enough to themselves to their defenceless subalterns, ground a conspiracy, and execute Mole and Conconas, two servants of Alençon. Both princes continued prisoners, until the death of Charles IX. and return of Henry III. from Poland led to their release. Charles IX. died of a strange disease, which was pronounced a visitation of God upon his love of bloodshed. His body wasted, and his life waned from a general effusion of his blood at every pore: he died, drenched in his bed with his own gore, in the agonies of disease and the tortures of remorse. * His death took place on the 30th of May, 1574; and his obsequies were celebrated with great magnificence on the 8th of August, at St. Paul's, London, where lord Burleigh attended the ceremonial as representative of the queen.+ Henry III., upon being informed of his brother's death, took flight secretly, lest the violent affection of his subjects should detain him in Poland. This infatuation of a people for a despicable unit of their species is not without example; but the most pitiable would have been (if it existed) that of the Poles for Henry III. Lord North was sent to France by Elizabeth to congratulate him on his succession, renew the treaty which had been concluded with his brother, obtain from him the liberty of the duke of Alençon and king of Navarre, and recommend to him a liberal treatment of the protestants of France. "If,” says a private memorial, containing lord North's instructions ‡," it be thought that there can be no quiet where diversity of religion is permitted, you may put him in minde to resorte to his own experience, and to behold in the state of the empire, in the kingdom of Poland, and the hereditary dominions of the emperor, through which he hath of late himself passed, the example of the quiet and peaceable govern 66 * "Durant l'excès de ses douleurs, et lorsque il se voyait tout baigné de son sang dans son lict, il tesmoigna nul plus grand regret que d'avoir répandu celui des innocents le 24th Aug. 1572."-Sully, Econ. Roy. + Carte, Gen. Hist. Eng. MS. State Paper Office. ment of the said countries, which we trust will serve to persuade him that the permission of diversity of religion breedeth not the unquietness that is pretended. And if he object the manner of government and policy within this our realm, where we permit but one exercise of religion, although there be of our subjects which be as well addicted to the one as to the other, you may say then, that the same is established by the common consent of the three estates of the whole realm in parliament; and that in case the said parliament had thought the permission of both religions necessary, and that the same had been established with our regal consent, we should never for any respect of ourselves have violated the same." The retort had been anticipated, and the same answer supplied in the instructions of Walsingham, when he went over as ambassador to the French court. Upon his urging the queen-mother to grant liberty of conscience to the huguenots, she answered, that his own mistress denied it to the catholics ; and he rejoined, that his mistress " did never promise them any thing by edict." There is a tone of arrogant inconsistency in Elizabeth's instructions to her ambassadors respecting religious toleration in other countries. Refusing the exercise of their worship to the Roman catholics, she was in a false position when she demanded freedom for the protestants of France. She was sensible of this, and made anticipated battle by a cavil rather than by a reason. A wrong is not justified by the absence of a promise to do right; and an ordinance of the estates of the realm, had they been as independent as they were enslaved or powerless, would not consecrate persecution. Her only justification was one which she would not avow, viz. that the protestants of France did not question the king's title; whereas the catholics of England repudiated her as a heretic, bastard, and usurper. It would have been impolitic and humiliating to admit this only ground upon which she could vindicate herself. Lord North appears to have been received by Henry III. with impertinence and presumption. Dale, who succeeded Walsingham as ambassador, says, he overheard the king talk to Mongeron and the admiral of France, "with a flouting countenance," of " the queen of England as a creature not so dangerous as she was deemed;"" and what confirmeth,” he adds, "this kind of contempt is, that he made no mention at all of the renewing of the league in any of their audiences." * He, however, did confirm the league, but made little account of the advice to give peace to his kingdom by allowing freedom of conscience to the huguenots; and he soon found that Elizabeth was a creature not less dangerous than she was deemed. Henry III., on his return, found France exhausted by the exactions and prodigality of the court, and torn by civil war. He stood between two factions, the huguenots, who were in arms, and the Guises, who ruled the court, both equally abhorred by him. The advice of Elizabeth might have saved him. He desired to be informed by her whether she considered that the article of "mutual defence against all men" included "the case of religion," was answered in the affirmative, and made war upon the huguenots.† The prince of Condé had fled some time before from the court to Germany, where he resumed the profession of the protestant faith, and solicited aid against the court of France. Henry of Navarre, taking advantage of a hunting party, escaped from his captivity, avowed himself a huguenot as soon as he found himself safe and free, and joined his arms with those of his religion who were already in the field. If the two princes conformed, it should be remembered that princes rarely construe religion so strictly as to become martyrs to it; and if they relapsed, it was hardly to be expected that religious convictions produced by Charles IX. and the St. Bartholomew should endure. The duke of Alençon, disappointed of the succession to the throne of Poland, and actuated by vindictive discontent, escaped from the court under cover of an affair of MS. State Paper Office. Dav. Ist. 1. 5. + Cam. Ann. gallantry, joined the insurgent malecontents, published a manifesto against his brother, and was flattered with the title of captain-general. Henry, one of the most indolent and incapable of men in every situation but the camp and the field, had military activity and personal courage, and might subdue the huguenots if they received no aid from abroad. Elizabeth advanced money to defray the charge of a body of Germans marched by Casimir, son of the elector palatine, into France, and thus decided the contest against Henry. He was reduced not only to the necessity of granting humiliating terms to the huguenots, but to the ignominy of paying the very Germans who had reduced him to this extremity.* Thus dexterously did Elizabeth hold the balance between the king of France and his protestant subjects. She performed the same part, with the same adroitness and success, between the king of Spain and his revolted subjects in the Low Countries. It has been observed, that if the illustrious and long flourishing republic of the united provinces erected statues to the authors of its liberty, the first would be due to cardinal Granvelle, whose tyrannical principles provoked the spirit of resistance, and, the second to the duke of Alva, who attempted to carry Granvelle's principles into effect. The third place might be fairly claimed for the queen of England; and it would be the place of honour. The system of management and moderation pursued by Elizabeth with the Netherlands, where the game was more difficult, and the temptation to ambition greater, manifested still more skill and prudence than she had displayed with France. She saved and sustained the spirit of resistance when it was sinking; she checked its violence when it would tempt the hazards of desperation; she relaxed at critical moments the pressure of the Spanish power, by appearing to favour the pretensions of the king of Spain, and a re+ Lab. add. Mém. de Cast. * Essai sur les Mœurs. turn to obedience; she declined the sovereignty of the revolted provinces when offered for herself, and prevented the prince of Orange from throwing his country into the arms of France. When the proper time at last came, she took the decisive counsel to which she had long looked, committed herself with the cause of liberty, turned the scale, and severed for ever the bond between Spain and the Low Countries. The prince of Orange, with all his phlegm and fortitude, was struck with momentary consternation by the Parisian massacre.* His brother, count Louis of Nassau, felt it still more deeply, because he had a share in persuading Coligny to trust the faith of Charles IX.† Unable to relieve his brother, who was besieged in Mons, or bring Alva to an engagement, which it was the purpose of the latter to avoid, the prince returned into Holland, and count Louis surrendered upon honourable terms of capitulation. The fates of nations are too frequently supposed to depend upon one individual life. It may be said, however, that the liberty of Holland depended at this moment upon the life of the prince of Orange. He had a remarkable escape in his retreat from before Mons: a party of Spaniards pursued him in the night, entered his camp, and had nearly reached his tent, when a spaniel lying on his bed gave the alarm by barking violently, and scratching his face to awake him. § Phi The duke of Alva pursued his career of devastation in Flanders and Brabant, whilst, at the same time, the prince of Orange rallied the spirits of the people, and appeared in a position of resistance in Holland. lip II., commanding carnage and extermination from the distance and security of his cabinet, was jealous of the disastrous celebrity acquired by the instruments of his inhuman decrees. It was suggested to him that the name of Alva in Europe eclipsed his own, and the jealous tyrant recalled the destroyer and his son. His reception by Philip was looked for through Europe *Strad. Dec. 1. lib. 7. § Ibid. |