commanded by Charles to search out evidence *, could find none. Briquemaut and Cavagne, friends of Coligny, were dragged from the house of the British ambassador, where they had concealed themselves from the massacrers, and, after a mockery of trial, condemned to death. The dead admiral was condemned to be executed in effigy at the same time. Charles IX. went, with his mother and brothers, to see their execution; dragged the king of Navarre and prince of Condé to witness the dreadful end of two of their most faithful friends; and feasted his own eyes with the dying agonies of the victims by torchlight.+ On the morning of that very day his queen had been delivered of a daughter, her first child. This is but a slight aggravation of barbarity so revolting. It is mentioned only because Elizabeth was invited by Charles to become godmother to his daughter. The whole depth of the guilt of Charles IX. in the massacre was by this time fully known. It was stated by Walsingham, in one of his despatches, that he regarded it as the prelude to an attack upon England. He communicated to Elizabeth rumours of an actual design to invade England and Ireland. Similar rumours most probably reached her from Madrid and Venice. The entire catholic force of Europe, moral and physical, wanted but the occasion to attack her title and existence as a sovereign. Her subjects were clamorous for a war in support of French protestantism. The pulpits, then the great and only rostra of political declamation and passion, echoed with the notes of war. Money was offered in abundance; men were ready to enrol themselves by thousands. § The protestant states of Germany, the republic of Venice, the insurgent protestants of France and the Low Countries, all would rally round the standard of Elizabeth. She yet preferred peace, precarious as it was, with Charles IX., and accepted the proffered honour of being godmother * Letters between Charles and Mandelot. MSS. Bib. du Roi. + Walsingham's letter to secretary Smith. Car. IX. + Letter of Walsingham in Digges. Digges's Pap. Mass. Vit. Camd. An. to his daughter; received the envoy De Retz, suspected or known to have been a chief counsellor of the massacre, with the most flattering distinctions; sent over the earl of Worcester as envoy on the occasion; and listened to the renewed suit of the duke of Alençon. Seldom, indeed, has impassive policy obtained such a triumph over natural impulses and the most stirring motives of human action. It is likely, however, that the massacre of St. Bartholomew determined the counsellors of Elizabeth, from that moment, to commit the established state of England, political and religious, with the protestant, against the catholic strength of Europe; but they deemed the time for drawing the sword not yet come. They adopted a system of temporising management and plausible pretence, which it required the utmost dexterity to carry on; and there is not, perhaps, an instance of delicate and complicated manœuvres of state executed with such adroitness. Burleigh and Walsingham contrived to obtain the double advantages of the opposite states of peace and war. They assisted the revolted subjects of the French and Spanish crowns, thus preserving and securing future allies; and they were prepared with explanations and justifications, which those crowns thought it prudent to accept. It seems not improbable that if the St. Bartholomew had exterminated or crushed the huguenots, a combined movement would have been made by the courts of Rome, Spain, and France against the throne and religion of Elizabeth. But for this she was prepared: the chief naval arsenals were put in a state of defence; the militia of the kingdom was kept in training; the fleet was well equipped, and stationed in readiness for immediate service; the people were inspired with confidence by the repayment of sums borrowed on the privy seal; the exchequer was recruited from the forfeited estates of those who had taken part in the northern rebellion.* Her most constant, or sole constant, enemy was the pope. But though he retained his pretensions he had *Camd. An. Carte, Gen. Hist. declined in authority. much exhausted in his finances, by the war of the Low Countries, to attempt the conquest of England. The king of France was too much embarrassed by the two millions of huguenots still on his hands to indulge his zeal for Mary queen of Scots.* Under these circumstances, Elizabeth, or her counsellors for her, seized and held the balance between the king of Spain and the Low Countries, the king of France and the huguenots, and sat as arbitress of Europe, not for a moment, but through a period of years.+ The king of Spain was too Rochelle and Montauban happily escaped an attempt to occupy them by artifice and surprise at the moment of the massacre. The Vidame de Chartres and Montmorency fled to England. Rochelle was closely besieged and pressed by the duke of Anjou, under the disadvantages of a scarcity of ammunition and food. Montgomery used all his influence and activity to equip in England an armament for the relief of the citadel of his party and religion. The city of London contributed 30,000 crowns, collections and contributions were made in churches and by individuals, and 3000 men enrolled themselves for the relief of Rochelle.‡ The French ambassador, La Mothe, complained of this as an infraction of the treaty between England and France.§ Elizabeth replied, that the expedition was not sanctioned by her; that she had even forbidden, by an order of council, her subjects from engaging to serve the Rochellers; and that the English merchants were obliged to arm for their defence against pirates. As to the collections and contributions of money, she said that she could not believe there was so much money in the city, or that merchants would be so free in lending it without high interest and good security. She declared, in fine, that * Dép. de Fén. cited by Carte, Gen. Hist. ་ + "Ita Elizabetha quasi arbitra sedebat, ut patris illud insigne merito usurpari potuerit, CUI ADHÆREO PREEST,' cum ille diceret Galliam et Hispaniam esse quasi lances in Europæ libra et Angliam lingulam sive libri. pendem."-Thuan. Hist. lib. 64. Camd. Ann. Dép. de Fén. cited by Carte, Gen. Hist. Il Ibid. she faithfully adhered to her treaty with Charles IX.; and La Mothe was under the necessity of resting satisfied with this strain of evasion and pleasantry, which proved at once her adroitness and strength. Montgomery left England at the head of the expedition early in April, 1573, failed in his attempts to throw succours into Rochelle, and returned for the purpose of obtaining a reinforcement. This failure inflamed still more the public zeal for the relief of the Rochellers. The bishop of London and the earl of Essex, in the name of the nobility, clergy, and protestant people, remonstrated with Elizabeth for looking on upon the ruin of protestantism in France and the Low Countries. They requested her, at least, to allow her subjects to aid their fellow-protestants at the voluntary cost of the nobility, gentry, and clergy. She refused her permission, but said she should consider what could be done.* La Mothe demanded of her, on the other hand, that Montgomery should be delivered up as a rebel to the king of France. She replied, as she said Henry II., the father of the ambassador's master, had replied to her sister Mary on a similar occasion,- - that she would not act as executioner to a foreign prince.t Montgomery went back with still worse fortune. Having made a descent upon the coast of Normandy, he was defeated and taken prisoner by Matignon, governor of the province, and executed at Paris, to the great joy of Catherine of Medicis, who could not, or pretended she could not, forgive him the death of her husband Henry II., killed by him accidentally in a tour nament. The Rochellers, in spite of famine and disease, still obstinately resisted the siege pressed by the duke of Anjou with an army of 24,000 men. Anjou found, in his election to the throne of Poland, an opportune subterfuge for his reputation, and an excuse for raising the siege. The Rochellers obtained for themselves and the *Cam. Ann. Carte, Gen. Hist. Eng. + Ibid. people of Nismes and Montauban terms of peace, which were signed on the 24th of June. The marriage of Elizabeth and the duke of Alençon was still in train, with somewhat more sincerity than that of the queen and Anjou. Each party, however, charged the other with bad faith. Walsingham pronounced it "an abuse except on the young prince's part *;" and the queenmother, on her side, charged dissimulation and coquetry upon Elizabeth. † The duke of Alençon, assisting at the siege of Rochelle, addressed letters of love and fidelity to the queen of England, whom he had not yet beheld, sent her his picture, and requested her permission to visit her. The queen-mother added her solicitations in favour of her son, and Elizabeth was wearied out of her consent. + With, however, the usual fluctuations of policy or caprice which distinguished all her courtships, she " lovingly advised" him not to come until he had first atoned for dyeing his sword in the blood of the Rochellers, and secured a good reception in England, by some notable testimony of his affection to the protestants of France. § His voyage, without this admonition, would have been stayed by another cause. A new party, called "The Politicians," composed of both catholics and protestants, and chiefly guided by the Montmorencies, had grown up in France. It was directed against the queen-mother. The health of Charles IX. was giving way, and his brother next in succession was in Poland. Catherine suspected the politicians of a design to oust her of all influence, by taking advantage of the absence of Anjou, her favourite son, and placing the crown on the head of the duke of Alençon. The king of Navarre and the duke of Alençon were prisoners at court; and a premature attempt of their friends to favour their escape failed. Catherine elicited from the incapacity and cowardice of Alençon, and the weakness of Henry of Navarre||,- both of whom, as is usual, says Davila, shifted the guilt from * Digges. Cam. Ann. || Dav. Ist. del Guer. Civ. + Mém. de Cast. |