the long period of fifteen years, the fifteen years which were to follow proved equally stormy. While Charles IX. breathed his last in agony, his brother, Henry, king of Poland, but indifferently at his ease, remained a foreigner in his kingdom, indulging carelessly in pleasure, and badly disguising the disgust inspired by all around him, he seemed to live but in the hope of seeing St. Germain and the Louvre shortly. Catherine kept her favourite son duly informed of the progress of the king's malady, and on his death he was with all speed informed of the event. In a secret committee, he suddenly resolved on abdicating the crown of Poland, and concerting with his attendants the means of escaping, without slander, from the fidelity of the Poles. One night, courtiers and king, after the fashion of discontented schoolboys, fled with all speed to the frontier, and there, believing themselves safe, commenced a triumphal march by Vienna, the German states, Italy, and Turin, and arrived in France to assist in new revolutions, and to act their parts in the civil discords of the nation [1575.] A. D. CHAPTER XXVIII. HENRY III. The baffled prince in honour's flattering bloom His foes' derision and his subjects' blame; And steals to death from anguish and from shame. JOHNSON. 1. THE death of Charles without heirs gave the 1574. throne of France to Henry III., the favourite son of Catharine; he had joined in all her plots and persecutions, had been the commander of forces against the Hugonots in the field of battle, and their virulent persecutor in the time of peace. But in his progress to Poland, the coolness with which he was treated by the princes of Germany, had served to show him the horror with which the massacre of St. Bartholomew was viewed by all but the slaves of Rome, and he never after amidst his many crimes and follies showed himself a persecutor. 2. On learning the news of his brother's death fearing to be detained by the Polish nobles, he abandoned his kingdom secretly; some of the nobility followed him beyond the boundaries, and to them he gave an indefinite promise of returning at some future period, which he had no intention to perform. The Poles eventually elected another king, and Henry and his former subjects seem speedily to have forgotten the existence of each other. 3. In his earlier years, Henry had shown some traits of a manly and energetic spirit, but all traces of it seemed to have disappeared at his accession. He showed from the very beginning a dislike of serious occupations, a devotion to trifles and debauchery, and a total abandonment of all the cares of government to his mother and his favourites. 4. Catherine encouraged these dispositions, which allowed her to gratify her insatiable thirst of dominion. The two great parties by which the kingdom was divided, had now acquired so much strength and consistency, that impartiality was scarcely possible; the royal council was similarly divided; the president, de Thou, treading in the steps of the chancellor de l'Hôpital, recommended that peace should be established on the basis of an amnesty for the past, and a toleration of the protestants for the future; the partisans of the duke of Guise would be contented with nothing short of a total extirpation of heresy. The queen, as usual, endeavoured to make both parties subservient to her purposes; but her arts had been too often practised to be any longer available, and both parties prepared to recommence the war, if indeed they can be said ever to have laid it aside. 5. The duke of Alençon, who afterwards obtained the title of duke of Anjou, and the king of Navarre, had been restored to liberty by Henry immediately after his arrival in France; but finding themselves exposed to suspicion, and deprived of all interest in the state, they quitted the court to place themselves at the head of the politicians and the protestants. 6. The war was distinguished by no great exploit on either side, and was terminated by a peace, in which more favourable conditions were granted to the Hugonots than they had hitherto obtained. The violent catholics, headed by the duke of Guise, loudly protested against this treaty, which they deemed subversive of the established religion, and entered into an alliance called the Holy League, in defence of what they called true Catholicity. The declared objects of his union were to defend the church, the king, and the state; its effects were the dishonouring of religion, the murder of the A. D. 1576. king, and almost the utter ruin of the nation. As soon as the Hugonots had learned the news of this powerful combination for their destruction, they prepared to defend themselves, and stood to their arms in every part of the provinces. 7. Henry III., after some vain attempts to remain neutral, embraced the party of the league, and recalled the edicts of toleration which he had lately issued; but there is some reason to doubt his sincerity in this transaction; in fact, he seems to have placed himself at the head of the league, merely to exclude the duke of Guise from being appointed its leader. A. D. 8. For five years the history of France presents nothing to our view but a series of petty combats, enterprises badly planned and worse executed, treaties hastily made, and as hastily broken; treachery, disunion, and discontent in every part of the kingdom. The protestants were broken into as many parties as there were leaders; the king of Navarre, who was nominally their head, suffered full as much from the jealousy of his followers, as from the malice of his enemies; on the other hand, the king mortally detested the duke of Guise, whose popularity with the clergy and people made him a rival rather than a subject, and the duke despised the king, to whose incapacity he attributed the continued existence of heresy. 9. An unexpected event produced a new change of parties, by compelling the queen-mother and the duke of Guise to remove the veil which had hitherto concealed the objects of their ambition. The duke of Anjou having deserted the king of Navarre, became apparently re1578. conciled to his brother, and even led an army against those Hugonots of whom he had been once the leader. 10. But not being able to continue at the court of his brother, where he found himself equally detested and despised, he secretly fled into Flanders, and placed himself at the head of the provinces which had revolted from the crown of Spain. The states of Holland chose him for their prince, partly influenced by a belief that he was likely to become the husband of queen Elizabeth, and that they would thus obtain the assistance both of England and France. But Elizabeth had no intention of marrying any body, she coquetted with the duke of Anjou as she had done with many others, and broke off the negociation when it seemed on the point of being completed. 11. The report was, however, serviceable to the duke, as it facilitated his reception by the Flemings, and gave him some authority with his new subjects. But the prince soon lost these advantages; he displayed incapacity in the field 255 and treachery in the cabinet, until at length being detected in an attempt to make himself king, he was compelled to fly into France, where he died overwhelmed with shame and vexation. A. D. 1584. 12. The death of the duke of Anjou, and the. improbability of Henry's ever having any children, soon made the members of the league develop their real designs. Henry of Navarre, according to the fundamental laws of the kingdom, was the next heir to the crown; but as he was only related to the king in the fourteenth degree, and was besides a protestant, Catharine and the duke of Guise severally laboured to prevent his succession. Catharine resolved, in defiance of the Salic law, to procure the crown for the descendants of her favourite daughter, the duchess of Lorraine; the duke of Guise, with duplicity equal to her own, pretended to join in her design, but strenuously laboured to 13. The clergy procure the rich inheritance for himself. were the foremost in exciting a new war; every pulpit resounded with declamations on the dangers of the church if the throne were possessed by a protestant, every confession-box became the means of secretly whispering treason into the ears of the populace, and the press, which was almost totally in the hands of the ecclesiastics, produced daily the most inflammatory appeals to the prejudices and bigotry of the nation. In these invectives the king was not spared; his severe edicts for raising new taxes, his lavish profusion to unworthy favourites, his disgraceful debaucheries, and the hypocritical grimace which he substituted for devotion, furnished ample scope for satire; and it was said in addition, that he had formed a secret alliance with the king of Navarre for the pro14. The duke of Guise was the tection of the Hugonots. main-spring of all these complicated movements; as he could not openly claim the crown for himself, he persuaded the old cardinal of Bourbon, uncle to the king of Navarre, that he was the right heir to the crown in consequence of his nephew's heresy. The cardinal, whom contemporary historians briefly but emphatically designate an old fool, was easily persuaded to assert his chimerical claim, and published a manifesto declaring himself chief of the league. Henry, however, could not be persuaded to set aside the claims of his cousin, the king of Navarre, even though that prince had refused to come near the court after he had been frequently invited, and had firmly resisted every attempt made to persuade him to change his religion. |