with some show of right, it might be possible to treat. They even thought it possible that Elizabeth might marry him, and with that object he came to England. She probably saw the folly and insanity of his character, and would hear no more of such a match. 1560. While Elizabeth was hesitating, the Regent was fortifying Leith, which she made so strong, that although the English Queen at last made a treaty, called the Treaty of Berwick, with the discontented nobles, as represented by the Duke of Chatelherault, "the second person in the kingdom," and although in pursuance of this treaty an English army was sent to assist in the siege, the French garrison were enabled to repel all attacks, till a pacification was arranged between Cecil and Royal Commissioners with France, known as the Treaty of Edinburgh. This was concluded early in July. In June the Regent had died. By the Treaty of Edinburgh the French army Treaty of Edinburgh. was to be withdrawn from Scotland, the government during the Queen's absence was to be in the hands of a council of twelve noblemen, the nominees partly of the Queen, partly of the Estates, religious matters were to be settled in Parliament, and it was stipulated that the obnoxious coat of arms should no longer be used. Queen Mary refused to ratify the treaty, in spite of which the Estates assembled at the appointed time and accepted the Confession of Faith, which was the formula of the Genevan Church, repealing all Acts which authorized any other form of worship, and abjuring the authority of the Pope. The celebration of the Mass was rendered a capital offence if repeated three times. Protestantism thus became the national religion. Protestantism established by the Estates. Aug. 25, 1560. It was pretty certain that such measures would not be sanctioned in France, where the Guises were now paramount. The conspiracy of Amboise, a plan matured by the Protestants for obtaining possession of the person of the King, had been thwarted by their vigilance, and a series of ruthless executions was breaking the spirit of the Huguenot party. These vindictive punishments were carried out in the name of the King; and Church and King, Protestantism and treason, had come to be regarded as synonymous-a view which, however unjust it may have been, was employed with great effect by the Guise party. Before the end of the year Queen Mary was a widow, and the power of the Guises broken. This change of circumstances had great influence on the state of affairs in Scotland. Ambassadors were sent to the widowed Queen to urge her return home. Smarting under the 1561] MARY RETURNS TO SCOTLAND Queen Mary comes home, 499 supported by the national party. slights which Catherine de Medici, the Queen Mother of France, cast upon her, and feeling acutely her loss of position, she agreed to the request. Patriotism had always been the strongest motive of Scotch policy; jealousy of England had thrown the people into the arms of France-jealousy of France had in its turn produced the English alliance and the Treaty of Berwick. The fear of France was now removed, and there again arose a strong desire among the Scotch to be freed from all foreign influence, and to be left to manage their own affairs themselves. Nor was this all. The national party in Scotland, in conjunction with a very considerable portion of the people of England, were desirous that the claims of Mary, as the successor at all events to the English throne, should be admitted. In England her succession would no doubt act more or less as a check to the growth of Protestantism; to a great many people in England this was no objection. On the other hand, it would secure peacefully the great design so continually before the eyes of English statesmen since the time of Edward I., and unite England and Scotland under one crown. Such were the views of Lord James, afterwards Earl of Murray, Prior of St. Andrews, the illegitimate brother of Mary, who had acted consistently with the Congregation during the late disturbances, and who now put himself at the head of the national party. He stipulated that no foreign force should be introduced by the Queen, and that she should not disturb the existing religion. On these conditions the bulk of the people were ready to welcome her. She set sail for her kingdom, but her passage was not unattended with difficulty; for in spite of her pretended friendship for Elizabeth, she still refused to accept the Treaty of Edinburgh, and the English Queen, with great want of generosity, refused her a safe conduct through her dominions. Ships were waiting to prevent her from reaching Scotland: she eluded them, however, and reached that country in safety (Aug. 19, 1561). The singing of psalms to the sound of three-stringed rebecks, although she graciously expressed her pleasure at the serenade, and a violent effort to break into the Chapel of Holyrood and prevent her from hearing Mass-an uproar checked only by the personal authority of Murray-did not give her a pleasant idea of her new subjects, and promised ill for the success of a moderate Reformation. Immediately after the Treaty of Edinburgh, and before the negotiations for the return of Mary, Elizabeth had let slip an opportunity which might have changed the whole course of her reign. The Estates of Scotland, taking up the idea which had already been PER. MON. k Rise of Dudley, suggested, had made a formal request to her to marry the Earl of Arran. This young man, the son of the Duke of Chatelherault, stood nearest to the throne after his father. Could Elizabeth have accepted him, as was the earnest desire of the Protestant statesmen of both parties, it is very probable that the superior claims of the absent Queen, unpopular in the eyes of the Protestants on account of her relationship with the Guises, would have been forgotten, and the peaceful union of the two kingdoms, with a government on a Protestant basis, would have resulted. In himself, however, Arran was a most undesirable husband. The weak, passionate nature of his youth ripened afterwards into madness. It is probable that another reason besides her dislike for the man induced the Queen to reject her counsellors' advice. Lord Robert Dudley, a son of the late Duke of Northumberland, had attracted her attention and won her heart. Both nobles and commons regarded the idea of a marriage of this kind with dislike; but it was unquestionably a much-received opinion that the Queen and Dudley would marry, and Lord Robert prepared the way for his own elevation by intrigues in all directions, in which sometimes the Queen was involved, and by procuring the murder of his wife, the unfortunate Amy Robsart. So eager was he in his ambitious schemes, that he entered into communication with the Spaniards, offering to restore the Catholic religion if they would support him, and asserting that Elizabeth was privy to this scheme. Philip, who all along had expected that sooner or later she would have recourse to his assistance, signified his consent; but the favourite's influence, although it formed a very sufficient bar to the marriage with Arran, was not sufficiently strong to thwart the advice of Cecil. He not only succeeded in avoiding the danger of any approximation to Spain, he even forced England further along the course of reform. He carried out the laws against Roman Catholics more strictly, and persuaded the Queen to refuse admission to a nuncio from the Pope, who was coming to persuade her to send representatives to a General Council, and he induced her to give some assistance to the Protestants in France, who were now in open antagonism to the Government. In that country events had occurred which at first promised very well for the Protestant cause. After the failure of the conspiracy of Amboise, the Guises had been absolutely masters of the Government, and had succeeded in arresting Anthony of Bourbon, King of 1561] THE HUGUENOTS 501' Navarre,1 and the Prince of Condé ; Coligny had chivalrously refused to hold aloof from his leaders in danger. They had designed the death of the King of Navarre, as though in a quarrel with the young King. They had arranged everything for the trial and execution of Condé, and the Bourbons and Chatillons (that is, Coligny and his brothers) had seemed hopelessly lost, when the sudden illness of Francis II., speedily followed by his death, had destroyed all their plans. Catherine de Medici, who hated both parties, and wished to see them destroy each other, had obtained the regency from her young son Charles IX. She took for her minister the Chancellor de l'Hôpital, and tried to establish the crown in an independent position by playing one party against the other. The liberation of the Princes of the blood and their union with Catherine, and the tolerant policy of de l'Hôpital, gave for the time an air of success to the Protestants. Cecil entered into negotiations with them; there was even some hope of a restitution of Calais. But the calm was of short duration. Parties were too much in earnest and too exasperated to be managed or caressed into quiet, and the massacre of Vassy (1562), where the people of the Duke of Guise fell upon and killed a party of Protestants at their worship, and the repetition of the massacre elsewhere, roused the Reformers to arms, and began the long war of religion in France. The approach of that war must have been long obvious, and the Guises had obtained support and active assistance from the Spaniards. Beginning of religious wars in France. Should the Guises be successful, a general alliance of the Catholic powers would result. But the separation of those powers was the vital point in Cecil's policy, and the sole hope for the security of England. Should Condé be overthrown, he writes, "Philip and the Guises would become the dictators of Europe, Spain would have Ireland, Mary Queen of Scots would marry Don Carlos, the Council of Trent would pass a general sentence against all Protestants, and the English Catholics, directed and supported from abroad, would rise in universal rebellion." The apparent approach of that danger in the Huguenots, but with selfish objects. duced Cecil and the Queen to listen to the application of Condé, who Elizabeth helps offered to place Havre and Dieppe in her hands as securities. She accordingly despatched an army to occupy Havre. Although her generals exceeded her orders, which were merely to act on the defensive, and acted energetically for the defence of Rouen, that city fell after a siege, in which the King of Navarre, who had lately joined his old enemies, lost his life. Condé-now become the first Prince of the blood-advanced towards Paris, where Catherine, in the hands of the Guises, but still anxious for the success of an intermediate policy, made another effort at peace. The obstacle was the refusal of Condé to throw over Elizabeth. The negotiations were broken off, and Condé, while hastening back to join the English army, was compelled to fight the battle of Dreux (Dec. 1562), in which, though the cavalry of the Protestants were victorious, the whole fate of the day was in favour of the Catholics. The triumph of their party was brought to an abrupt conclusion when, in March of the following year, the Duke of Guise, while besieging Orleans, was killed by the assassin Poltrot. His death changed the appearance of affairs in France. The family of the Guises disappeared with strange rapidity. The Duke d'Aumale was severely wounded, and the Grand Prior died of an illness caught at the battle of Dreux. The Cardinal of Lorraine was away at the General Council; the Marquis d'Elbœuf was closely besieged by Coligny. Other chiefs, who would naturally have taken the lead, were also out of the political field; Navarre was dead, Condé was a prisoner, the Constable Montmorency, who had been fighting for the Guises, was a prisoner also. For the time Catherine found herself mistress of the position. She was enabled to carry out her policy of toleration; and Condé, aware of Elizabeth's selfish motive for the detention of Havre, agreed to the dismissal of the foreign allies on both sides, and signed the Peace of Amboise in March 1563. The English in Havre were thus left unsupported. Elizabeth would not accept Condé's offers, but persisted in holding the town, and Condé was obliged to turn against her the army she had originally assisted in raising. The plague broke out in the city, but the defenders still held out bravely. Large reinforcements were sent over only to die, and at last, Warwick, the commander, with his garrison worn out with disease, had to surrender. The returning troops spread the plague throughout England, and the mortality rose in London to 2000 a week. This disaster excited a constant mistrust of the Huguenots in Elizabeth's mind. Events of the Disasters of the English at Havre. |