view, it may be proper here to recapitulate some parts of what for other purposes has been scattered over various passages of the preceding narrative. At the opening of the Lutheran reformation, Francis I., though he patronised the rising arts and the revived learning of his age, declared the religious novelties" to tend to the overthrow of all monarchy, human as well as divine."* Sir T. More himself attributed the excesses of the peasants to the pestilential doctrines of Luther. Adrian VI., a reformer of gross abuses, was earnestly dissuaded by cardinal Soderini from suffering the fundamental principles of the papal monarchy to be brought into question in a general council. "Governments," said the cardinal," perish when they change. The only security is to follow the examples of those holy pontiffs, who, not making vain attempts to satisfy heretics by reforms, extinguished the Albigeois and the Vaudois by proclaiming crusades against them, by exciting princes and nations to take arms for their extermination, and by drowning all memory of their blasphemous dogmas in torrents of blood." The pope instructed his nuncio in Germany, whom he empowered to grant moderate reforms, at the same time to remind the German princes that disobedience to the laws of the church would bring those of the state into utter contempt; that those who had laid their hands on the property of churchmen would feel still less repugnance to the seizure of lay estates; and, finally, that the professions of the Lutherans, that they respected secular powers, were only lures to ensnare civil authorities to destruction.§ Impregnated as the Italian statesmen were with these principles, it is extremely probable that they were discussed, though perhaps secretly, at the first convention of the council of Trent. || Cardinal Pole promoted peace between France and Spain, avowedly that they Brantôme, Vie de Francis I. vii. 257. + Life of Sir T. More, in Lives of British Statesmen, vol. i, Cab. Cyc. || December, 1545. 66 might combine their counsels and their power to restore the union of the church. In 1559, Perrenot, bishop of Arras, whose historical name is cardinal Granvelle, persuaded Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, at secret interviews between them, that it was the duty and interest of all catholic princes to suspend their worldly differences in order to unite for the sacred purpose of healing the breach in Christian union which had been caused by the German heresy.* * "The chief motive of the peace of Câteau-Cambresis," says a well-informed contemporary, was that the seeds of the Saxon heresy were springing up throughout France." It was the opinion of the two cardinals, that, " without a peace between the crowns of France and Spain, the catholic religion could not long continue either in France or Flanders ;so great was the increase of protestants, who could only be suppressed by establishing an inquisition in both countries." Immediately after the conclusion of the treaty the secret project to exterminate protestants was betrayed to William I., prince of Orange, by Henry II., who mistakenly supposed that the prince was a papal bigot, enjoying the same favour under Philip II., as he possessed under Charles V. Symptoms of the concert for the suppression of the impious and seditious opinions of the age broke out in various parts of Europe. Paul IV. (Caraffa) issued his tremendous bull for the excommunication and deposition of all princes tainted with heresy, manifestly and principally aimed at the head of Elizabeth, whom he had not yet the audacity to proscribe by name. On the 10th of May, 1563, the cardinal of Lorraine read a letter to the council of Trent from his niece, the queen of Scots, " submitting herself to the council, and promising that when she succeeded to the crown of England she would subject both her kingdoms to the obedience due to the apostolic see." The cardinal excused his royal niece for not hav ing sent prelates to the council by the cruel necessity of Thuan, lib. xx. c. 9. + Adriani, Istor. di suoi Tempi, lib. xi. Firenze, 1583. Sir F. Walsingham to Burleigh. Paris, Aug. 12. 1571. Digges, 123. The keeping terms with her heretical counsellors.* council returned solemn thanks to the queen for a letter which, thus read in the representative assembly of Christendom, they doubtless regarded as the first-fruits of a pious concert of catholic princes against rebellious heretics. After such a letter to so numerous a body of important men of every nation, it was impossible that the general existence of an understanding between catholic princes on this subject should not be universally believed. Pius IV., weary of the slow steps by which the holy allies † advanced to the verge of an exterminating war, earnestly urged a personal interview between Catherine de Medicis and Philip II. Philip evaded the journey, alleging his infirm health, which, with the habits of inaction and seclusion, in which he resembled his model, Tiberius, and with the convenience of gaining time, by his distance, for the consideration of every suggestion, was probably among his real motives. Catherine was attended by her son, Charles IX., with a splendid retinue of French, whose gaiety and brilliancy presented a striking contrast with the Castilian grandees who formed the train of the queen of Spain and the duke of Alva, over the gravity of whose national manners the temper of Philip had spread a deeper shade of melancholy dignity. The pretext for this assembly was that of an interview of the young queen of Spain with her mother the queen-dowager of France. Had this been the sole or the main object, it seemed singular that the conductor of the young queen should have been Alva, a cold, stern, unbending veteran of sixty, justly renowned for military genius, who had been employed from his earliest youth against the German innovators, the slaughter, and extirpation of whom he regarded as his most sacred duty to God or man. Military sports and courtly amusements occupied during the earlier part of the day the knights of both nations. Festivity, jollity, Fra Paolo, Istoria Conc. Trident. lib. vii. Opere, ii, 301. and gallantry were blended with the dance and the song. Even the liberal pleasures of literature sometimes diversified the orgies of the licentious nobles who attended the two most dissolute and refined of the great courts of Europe. At the dead hour of midnight, when they, exhausted by the tournament, the table, and the dance, retired to repose, the queen-mother held secret conferences with Alva in the apartments of her probably unconscious daughter Elizabeth. The British minister at Madrid announced these conferences to his court with evident alarm. “A post from Bayonne brings news of the meeting of the two queens. There are surely matters in hand of importance, for there are the president of Flanders, the council, and the secretary.' The minister's inference from the presence of these grave personages was reasonable. These conferences undoubtedly related to the most effectual means of subduing the protestants in France and Flanders. Mutual succour was stipulated; and, in pursuance of the stipulation, actually afforded. It would be altogether incredible that, if they had been successful to this point, they could there have checked their course. The queen-mother and the duke of Alva were agreed in the necessity of the designs, both pious and political, for destroying the heretics. Alva declared for immediate extermination. He blamed the faint-hearted propositions of France, which he treated as treason to the cause of God. All the huguenot leaders must, he said, be taken off. To this he added, that there must also be a massacre of the whole pestilential sect, as general as that massacre of the French in Italy, known by the name of "The Sicilian Vespers." Catherine ventured to represent that measures so extreme were unsuitable to the reduced state of the royal power in France. She preferred the wiles of an Italian woman, and expressed a wish that while she was busied in alluring the princes and lords into the ancient church, she should, at the same time, make preparations for chastising by arms the * Phaer to Cecil, June 22. 1665. MSS. State Paper Office. Each contumacy of the heretical populace. She had, shortly before, answered in the same manner proposals like those of Alva, which had been made to her at Avignon by the pope's legate. The queen and the duke, however, agreeing in their object, and differing only about the option of fraud or force as the best immediate means, it was not difficult to effect a compromise. It was finally determined to adopt the general principle of destroying the incorrigible ringleaders of the heretical factions. sovereign was to select the opportunities and modes of execution which should best suit the circumstances of his own dominions. In France, where the parties were mingled, and in some degree balanced, the considerations of time and expediency were evidently more complicated. In suppressing the Belgic disorders, where a catholic army was to be sent from Spain and Italy against a heretical nation, the same perplexities did not exist, and immediate execution appeared more practicable. There is some reason to believe that the outlines of this project, though couched in the smooth and soft language of courts, were reduced to writing, and subscribed by the sovereigns. In this point the despatch of Phaer concurs with the account already given of the queen of Scots having sent back a messenger to Paris, in the spring of 1566, with the "bond" of the catholic monarchs to root out heresy, the date of which was only a few months after the conferences at Bayonne. It is not likely, however it might be expressed, that it should have been understood by the parties as containing obligations less extensive than those which Mary had voluntarily imposed on herself by her letter to the council of Trent.* The war of Spain against the Netherlands, one of the most memorable conflicts of modern times, which so soon followed the conference of Bayonne, had its source The greater part of the summary rests on the testimony of Adriani (Ist. di suoi Tempi, Firenze, 1584), who wrote from materials furnished by Cosmo first duke of Tuscany, a prince whose safety much depended on his information of the designs of the great courts. His narrative is adopted by De Thou. The declaration of the eloquent jesuit, Strada, who wrote at Rome from the papers of the house of Parma, that he will neither affirm nor deny these imputed designs, must be regarded as a confirmation of Thuanus and Adriani. |