Margaret.50 The lawless disorder in which the court was plunged at this period may be illustrated by a single anecdote. In the spring of 1572, the King and the Duke of Anjou, brotherly only in their orgies, 47 Beza, Réveille Matin, p. 33. 48 See Jeanne d'Albret's letter to her son from Blois, March 8th 1572, where among other things she says: "Ce ne sont pas les hommes ici qui prient les femmes, ce sont les femmes qui prient les hommes; si vous y étiez vous n'en échap periez jamais sans une grande grâce de Dieu." Le Laboureur, Add. à Castelnau, t, i. p. 860 (ed. Brussels, 1731). 49 Papyre Masson, Vie de Charles IX, in the Archives Curieuses, t. viii. p. 342 (1ère Sér.). 50 Gomberville, Mém. de Nevers, t. i. p. 90. |