The History of England, Volume IV Elizabeth Civil wars of France
by David Hume
The league, formed at Bayonne in 1566 for the extermination of the protestants, had not been concluded so secretly but intelligence of it had reached Condé, Coligni, and the other leaders of the hugonots; and finding, that the measures of the court agreed with their suspicions, they determined to prevent the cruel perfidy of their enemies, and to strike a blow before the catholics were aware of the danger. The hugonots, though dispersed over the whole kingdom, formed a kind of separate empire; and being closely united, as well by their religious zeal, as by the dangers to which they were perpetually exposed, they obeyed with entire submission the orders of their leaders, and were ready on every signal to fly to arms. The king and queen mother were living in great security at Monceaux in Brie; when they found themselves surrounded by protestant troops, which had secretly marched thither from all quarters; and had not a body of Swiss come speedily to their relief, and conducted them with great intrepidity to Paris, they must have fallen, without resistance, into the hands of the malcontents. A battle was afterwards fought in the plains of St. Dennis; where, though the old constable Montmorency, the general of the catholics, was killed combating bravely at the head of his troops, the hugonots were finally defeated. Condé, collecting his broken forces, and receiving a strong reinforcement from the German protestants, appeared again in the field; and laying siege to Chartres, a place of great importance, obliged the court to agree to a new accommodation.
So great was the mutual animosity of those religionists, that even had the leaders on both sides been ever so sincere in their intentions for peace, and reposed ever so much confidence in each other, it would have been difficult to retain the people in tranquillity; much more, where such extreme jealousy prevailed, and where the court employed every pacification as a snare for their enemies. A plan was laid for seizing the person of the prince and admiral; who narrowly escaped to Rochelle, and summoned their partizans to their assistance.s The civil wars were renewed with greater fury than ever, and the parties became still more exasperated against each other. The young duke of Anjou, brother to the king, commanded the forces of the catholics; and fought in 1569 a great battle at Jarnac with the hugonots, where the prince of Condé was killed, and his army defeated. This discomfiture, with the loss of so great a leader, reduced not the hugonots to despair. The admiral still supported the cause; and having placed at the head of the protestants the prince of Navarre, then sixteen years of age, and the young prince of Condé, he encouraged the party rather to perish bravely in the field, than ignominiously by the hands of the executioner. He collected such numbers, so determined to endure every extremity, that he was enabled to make head against the duke of Anjou; and being strengthened by a new reinforcement of Germans, he obliged that prince to retreat and to divide his force.
Coligni then laid siege to Poitiers; and as the eyes of all France were fixed on this enterprize, the duke of Guise, emulous of the renown, which his father had acquired by the defence of Metz, threw himself into the place, and so animated the garrison by his valour and conduct, that the admiral was obliged to raise the siege. Such was the commencement of that unrivaled fame and grandeur, afterwards attained by this duke of Guise. The attachment, which all the catholics had borne to his father, was immediately transferred to the son; and men pleased themselves in comparing all the great and shining qualities, which seemed, in a manner, hereditary in that family. Equal in affability, in munificence, in address, in eloquence, and in every quality, which engages the affections of men; equal also in valour, in conduct, in enterprize, in capacity; there seemed only this difference between them, that the son educated in more turbulent times, and finding a greater dissolution of all law and order, exceeded the father in ambition and temerity, and was engaged in enterprizes still more destructive to the authority of his sovereign and to the repose of his native country.
Elizabeth, who kept her attention fixed on the civil commotions of France, was nowise pleased with this new rise of her enemies, the Guises; and being anxious for the fate of the protestants, whose interests were connected with her own,t she was engaged, notwithstanding her aversion from all rebellion, and from all opposition to the will of the sovereign, to give them secretly some assistance. Besides employing her authority with the German princes, she lent money to the queen of Navarre, and received some jewels as pledges for the loan. And she permitted Henry Champernon to levy, and transport over into France, a regiment of a hundred gentlemen voluntiers; among whom Walter Raleigh, then a young man, began to distinguish himself, in that great school of military valour.u The admiral, constrained by the impatience of his troops, and by the difficulty of subsisting them, fought with the duke of Anjou the battle of Moncontour in Poictou, where he was wounded and defeated. The court of France, notwithstanding their frequent experience of the obstinacy of the hugonots, and the vigour of Coligni, vainly flattered themselves, that the force of the rebels was at last finally annihilated; and they neglected farther preparations against a foe, who, they thought, could never more become dangerous. They were surprized to hear, that this leader had appeared, without dismay, in another quarter of the kingdom; had encouraged the young princes, whom he governed, to like constancy; had assembled an army; had taken the field; and was even strong enough to threaten Paris. The public finances, diminished by the continued disorders of the kingdom, and wasted by so many fruitless military enterprizes, could no longer bear the charge of a new armament; and the king, notwithstanding his extreme animosity against the hugonots, was obliged, in 1570, to conclude an accommodation with them, to grant them a pardon for all past offences, and to renew the edicts for liberty of conscience.
Though a pacification was seemingly concluded, the mind of Charles was no wise reconciled to his rebellious subjects; and this accommodation, like all the foregoing, was nothing but a snare, by which the perfidious court had projected to destroy at once, without danger, all its formidable enemies. As the two young princes, the admiral, and the other leaders of the hugonots, instructed by past experience, discovered an extreme distrust of the king’s intentions, and kept themselves in security, at a distance, all possible artifices were employed to remove their apprehensions, and convince them of the sincerity of the new counsels, which seemed to be embraced. The terms of the peace were religiously observed to them; the toleration was strictly maintained; all attempts, made by the zealous catholics to infringe it, were punished with severity; offices, and favours, and honours were bestowed on the principal nobility among the protestants; and the king and council every where declared, that, tired of civil disorders, and convinced of the impossibility of forcing men’s consciences, they were thenceforth determined to allow every one the free exercise of his religion.
Among the other artifices, employed to lull the protestants into a fatal security, Charles affected to enter into close connections with Elizabeth; and as it seemed not the interest of France to forward the union of the two kingdoms of Great Britain, that princess the more easily flattered herself, that the French monarch would prefer her friendship to that of the queen of Scots. The better to deceive her, proposals of marriage were made her with the duke of Anjou; a prince whose youth, beauty, and reputation for valour might naturally be supposed to recommend him to a woman, who had appeared not altogether insensible to these endowments. The queen immediately founded on this offer the project of deceiving the court of France; and being intent on that artifice, she laid herself the more open to be deceived. Negociations were entered into with regard to the marriage; terms of the contract were proposed; difficulties started and removed; and the two courts equally insincere, though not equally culpable, seemed to approach every day nearer to each other in their demands and concessions. The great obstacle seemed to lie in adjusting the difference of religion; because Elizabeth, who recommended toleration to Charles, was determined not to grant it in her own dominions, not even to her husband; and the duke of Anjou seemed unwilling to submit, for the sake of interest, to the dishonour of an apostacy.w
The artificial politics of Elizabeth never triumphed so much in any contrivances as in those which were conjoined with her coquetry; and as her character in this particular was generally known, the court of France thought, that they might, without danger of forming any final conclusion, venture the farther in their concessions and offers to her. The queen also had other motives for dissimulation. Besides the advantage of discouraging Mary’s partizans by the prospect of an alliance between France and England, her situation with Philip demanded her utmost vigilance and attention; and the violent authority, established in the Low Countries, made her desirous of fortifying herself even with the bare appearance of a new confederacy.
[s] Davila, lib. 4.
[t] Haynes, p. 471.
[u] Camden, p. 423.
[w] Camden, p. 433. Davila, lib. 5. Digges’s Complete Ambassador, p. 84, 110, 111.
