1560

12. Mary, Queen of Scots, arrives in Scotland. In pursuance of the terms of this treaty, the states of Scotland assembled in Edinburgh (August, 1560). The reformers possessed an overwhelming majority.

An act was passed to abolish the Papal authority in Scotland; the administration of baptism after the Catholic rite. and the celebration of mass, were prohibited under the heaviest penalties: a Confession of Faith, framed by Knox and his associates after the Genevan model, and a book of discipline on the worship and government of the church, according to the republican equality of the same standard, were approved of and established; and every member of the convention who refused to subscribe to the new creed was instantly expelled. And lastly, they offered the hand of the Earl of Arran, the presumptive heir to the crown, in marriage to Elizabeth; and agreed to settle the Scottish crown upon them and their heirs, in failure of Queen Mary and her posterity.*

When these acts were laid before Mary, she refused to ratify them or the late treaty; and, under the advice of her uncles, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, she pertinaciously rejected Elizabeth's demands, even after the death of her husband, Francis II., had dissolved the connection between France and Scotland, and placed supreme power in the hands of Catherine de Medicis, the determined enemy of the house of Guise. When the Sccttish Queen, therefore, requested permission to pass through England on her way to Scotland, Elizabeth indignantly refused. However, Mary safely arrived in Scotland, and landed at Leith (August 19th, 1560).

13. Elizabeth's transactions with the Huguenots. At the same time that Elizabeth concluded her first treaty with the Scottish lords, she was in communication with the Huguenots, or French Calvinists, who, like the Reformers in every other part of Europe, had been bitterly persecuted. At this time there existed, Factions besides the Protestants, three political parties in France in France. -the first, led by the Constable de Montmorency; the second, called the Guises, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, and his brother Charles, Archbishop of Rheims and Cardinal of Lorraine; and the third, led by the Queen of Henry II., Catherine de Medicis, the daughter of Lorenzo de Medicis. During the reign of Francis II., the Guises being the uncles of the young Queen of Scots, held the reins of power; Catherine found it prudent to join them, and Montmorency's party was weakened by his nephews, the Chatillons, better known as the Admiral Coligny and D'Andelot, going over to the Huguenots. The latter were further strengthened by the accession of Antoine, King of Navarre, and Louis, Prince of Condé,

* Mackintosh, II., 289; Lingard, VII., 294.

The

CHAP. VI.

his brother; and the conspiracy of Amboise was planned for the purpose of seizing the royal family, and depriving the Conspiracy Guises of power. Elizabeth countenanced this conspiracy, of Amboise. but it was discovered, and the two Bourbon princes were imprisoned. When Charles IX., succeeded, and his mother, Catherine, became regent, they were released, and the Huguenots taken into favour to strengthen the government against the Guises, who had lost their authority by the death of Francis. But the reformers had been too much exasperated by persecution and massacre to listen to Catherine's overtures; and although the government suspended the penal laws against them, and granted them freedom of worship outside the towns (1562), they felt that their only security lay in resistance. It happened

The Massacre of Vassy.

mass.

that the Duke of Guise, at the head of his servants and armed followers, halted, on the 1st of March, at the village of Vassy, and, according to his custom, entered the church to hear The Huguenot chapel was close by, where the Protestants were also at their devotions. Guise sent an order for them to refrain from singing until his service was over, to which they replied by indulging in louder strains than before. Some disturbance followed, on hearing which, Guise came out of the church, sword in hand, and a general massacre of the unarmed reformers immediately followed-sixty of the congregation being slain, and two hundred wounded. Similar outrages occurred at Sens, Tours, and Blois; where the unhappy Huguenots, men, women, and children, were literally hacked to death; the Catholic mob falling upon them like wolves. The reformers, in revenge, desecrated the tombs of the saints, and thus the storm broke out. Condé and Coligny took command of the reformers, and solicited the aid of Elizabeth; Guise and Montmorency sought the assistance of Huguenot Spain; and while Navarre fortified Paris for the latter, his brother, Condé, secured Orleans for the Huguenots. Elizabeth, as usual, was uncertain and reluctant; but Cecil's arguments prevailed, and a force of 6,000 men was sent over, on condition that one half of them should garrison Havre till Calais was restored.

The first

war.

The King of Spain strongly remonstrated against this interference, and even peremptorily ordered Elizabeth to withdraw her Philip troops, but she replied that her hostilities were only

orders Elizabeth to with

draw her troops.

directed against the Duke of Guise, who had openly declared his intention not to restore Calais, although bound thereto by treaty. With which answer Philip had

CHAP. VI.

to rest satisfied, although his ambassador, in a stormy interview with the Council, was boldly told by Cecil that England could not sit still and see the Protestants murdered.* The war which followed was not of long duration. Navarre was slain at the siege of Rouen; Montmorency and Condé were taken prisoners at the battle of Dreux, on the Ure; and the Duke of Guise was assassinated in the following year (1563) at the siege of Orleans. Catherine de Medicis thus found herself relieved of all her rivals, and able to govern as she pleased. She immediately resolved to conciliate the Huguenots, by a grant of toleration, on condition that they should unite with the government, and expel both the Spaniards and the English out of the country. Condé, whom she had made lieutenant-general of the kingdom, agreed to this in the treaty of Amboise (March 25th, 1563); and the English were soon afterwards compelled to evacuate Havre, by a terrible plague which broke out in the city. The miserable remnant Havre. of the garrison which returned to England, brought the pestilence with them; and in London alone the mortality rose to 2,000 deaths weekly, during August, September, and October. Among those who perished was De Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, just as he was on the point of completing secret arrangements, by which Mary Queen of Scots engaged to marry Don Carlos, the son of Philip II.; and that monarch agreed to espouse the cause which he had hitherto opposed.+

The English evacuate

Effect of the death of Guise.

The evacuation of Havre was the final surrender by the English of that possession of French soil which they had maintained for five centuries. In the treaty of Troyes, which was now agreed to (April, 1564), not a word was said about Calais, and the treaty of Cateau Cambresis was neither acknowledged nor declared void. 14. Character of Mary Queen of Scots. By the death of the Duke of Guise, Mary Stuart lost her only friend in France, and thus deprived of all hope of assistance from that country, she sought to conciliate the Congregation lords. She understood her situation, indeed, before she had been at Holyrood a month. Her French training had matured all her powers to the highest state of perfection. "She had vigour, energy, tenacity of purpose, with perfect and never-failing self-possession; and as the one indispensable foundation for the effective use of all other qualities, she had indomitable courage. She wanted none other of the faculties necessary to conceive a great purpose, or of the abilities necessary to execute it, except, perhaps, only this, that

* Froude, VII., 432. Froude, VII., 507-526; Browning's Huguenots, ch. 6-16.

1563

Mary and

while she made politics the game of life, it was a game only, though played for a high stake. In the deeper and nobler emotions, she had neither share nor sympathy. Here lay the vital Contrast difference of character between the Queen of Scots and between her great rival, and here was the secret of the difference Elizabeth. of their fortunes. In intellectual gifts, Mary Stuart was at least Elizabeth's equal," while in personal charms she was by far her superior. "But Elizabeth could feel, like a man, an unselfish interest in a great cause; Mary Stuart was ever her own centre of hope, fear, or interest; she thought of nothing, cared for nothing, except as linked with the gratification of some ambition, some desire, some humour of her own; and thus Elizabeth was able to overcome temptations before which Mary fell.”*

Mary's

policy.

Finding it useless, on her arrival, to contend against the Reformation, so long as England was a Protestant power, she perceived that her course was to prevent any alarm secret by a display of Catholic fanaticism, and to urge her claims on the English succession, which the mass of her subjects were ready to support. But the reversion of the crown once secured, no matter how long she might have to wait for the recognition of her rights, (and she was a woman who could wait, could control herself, could hide her purpose till the moment came to strike,) then she would trample down the Reformation, and drive Elizabeth from the throne. This purpose she might probably have Mary and accomplished, had not Knox, from the first, distrusted John Knox. her, watched all her movements with unwearied vigilance, and openly proclaimed her secret projects in his sermons, as well as kept Cecil regularly informed about them. He was the only man

in Scotland that she was unable to charm, and from their first interview she felt that he was an enemy, from whom she would receive no quarter, and whom it would require her subtlest weapons to combat.

15. Mary's matrimonial schemes. The first subject which brought the two Queens into open collision was Mary's proposal to marry. In anticipation of the success of her schemes, the latter first looked to Spain for a husband, and both Don Carlos, the son of Philip, and the Archduke Charles, of Austria, seks an If these were unattainable, there was were mentioned.

Mary first

with Spain.

Lord Darnley, the eldest son of the Countess of Lennox, by marrying whom, she would centre in her issue the rights of both branches of the family of Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII.

* Froude, VII.. 359-360. + Ibid, VII., 361-369.