32 La Charité and Brouage capitulate.-Peace of Bergerac

Pont-Saint-Esprit on the Rhone, whence Thoré had to fly precipitately. Their position was far less favourable than it had been nine months before. Monsieur, whose fidelity to his late allies had long been suspected, had on January 30, in the assembly of nobles at Blois, in company with the Guises and Nevers (who had lately spoken of him as "hated by one side and not trusted by the other "), signed a formal promise to aid the King. He carried it out by leading an army to besiege La Charité, which had refused to admit him. It capitulated in May; but this did prevent a general slaughter. Thence Monsieur proceeded to Issoire, the capture of which was attended with even greater cruelty.

The chief operations of the Sixth War, however, took place in the west. The Duke of Mayenne was in command of the King's forces here, Guise being as usual sent to Champagne. Mayenne took TonnayCharente and Marans in May, and proceeded to lay siege to Brouage, a town commanding the entrance to the harbour of Rochelle, which La Noue had fortified and Condé garrisoned. The siege was not conducted with much energy, and it was not till August that the place surrendered on terms which in this instance were duly kept. Rochelle was at the same time rather loosely invested by a fleet under the younger Lansac, whose main exploit, performed after peace was concluded, was to capture some English merchantmen, no doubt bringing supplies to the town an act construed in England as the sign of a hostile combination between France and Spain. In the south the Huguenots had lost their ally, Damville, who after at first proposing a scheme for calling in the Turk to make a diversion on the coast, subsequently quarrelled with the Protestants, and in May declared for the King. His brothers, Méru and Thoré, however, were staunch to the cause. Elizabeth, who all the summer was in constant communication with Casimir, was at last persuaded to send a sum of £20,000 to enable him to levy a fresh force for the aid of the Huguenots. In spite of Poulet's diplomatic evasions and denials, the Queen-Mother was aware of what was going on, and knew that Navarre had no funds to levy mercenaries for his own defence. To this more than to anything was due the prompt opening of negotiations after the capture of Brouage.

Navarre, whose heart was never in the war, had begun to treat in June, almost before Condé's envoys to the Queen of England and Casimir had even left Rochelle. On September 15 the Treaty was concluded at Bergerac; the terms being slightly less favourable to the Huguenots than those of the previous year, but forming on the whole a satisfactory modus vivendi, which sufficed to preserve at least official peace, with one trifling interval, for the next eight years. The relations with England also improved. The Queen had indeed to arrest some French ships in English ports in order to secure the release of those taken by Lansac ; but neither side had any desire, in spite of Poulet's inveterate suspicion

1578-80] Conference at Nérac.-The Seventh War

33

of French duplicity, for a serious rupture, which would only have played into the hands of Spain. Elizabeth and Catharine understood each other thoroughly, and the policy of both was directed to the same end the securing of internal tranquillity, in order to allow their respective countries to recuperate and consolidate their forces. Neither was desirous of being too far outstripped by the other in the attainment of this result, and therefore each was not unwilling, when occasion served, to keep sedition alive among the subjects of the other. Each, too, had her moments of inclining to the advances of Spain; and each had her domestic zealots to hold in check - zealots equally capable, as the event showed, of carrying zeal to the point of rebellion and regicide. The shiftiness perceptible at times in their respective methods was no doubt largely due, in Elizabeth's case to dislike of abetting rebels, in that of Catharine, apart from her Italian blood and training, to her consciousness of the ease and secrecy with which, as a Continental Power, France could be attacked, and the consequent necessity for rapid decision in moments of sudden danger.

As usual, the Peace of Bergerac was followed by complaints that its terms were not being properly carried out, and by sporadic outbreaks of actual hostilities. To put a stop to these, in August, 1578, Catharine, accompanied by several of the principal Councillors, and by the Queen of Navarre, who had not seen her husband since his departure from the Court, started on a prolonged tour through the south. During the winter conferences were held at Nérac, at which the two parties met for the first time as almost equal Powers; and in February articles explaining and confirming the provisions of the last Edict were drawn up and agreed to by both sides. The Catholics were however far from being content. At a Council in January, 1580, we find the Catholic clergy, Cardinal Birago and the Bishops of Lyons and Valence, strongly in favour of renewing the war. The laymen were opposed; and when Malassise suggested that it might be necessary to provide funds from vacant benefices and tithes, the Bishop of Lyons indignantly denounced the proposal as "an heretical opinion." In spite of the lack of funds war broke out in the spring. It began with the seizure by Navarre of Cahors, a town which formed part of his wife's dowry, but which he had never been allowed to occupy. Its capture was a remarkable feat of arms, involving several days' street-fighting. Biron was sent into

Guienne, but the King had no wish to crush Navarre and leave the Guises predominant. The remainder of the war in the south is a record of desultory skirmishing and attempts on insignificant fortresses. In the north the only operation of any importance was the siege of La Fère in Picardy. Condé, chafing at his continued exclusion from the government of his province, had taken possession of the town. He afterwards went to seek help in England; but Elizabeth had other plans in hand. The town stood a short and not very vigorous siege, finally capitulating

C. M. H. III.

3

34

Peace of Fleix.

Anjou in the Netherlands [1580-2

on easy terms; and this series of conflicts, dignified by the name of the Seventh War, was terminated in November by the Peace of Fleix. Its terms differed in no material respect from those agreed to at Nérac.

So early as 1577 overtures from the Netherlands had been made to Anjou; and in the summer of that year his sister the Queen of Navarre, under the pretext of a visit to Spa, had passed through Artois and Hainault, and had exercised her fascinations on some of the nobles of those provinces, with a view to securing their interest in his behalf. By the middle of 1578 his plans were generally known, and generally disapproved; sincerely by the King of Spain and the Pope, ostensibly by the French King and his mother. In England a notion prevailed that the League had a hand in it; and Edward Stafford was sent to France to dissuade the government from furthering the scheme; shortly afterwards Cobham and Walsingham, who were about to go on an errand of mediation to the Low Countries, were instructed to do what they could to hinder the reception of Anjou. Before they started, however, this part of their instructions was cancelled. The Queen had another scheme in her head, which without directly thwarting Monsieur's plans would enable her in a great measure to regulate his movements. Stafford brought back a letter from the Queen-Mother, accepting in very cordial terms a suggestion that the suspended marriage negotiations should be renewed. Envoys from the suitor himself quickly followed; he paid more than one visit in person to England, and in 1581 a commission composed of many of the most notable persons in France went over to arrange the terms. It is difficult to suppose that Elizabeth ever seriously intended to marry a dissolute and ill-conditioned youth who might, so far as age went, have been her son; but she kept him dangling for many years, until his plans for sovereignty in the Low Countries were obviously doomed to failure, and all danger of the alternative marriage with an Infanta of Spain was at an end. His doings in the Low Countries hardly concern the progress of the religious conflict in France, except in so far as they served to draw off a large part of the fighting power of the Huguenots, and kept ill-feeling alive between France and Spain.

The political history of the years following the Peace of Fleix is of extreme complexity, but shows the growth of a pronounced hostility between France and Spain. Anjou's enterprise, and, in a less degree, the coquetting of the Queen-Mother with Don Antonio, the claimant for the throne of Portugal against Philip, had led to considerable animosity on the part of the latter towards the French Court. In February, 1582, we even find Cardinal Granvelle, who three months before had seemed in favour of the marriage of Anjou with the Infanta, hinting at the possibility of an alliance with England to chastise France. Overtures were more than once made to the King of Navarre; and on one occasion at least reported by him to Catharine. He was himself by no means in entire harmony with the extreme section of his own party,

a

1582]

Guise and Navarre

35

whose leader Condé was not satisfied with the terms agreed upon at Fleix, and refused to promulgate them in the Protestant towns of Languedoc. Turenne, however, succeeded in inducing Condé to meet Navarre, and made the proclamation in his absence. Condé appears at this time to have cherished some fancy of carving out a separate State for himself in the south-east of France- a scheme with which Navarre, who throughout never forgot that the Crown would in all human probability one day be his, was not likely to sympathise. Condé and his section, again, were inclined to turn for aid and alliance to John Casimir, between whom and Navarre no love was lost. On the other hand, Casimir had designs upon the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and was in frequent communication with the Duke of Lorraine and Guise. He was jealous, too, of Anjou's intervention in the Netherlands, where he himself had failed, and was on bad terms with the Prince of Orange. Navarre, in short, acted throughout, in spite of his apparent levity, as a statesman, Condé as a somewhat narrow partisan, John Casimir as an adventurer, though with a dash of principle, Guise as an unscrupulous player for his own hand.

Among the negotiations and combinations, actual or attempted, of these years of intrigue, there was one antagonism which nothing could reconcile. However the sides might at any moment be made up, Henry of Navarre and Henry of Guise were always opposed to one another. There was no personal antipathy between the two, such as seems to have existed between Guise and the King - indeed they had been friends in their younger days-nor was the antagonism based, it may safely be said, on any fervour of religious conviction on either side. Yet these two were instinctively felt to be the natural leaders of the contending causes; and neither, it was thought, deemed himself secure so long as the other lived. As soon as Anjou's death had simplified the issues, and the head of the Huguenot party had become the next in succession to the throne, the first object of the Leaguers was, as will be seen, to legalise their position by securing, not, indeed, after the fashion of the earlier Huguenots, the person, but at least the adhesion of the King; and to Guise was entrusted the management of the operation.

In November, 1582, we find Navarre reminding the King of his former offers to assist in annoying the King of Spain; curiously enough, at the very same moment Henry was being urged by the papal Nuncio not to forget his amity with that Power. Anjou's treacherous attempt, two months later, to seize and sack Antwerp, though baffled by the promptitude of the citizens, while it terminated his chances of success in those parts, still further embittered the relations between France and Spain; for, in spite of protestations, Philip was well enough aware of Henry's complicity in his brother's adventure. It was doubtless as a result of this fresh aggravation that the overtures already mentioned

36

Death of Anjou

[1583-4

were made to Navarre. Negotiations of a kind were, however, also going on with Anjou himself, who, soon after his repulse at Antwerp, had approached Parma with what is best described as an offer to be bought off; and communications passed between Anjou and the agents of Parma. In November a report was current in Paris that the Duke intended to sell Cambray, which he had occupied at the outset of his expedition, to Spain, which he himself denied. He had left the Low Countries for the last time in the previous month. In February he visited Paris, and was well received by his brother. Some envoys from the Low Countries accompanied him, and it was decided to renew the enterprise, this time with the King's definite adhesion; the reversion of the sovereignty over the provinces being secured to him, in the event of Anjou's dying without heirs. Anjou himself presently fell ill at ChâteauThierry, whither he had retired, and died on June 10, 1584.

turns.

During this time the Guises and Navarre had been watching the course of affairs and endeavouring to adapt their policy to its various When it became clear that Anjou would neither succeed in the Low Countries, nor marry the Queen of England, little time was lost in reviving the relations with natural allies which his enterprises had somewhat interrupted. In June, 1583, Ségur-Pardailhan was sent by Navarre on a mission, first to England, then to the Prince of Orange, and later to the German Princes. The Guises on their side, while actively intriguing with Spain, and forming plans for an invasion of England, were careful to keep in touch with the French Court. In the summer of 1583 we hear of an ingenious suggestion on the part of Guise and Mayenne that the former should take charge of an army, to be levied by the Queen-Mother, on the frontier of Flanders, while the latter should find the money for a fleet and effect a diversion by sea in favour of Don Antonio.

Catharine was, however, too doubtful as to the ultimate destination of these forces to accede to the proposal at that time. Guise remained about the Court, scheming in silence. "The Duke of Guise," wrote the English ambassador, "saith little, and then he commonly thinketh the most." He had secured the friendship of Joyeuse, the rival in the King's favour of Épernon. These two young noblemen, both of whom had recently received dukedoms, may be called the last, as they were the most able of the long succession of mignons who exercised so disastrous an influence over Henry III. Joyeuse was of the two most in favour with the Queen-Mother. It was thought (to quote the English ambassador again) that she and the Duke of Guise “would be glad to hoist the other out."

The condition of the country during these years offers a picture of demoralisation hardly to be matched in the records of any period. Peace nominally existed between the two factions, but acts of private war were continually taking place. Indeed for some time after the