САМЕО XXXIII. Departure of the Legate. 1594. active form, clad in light grey, with a large black hat and drooping white feather, the nose and chin very prominent; the hair, beard, and moustache grey before their time. He was a very different figure from the lad who had entered Paris twenty-two years before for the wedding, which was the prelude to the massacre of S. Bartholomew, and yet through all he had preserved his indomitable lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirits. So many Bourbon scarfs were put on that day that not a yard of white silk was left unused ! His next task was the welcome one of signing a passport for the Cardinal Legate, who was escorted out with all respect, but who died on the way back to Italy-of vexation, as it was said. The last order Henri gave on that evening was for the destruction of a picture displayed in Nôtre Dame, representing Queen Elizabeth watching the burning of several of her Roman Catholic subjects, assisted by demons with pitchforks. Two days later he astonished the Duchesses of Nemours and Montpensier, by suddenly calling on them. As he passed the hall, where hung a portrait of the murdered Guise, he halted and bowed low to it. Quite subdued, Madame de Montpensier fell at his feet and implored his pardon, which was freely given, and the ladies shortly after withdrew to Soissons, where was the Duke of Mayenne. The mercy and generosity Henri showed to all his enemies were truly free and noble, and won the hearts of the people. He went to the prisons, and demanded the reasons of each man's captivity, releasing the debtors and most of the political offenders. This was his way of keeping Maundy Thursday, and he likewise scrupulously washed the feet of twelve poor men, after true royal fashion. On Easter Sunday he touched 600 patients for the king's evil. At the same time, his sister Catherine was keeping Easter Day by a sermon and communion, after the reformed fashion, at S. Germain. On this account her entrance into Paris had been deferred, and she did not come in till the Wednesday. She was thought dull, cold, haughty, and melancholy, and no doubt to a pure-minded, austere Calvinist, such as she was, the residence at such a court as her brother's must have been most painful. Gabrielle d'Estrées had borne him a son whom he named César, and created Duke of Vendôme; and he was taking measures to have her divorced from her husband, old de Liancour; and himself from Marguerite de Valois, so that he might marry the lady on whom he had set his affections. But the affair did not advance, since the nation would not esteem the marriage cancelled, save by the Pope's consent; and Marguerite had made up her mind not to consent unless the King meant to make choice of a princess. She would never set him free to marry Gabrielle. Rouen and almost all Normandy submitted in the course of the summer, and Feria found no consolation save in vituperating Mayenne in letters to Philip II., while Mayenne equally abused Feria. The game Henri was still not thrown up, however, by the remains of the League. A lad of nineteen, named Jean du Chastel, son of a cloth merchant, sprang at him as he was bending to embrace a gentleman named Montigny kneeling before him, doing him homage. The blow was aimed at his throat, but only struck his lip, and broke one of his teeth. "I am wounded," he cried. "This is the murderer,” shouted Montigny; “it is I or he." "Let him go," said Henri; "it cannot be that lad." But the knife was found, and the unhappy lad made full confession of his intention, showing how the Jesuit priests, who had educated him, had taught him to think it a good work to slay a heretic and excommunicate tyrant. The people were ready to pull down the college, and the King had to use all his authority to hinder the Jesuits from being torn to pieces. The Order was banished, while their victim was put to death with cruel tortures, which he bore like a martyr. The young Duke of Guise made his own terms with the King, and was rewarded with the government of Provence; but Mayenne still held out, and Philip II., who still only spoke of the Prince of Béarn, sent another army into, Burgundy in June 1595. This was under the Constable of Castille, and was joined by the Duke of Mayenne. the 8th of June, 1595, this was totally routed by Henri at Fontaine Françoise in a brief and masterly battle, whose success surprised himself. On It was quite plain that Rome and Spain could not hinder Henri IV. from being King of France, but that it was quite possible that an independent Gallican Church, like the Anglican, might arise, if Rome repeated the mistake which had been made in rejecting Queen Elizabeth. Henri had seen his blunder in sending the brilliant embassy which had attracted attention, but he kept Cardinal d'Ossat at work quietly at Rome, convincing the Pope that it was vain to resist any longer, and arranging the terms of his reconciliation. These were that the Catholic worship should be re-established in Béarn, and wherever it had been suppressed; that all Church property should be restored; that the young Prince of Condé, who was at present heir to the throne, should be bred up as a Catholic; and that the Council of Trent should be accepted by the Church of France. To all this Henri agreed, and not a word was said of his scandalous life, though he further promised to hear mass daily, to confess and communicate four times a year, and to establish convents in different parts of France; as a secret article also to recall the Jesuits. All this being done on the 17th of September, 1595, Clement VIII. appeared on a platform in front of the closed doors of S. Peter's. САМЕО XXXIII. Attempt to assassinate Henri. 1595, САМЕО XXXIII. Peace in France. 1595. Henri's representatives, the Cardinals d'Ossat and Perron, knelt before Henri was now owned as Most Christian King, eldest Son of the After all had been arranged, he came to meet Henri at Mousseaux, and was gladly welcomed with the words, " Cousin, is it you, or a dream that I see?" Then, Henri began walking about with him in the beautiful park of Mousseaux. Henri was light and active; Mayenne, though only fortytwo, a year younger than the King, was fat, heavy, and rheumatic, and laboured along till Henri whispered to Rosny, "If I walk this big body about much longer, I shall be avenged of all my wrongs, for it will be a dead man!" Then, making Mayenne confess that he could bear it no longer, Henri clapped him on the shoulder, and said "There then, cousin, with Heaven's goodwill ends the last vexation I will ever cause you." And thus, on the 31st of January, 1597, France was once more a united nation at peace within herself, though still at war with Spain. ́AGE made no difference in the enmity of Philip II. to Elizabeth, which indeed he held to be hatred to the enemies of Heaven. England, Holland, and Huguenot France were in his eyes the accursed lands that he was called on, as the champion of the Church, to reduce, and sitting at his table in his study, he continued to issue his commands, as though his ships were not shattered and his greatest captains dead. He had vowed that he would be revenged for the destruction of the Armada, even if he had to pawn the last candlestick from his own chapel, and with indomitable perseverance he kept his word. The wooden walls of old England remained her chief protection. It is curious to review and contrast the great mariners who were then their leaders, and in whom the Sea King was by no means extinct. Foremost was the veteran High-Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham, a stout old noble, who fought by sea much as he would have done by land, because the Queen commanded him there to serve ber, and who was wise, wary and cautious, often forced to appeal loudly to her for mere maintenance for his vessels and his sailors, and for that very reason not willing to try her parsimony too far by expense or by enterprise. His secretary was old Sir John Hawkins, one of a family in whom the pirate, the merchant, and the patriot were as strangely combined as in any Viking of olden time. They were valiant and skilful, but avaricious and cunning, and all these qualities met to the utmost degree in Sir John, who was at this time specially enraged with the Spaniards, who were keeping his son Richard a prisoner in Peru. Sir Martin Frobisher, whom the Queen trusted the most of all as a naval commander, was an admirable seaman, honest, upright, and only CAMEO XXXIV, English sailors. САМЕО XXXIV. Drake. moderately rapacious, but illiterate, and nothing more nor less than a loyal sailor. Sir Francis Drake was something more, though likewise bred to the sea, and most at home upon it. He had larger views and more resource, and not only had signalised himself by his voyage round the world, but by supplying his native town of Plymouth with water conducted from Dartmoor in a long channel called the Leat. These were the chief professional seamen, and to them must be added the gentlemen who might be viewed as amateurs. There was George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, the grandson of the shepherd lord, a perfect sea-king of romance, most magnificent by sea and land, honourable and punctilious as any of Spenser's knights though he thought robbing the Spaniards perfectly right service, and often fantastically courteous. Once when the Queen had dropped her glove, he picked it up and restored it to her on his knee, whereupon she bestowed it on him. He adorned it with gold and diamonds, and wore it on state occasions in his plumed hat, in which his portrait was taken. His point of honour was so delicately punctilious, that it was not thought good often to entrust him with commissions in the public service, but Elizabeth made him her champion to represent her at all tournaments. But he was "in stern fight a champion grim," and he delighted in the sea. With small aid from the Queen he fitted out ships at his own expense in which to go privateering in his own way, when, as his biographer says, "his fleet was bound to no other port than the port of honour, though touching at the port of profit in passage thereunto." The "port of profit" had its allurements for the ablest and most many-sided man of them all, Sir Walter Raleigh, or, as the Spaniards called him, the Corsair Gualteral. Scholar, author, and thinker as he was, he cared not only for England's supremacy, but looked on the strange new world with the eyes of an observer of the marvels of creation, and of a philosopher forecasting its future. He alone of all the discoverers of the reign had the ability to profit by the customs of the natives, or to import their productions, but his satirical and haughty manner gained him enemies at home, and want of means and of rank made his talents far less available than they should have been. The other Devon knight, Sir Richard Grenville, was of a more common type, brave and faithful, but violent and rapacious. To these must be added the Queen's spoilt darling, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, to whom a voyage of adventure or a command in the French camp were delightful relaxations from the tedious task of acting as something between lover and son to an old lady of nearly sixty years, who tried to keep a wild falcon like a tame bullfinch. But with all their faults, what sovereign ever had a more gallant array of servants? The Spanish treasure ships, called carracks, loaded from the mines of Rio de la Plata, Peru, and Mexico, were wont to assemble at Panama, to be convoyed home by ships of war sent out from Spain with freights of iron and all manner of commodities, even Papal |