History of the Rise of the Huguenots. Baird Henry Martyn
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253
Rascalon, Catharine's agent, proffered the dignity in a letter of the 13th of March, and the duke declined it on the 17th of the same month. At the same time he gave some wholesome advice respecting the observance of the Edict, etc. Hist. ecclés., ii. 165-168.
254
"La Royne … y a si vivement procedé, que ayant ordonné que sur la foy de l'un et de l'autre nous nous entreveorions en l'Isle aux Bouviers, joignant presque les murs de ceste ville, dimenche dernier cela fut executé." Condé to Sir Thomas Smith, Orleans, March 11, 1563, Forbes, ii. 355.
255
Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 170, 171. Coupled with demands for the restitution of the edict without restriction or modification, the prohibition of insults, the protection of the churches, the permission to hold synods, the recognition of Protestant marriages, and that the religion be no longer styled "new," "inasmuch as it is founded on the ancient teaching of the Prophets and Apostles," we find the Huguenot ministers, true to the spirit of the age, insisting upon "the rigorous punishment of all Atheists, Libertines, Anabaptists, Servetists, and other heretics and schismatics."
256
The text of the edict of Amboise is given by Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franç., xiv. 135-140; J. de Serres, ii. 347-357; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 172-176; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. (liv. iii.) 192-195. See Pasquier, Lettres (Œuvres choisies), ii. 260.
257
Smith to the queen, April 1, 1563, in Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. Documents, 439.
258
Smith to D'Andelot, March 13, 1563, State Paper Office.
259
Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 125: "de expresso Regis mandato iteratis vicibus facto." Claude Haton is scarcely more complimentary than Bruslart: "elle (la paix) estoit faicte du tout au désavantage de l'honneur de Dieu, de la religion catholicque et de l'authorité du jeune roy et repos public de son royaume." Mémoires, i. 327, 328.
260
Elizabeth of England was herself, apparently, awakening to the importance of the struggle, and new troops subsidized by her would soon have entered France from the German borders. "This day," writes Cecil to Sir Thomas Smith, ambassador at Paris, Feb. 27, 1562/3, "commission passeth hence to the comte of Oldenburg to levy eight thousand footemen and four thousand horse, who will, I truste, passe into France with spede and corradg. He is a notable, grave, and puissant captayn, and fully bent to hazard his life in the cause of religion." Th. Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, i. 125. But Elizabeth's troops, like Elizabeth's money, came too late. Of the latter, Admiral Coligny plainly told Smith a few weeks later: "If we could have had the money at Newhaven (Havre)
261
Letter from Orleans, March 30, 1563, MSS. State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, i. 411.
262
Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 203. Theodore Beza was the preacher on this occasion, and betrayed his own disappointment by speaking of the liberty of religion they had received as "not so ample, peradventure, as they would wish, yet such as they ought to thank God for." Smith to the queen, March 31, State Paper Office.
263
Relazione di Correro, 1569. Rel. des Amb. Vén., ii. 118-120.
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It appears at least as early as in Farel's Epistre à tous Seigneurs, written in 1530, p. 166 of Fick's edition.
265
Froude, Hist. of England, vii. 519. Seethe courteous summons of Charles, April 30, 1563, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 404, 405, and Elizabeth's answer, May 7th, ibid., ii. 409-411; Condé's offer in his letter of June 26, 1563, Forbes, ii. 442. See also the extended correspondence of the English envoys, in the inedited documents published by the Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. 423-500.
266
Froude, vii. 520; Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. Compare Forbes, ii. 422.
267
"The plage dothe increace here dayly, wherby our nombres are decayde within these fowr days in soche sorte, as we have not remayning at this present (in all our judgements) 1500 able men in this towne. They dye nowe in bothe these peces upon the point of 100 a daye, so as we can not geyt men to burye theym," etc. Warwick to the Privy Council, July 11, 1563. Forbes, ii. 458.
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De Thou, iii. (liv. xxxv.) 417-420; Mém. de Castelnau, liv. v., c. ii. and iii.; Cimber et Danjou, v. 229; Stow's Annals (London, 1631), 655, 656; Agrippa d'Aubigné, liv. iv., c. ii. (i. 198-200); Davila, bk. iii. (Eng. trans., London, 1678), p. 89; Froude, vii. 519-528. Consult especially Dr. Patrick Forbes, Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1741), vol ii. pp. 373-500. This important collection of letters, to which I have made such frequent reference under the shorter title of "State Papers," ends at this point. Peace was definitely concluded between France and England by the treaty of Troyes, April 11, 1564 (Mém. de Condé, v. 79, 80). Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, who had long been a prisoner, held to be exchanged against the hostages for the restitution of Calais, given in accordance with the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, now returned home. Before leaving, however, he had an altercation with his colleague, Sir Thomas Smith, of which the latter wrote a full account. Sir Nicholas, it seems, in his heat applied some opprobrious epithets to Smith, and even called him "traitor" – a charge which the latter repudiated with manly indignation. "Nay, thou liest, quoth I; I am as true to the queen as thou any day in the week, and have done her Highness as faithful and good service as thou." Smith to Cecil, April 13, 1564, State Paper Office.
269
Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 356, 357.
270
See the order of the fanatical Parliament of Toulouse, which it had the audacity to publish with, or instead of, the king's edict. It contains this clause: "Ce que estant veu par nous, avons ordonné et ordonnons que, en la ville de Thoulouse ni aultres du ressort du parlement d'icelle, ne se fera publicquement ni secrettement aulcun exercice de la nouvelle prétendue religion, en quelque sorte que ce soit, sous peine de la hart. Item, que tous ceux qui vouldront faire profession de laditte prétendue religion réformée ayent à se retirer," etc. Mém. de Claude Haton, i. 358, 359.
271
Recordon, Le Protestantisme en Champagne, 132, 133.
272
M. Floquet, in his excellent history of the Norman Parliament (ii. 571), repudiates as "une de ces exagérations familières à De Bèze," the statement of the Histoire ecclés. des églises réformées, "that in the Parliament of Rouen, whatever the cause might be, whoever was known to be of the (reformed) religion, whether plaintiff or defendant, was instantly condemned." Yet he quotes below (ii. 571, 573, 574), from Chancellor de l'Hospital's speech to that parliament, statements that fully vindicate the justice of the censure. "Vous pensez bien faire d'adjuger la cause à celuy que vous estiméz plus homme de bien ou meilleur chrestien; comme s'il estoit question, entre les parties, lequel d'entre eux est meilleur poète, orateur, peintre, artisan, et enfin de l'art, doctrine, force, vaillance, ou autre quelconque suffisance, non de la chose qui est amenée en jugement." And after enumerating other complaints: "Ne trouvez point estrange ce que je vous en dy: car souvent sont apportéz au roy de vos jugements qui semblent, de prime face, fort esloignéz de toute droicture et équité."
273
Chron. MS. du xvi. siècle, Registres, etc.,
274
Ibid., ii. 548.
275
The father of Agrippa d'Aubigné was, as his son informs us, one of the commissioners sent on this occasion to Guyenne. Mémoires d'A. d'Aubigné, ed. Buchon, 474.
276
What else can be said, in view of such well authenticated statements as the following? On his progress through France, to which reference will soon be made, Charles the Ninth stopped with his court at Troyes, where no expense was spared in providing tournaments and games for his amusement. Just as he was about to leave the city, and was already booted for his journey, he was detained for a little while that he might witness a novel entertainment. He was taken to a garden