Walter Raleigh, then a young man, began to distinguish himself, in that great school of military valor.[**] * Haynes, p. 471.
** Camden, p. 423.
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 vigor of Coligny, vainly flattered themselves that the force of the rebels was at last finally annihilated; and they neglected further preparations against a foe, who, they thought, could never more become dangerous. They were surprised 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 enterprises, 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 nowise 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 to 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 favors, and honors 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 valor 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.
Negotiations 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 dishonor of an apostasy.[*] 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 further in their concessions and offers to her. The queen also had other motives for dissimulation. Besides the advantage of discouraging Mary’s partisans 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.
The theological controversies which had long agitated Europe, had from the beginning penetrated into the Low Countries; and as these provinces maintained an extensive commerce, they had early received, from every kingdom with which they corresponded, a tincture of religious innovation. An opinion at that time prevailed, which had been zealously propagated by priests, and implicitly received by sovereigns, that heresy was closely connected with rebellion, and that every great or violent alteration in the church involved a like revolution in the civil government. The forward zeal of the reformers would seldom allow them to wait the consent of the magistrate to their innovations: they became less dutiful when opposed and punished; and though their pretended spirit of reasoning and inquiry was in reality nothing but a new species of implicit faith, the prince took the alarm, as if so institutions could be secure from the temerity of their researches. The emperor Charles, who proposed to augment his authority under pretence of defending the Catholic faith, easily adopted these political principles; and notwithstanding the limited prerogative which he possessed in the Netherlands, he published the most arbitrary, severe, and tyrannical edicts against the Protestants; and he took care that the execution of them should be no less violent and sanguinary. He was neither cruel nor bigoted in his natural disposition; yet an historian, celebrated for moderation and caution, has computed, that in the several persecutions promoted by that monarch, no less than a hundred thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner.[*] But these severe remedies; far from answering the purposes intended, had rather served to augment the numbers as well as zeal of the reformers; and the magistrates of the several towns, seeing no end of those barbarous executions, felt their humanity rebel against their principles, and declined any further persecution of the new doctrines.
* Grotii Annal. lib. i. Father Paul, another great authority, computes, in a passage above cited, that fifty thousand persons were put to death in the Low Countries alone.
When Philip succeeded to his father’s dominions, the Flemings were justly alarmed with new apprehensions, lest their prince, observing the lenity of the magistrates, should take the execution of the edicts from such remiss hands, and should establish the inquisition in the Low Countries, accompanied with all the iniquities and barbarities which attended it in Spain. The severe and unrelenting character of the man, his professed attachment to Spanish manners, the inflexible bigotry of his principles; all these circumstances increased their terror; and when he departed the Netherlands, with a known intention never to return, the disgust of the inhabitants was extremely augmented, and their dread of those tyrannical orders which their sovereign, surrounded with Spanish ministers, would issue from his cabinet at Madrid. He left the duchess of Parma governess of the Low Countries, and the plain good sense and good temper of that princess, had she been intrusted with the sole power, would have preserved the submission of those opulent provinces, which were lost from that refinement of treacherous and barbarous politics on which Philip so highly valued himself. The Flemings found, that the name alone of regent remained with the duchess; that Cardinal Granville entirely possessed the king’s confidence; that attempts were every day made on their liberties; that a resolution was taken never more to assemble the states; that new bishoprics were arbitrarily erected, in order to enforce the execution of the persecuting edicts; and that, on the whole, they must expect to be reduced to the condition of a province under the Spanish monarchy. The discontents of the nobility gave countenance to the complaints of the gentry, which encouraged the mutiny of the populace; and all orders of men showed a strong disposition to revolt. Associations were formed, tumultuary petitions presented, names of distinction assumed, badges of party displayed; and the current of the people, impelled by religious zeal, and irritated by feeble resistance, rose to such a height, that in several towns, particularly in Antwerp, they made an open invasion on the established worship, pillaged the churches and monasteries, broke the images, and committed the most unwarrantable disorders.
The wiser part of the nobility, particularly the prince of Orange, and the counts Egmont and Horn, were alarmed at these excesses, to which their own discontents had at first given countenance; and seconding the wisdom of the governess, they suppressed the dangerous insurrections, punished the ringleaders, and reduced all the provinces to a state of order and submission. But Philip was not contented with the reëstablishment of his ancient authority: he considered that provinces so remote from the seat of government could not be ruled by a limited prerogative; and that a prince who must entreat rather than command, would necessarily, when he resided not among the people, feel every day a diminution of his power and influence. He determined, therefore, to lay hold of the late popular disorders as a pretence for entirely abolishing the privileges of the Low Country provinces, and for ruling them thenceforth with a military and arbitrary authority.
In the execution of this violent design, he employed a man who was a proper instrument in the hands of such a tyrant. Ferdinand of Toledo, duke of Alva, had been educated amidst arms; and having attained a consummate knowledge in the military art, his habits led him to transfer into all government the severe discipline of a camp, and to conceive no measures between prince and subject but those of rigid command and implicit obedience. This general, in 1568, conducted from Italy to the Low Countries a powerful body of veteran Spaniards; and his avowed animosity to the Flemings, with his known character, struck that whole people with terror and consternation. It belongs not to our subject to relate at length those violences which Alva’s natural barbarity, steeled by reflection and aggravated by insolence, exercised on those flourishing provinces. It suffices to say, that all their privileges, the gift of so many princes, and the inheritance of so many ages, were openly and expressly abolished by edict; arbitrary and sanguinary tribunals erected; the counts Egmont and Horn, in spite of their great merits and past services, brought to the scaffold; multitudes of all ranks thrown into confinement, and thence delivered over to the executioner; and notwithstanding the peaceable submission of all men, nothing was heard of but confiscation, imprisonment, exile, torture, and death.
Elizabeth was equally displeased to see the progress of that scheme laid for the extermination of the Protestants, and to observe the erection of so great a military power in a state situated in so near a neighborhood.
She gave protection to all the Flemish exiles who took shelter in her dominions; and as many of these were the most industrious inhabitants of the Netherlands, and had rendered that country celebrated for its arts, she reaped the advantage of introducing into England some useful manufactures, which were formerly unknown in that kingdom. Foreseeing that the violent government of Alva could not long subsist without exciting some commotion, she ventured to commit an insult upon him, which she would have been cautious not to hazard against a more established authority. Some Genoese merchants had engaged, by contract with Philip, to transport into Flanders the sum of four hundred thousand crowns; and the vessels on which this money was embarked, had been attacked in the Channel by some privateers equipped by the French Hugonots, and had taken shelter in Plymouth and Southampton. The commanders of the ships pretended that the money belonged to the king of Spain; but the queen, finding upon inquiry that it was the property of Genoese merchants, took possession of it as a loan; and by that means deprived the duke of Alva of this resource in the time of his greatest necessity. Alva, in revenge, seized all the English merchants in the Low Countries, threw them into prison, and confiscated their effects.
The queen retaliated by a like violence on the Flemish and Spanish merchants; and gave all the English liberty to make reprisals on the subjects of Philip.
These differences were afterwards accommodated by treaty, and mutual reparations were made to the merchants; but nothing could repair the loss which so well-timed a blow inflicted on the Spanish government in the Low Countries. Alva, in want of money, and dreading the immediate mutiny of his troops, to whom great arrears were due, imposed, by his arbitrary will, the most ruinous taxes on the people. He not only required the hundredth penny, and the twentieth of all immovable goods; he also demanded the tenth of all movable goods on every sale; an absurd tyranny, which would not only have destroyed all arts and commerce, but even have restrained the common intercourse of life. The people refused compliance; the duke had recourse to his usual expedient of the gibbet; and thus matters came still nearer the last, extremities between the Flemings and the Spaniards.[*] All the enemies of Elizabeth, in order to revenge themselves for her insults, had naturally recourse to one policy, the supporting of the cause and pretensions of the queen of Scots; and Alva, whose measures were ever violent, soon opened a secret intercourse with that princess.
There was one Rodolphi, a Florentine merchant, who had resided about fifteen years in London, and who, while he conducted his commerce in England, had managed all the correspondence of the court of Rome with the Catholic nobility and gentry.[**] He had been thrown into prison at the time when the duke of Norfolk’s intrigues with Mary had been discovered; but either no proof, was found against him, or the part which he had acted was not very criminal; and he soon after recovered his liberty. This man, zealous for the Catholic faith, had formed a scheme, in concert with the Spanish ambassador, for subverting the government, by a foreign invasion and a domestic insurrection; and when he communicated his project by letter to Mary, he found, that as she was now fully convinced of Elizabeth’s artifices, and despaired of ever recovering her authority, or even her liberty, by pacific measures, she willingly gave her concurrence. The great number of discontented Catholics were the chief source of their hopes on the side of England and they also observed that the kingdom was at that time full of indigent gentry, chiefly younger brothers, who, having at present, by the late decay of the church, and the yet languishing state of commerce, no prospect of a livelihood suitable to their birth, were ready to throw themselves into any desperate enterprise.[*] But in order to inspire life and courage into all these malecontents, it was requisite that some great nobleman should put himself at their head; and no one appeared to Rodolphi, and to the bishop of Ross, who entered into all these intrigues, so proper, both on account of his power and his popularity, as the duke of Norfolk.
This nobleman, when released from confinement in the Tower, had given his promise, that he would drop all intercourse with the queen of Scots;[**] but finding that he had lost, and, as he feared, beyond recovery, the confidence and favor of Elizabeth, and being still in some degree restrained from his liberty, he was tempted, by impatience and despair, to violate his word, and to open anew his correspondence with the captive princess.[***] A promise of marriage was renewed between them; the duke engaged to enter into all her interests; and as his remorses gradually diminished in the course of these transactions, he was pushed to give his consent to enterprises still more criminal.
Rodolphi’s plan was, that the duke of Alva should, on some other pretence, assemble a great quantity of shipping in the Low Countries; should transport a body of six thousand foot and four thousand horse into England; should land them at Harwich, where the duke of Norfolk was to join them with all his friends; should thence march directly to London, and oblige the queen to submit to whatever terms the conspirators should please to impose upon her.[****] Norfolk expressed his assent to this plan; and three letters, in consequence of it, were written in his name by Rodolphi; one to Alva, another to the pope, and a third to the king of Spain; but the duke, apprehensive of the danger, refused to sign them.[v] * Lesley, p. 123.
** Haynes, p. 571.
He only sent to the Spanish ambassador a servant and confidant, named Barker, as well to notify his concurrence in the plan, as to vouch for the authenticity of these letters; and Rodolphi, having obtained a letter of credence from the ambassador, proceeded on his journey to Brussels and to Rome. The duke of Alva and the pope embraced the scheme with alacrity: Rodolphi informed Norfolk of their intentions;[*] and every thing seemed to concur in forwarding the undertaking.
Norfolk, notwithstanding these criminal enterprises, had never entirely forgotten his duty to his sovereign, his country, and his religion: and though he had laid the plan both of an invasion and an insurrection, he still flattered himself, that the innocence of his intentions would justify the violence of his measures, and that, as he aimed at nothing but the liberty of the queen of Scots, and the obtaining of Elizabeth’s consent to his marriage, he could not justly reproach himself as a rebel and a traitor.[**] It is certain, however, that, considering the queen’s vigor and spirit, the scheme, if successful, must finally have ended in dethroning her; and her authority was here exposed to the utmost danger.
The conspiracy hitherto had entirely escaped the vigilance of Elizabeth, and that of Secretary Cecil, who now bore the title of Lord Burleigh. It was from another attempt of Norfolk’s that they first obtained a hint, which, being diligently traced, led at last to a full discovery. Mary had intended to send a sum of money to Lord Herreis and her partisans in Scotland; and Norfolk undertook to have it delivered to Bannister, a servant of his, at that time in the north, who was to find some expedient for conveying it to Lord Herreis.[***] He intrusted the money to a servant who was not in the secret, and told him, that the bag contained a sum of money in silver, which he was to deliver to Bannister with a letter: but the servant, conjecturing from the weight and size of the bag that it was full of gold, carried the letter to Burleigh; who immediately ordered Bannister, Barker, and Hicford, the duke’s secretary, to be put under arrest, and to undergo a severe examination.
Torture made them confess the whole truth; and as Hicford, though ordered to burn all papers, had carefully kept them concealed under the mats of the duke’s chamber, and under the tiles of the house, full evidence now appeared against his master.[****] ** Lesley, p. 158.
Norfolk himself, who was entirely ignorant of the discoveries made by his servants, was brought before the council; and though exhorted to atone for his guilt by a full confession, he persisted in denying every crime with which he was charged. The queen always declared, that if he had given her this proof of his sincere repentance, she would have pardoned all his former offences;[*] but finding him obstinate, she committed him to the Tower, and ordered him to be brought to his trial.
The bishop of Ross had, on some suspicion, been committed to custody before the discovery of Norfolk’s guilt; and every expedient was employed to make him reveal his share in the conspiracy. He at first insisted on his privilege: but he was told, that as his mistress was no longer a sovereign, he would not be regarded as an ambassador, and that, even if that character were allowed, it did not warrant him in conspiring against the sovereign at whose court he resided.[**] As he still refused to answer interrogatories, he was informed of the confession made by Norfolk’s servants; after which he no longer scrupled to make a full discovery; and his evidence put the guilt of that nobleman beyond all question.
{1572.} A jury of twenty-five peers unanimously passed sentence upon him. The trial was quite regular, even according to the strict rules observed at present in these matters; except that the witnesses gave not their evidence in court, and were not confronted with the prisoner; a laudable practice, which was not at that time observed in trials for high treason.
The queen still hesitated concerning Norfolk’s execution; whether that she was really moved by friendship and compassion towards a peer of that rank and merit, or that, affecting the praise of clemency, she only put on the appearance of these sentiments. Twice she signed a warrant for his execution, and twice revoked the fatal sentence;[***] and though her ministers and counsellors pushed her to rigor, she still appeared irresolute and undetermined.
* Lesley, p. 175.
166. Strype, vol. ii. p. 83.
After four months’ hesitation, a parliament was assembled; and the commons addressed her in strong terms for the execution of the duke; a sanction which, when added to the greatness and certainty of his guilt, would, she thought, justify, in the eyes of all mankind, her severity against that nobleman. Norfolk died with calmness and constancy; and though he cleared himself of any disloyal intentions against the queen’s authority, he acknowledged the justice of the sentence by which he suffered.[*] That we may relate together affairs of a similar nature, we shall mention, that the earl of Northumberland, being delivered up to the queen by the regent of Scotland, was also, a few months after, brought to the scaffold for his rebellion.
The queen of Scots was either the occasion or the cause of all these disturbances; but as she was a sovereign princess and might reasonably, from the harsh treatment which she had met with, think herself entitled to use any expedient for her relief, Elizabeth durst not, as yet, form any resolution of proceeding to extremities against her. She only sent Lord Delawar, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Thomas Bromley, and Dr. Wilson, to expostulate with her, and to demand satisfaction for all those parts of her conduct, which, from the beginning of her life, had given displeasure to Elizabeth: her assuming the arms of England, refusing to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, intending to marry Norfolk without the queen’s consent, concurring in the northern rebellion,[**] practising with Rodolphi to engage the king of Spain in an invasion of England,[***] procuring the pope’s bull of excommunication, and allowing her friends abroad to give her the title of queen of England. Mary justified herself from the several articles of the charge, either by denying the facts imputed to her, or by throwing the blame on others.[****] But the queen was little satisfied with her apology; and the parliament was so enraged against her, that the commons made a direct application for her immediate trial and execution. They employed some topics derived from practice, and reason, and the laws of nations; but the chief stress was laid on passages and examples from the Old Testament,[v] which, if considered as a general rule of conduct, (an intention which it is unreasonable to suppose,) would lead to consequences destructive of all principles of humanity and morality.
Matters were here carried further than Elizabeth intended; and that princess, satisfied with showing Mary the disposition of the nation, sent to the house her express commands not to deal any further at present with the affair of the Scottish queen.[v*] * Camden, p. 440. Strype, vol. ii. App. p. 23.
Nothing could be a stronger proof that the puritanical interest prevailed in the house, than the intemperate use of authorities derived from Scripture, especially from the Old Testament; and the queen was so little a lover of that sect, that she was not likely to make any concession merely in deference to their solicitation. She showed, this session, her disapprobation of their schemes in another remarkable instance. The commons had passed two bills for regulating ecclesiastical ceremonies; but she sent them a like imperious message with her former ones; and by the terror of her prerogative, she stopped all further proceeding in those matters[*] But though Elizabeth would not carry matters to such extremities against Mary as were recommended by the parliament, she was alarmed at the great interest and the restless spirit of that princess, as well as her close connections with Spain; and she thought it necessary both to increase the rigor and strictness of her confinement, and to follow maxims different from those which she had hitherto pursued in her management of Scotland.[**] That kingdom remained still in a state of anarchy. The Castle of Edinburgh, commanded by Kirkaldy of Grange, had declared for Mary; and the lords of that party, encouraged by his countenance, had taken possession of the capital, and carried on a vigorous war against the regent. By a sudden and unexpected inroad, they seized that nobleman at Stirling; but finding that his friends, sallying from the castle, were likely to rescue him, they instantly put him to death. The earl of Marre was chosen regent in his room, and found the same difficulties in the government of that divided country. He was therefore glad to accept of the mediation offered by the French and English ambassadors; and to conclude, on equal terms, a truce with the queen’s party.[***] He was a man of free and generous spirit, and scorned to submit to any dependence on England; and for this reason Elizabeth, who had then formed intimate connections with France, yielded with less reluctance to the solicitations of that court, still maintained the appearance of neutrality between the parties, and allowed matters to remain on a balance in Scotland.[****] ** Digges, p. 152.
But affairs soon after took a new turn: Marre died of melancholy, with which the distracted state of the country affected him: Morton was chosen regent; and as this nobleman had secretly taken all his measures with Elizabeth, who no longer relied on the friendship of the French court, she resolved to exert herself more effectually for the support of the party which she had always favored. She sent Sir Henry Killegrew ambassador to Scotland, who found Mary’s partisans so discouraged by the discovery and punishment of Norfolk’s conspiracy, that they were glad to submit to the king’s authority, and accept of an indemnity for all past offences.[*] The duke of Chatelrault and the earl of Huntley, with the most considerable of Mary’s friends, laid down their arms on these conditions. The garrison alone of the Castle of Edinburgh continued refractory. Kirkaldy’s fortunes were desperate; and he flattered himself with the hopes of receiving assistance from the kings of France and Spain, who encouraged his obstinacy, in the view of being able, from that quarter, to give disturbance to England. Elizabeth was alarmed with the danger; she no more apprehended making an entire breach with the queen of Scots, who, she found, would not any longer be amused by her artifices; she had an implicit reliance on Morton; and she saw, that by the submission of all the considerable nobility, the pacification of Scotland would be an easy, as well as a most important undertaking. She ordered, therefore, Sir William Drury, governor of Berwick, to march with some troops and artillery to Edinburgh, and to besiege the castle.[**] ** Camden, p, 443.
The garrison surrendered at discretion: Kirkaldy was delivered into the hands of his countrymen, by whom he was tried, condemned, and executed; Secretary Lidington, who had taken part with him, died, soon after, a voluntary death, as is supposed; and Scotland submitting entirely to the regent, gave not, during a long time, any further inquietude to Elizabeth.
The events which happened in France were not so agreeable to the queen’s interests and inclinations. The fallacious pacifications, which had been so often made with the Hugonots, gave them reason to suspect the present intentions of the court; and after all the other leaders of that party were deceived into a dangerous credulity, the sagacious admiral still remained doubtful and uncertain. But his suspicions were at last overcome, partly by the profound dissimulation of Charles, partly by his own earnest desire to end the miseries of France, and return again to the performance of his duty towards his prince and country. He considered, besides, that as the former violent conduct of the court had ever met with such fatal success, it was not unlikely that a prince, who had newly come to years of discretion, and appeared not to be rivetted in any dangerous animosities or prejudices, would be induced to govern himself by more moderate maxims. And as Charles was young, was of a passionate, hasty temper, and addicted to pleasure,[*] such deep perfidy seemed either remote from his character, or difficult and almost impossible to be so uniformly supported by him. Moved by these considerations, the admiral, the queen of Navarre, and all the Hugonots, began to repose themselves in full security, and gave credit to the treacherous caresses and professions of the French court. Elizabeth herself, notwithstanding her great experience and penetration, entertained not the least distrust of Charles’s sincerity; and being pleased to find her enemies of the house of Guise removed from all authority, and to observe an animosity every day growing between the French and Spanish monarchs, she concluded a defensive league with the former,[**] and regarded this alliance as an invincible barrier to her throne. Walsingham, her ambassador, sent her over, by every courier, the most satisfactory accounts of the honor, and plain dealing, and fidelity of that perfidious prince.
* Digges, p. 8, 39.
** Camden, p. 443.
The better to blind the jealous Hugonots, and draw their leaders into the snare prepared for them, Charles offered his sister, Margaret, in marriage to the prince of Navarre; and the admiral, with all the considerable nobility of the party, had come to Paris, in order to assist at the celebration of these nuptials, which, it was hoped, would finally, if not compose the differences, at least appease the bloody animosity of the two religions. The queen of Navarre was poisoned by orders from the court; the admiral was dangerously wounded by an assassin: yet Charles, redoubling his dissimulation, was still able to retain the Hugonots in their security; till, on the evening of St.
Bartholomew, a few days after the marriage, the signal was given for a general massacre of those religionists, and the king himself in person led the way to these assassinations. The hatred long entertained by the Parisians against the Protestants, made them second, without any preparation, the fury of the court; and persons of every condition, age, and sex, suspected of any propensity to that religion, were involved in an undistinguished ruin. The admiral, his son-in-law Teligni, Soubize, Rochefoucault, Pardaillon, Piles, Lavardin, men who, during the late wars, had signalized themselves by the most heroic actions, were miserably butchered without resistance; the streets of Paris flowed with blood; and the people, more enraged than satiated with their cruelty, as if repining that death had saved their victims from further insult, exercised on their dead bodies all the rage of the most licentious brutality. About five hundred gentlemen and men of rank perished in this massacre; and near ten thousand of inferior condition.[*] Orders were instantly despatched to all the provinces for a like general execution of the Protestants; and in Rouen, Lyons, and many other cities, the people emulated the fury of the capital. Even the murder of the king of Navarre, and prince of Condé, had been proposed by the duke of Guise; but Charles, softened by the amiable manners of the king of Navarre, and hoping that these young princes might easily be converted to the Catholic faith, determined to spare their lives, though he obliged them to purchase their safety by a seeming change of their religion.
Charles, in order to cover this barbarous perfidy, pretended that a conspiracy of the Hugonots to seize his person had been suddenly detected; and that he had been necessitated, for his own defence, to proceed to this severity against them. He sent orders to Fenelon, his ambassador in England, to ask an audience, and to give Elizabeth this account of the late transaction. That minister, a man of probity, abhorred the treachery and cruelty of his court, and even scrupled not to declare that he was now ashamed to bear the name of Frenchman;[**] yet he was obliged to obey his orders, and make use of the apology which had been prescribed to him. He met with that reception from all the