Preface

Preface

THE present instalment of the Calendar embraces the period from the beginning of 1581 to the end of April 1582. During the earlier part of this time no very important matters are recorded ; all parties appear to be 'marking time.' At the end of the previous year the Peace of Fleix had put a term to the half-hearted 'Lovers' War' ; nearly five years were to elapse before France was to be again distracted by overt civil strife. By the Treaty of Plessis, the Duke of Anjou had accepted the sovereignty of the Netherlands, but had as yet taken no steps to make his position good. The heavy, though not undeserved, chastisement inflicted on the Smerwick raiders had made any early repetition of an attack on England by way of Ireland at least improbable ; and besides, the King of Spain's hold on Portugal was still far from secure. In the Netherlands Parma's lack of men and money, and the absence of any capable commander on the States' sidefor jealousy, or some other cause, prevented the replacement of la Noue by John Norris, the one able soldier left in their servicewere sufficient impediments to any conspicuous enterprise on the part of either. The King of Spain had played what was ultimately to prove a winning card by offering a reward for the assassination of the Prince of Orange ; and the Prince had just replied to the proscription by an 'Apology,' circulated throughout Europe. In sending a copy to the Queen, together with what appears to have been the circular covering letter (No. 56), he took the opportunity of writing to her personally, warning her against a suspected alliance of the Pope and the King of Spain to her detriment (No. 55). The letter is interesting, as showing how clearly and correctly William apprehended the existing situation of Europe.

Amongst the events of the period covered by the present volume the chief interest undoubtedly lies in the negotiations connected with or arising out of the proposed marriage between the Queen and the Duke of Anjou. That Elizabeth ever had any serious intention of becoming Anjou's wife it is almost impossible after reading these papers to believe. Every advance towards a definite promise is followed by a withdrawal ; every apparent acceptance is more than neutralized by a subsequent evasion. She was near to the point in June ; in July and August Somers and Walsingham were in France using all the old arguments to show why marriage was impossible at that moment except on conditions which it was certain the King would not accept. At Christmas Anjou himself was in England, being made much of, and fooled to the top of his bent. Before the end of February he had been packed off to the Low Countries ; and though the fiction of an engagement was kept up, it became every month more apparent, with the tacit acquiescence, as it would appear, of all parties, in England and France alike, that the treaty drawn up with so much pomp and ceremony was never meant to take effect. Within a year of Anjou's departure from England, the 'Antwerp Folly,' and the consequent loss by the French of all influence in the Netherlands, had removed one of the risks against which the marriage was intended to guard ; and Anjou's death in the following year, with the consequent crisis in the relations of parties in France towards each other, and towards Spain, allowed the whole scheme to drop out of sight.

The year 1581, however, was the period during which it may be said to have attained its nearest apparent approach to realisation. From the opening of the year we begin to hear of the appointment of Commissioners to settle the terms of the match. On January 24 the Duke of Anjou issued his preliminary authorisation (No. 23) to a number of eminent persons to act on his behalf ; and by the middle of February or thereabouts these had received the royal sanction (No. 62). Their actual commission is dated March 5 (No. 81). The Commissioners did not lose much time. On March 27, Secretary Pinart, who was of their number, writes (No. 100) that they are waiting only for the Prince Dauphin ; and by April 10 they were on the way, and a programme (No. 120) drawn up for their proceedings. This was subsequently modified (No. 152), as they do not appear to have reached Dover till the 16th. At the same time a stringent proclamation was issued calling upon all subjects to be on their best behaviour during the stay of the Frenchmen ; to which the Prince Dauphin responded by a similar injunction to his followers (No. 133).

From a social point of view the visit of the Commissioners seems to have been successful enough. The conferences were agreeably diversified by banquets, bearbaitings, and 'Triumphs.' The business on which they came seems to have progressed without undue haste. Many small and unforeseen obstacles prevented rapid dispatch. Secretary Walsingham had a cold, Secretary Wilson was on his deathbed. The Lord Treasurer's French was not fluent. Parliament had to meet and express its opinion. It was not till the last of the month that they got fairly to business with a speech drafted by Walsingham and delivered by Burghley, but doubtless inspired by the Queen (No. 150), chiefly remarkable for the ingenious way in which all the more obvious objections to the marriage are marshalled in it. On May 10 Walsingham was instructed to say that a meeting fixed for that afternoon had better be put off till she could hear from the duke. On the 12th the Commissioners met on the understanding that until a reply came from him no decision should be binding. The articles agreed upon with Simier at the end of 1579 were revived, and some minor details of the marriage ceremony discussed. The point of Monsieur's coronation was brought forward on this occasion. A paper of notes in Burghley's hand, dated May 16 (No. 188), goes rather deeper into the cause of this procrastination. What the Queen really wanted was an alliance offensive and defensive. If this could not be had without marriage, she might perhaps marry ; but she would leave no stone unturned to get the alliance without that undesirable adjunct. The cue for the English Commissioners was to express surprise that the Frenchmen had no instructions to negotiate an alliance ; and, under protest, to proceed, again provisionally, with the treaty of marriage. Meanwhile Walsingham was writing to Cobham (No. 187) complaining, or rather instructing him to complain, with the most ingenuous professions of surprise, of this omission in the Commissioners' powers, and the difficulties raised by them to taking the initiative in getting it repaired.

A meeting was held on May 17 at which the French showed some little signs of impatience, hoping that Parliament, the meeting of which was due on the 29th, might not be further prorogued. Various articles in Simier's treaty were discussed and ratified. President Brisson was asked to 'reduce' the contract to form. The form of solemnization was also drawn up (No. 205). On the 9th June, or thereabouts, the treaty was concluded. A friendly note from Pinart to Walsingham (No. 216) refers to the clerical work resulting therefrom.

Meanwhile we find references to a curious and somewhat mysterious incident. The Duke of Anjou, who left Alenon for Evreux about May 20, wrote from the latter place to his friends at the Court "to desire them not to find his sudden departure strange" (No. 203). "He had," he informed them, "undertaken a journey necessary for the better advancing of his greatness, and compassing of his desires." It was at once conjectured that he was going to England. A letter from Cobham, four days after sending this piece of intelligence, states on the authority of M. de Sigognes, Governor of Dieppe, that the duke had embarked at that port for England, but had been compelled by weather to put back, and had returned to Evreux. To this period I am disposed to refer a very curious note in the Queen's writing (No. 416). It is endorsed by Burghley as belonging to November, the month of Anjou's undoubted visit, and has been placed accordingly. But the endorsement refers to 'Monsieur's arrival at Depe' as the occasion of it ; and at his November visit he seems to have sailed from Boulogne, or some other eastern port. Also the letter refers to a supposed recognition of him at Rye, where there is no suggestion of his having been in November. The letter is otherwise curious, as showing the Queen in what can only be called a highly nervous, not to say agitated, frame of mind. The request at the end : "Let me know what you wish me to do," is remarkable as coming from a lady who is generally credited with the habit of expecting people to do what she wished. Another point which seems disputable is, was it written to Burghley at all ? Why should she address him in French, a language in which he was notoriously not proficient ? The absence of anything like royal dignity, the familiarity of the style, the abbreviations of names, make it seem not improbable that the intended recipient was Marchaumont. How it came into the Lord Treasurer's hands one can only conjecture ; but considering how much of the private correspondence of Marchaumont and his friends has found a resting-place at Hatfield, there is nothing to surprise us in finding this among the State Papers.

But did Monsieur ever reach England on this occasion ? A safe-conduct for him had been drafted (fn. 1) ; and Mendoza believed, or, at any rate, asserted that he had been seen in London ; and even wrote to his master particulars as to his movements, and what passed between him and the Queen. What Mendoza said, however, is not always (perhaps not often) evidence ; and on the other hand, we have in the Hatfield Calendar the plain testimony of two letters of Marchaumont's, one to Anjou himself, to show that he at least knew nothing of any such visit ; while the Duke himself writes to lament his failure. (fn. 2) At any rate, on June 1 he was back at Evreux.

Meanwhile preparations for the expedition to the Netherlands were going forward. Cormont de Villeneuve, who had succeeded la Noue in the command of the French contingent already on the spot, after a visit to Paris to see how the land lay, wrote to the Government of Flanders (No. 201) a short report, from which two things are apparent : that the progress being made was not rapid, and that the King did not favour the scheme. Anjou himself was at the same time writing to the States, and, on the very day of his start, to the Prince of Epinoy, that the relief of Cambray was the one thing in his mind. He adds the curious remark, that his recent retirement was to promote that object. Does he mean that he had gone into Normandy with the intention of going to seek further reinforcements in England : or more generally that anything which furthered the marriage would strengthen his hands ? Rochepot also wrote very hopefully.

About the middle of June a detachment of the Duke's forces under Saisseval had succeeded in revictualling Cambray, (fn. 3) which was being little more than watched by Parma with a small force. Quite early in the month Stokes reported that Monsieur was stated to be at Chteau-Thierry ; but as a matter of fact he remained for more than a month at Mantes, where he was visited by his mother, whose object, as Cobham understood, was to induce him to abandon his enterprise. In any case her persuasions had no result. On July 13 Cobham writes that 'to-morrow' a start was to be made (No. 268), and on the following day that it had actually been made on the 12th. On paper the force was a large one, estimated at over 20,000 men. The Marquis of Elbuf was second in command ; Puygaillard, as it would seem, with special permission from the King (whose attitude throughout was very ambiguous, but for the moment seems to have been favourable), leading a force on the left of the main body ; perhaps in order to check or support as contingencies might dictate. The presence of Elbuf, a member of the House of Lorraine, is difficult to account for. It may be that the Guise faction thought it as well not to let the proceedings go wholly without supervision. Whether Elbuf was among the 'some about him' who, as Stokes wrote in September (No. 328), kept Monsieur back, it is impossible to say ; but he did not remain long, and we find from a letter of Fremyn's (No. 361) that when he offered to return in the following year, he received a snub.

The Commissioners had hardly left England, taking with them the treaty of marriage as finally agreed upon (though with a reservation of certain points to be settled before effect was given to it), when Elizabeth prepared to play another move in the game. On June 20 the useful John Somers was sent with instructions which meant in plain language that the reserved points were now to be brought into service as an excuse for further procrastination. It is hard to see how any one reading this document (No. 225) can believe that the Queen had the least intention of marrying, or that the whole negotiations, in short, respecting French marriages, from 1572 onwards, had been, on the English side, at all events, anything but a diplomatic farce kept on foot for the sole purpose of stimulating distrust between Spain and France. (fn. 4) The question, however, of league with marriagethe French requirementor league without marriage, at which Elizabeth aimed, had now reached a critical stage, and it was important to secure that it should not be solved by the simple formula of 'no league and no marriage.' So long as it could be kept open, the last could be avoided. The French King's points are anticipated, and the rejoinders to them indicated with a good deal of subtlety. The danger from Spain is skilfully introduced. The question of marriage is not to be discusseda clear tit-for-tat for the refusal of the French Commissioners to discuss anything else.

A preliminary skirmish, if so amicable an interview can be so called, had taken place on June 17 between Cobham and the King and Queen Mother. The Ambassador played the wellknown tune, the growing power of Spain, the need of coming to some agreement as to what was to be done about Don Antonio, the desirability of the King's aiding his brother in the Low Countries, instead of interfering with his levies, and so on. The King thought that Monsieur was not so deeply engaged as some supposed ; using the remarkable argument "that an oath is to be considered according to the time that the party makes it, as also the estate he finds himself in at the making of it" ; showing that he had read his Machiavelli to some purpose. He would have himself preferred that his brother should have got the marriage over before starting on this enterprise ; and "wished he had continued his journey towards England"another bit of evidence against Mendoza's story. The Queen Mother expressed very similar views. A smart rally between her and the ambassador ended with an assertion of the general agreement of her two sons with each other and herself. Cobham further relates some Court gossip tending to indicate that good relations now existed between the King and his brother ; a view which does not quite tally with Simier's information.

So far as can be gathered from her actions and expressions at this time, the Queen Mother was desirous that the marriage should take place, but opposed to the Cambray expedition. She was at Alenon with her younger son from May 10 to 12, and at Mantes on June 10, (fn. 5) and subsequent days. On this occasion a quarrel took place between Monsieur and Marshal Matignon, who had carried out too vigorously the king's orders to break up the bands levied for the Flanders enterprise. M. de Beauvais-Nangis, one of the most respected officers in the Court, who had acted in this matter under the marshal's orders, was shortly afterwards disgraced as an atonement on the King's part to his brother's wounded pride.

Elizabeth seems not to have relied wholly on the effect of open and acknowledged diplomacy. Two curious documents, apparently an earlier and a later draft of the same dispatch, dated June 23 (Nos. 231, 232), suggest that she was also employing the services of a secret envoy, sent directly to the Duke just when Somers was starting on his mission to the French Court. There is no indication of the writer. It clearly cannot have been Somers himself, for he had not at that date left England. The first rough draft seems to be written in two hands, one somewhat like that of Laurence Tomson (fn. 6) at any rate, it is that of a cultivated man, and an Englishman. The writer, who is doubtless identical with 'l'omme que vous savez' mentioned by Simier in the letter already quoted as having been with him on the day that he wrote, June 12, must have started almost as soon as the Queen discovered that the rumour of Monsieur's being in England was untrue. His mission was also probably not unconnected with the delay in Somers's starting, referred to somewhat mysteriously in the next letter. Whether Simier was 'the party to whom your Majesty sent by me a little three-cornered note,' can only be a matter of conjecture. The envoy, whoever he was, had instructions to go on to the King and ascertain his views. He seems subsequently to have been associated, of course in a subordinate capacity, with the negotiations of Cobham and Somers, and may not improbably be the person by whom Somers sent over his letter of July 9. The incident is chiefly interesting as an instance of Elizabeth's fondness for tortuous methods ; though in this case the familiarising of Monsieur's mind with the course the Queen was about to adoptgreat professions of affection for himself, coupled with strong hints of the probable unpopularity in England of the marriage and all it involvedmay have been thought expedient.

Somers reached Paris in the course of the following week. The audience at which he was to impart his instructions was postponed for various reasons till July 2 ; but on June 30 Pinart, coming to notify the postponement, put him and Cobham through a process of what can only be called 'pumping.' The interview, described in No. 245, affords entertaining reading. The fencing on both sides is very close, Pinart plainly hinting that the Flanders enterprise might yet be broken off, and a Spanish alliance courted, if the Queen did not make up her mind to the marriage. The Ambassadors kept to the usual pointsMonsieur's honour too deeply engaged for him now to draw back, and the danger of allowing the aggrandisement of Spain to proceed any further. Pinart uttered the ominous words 'a league such as has been made beforetime'just what English policy did not care for, since it in no way hindered a yet closer league with some one else. No unfriendly word was uttered on either side ; but it was made clear that a critical point in the negotiations had been reached.

On June 30 a meeting between the King and his brother was arranged to take place at Saint-Germain. Monsieur, however, took fright at the numbers of the King's retinue, and retreated, contenting himself with sending messages by de Buhy. On Sunday, July 2, Cobham and Somers had their first audience. As usual, the King received them first He was apparently somewhat taken aback by Elizabeth's recent discovery, "that this marriage cannot be accompanied with any charge to her Majesty and her people"which of course, in view of her suitor's operations in Flanders, threw the whole question back into the melting pot ; and reserved it for further consideration. The Ambassadors passed on to the Queen Mother, whom they found in a nervous fit as to the expedition. The abandonment of this would cut away the ground of their mistress's latest dilatory pretext ; but the possibility of the suggestion had been foreseen by the astute minds of those who had prepared the instructions, and the Ambassadors were ready to meet it with reminders of the degree to which Monsieur's honour was engaged, insistence on the Spanish danger, and the other stock arguments. Catherine, 'cornered' once more, "said, with a heavy cheer, that she would talk with the King." In the course of the week she went again to Mantes, accompanied by the late Commissioners.

Meanwhile troops were assembling rapidly. Cobham notes that Saint-Luc was on his way to Monsieur with a force of horse and foot, "which methinks could not be done without the king's consent." The Queen Mother's visit to Mantes, though it did nothing to dissuade Monsieur from his purpose, had, as both Cobham and Somers reported, a beneficial effect on the relations between him and his brother, the latter 'promising to give assistance and approve his doings.' Cobham adds : "The sway runs more and more on Monsieur's side thus far forth." By July 7 Catherine was back at the Court, and Cobham lost no time in reminding Pinart that the Queen was in a hurry for news. The ambassadors' cue seems now to have been to represent her as the party eager to bring matters to a decision, and the French as the procrastinatorsa piece of diplomatic 'bluff' as amazing as any on record. The calculation presumably was that the Flanders expedition being now practically out of doubt, and the opposition to Philip's claims on Portugal sufficiently advanced to neutralise any risk of a Spanish alliance, the two strongest cards in the French diplomatic hand were no longer available.

On July 10 an interview took place between the English representatives on the one side, and the Secretaries Bellivre and Pinart, President Brisson, and du Vray, on the other ; the old ground to a great extent was gone over again, though the case of the French was on the whole couched in a more pleading tone than hitherto. They asked that a day for the marriage might be definitely fixed ; the league offensive and defensive to be agreed upon first, and ratified simultaneously with the marriage. A separate treaty with regard to Low-Country matters to be made with Monsieur. They enlarged upon the sacrifice the king would have to make, and the impossibility that he could help his brother otherwise than openly, and were disappointed to find that the Queen would not undertake to give more than pecuniary aid. The English envoys now felt themselves in a position from which they might advance a step further. For the first time they ventured openly to put forward a proposal in which the possibility of the marriage not taking place is contemplated. "We propounded to them," they say, "two other means to oppose the King of Spain's greatness, without marriage" ;the 'league' going forward all the same. One of course was Don Antonio ; the other, the old device of 'contributing underhand.' The French were, however, firm. "Of league without marriage, the king would make none" ; adding reasonably enough from their point of view : "or else what have they done in England ?"

The report was carried straight to the king, Cobham and Somers following after a brief interval. To the king they urged especially the objections on the Queen's part to being 'married to a war.' On her behalf they offered that she should bear a fourth of the expenses ; the king having suggested a third. Then the conversation took a desultory turn, entertaining enough to read, from the lifelike little touches which abound in the envoy's report, but not making much progress. Finally, the king returned to the point, repeating the request made by his ministers in the morning for an early decision as to his three requirements and a settlement of the special points reserved between the Queen and Monsieur. Cobham rejoined with the demonstration of the importance to both parties of a close alliance, marriage or no marriage ; of which, as was to be expected, the king would not hear. The English envoys are evidently not satisfied with the result of their negotiations, and can hold out no hope that anything will make 'league without marriage' acceptable. Somers writing next day on his own account to Walsingham, is evidently not very sanguine as to the success of their negotiationsit may be added, not very well satisfied in his own mind that they deserve to succeed.

Meanwhile Monsieur had at last fairly started. Leaving Mantes on July 12, he passed to the south of Paris. This dtour may have been due partly to a desire to avoid Picardy, the home of the League, where Parma's spies were on the alert, one of them having pushed as far as Pontoise (fn. 7) ; but probably the chief object was to effect a junction as early as possible with his contingent of reiters. On the 16th we hear of him at Etampes. Crossing the Seine at Montereau-faut-Yonne, by the 23rd he reached Chteau-Thierry, where his whole force assembled. It was intended to hold a review of them there, but an alarm of plague drove the duke on July 31 to la Fre-en-Tartinois. (fn. 8)

In spite of the little success obtained by Cobham and Somers, the Queen was not discouraged. As usual, she fell back on the proved astuteness of her Secretary. On July 19 both Burghley and Walsingham himself wrote to Somers announcing the new move, the latter in terms which show his great unwillingness to undertake the task, and his recollection of the way he had been treated on the occasion of his mission to Don John four years before. A little touch in his letter (No. 274) is worth noting. So far from the Queen being in any way annoyed with the small results obtained up to now, she has expressed herself as quite satisfied with the 'envoys' 'wise and discreet proceedings.' At any rate, she would seem to have thought, they had tided over a month. It would be hard if the yet craftier diplomatist who was now going to take up the game could not do even better. So she adopted a suggestion made, not, perhaps, with quite that intention, by Marchaumont, (fn. 9) and sent Walsingham over.

Most of the correspondence concerning this mission of Walsingham's is to be found in print in The Compleat Ambassador, edited (very carelessly, it must be said) by Sir Dudley Digges (London, 1655). His errand was twofold, to the Duke himself, and to the king. To the king he had to bear a further answer, if so if might be called, to his three pointsthe request that a day might be fixed for the marriage, the offer of the desired offensive and defensive alliance to take effect from the moment of the marriage, and the proposal of a secret agreement in regard to the Low Countries. The instructions, both those given by Digges, and the further and fuller version in these papers (No. 277), are verbose and complicated even beyond the wont of the period. Their operative clause, however, may be found in one sentence of the former : "And so our meaning is, that you shall, if you can possibly, in this sort put off the marriage with yielding to this later open sort of aiding, if the secret aid shall not be allowed, and therewith you shall declare by this our answer the other two points, for a league offensive and defensive, and for a secret accord for the Low Countries, to be in a sort answered." In the other instructions he is to represent the idea of marriage to have been embraced on the Queen's part solely in compliance with the importunities of her people ; Anjou had appeared to her the most eligible of her suitors, but "to any perfect conclusion of marriage with him we never would be so resolutely induced to assent, but that we always directed ourselves to yield therein so to forbear as we might find our determination to be acceptable to our best subjects." Much to our regret, as things are at present, "in no wise can we find this marriage a contentation to our people, who have desired us to marry for the preservation of our realms in peace." Yet the Duke is on no account to abandon his enterprise. The suggestion that a clause in the marriage-treaty might allow of his being at war without involving the Queen is dismissed with a reference to the failure of a similar clause in the case of Philip and Mary. The possibility that the Duke's proceedings in the Low Countries might induce the King of Spain to take reprisals upon France is hinted at as an argument in favour of the close alliance, even without marriage. Instructions for treating of such a league were also furnished. Here again the Calendar supplements Digges, as regards a suggestion that the league should be made to comprise Scotland. Drafts for further instructions, like the former, in Burghley's hand, show the Queen's extreme anxiety for the success of the negotiations. Every conceivable move on the French side is foreseen, and methods of meeting it suggested ; all, it must be confessed, amounting to little more than repetitions in slightly varied words of the old theme ; perhaps with a little more frankness of admission. "You may truly say that generally all our councillors, yea, all our noblemen and all others that have had any concept of this marriage, have of late taken it either for fully broken or very doubtful," seems rather a daring statement to make little more than a month after the Commissioners had returned in the fond, and not unwarranted, belief that nothing remained but for her Majesty to 'name the day.' Another document directs the envoy as a last resource "to say that we will be content to marry, and that without unnecessary delay, so as the king and his brother will devise how we shall not be brought into a war therewith, although Monsieur shall continue his actions in the Low Countries." Again with some audacity it is added : "You may maintain that thereby we fully perform the treaty for the marriage" ; on the ground, it would seem, that Monsieur being now engaged in hostilities, the stipulation that England was not to be led into war by the marriage had been infringed.

Walsingham was at Gravesend on July 26, and at Boulogne on the following day. After a day's rest he proceeded by way of Meaux, avoiding Paris, and reached la Fre on August 2 in the forenoon. That same afternoon he had an interview with Anjou, whose first point was the king's objection to league without marriage, adding on his account that the 'war in Flanders' was after all no new thing, but was well-known to those concerned in the treaty of marriage ; further, that the Queen, being interested in the fortunes of the Low Countries and the repression of the Spanish power, ought rather to be pleased with him. The Secretary, after the usual utterances of his personal esteem and regard, met the first point by reference to the always tender subject of 'charges.' What was objected to by the Queen and her subjects was not so much a war as a war that would cost them money. As to the second point, a league offensive and defensive would surely meet the case as well as marriage. The duke, however, was not to be cajoled. "He showed me that he was greatly grieved" ; "he hoped I was come with matter of more comfort than he should receive thereby."

A conference between his ministers and Walsingham did little to advance matters, and on the following day another audience was granted, of a more private nature than the first, which seems to have been held amid the general conversation of the courtiers. This second interview was reported direct to the Queen ; the report is given by Digges from some other source. Nothing very new was brought forward on either side. Monsieur posed as the victim of misplaced and unappreciated constancy, and gave some good advice as to the course to be followed at the Court. The Secretary listened gravely, and took his leave. Before starting, he received a visit from the Viscount of Turenne, who, protesting that he came without any communication with Monsieur who, indeed felt some delicacy about mentioning the matter(a statement which Walsingham ventures to doubt)suggested that a 'loan' of 100,000 ducats would greatly facilitate the operations.

Walsingham had not gone far on the road to Paris when he was recalled by a message from the Queen Mother, who had hastened to la Fre a day or two after his arrival there ; with the view, so Cobham understood, of persuading her son to abandon the marriage. To her Walsingham, while rehearsing his former arguments, dwelt chiefly on the danger from Spain. Catherine suggested that the Queen, if free, might after all desert the league, and make her own terms with Spain. Walsingham found no difficulty in showing the unlikelihood of any such danger, as well as the greater reason that the Queen had to feel uncertain as to their steadfastness. Still, he made no progress towards the desired end of alliance without marriage ; and after one more interview with the Duke, which seems to have passed off amicably, not without some banter and 'many pleasant speeches, which he delivered with a singular grace as any person I ever saw,' the Secretary finally departed.

Reaching Paris late on August 8, he, together with Cobham and Somers, was received on the afternoon of the 10th by the king. (fn. 10) Late at night on the same day the three wrote to Burghley, and Walsingham to the Queen, in very cheerful terms. The tenor of the king's remarks had led them to conceive that his resolution to accept no league without marriage had weakened. Next day the Secretary writes to Burghley repeating his assurance that the king has acceded to the league, presumably without insisting on the marriage, and urging, as he had already done to the Queen, compliance with Turenne's request for a subsidy. It would appear, however, that she had already taken alarm at this suggestion. Marchaumont, too, acting of course under Anjou's instructions, had been representing to her his master's distress at the new proposal. He wrote also to Walsingham in the same strain (see No. 303). Consequently Burghley writing on Aug. 11, has to tell Walsingham that the Queen "would rather choose to be at charge with a marriage than without it." On the 13th the dispatches of the 10th came to hand, and Burghley wrote again, in very significant words : "By the treaty with the king, it seemeth the king refuseth not to have a treaty of straiter amity, and yet he harpeth upon the marriage ; by your letter to her Majesty, as she telleth me, you think there may be a treaty without the marriage, but not without charge. And therein her Majesty saith, she had as good be at charge with a marriage as without." The day after the ambassadors' audience du Vray appeared in Paris, and another interview took place between them and some of the French ministers in which he took part. It was soon apparent that pressure had been brought to bear on the king to make him reconsider any concessions he might have been induced by Walsingham at the former interview to offer. "We showed them that we found it very strange, considering the speeches that had been used to us the day before by the king, by the which he had declared that he was content that the treaty of the league should proceed, without annexing thereto the condition of the marriage, that there should now fall out an alteration thereof." Du Vray did not make any concealment of the fact that "the Duke his master had given him express commandment to be an humble suitor to the king, that he would not proceed to the treaty of the league, before assurance given that the marriage should take place." The king hearing this message had confessed that his complaisance of the previous day had been a mistake. Pinart was sent to the Duke to ascertain his views more fully.

Thus baffled, the ambassadors tried what another personal interview with the Duke might accomplish, and that very day or the next, Somers was sent to la Fre. His instructions, printed in the Compleat Ambassador, do not appear to contain much beyond a repetition of the arguments already used. A hint is however given that Monsieur's interference with the negotiation of the alliance was not quite consistent with his promise given to Walsingham that "he would not impeach or hinder the same." In some secret instructions the envoy was directed to seek the good offices of Turenne ; and Walsingham is exceedingly anxious that the Duke shall not be allowed to take an unfavourable view of his method of conducting the business, or to suspect him of personal hostility to the marriage.

He was indeed in sufficient perplexity. Probably as regarded the marriage he had no very strong feeling either way ; but he was sincerely anxious that a strong alliance should be formed with France against Spain, or rather, perhaps that no combination of France and Spainwhich would draw Scotland with itshould be suffered to come into existence. His letters to the Queen at this time are most remarkable. In language which no other of her ministers would have ventured to use he takes her to task for her unwillingness to spend. "The only difficulty," he wrote on August 13, "resteth upon charges, which if the likelihood were would grow greater than your Estate or Crown might bear, then were it reason for your Majesty to forbear the same, for that Ultra posse non est esse, and to stand upon your own defence ; but if the charges may be reduced into such a convenient proportion as the Crown may bear, then were it very hard that treasure should be preferred before safety. I beseech your Majesty that without offence I may tell you that your loathness to spend even then when it concerned your safety, is publicly delivered out here . . . For the love of God, good Madam, look into your own estate ; and think that there can grow no peril so great as to have a war break out in your own realm, considering what number of evil subjects you have." (fn. 11) Possibly it may have been the consideration of the number of 'evil subjects' and the consequent danger of allowing any general discontent to grow up, rather than any constitutional tendency to 'parsimony' which made Elizabeth shrink from any expenditure that might involve increased taxation.

Three days later, August 16, the Secretary writes her another expostulation (No. 301). This time his object is to obtain a definite statement as to whether she means to marry or not. He reminds her that he was sent, as he conceives it, "to procure a straiter degree of amity between the king and you, without marriage," yet without breaking it off altogether. He had reason to hope that he would succeed, "had it not been crossed by some practice not yet discovered." He is evidently a good deal annoyed by what he regards as her untimely confidence to Marchaumont in letting him know "that if the impediment of the charges that the war may cast upon you, may be removed, you see no reason why the marriage should not proceed. For the thing being known to their Majesties, all hope to procure the league without marriage is excluded." So moved was he that he wrote two short letters to Burghley the next day, on the same subject ; making in one of them a curious allusion to the failure of Sir Francis Bryan's negotiations at Rome in 1529 in connexion with Henry VIII's divorce. The point of the allusion is somewhat obscure ; for there seems no reason to suppose that in that case Henry was counterworking his own envoys, which is what Walsingham suggests that the Queen is doing. The letter from Marchaumont, of which he sends a copy to Burghley, has disappeared ; but the copy, in the hand of Tomson, is at Hatfield, and is to be found at No. 1014 of that Calendar (vol. ii). If Marchaumont can be trustedand he seems to have been an honest man, though mixed up with queer societythe Queen had held very different language to him and to her Secretary. "Her Majesty" he says "is a little annoyed with you because you have not treated of the marriage ; and that her reason for sending you to him was to let him understand her intention of accomplishing it, if the king would undertake the rest of the costs of the war, after the States and he, Monsieur, had borne what they could."

On August 17 and 18 Somers had conversations with Monsieur, whom he accompanied on his march towards Cambray. A day or two before, Turenne, advancing too recklessly with a small body of horse, had fallen into an ambush and been taken prisoner. He was not recognised by his captors, who sold him for 3,000 crowns to the Marquis of Risbourg (late Viscount of Ghent), who held him to ransom ; nor was his release obtained until 1584. The duke however had no need of his advocacy in the requests for money with which, according to Somers's report (No. 305) he occupied the time of marching. While the envoy was with him, Bellivre, who had been sent from the French Court to Parma, in order to effect some sort of arrangement by which Monsieur might withdraw with the least possible injury to his credit, reached the camp, having extracted a promise from the prince that he would not impede the victualling of Cambray, if the French forces would then retire. This offer however led Anjou to think that Parma was avoiding a conflict. Under the eye of the Queen's minister he could hardly do less than return a defiant answer. Parma, who never let himself be deflected from the course of action he deemed most expedient by any consideration for appearances, rather than risk a conflict between his jaded and unfed troops, and the French in their first enthusiasm, retired ; and on August 18 Anjou entered Cambray. Somers, much to his disappointment 'had his dispatch' that morning with cautions as to "the danger of a battle" ; but nevertheless rode with the army far enough to make sure that no further opposition would be met with. Then he returned to Paris, "wishing with all my will that I could have continued in such a company longer than until his entry into that town." The Queen, in her irritable mood, seems to have found fault with him for not staying longer, as well as for his conduct of his negotiations. He justifies himself on both counts in a letter to Burghley (No. 325).

On August 20 and 21 Walsingham wrote a good many letters to Burghley. In one of these (Compleat Ambassador) he gives free vent to his annoyance at the Queen's methods of diplomacy. "I would to God" he says "her Highness would resolve one way or other touching the matter of her marriage ; the uncertain course that is now held in that behalf, besides that it doth offend the Prince here and discredit her servants that deal therein, especially being persuaded as they are that I have more authority than I have, doth minister to the Secretaries of foreign princes matters of discourse greatly to her Majesty's dishonour and extreme grief of us that are acquainted withal ; as that when her Majesty is pressed to marry, thus she seemeth to affect a league, and when a league is yielded to, then she liketh better of a marriage. And when thereupon she is moved to assent to marriage, then hath she recourse to the league ; when the motion for the league, or any request is made for money, then her Majesty returneth to marriage."

Later in the same day (No. 312), after hearing Somers's report, he repeats his fears lest Monsieur should be compelled by lack of funds to content himself with his exploit at Cambray, and disband his troops ; and suggests that the terms on which he and the Queen stand towards each render a loan from her to him possible without any definite purpose being named. The result of this representation was that Lord Henry Seymour was sent in haste with a sum of 50,000 crowns in addition to a similar sum which du Bex took over about the same time. Walsingham's letter crossed one (No. 313) from Burghley, written by the Queen's instructions, assuring him that nothing that had passed between her and Marchaumont could have accounted for the King's change of front ; but in effect altering her own attitude. She now finds fault with her agent for following her directionsa not infrequent practice of hers. "Monsieur may think his case much forgotten of you as her minister, whereby he has cause to think that your coming was only to break the marriage, and only to procure a league without regard how he might be supported by the King." Before, however, this letter came to hand, a fresh conference had begun, by the King's desire, in the matter of the alliance, which he was once more disposed to consider, apart from the question of marriage. But two or three days latter, some of Mauvissire's sanguine letters, written after interviews with the Queen, threw everything back into the former position. In a letter to Burghley on the 26th (Compleat Ambassador) Walsingham shows his annoyance. "It were well that her Majesty did capitulate with the ambassador in these great matters, not to advertise anything without first making her privy thereunto." He himself, in conversation with Pinart, tried to make little of the Queen's remarks, as quite unofficial, "for she doth not use to give her resolution in any matter of importance without the privity of her Council." Ultimately he succeeded in obtaining a prolongation of the time within which a decision on the reserved points was to be given, until the 12th of September.

On September 12 Walsingham's patience fairly gave way, and he wrote to the Queen, just as he was leaving Paris, the remarkable letter preserved at Hatfield (vol. ii, No. 1,044), warning her plainly what the consequence of all this fencing and trifling would be ; and pointing out the folly of acting as if there were no danger"if no peril, why then it is in vain to be at any charges ; but if there be peril, it is hard that charges should be preferred before peril." It is plainer speaking than any other of her ministers would have ventured upon. Elizabeth, however, who would equally endure plainer speaking from him than from any other, replied in an almost affectionate strain, if, as seems likely, the letter of which a draft appears in the Hatfield Calendar (vol. ii, No. 1,051) is her reply. In it she broaches the ingenious theory that anything which Mauvissire and others might do to hinder the treaty, came from their own extreme desire to see the marriage accomplished. But in truth she was in all probability playing a deeper game than even Walsingham could have ventured to suspect. When he finally returned, after a last audience on September 10, at which the same arguments as before had been used on either side, though he left the general question where it was, he had obtained another delay of three months from Sep. 12, during which it might remain open.

On the way home he paid another visit to Anjou, at Pont-Dormi. The meeting was very friendly, the Duke writing to the Queen of Sir Francis as 'le plus onnte omme qu'il est possible.' The visit to England was mentioned, and the Secretary naturally 'found no fault' with the Duke's desire to carry it out. On the 19th he was at Abbeville.

Elizabeth was in fact preparing for her most audacious move. She had already in conversation with Mauvissire early in August (No. 295), after enlarging on her affection for Monsieur."something divine" says the complimentary Frenchmanmentioned that "she had been thinking in these days of various means of getting him into this realm, to render him content." He himself was nothing loath. After the relief of Cambray he could come with some little prestige, and have actual performance to justify his requests for supplies. Moreover a good deal of hard fighting, which his army, already beginning to disband, was in no condition to undertake, would be necessary in order to reach Antwerp by land from Cambray ; though this was the course advised by the Prince of Orange, who stood ready to attack the enemy in the rear. Also the French had no capable commander-in-chief, with authority to maintain order and repress the endless jealousies and rivalries by which the experienced officers, of whom the army contained a few, were hampered. Marshal Coss, upon the urgent solicitation of the Queen of England, had received permission to go ; but his health was rapidly breaking he died a few months laterand he never reached the front. Instead of advancing, the French force besieged and, after a few days, took Cteau-Cambrsis ; but this was its last exploit. A French garrison under Balagny was put into Cambray ; and though Inchy remained nominally governor, he had little real authority. Monsieur himself withdrew to le Ctelet on the French frontier, where we find him from September 7 to 14. On the 15th he was at Pont-Dormi (now Pont-Remy) not far from Abbeville. There and at Saint-Valry he remained for some weeks, corresponding with the Council of State, who were for the time at Bruges, and were urging him to quicken his movements, and particularly with the authorities of Tournay, which under the Princess of Epinoy was stoutly resisting Parma's efforts to reduce it. To all he made lavish promises of aid, which he was in no position to carry into effect. As early as October 1, Cobham wrote from Paris of the general belief that he was going to England.

A letter from Marchaumont to du Bex, dated October 20 (No. 369), (fn. 12) in the humorous and rather cynical tone which the writer adopted towards his colleagues, makes it clear that the Queen was anxious to get Anjou into England. On October 31 he landed at Deal, having sailed, probably from Boulogne, (fn. 13) in bad weather, taking sundry of his suite, and Sainte-Aldegonde, with him ; and on November 2 appeared at the Court at Richmond. His much-reduced army, under the command of Rochepot, was left to make the best of its way, by sea and land, into Flanders. Hopes were at first entertained that he had gone to England only to raise funds, and would soon return to prosecute the war more vigorously ; but Elizabeth had no intention of leaving him to his own devices so soon. She was no doubt well aware that Parma's agents had already been at work to induce him to abandon his enterprise ; and realised that the danger of a reconciliation with Spain was by no means over. Anjou was kept in England for over three months, being fted and cajoled by every possible means short of actual compliance with his suit. A treaty of alliance was drawn up soon after his arrival. Whether this was ever ratified or not, does not appear ; but in a letter from des Pruneaux to the States, dated London, 22 Dec. (Le Duc d' Anjou et les Pays-Bas, iv, p. 274), the contracting of some such agreement is assigned as a chief object of the visit to England. The draft is interesting, as containing an undertaking on the Queen's part to support him not only in his Low Countries enterprise, but against any attempts of the Guise faction to injure him, and with him the 'Religion,' in France.

Almost as soon as the news of Monsieur's arrival in England reached Paris, Secretary Pinart was sent over partly, as we may assume, to see that no unfair advantage was taken of his comparatively defenceless position to persuade him to give away any part of the French requirements in the subtle diplomatic game that was going on ; also, as we learn from a letter of Cobham's (No. 433), to repeat the old condition of marriage before league. The Queen kept her suitor in suspense, never allowing him to despair, but alternating despondency with hope. On Nov. 22 occurred the famous scene when she kissed him and gave him a ring. The incident is not recorded in these papers ; but from a letter of Masino del Bene we learn that three days later the news reached Paris that the Queen was actually betrothed. If, as seems probable, the dispatch to Cobham (No. 415) went at this time, the French were quickly undeceived. In this Elizabeth requires, doubtless in reply to Pinart, as a preliminary to marriage, "assurance under the Great Seal that he [the king] will not only acquit us of all such charges as he and his brother shall be at in prosecuting his enterprise in the Low Countries, but shall also, in case the King of Spain attempts anything against us in respect of that enterprise, upon notice given him thereof, denounce war against him"and so on ; practically all the old demands. This seems to have reached Cobham towards December 18, and to have been imparted by him to the king on that day (No 433). The ambassador took occasion to explain away the incident of the ring as a friendly action ; "but not in such sort or purpose as I could comprehend he had been informed. I assured him," proceeds Sir Henry, "that when God should put you in mind to pass such an absolute promise as they had given him to understand, he might certainly trust your deeds would be as resolute." The discussion proceeded on the well-known lines ; Cobham saying in effect : "If you really are so anxious to see the marriage take place, why do you not remove the only obstacle to it, by consenting to the league ?"a question which he followed up with a plain reference to the intrigues of the Guise faction, and a hint that so long as they continued to hold their present dominant position in France, both she herself would be exposed to their malevolence, and Monsieur's plans liable to be thwarted by their influence.

As to the latter point the king replied a little stiffly ; suggesting that he may have regarded the remark as something of an interference in the internal condition of his realm. On the marriage question he was firm, "intending to treat of no . . . . . other entrance into amity without the marriage shall first be accomplished."

On the Queen Mother, to whom Cobham then turned, his pleading seemed to make more impression, a rather curious scene following. With the ambassador beside her, she approached her son, and urged him not to wait for the marriage before sending some security for 'perpetual amity.' Henry, however, had by this time somewhat lost his temper, and said plainly that if "he gave any assurance either for the contribution or the league, it would but hinder the marriage" ; a proposition to which respect for royal dignity did not prevent Cobham from demurring. However, the king would not give way, and both Queen Mother and ambassador retired more or less snubbed. Writing to Walsingham a couple of days later, Cobham gives other details ; as that during his interview the Duke of Guise and the king frequently exchanged glances over his shoulder. He represents the Queen Mother's attitude as less friendly than would appear from his letter to the Queen. "Methought the Queen Mother in speaking of that point touching the Guises said whispering to the king : Ils ne sont qu' excuses ; to which he replied : Il me semble que oui." Save for a brief allusion in a letter of Cobham's (No. 455) the question seems to have been allowed almost to sleep for the next two months ; though Pinart remained in England, and with Mauvissire, prevented it from being ignored altogether. In December ships were got ready to take the duke to Flushing ; but nothing came of this ; nor is it probable that his departure was seriously intended. He was entertained through Christmas and the New Year ; not without a good deal of discontent both in England and the Netherlands. This found vent in ribald comments, of which No. 526 is a specimen. (fn. 14) Finally at the beginning of February he moved towards the coast(No. 494, dated at Canterbury, was evidently written at this time, though the writer's emotion has caused him to mistake the month)and on the 10th reached Flushing. He was accompanied by the Earl of Leicester and sundry other English noblemen ; one may suppose not less as a precaution against undesirable communications, and security for his safe delivery at Antwerp, than as a mark of the Queen's regard. On the 19th at 4 in the afternoon, on a calm but sunless day (No. 562) he entered Antwerp ; having before his entry taken the oaths as Duke of Brabant and Marquis of the Empire to maintain the privileges of the country. His fortunes henceforth are bound up with those of the Low Countries ; and, since his brother did not repudiate him, the breach between the French and Spanish Courts is for the moment complete.

In those countries, as has been said, no very striking events had occurred during the past year. The correspondence is fairly copious. Stokes writes from Bruges almost every Sunday ; Rossel's and Fremyn's pens are not idle, though the former, towards the end of the period, hints in a somewhat obscurely-worded letter (No. 699) that he considers himself to have been insufficiently remunerated, and that he may be compelled to terminate his services as correspondent ; Hoddesdon and Gilpin contribute information, or confirm that sent by others. William Herle, a very copious (and indecipherable) writer who went over in Leicester's train, found it advisable, for private financial reasons, to remain in Antwerp after his patron's return to England. In the few weeks that elapsed between that date and the end of this volume, he contrived to get eighteen letters written, some of considerable length. Colonel John Norris and Rowland Yorke find time amid their military duties to send a few lines occasionally ; and that valiant soldier and shrewd observer Captain Roger Williams begins in January, 1582, the racy correspondence which he was to keep up for many years. There is no writer of letters in these years for whom the reader conceives a more hearty esteem than for this downright Welshman, a hard hitter with sword and pen alike. With very few exceptions, all their letters are addressed to Walsingham, through whose hands the foreign correspondence seems more and more to have passed.

The war resolves itself mostly into a history of small sieges. Saint-Ghislain was taken by the States in August and lost again ; Eyndhoven taken and retained. Lens and Alost were taken early in 1582 ; Lens being soon lost. Tournay, as has been mentioned, was gallantly defended, in the absence of the Prince of Epinoy, by his wife, the sole member of the House of Lalaing who remained faithful to the popular cause. For two months this brave lady defied all Parma's efforts, making light of the personal threats which he somewhat unchivalrously addressed to her (No. 394) ; and when finally compelled to surrender, obtained favourable terms for the citizens. Parma fixed his headquarters in the captured town.

Complaints of the condition, little better than anarchy, into which the affairs of the States had fallen, reach us from every hand. Rossel in January, 1582, observes : "C'est un caos de voir que cest estat." Stokes had written in October : "there is a number that commands, and few will obey." He hopes for great things from Monsieur's arrival, which as early as February, 1881, had been eagerly awaited. The States' envoys on their return from France seem to have spread all kinds of hopeful reports. Monsieur would arrive in person about the end of April, with the King of Navarre as lieutenant-general of his army, to be largely composed of Huguenots It was a great disillusionment when that army turned out to be mainly a body of greedy freebooters, commanded by adventurers like the future marshals Fervacques and Balagny, and officered in great part by dissolute courtiers of the type of Saint-Luc and Chanvallon. Some were remembered as having been prominent actors in the never-forgotten Massacre of nine years before. The few of weight and character, like the Prince Dauphin, seem to have had little influence. Fremyn, whose letters give the views of an intelligent and well-educated Frenchman, long in the service of the country, writes with considerable frequency during the last six months of our period. He speaks very plainly about the maladministration of affairstroops unpaid, no good guidance, and so on. "If a military chief does not come promptly," he writes in November "all will go ill. . . . To win a town one day and lose another the next, is only to ruin the country." In December, after recounting the bitter feelings aroused at Antwerp by the loss of Tournay, he says : "His Highness is much wanted here to remedy the confusion there is for want of a leader." Guelders was getting unsteady, and a plot was on foot there for a reconciliation with the King of Spain. "So go affairs here for lack of a leader." He quite appreciates the services rendered by the Prince of Orange ; "if anything happened to him, these countries would be in a piteous state." Yet curiously enough, what that able and experienced statesman could not achieve, he thinks might be brought to pass by Anjou and his motley gang. One would have supposed that their experience of the Archduke Matthias, who departed towards the end of October (and who by the way was reported in December to be about to return, as a successor, of all things, to the Prince of Parma) would have sufficiently shown the needlessness of a figurehead. Matthias, too, had been an inert and innocuous figurehead ; Anjou no doubt brought a considerable reinforcement, on paper, to the military resources of the country, but no one could say what use he might make of it. In January Fremyn writes that "His Highness's troops last arrived, commanded by M. de la Rochepot, do more harm than the enemy himself, who is content with pillaging as he goes ; but these have to be further paid for the violations and disorders which they commit." The same letter (No. 503) shows that the extreme left, chiefly represented at Ghent, whose spokesmen were the demagogues Hembize and Dathenus, were making great capital out of the general anarchy. Even the somewhat cynical Fremyn is moved beyond his wont at the wretched state of the country.

Matters did not greatly improve when the new duke was installed. Hopes had been entertained that the spell which in 1577 the Queen of Navarre had cast over the nobles of Artois and Hainault might still work in her brother's favour ; but these were soon dissipated. Jealousies prevented any reconciliation. Herle writes on March 31 : "Count Lalaing can in no wise abide the Prince of Orange's greatness. The Viscount of Ghent will not be in place where his brother the Prince of pinoy has credit or authority" ; and so on.

Monsieur demanded that a church must be set apart for himself and other Catholics, or he would go back to France. The magistrates were inclined to grant this ; but the colonels and captains of the civic forces objected. They were not going to let the rites, banished at so great a cost, be restored unless by a formal resolution of the States-General. All this, says Fremyn, "infinitely distresses his Excellency, who is in much trouble, and employs all his powers in getting them to agree to allow a church to the Catholics." Finally the church of St. Michael was granted ; the officiating clergy were to take the oath of allegiance to Monsieur, and abjure the King of Spain ; and only established citizens of Antwerp were to attend. Even so, however, and though this was granted at the Prince's special instance (Nos. 583, 608), the sight of the restored Mass in Antwerp set Catholics and Protestants at once by the ears ; blows being actually exchanged between adherents of the two forms of worship. Yet in many cases even Catholics were loyal to the cause ; and we are told (No. 621) how the Prince of pinoy's 'preacher' exhorted the congregation at St. Michael's to abjure the King of Spain.

On March 18 a catastrophe occurred which for a time put everything else out of men's minds. The Prince of Orange, when leaving the dinner-table, was shot in the face and neck by Jean Jaureguy, a Biscayan, acting as the instrument of one Gaspar de Aastro, a Spanish banker in Antwerp, who was making a bid for the reward by which the King of Spain was encouraging the assassination of the Prince. The first definite announcement of the incident is given with soldierly brevity by Colonel John Norris, who was at Antwerp at the time, in a letter dated March 20. Herle follows next day, with more details, and a copy of the confession extorted from Aastro's cashier. (fn. 15) That worthy himself had managed to make his escape, and was at or on his way to the Prince of Parma's headquarters at Tournay. It is interesting to note that part of the scheme had been, in the event of Jaureguy's capture, to use no less a personage than la Noue as a kind of hostage for the safety of the cowardly assassin. As a matter of fact, Jaureguy was instantly cut down by the bystanders. Two other persons, convicted as accessories before the fact, were executed on the 28th, in spite of the Prince's expressed desire that their lives might be spared. His wishes were, however, so far deferred to that they were put to death simply, without refinements of cruelty.

William's extremity revealed the true value set upon his services by the people. "It was not thought he had been so generally beloved as since his hurt appears," writes Gilpin on April 8. For some weeks he hung between life and death. The position of the wound made it difficult to stop the bleeding without impeding respiration and the surgeons were frequently at their wits' end. Many graphic reports of the circumstances, and of the alternations of hope and despair that followed will be found among the correspondence. One of the best is from the pen of Fulk Greville (No. 644) ; who was sent over on receipt of the news, and reached Antwerp on April 1. The Prince, it appears, had been doing well ; but an interview with the Duke of Anjou was prolonged beyond what was prudent, and to the general disappointment a serious return of hemorrhage had taken place, which was only checked, and that partially, by the constant plugging or compressing of the vein with a finger ; a duty which the surgeons and attendants discharged continuously for some 30 hours. The Prince himself seems to have had at this point no hope of recovery, and wrote letters of farewell to Monsieur and the States (No. 646). In the same letter Fremyn gives a curious little glimpse into the sickroom of a great personage and the crowds who were allowed to encumber it, "eating onions and the like." His view that women are 'choses prilleuses,' not to be encouraged about a sick person, sounds to us somewhat paradoxical. It was in the present case rather ungrateful, seeing that the Prince's recovery was largely due to the devoted care of his wife, and his sister the Countess of Schwarzburg. The former, indeed, paid for her devotion with her life ; her sixth daughter was but three months old when the sudden shock befell her, and this with the long period of watching and anxiety that followed was too much for her strength. In the same paragraph of a letter dated April 28 (No. 716) Herle reports the assured convalescence of the Prince, and mentions on the Prince's own statement that 'the Princess is fallen very sick.' As she was 'let blood' four times in one day, it is perhaps hardly surprising that she died a week later.

If the Prince's danger brought out the latent affection of the citizens for him, it had the contrary effect as regards the French. There was already a good deal of grumbling at the facilities for worship that had been accorded to them, and the appointment of Papists to all the best offices. Even of the French who had been long serving the States, Roger Williams observes that they "differ from the Flemings' humour as much as the English do from the Irish." There was, according to some accounts, a tendency at first to attribute the attack on the Prince to French instigation ; though nothing to that effect appears in these papers. But undoubtedly bitter feeling prevailed. As Monsieur was seeing off the Prince Dauphin (who returned to France at the end of March) he was abused and threatened by an angry burgess of Antwerpnot drunk, as Herle, who thinks this an aggravation of the offence, is careful to mentionwho even offered to draw upon M. de Marivaux, captain of the Duke's guard. He was locked up ; but his spirit doubtless animated others.

The Prince's recovery caused as much disappointment to the Spanish side as the first rumours of his death had elated them. Parma, who of course was cognizant of the whole plot, lost no time in making capital out of William's supposed removal. An improved version of the circumstances was circulated, including such details as that the Prince of Epinoy had been wounded and his wife slain in defending the Prince ; also that Monsieur "and he" were abandoned by the people, "who were wholly in rage and fury against the French"the last statement, as has been seen, not entirely without foundation. But the Spanish commander took other and more practical steps. To all the principal towns he sent letters, proclaiming the Prince's death, and inviting them to submit themselves to the kindness and clemency of the King of Spain. A specimen of these will be found in that addressed to Brussels (No. 624). Contrary to the usages of warfare, the trumpeters who bore them were entrusted also with letters from and to private individuals ; one from Aastro himself to the brother of Antonio Venero, the cashier awaiting trial at Antwerp, was seized at Ghent. The trumpeters were arrested ; but Parma, employing the usual threat of reprisals on la Noue, succeeded in saving them from any penalty more severe then detention.

Though Jaureguy's plot was the first to result in action, it was not the first to be laid against the life of the Prince of Orange. When Walsingham was in Paris, a man had given information to him and Cobham that 'a Spaniard' in Paris (afterwards revealed as the Spanish ambassador) had been 'practising' him to poison the Prince. They advised him rather to carry the information to the Prince himself ; while they communicated the matter to the Duke of Anjou. About September 20, the man in some way fell into the hands of the duke himself, then in the neighbourhood of Abbeville. He admitted that he had been with Parma, gave his name as Bureaua person of that name, Sieur de la Crpinire, is said to have been active in the Massacreand told a story of his having been incited by the Spanish ambassador "to do something against the Huguenots." Stated more particularly, this meant "to poison the Prince of Orange." He admitted the visit to Cobham and Walsingham, and said that they had counselled him to go through with his plan, till he came to the Prince of Orange. Anjou sent a report of this story (No. 348-1) to Cobham, with a request for advice as to whether to make use of Bureau, or put him on his trial. As no more is heard of the matter, it seems probable that the former course was taken. Cobham in answer to Anjou (No. 348-2) and Walsingham in a letter to Villiers (No. 365) practically endorse Bureau's story, and it is again confirmed, doubtless on Walsingham's authority, by Marchaumont in a letter to du Bex (Hatfield Cal. ii, No. 1087). Whether a mysterious letter addressed to Walsingham (No. 341) about the time of his departure from Paris, has any reference to this affair, there is nothing to show. There is in any case a fine flavour of covert dealing about it. Another glimpse into the methods of the time is given in a letter of Cobham's (No. 379) ; where it is not easy at first to understand whether the ambassador is speaking of a plan to poison the Prince of Parma, or one directed against the Prince of Orange. The context, however, makes it probable that 'the said prince' is the latter.

In France, next to the diplomatic questions connected with the marriage, the most interesting topic is perhaps the dealings relating to Don Antonio. At the beginning of 1581, the unfortunate pretender, with a reward of 20,000 ducats on his head, was still keeping up some show of resistance in Portugal. The Queen Mother was interesting herself in his proceedings, besides keeping her own claim alive ; and in February the Spanish ambassador, on his arrival, had some remarks to make on both points (No. 45). A week or two later, she informed Cobham that Don Antonio was in safety. Some Portuguese envoys, Antonio Brito de Pimentel and others, were reported about the same time to have reached Tours. By March 22, Don Antonio and his chief supporter, the Count of Vimioso, like himself an illegitimate scion of the royal House, are reported to be in France, near Bordeaux, where the Count, who had landed at Aigues-Mortes, is said to have had an interview with Monsieur. In May, Wade reports (No. 162) that he is in France, and that "it is greatly wished that he should retire out of the realm." At this time Philip is reported to be trying to come to terms with him through Count Vimioso, "employing the means of an uncle," and offering Calabria and Apulia, or else the Indies, as a price of reconciliation.

Before the end of March Cobham had sent an agent to look into the movements of shipping on the Breton coasts, and reported on them, without, it would seem, understanding their full significance ; indicated sufficiently in view of later events by the names of Strozzi and Scarlin, who were respectively to command and hold office in the illfated expedition to the Azores in the following year. In a curious paper of replies sent by Cobham about this time in answer to certain questions from home touching the state of affairs at the French Court (No. 104) he mentions incidentally that the Queen Mother is showing herself 'apassionated' in favour of Antonio. Meantime negotiations are being entered into with the view of obtaining aid from England. In Nos. 109 and 143 are set forth the conditions on which this was to be granted. The 'General' in the former document is probably Drake, who according to the original plan was to have commanded the English squadron. On April 20, Count Vimioso arrived at Blois, where Cobham had an interview with him on the following day (No. 148). His report, dated April 28, had however been forestalled ; William Wade having received, it would seem, private instructions to deal in the matter, assisted by one Edward Prim, a Portuguese, born of an English father, who was a good deal employed in this and the following years. (fn. 16) Wade's first interview with Count Vimioso is recorded in No. 459 (which, owing to the date having been lost, was misplaced, and only discovered too late to insert it in its proper order) ; a remarkable dispatch for the insight which it gives into the personal views of the Queen Mother and other eminent persons. Cobham, though he does not himself refer to it, appears from Wade's account (No. 146) to have been somewhat annoyed by the encroachment on his own ambassadorial functions. With Count Vimioso was joined in the negotiations John Rodriguez da Souza (usually called by the English 'Don' or 'Signor Roderigo') ; whom we have already seen acting as an envoy from Don Antonio to Elizabeth. This man, though he had been in England for some time, and kindly treated, seems to have preferred to look to France for aid ; for which reason no doubt Prim, whose sympathies were wholly English, was selected to counterbalance his influence with Count Vimioso. From expressions used by him in writing to Walsingham (Nos. 163, 164) Prim does not appear to have held a very favourable opinion of Souza, whom he accuses of deliberately hindering the negotiations. John Rodriguez presently returned to England, with instructions from Count Vimioso, who appears, until his untimely death in the following year, to have managed Don Antonio's affairs very much at his own discretion. The pretender's own movements are for some time obscure. At the end of April Cobham hears from Pierre Dor that "he was well, and in a safe place." A week later, Prim, writing from Blois, thinks he is 'here'i.e. probably, in France. Mendoza, at the same time, believed him to be in Barbary. On June 15, Cobham mentions the arrival at Bordeaux of a Portuguese caravel, on board of which he is conjectured to be. Ten days later he was undoubtedly in London, 'pressing her Majesty to lend him some ships out of hand.' Even then, as we learn from a letter of July 4, dated from Flushing, two to one in large amounts was being laid a gains this being really in England. However, there is no doubt that he was there before the end of June ; though Tassis, writing on July 8 to the King of Spain, seems to have only just become aware of it, and even then is not quite sure that he is not in France. Even Mendoza, though suspecting it sooner, was not certainly informed till the 4th. The pretender was lodged with Souza, under the tutelage of Dr. Ruy Lopez. In the Low Countries it was thought that someone else was passing under his name. Cobham, however, knew the facts from Prim.

Don Antonio's visit to England included the period of Walsingham's mission to France ; and points with regard to the treatment to be adopted in the matter figure in the Secretary's instructions. In fact, next to the alliance, or indeed rather as an element in it, an arrangement respecting the course to be followed in supporting the Portuguese pretender was a principal object of his journey. Combination in the furtherance of Antonio's plans would serve nearly as well a more general alliance, and action in the Netherlands, to keep a breach open between France and Spain. The Queen Mother's own shadowy claims, and much more real personal hatred of Philip, made her co-operation very probable.

By the end of August, the King of Spain was becoming suspicious, and wrote seriously to the Queen on the subject (No. 314) calling upon her to hand Don Antonio over to him, or at any rate turn him out of her dominions. As a matter of fact, the letter must have found the pretender on the point of departing. About September 20 he landed at Dieppe, whither Count Vimioso and Strozzi went to receive him. On October 9 Cobham writes that he 'has arrived at Dieppe' and has had conference with Monsieur. It does not appear where this conference took place ; but as there is nothing to show that Anjou was ever again at Dieppe after his abortive attempt to cross over to England at the end of May, it seems more probable that Don Antonio visited him at Saint-Valry, which lies conveniently between Abbeville and Dieppe. We know the duke to have been there from at least the 5th to the 26th of October, letters being dated thence on those and intervening days, and thence he doubtless returned northward to take his passage for England. At all events, from the Hatfield papers it would seem that his minister du Bex sailed from Boulogne, and that the first news of his arrival that reached France came that way.

On October 21 Don Antonio was at Poissy, and after a short stay in or near Paris, where Cobham had an interview with him, took up his abode at Tours. To the ambassador he expressed satisfaction with his reception in England, but regretted that the negotiations for ships had not borne fruit. He got more tangible aid from the king, in the shape of permission to levy men and requisition ships for their transport. The Queen Mother gave him 15,000 crowns ('wherein there was some difficulty') and promised pay for 3,000 men. Strozzi was now fully engaged in preparing for the enterprise. Mendoza thinks that he was put in charge of it to keep him occupied, having lately been made to surrender the post of colonel-general in favour of Lavalette. There is nothing however in these papers to confirm that notion ; and Strozzi had long been the king's regular agent in matters relating to Don Antonio's naval and military requirements. In December we find him sending into England a personage whose name, as rendered by Cobham, is calculated to confuse the incautious reader. 'Maningvil' is the form under which in the hands of Robert Bowes and other English writers, the ardent Leaguer, M. de Mayneville, who a few months later was intriguing in Scotland on behalf of the Guises, is wont to appear. The 'Maningvil' of No. 418 and several subsequent letters was a very different person. Readers of Torsay's life of Strozzi will remember a mention of one Cencio Manni, dit Maniuville, foster-brother and retainer to the subject of the memoir. This was no doubt the individual who emerges for a moment in the current of affairs at this time. He appears to have been a Protestant, and to have served at Rochelle, where Strozzi was on the other side.

Don Antonio was all this while issuing letters of marque to English ships, and even went so far as to send a circular to English coast-towns, in the form of a request that they would not allow certain classes of goods to be shipped for Spain. This concealed a thinly-veiled threat to treat such goods as contraband of war ; and that it was no empty threat appears from a complaint made on November 27 by the Council of State at Antwerp, to the effect that vessels bound for those countries were being boarded by his privateers. Among the English captains concerned in this piracy, Henry Knollys, son of the Comptroller, was conspicuous. He lay about the Isle of Wight, committing such depredations that Mendoza in his turn had to make a formal complaint. Don Antonio, on the other hand, to judge from a letter which he sent to Walsingham about the end of the year (No. 450) had his own grounds of dissatisfaction with Knollys, whom he found insufficiently active in his cause. By the middle of January the encouragement given in France to the pretender had drawn a remonstrance from the Pope, who through Monsignor Malespina exhorted the king and his mother to leave Portugal alone. The Queen Mother seems to have taken this occasion to hint at her own claims, asserting "that she favoured Don Antonio as her kinsman and subject." She took a less defiant tone a few days later, when the Spanish ambassador "lamented to her how the Catholic king understood that Monsieur had given new commissions for 140 captains to levy companies . . . and that the king knew that she set forth Strozzi and Brissac for the aiding of Don Antonio." To these allegations excuses and denials were her answer. The preparations went on nevertheless throughout the early months of 1581. In February Stokes reports that the Prince and States had granted Don Antonio's 'ambassador' (presumably Francis Anthony de Souza) 12 great ships. It is possibly to the discipline of these that the curious regulations given in No. 527 refer. In April a report comes through Rossel that Madeira has revolted in favour of the pretender. This cannot have been more than a pious wish ; though some attempt seems, from Mendoza's letters, to have been made to win over that island by the agency of that Father John of the Holy Spirit whose name occurs once or twice in this volume. Terceira in the Azores did, however, refuse to recognise the sovereignty of Castile, and under its governor, Dom Cypriam Figueredo, held for 'the King.' The governor himself and others in the island, including one Friar Symo del Varro, were in correspondence with Walsingham, and two English captains, Henry Roberts and Henry Richards (or Ricarde), armed with Don Antonio's letters of marque, were turning their attention, not unsuccessfully, to the Spanish vessels trading in those regions, and adding fresh fuel to the wrath of Mendoza and his master, already kindled by Drake's exploit. Echoes of the latter event continue through the present volume. In No. 401 is given a list of all the owners of the treasure captured in the famous Nuestra Seora de La Concepcion, alias Cacafuego, from which it can be seen how widely Drake's raid was felt in Spanish commercial circles. In connexion with the efforts to recover it we find under date August 17, a letter purporting to be from the Consuls of the Merchants of Seville to the Merchants Adventurers of London, threatening to petition the king, in the event of no steps being taken in that direction, to take reprisals upon English goods in Spanish ports. If we may credit Mendoza in this matter, the letter in question was a fabrication of his own ingenuity (fn. 17) ; intended to reinforce the applications which he was constantly making on the same subject to the Queen and her Council. It is somewhat interesting to find the actual document in existence. In it occurs the name of Pedro de Zubiaur, a merchant of Seville, who was at this time in England. He seems to have been really employed in connexion with the claims against Drake, and (under various spellings) a good deal more will be heard of him. From a letter written by him to Walsingham in the following March (No. 620) we learn that he was one of those who suffered from the operations of the privateers in the Azores ; while from a document of the following August in the Hatfield Calendar (vol. ii, No. 1193) it would appear that he was anxious to effect a compromise, and in this way came into conflict with Mendoza, who stood out for restitution 'to the uttermost maravedi.' Two months later he was arrested, nominally for debt, really as a correspondent of Aastro, and remained in custody for some years.

In France peace prevailed, at least outwardly, through the whole of our period. From a letter of Rossel's we learn that at the beginning of February the Peace of Fleix had not yet been formally published. Cond was not satisfied with the attention paid in it to his interests, and no doubt discontent was seething ; but officially all parties were reconciled. The Queen Mother's influence was exerted in that direction, if only in order that nothing might interfere with her son's enterprise in the Netherlands, to which Protestants might be expected to render the most ready assistance. Cond, accompanied by Beutrich, came from Germany into Dauphin ; being waylaid and robbed in the passes of the Alps, and compelled to complete his journey to Gap 'in his hose and doublet, on foot' (No. 7). His presence was needed in order to settle some social jealousies which interfered with the solidity of the party in that province. Thence he passed on to Nismes, where he received a message from the King of Navarre intended to allay his dissatisfaction. Navarre and Anjou also wrote in his behalf to the Court, and he himself presently entered into negotiations with the Queen Mother. Towards the end of April he met Navarre and Anjou at Bergerac, after which Anjou departed to Alenon to make his preparations for Flanders. The latter is said to have been annoyed by Cond's refusal to accompany him. The king, on the other hand, seems to have believed that he had gone to Alenon, and to have been displeased thereat. The Queen Mother, faithful to her pacific policy, 'desired to content' him, and Anjou in a letter to the States, expressed himself satisfied of his determination to maintain the peace. Dauphin was showing itself indisposed to make certain exchanges of towns stipulated by the treaty, and the king was threatening armed intervention. To settle these and other matters, a meeting of Protestant Deputies was summoned at Montauban, whence those from Dauphin subsequently started for the Court with proposals for a compromise, but were stopped by a message from the king insisting on the strict performance of the treaty. They went however to Mantes, where they saw Monsieur and the Queen Mother. Mayenne was ordered to enter the province with an armed force ; upon which they agreed to submit to the king's will. Mayenne nevertheless went forward with 12,000 men and 40 guns ; and though we hear of no actual hostilities, complaints came in November "that he did not keep his promise to them." Fortifications were razed, the province was held firmly down. Cond, after accompanying the deputies to Mantes, returned to Saint-Jean-d'Angely. (fn. 18) We hear no more of him until December, when a plot for the surrender of that town, alleged to have been concocted by young Lansac, on his way to join Strozzi in the west, was frustrated by his vigilance. There was a rumour that he was going to serve as Anjou's lieutenant-general in the Low Countries ; but nothing came of this, though towards the end of April Fremyn mentions a rumour that employment might be found for him in Franche-Comt. When the King and Queen of Navarre met the Queen Mother early in April, at la Mothe-Saint-Hraye near Saint-Maixent, Cond refused to be of the party. Even Navarre frankly declined, in the presence of Lansac, his host, to sleep on the premises, "knowing the evil office he [Lansac] and his son had done him" (No. 668)a curious evidence of the universal suspicion that prevailed. Overt hostilities, as has been said, were few. Besides the alleged plan for seizing Saint-Jean-d'Angely, in July the Catholics of Perigord, under the Sieur de Bourdeille, with the aid of royal troops and the connivance of Biron, took Prigueux and sacked it under circumstances of considerable brutality ; but they did not retain it long, Matignon and Bellivre being sent to arrange for its restoration. (fn. 19) In the following February Cobham refers to a story that some of Cond's men had made an attempt on Niort.

The Jesuit campaign in England was initiated in the summer of 1581. The capture of Campion, its pioneer, is briefly alluded to in a letter of Aug. 11 from Walsingham, then in Paris, to Burghley, and Cobham in the course of January, 1582, refers more than once to the French account of his death, given to the press by the Bishop of Ross. He also mentions the escape of the more formidable conspirator, Robert Parsons. From this time on the ambassador's dispatches are full of reports of Jesuit movements. He also employs cipher to a much larger extent than hitherto. This is fortunately deciphered in most cases ; but there is not much difficulty in reading it at any time. While on this subject, reference may be made to a great haul of ciphered dispatches, three in number, written on July 8 and 9 to the King of Spain, by John Baptist Tassis, his agent at the French Court. Tassis was at this time sending his letters via Calais and London, through Mendozaat first sight a somewhat daring method of securing their safe delivery. Possibly he remembered the fate of Don John's correspondence five years before, and thought the route across France yet more risky. These may well owe their presence among the English instead of the Spanish archives to the fact of their having travelled by this route. (fn. 20) They contain some interesting information as to the attitude of the French King and his mother towards Anjou's enterprise (or rather the attitude which they thought proper to adopt before an agent of Spain) ; notice of the arrival of Don Antonio at Calais, with some account of his companions, and a rather naive complaint of the difficulty the writer finds in obtaining any intelligence in Paris. "This is an age," says the writer, "when Spanish affairs give offence to all" ; a significant admission of the affection which Spanish pretensions had earned for the nation in Europe.

Of the hostile relations between Savoy and Geneva, which came to fresh life with the accession of Charles Emanuel, we get occasional glimpses ; as, incidentally, of the internal politics of the Swiss Confederation. Here the Kings of France and Spain exercised opposing influence ; the former trying to keep the Cantons united, while the latter used persuasions and money to separate the Catholics from the Protestants (No. 275)of course on either side a move in the game of which predominant influence in Savoy was to be the prize. It is interesting to note that within the Confederacy Lucerne was even then the centre of separatist tendencies ; its eminent citizen, Col. Pfyffer, being already in the service of the Duke of Savoy with 2,000 menand earning thereby the disapproval of his fellow-citizens assembled in Diet at Baden. It took the Diet, or its equivalent, nearly 300 years to make up its mind to stronger measures.

A few references to Denmark are worth noting. In March, Herle reports (No. 590) that communications are taking place between that country and Spain. Had Philip discovered, like Napoleon long afterwards, the value of Denmark as a 'jumping-off place' for an attack on England ? Danish and English relations were not at the moment overfriendly a long letter (No. 704) sets forth some of the English seamen's grievancesand it was obviously important not to drift into hostilities. Their perception of this no doubt led to Lord Willoughby's embassy later in the year, notices of which will be found in the next volume.

Cobham, as usual, sends over an occasional spicy anecdote. One in No. 541 respecting the French Queen's pilgrimage to Chartres would have delighted the Sieur de Brantme, who had he been aware of it would hardly have failed to record it. Another bit of Court gossip in which the notorious Mme de Sauve plays a part, was sufficiently scandalous to require the veil of cipher. Cryptic names for individuals become frequent. The Queen is 'Oriens,' the French king 'Hipolito,' Monsieur 'Splendor.' In No. 657, 'Tau' and 'Nequam' must denote the King of Navarre and the Queen Mother respectively ; 'Alpha' seems to be the Duke of Guise ; 'Phocas' I cannot identify. These occur in the letter of some anonymous Scotchman in France ; and there are other instances of anonymous letters. No. 341 has already been noticed. The reference to 'making my next act' suggests that the writer was a student in the University. I regret that I am unable to place 'Andogion's man Pardonzo.'

Other little personal touches are : "The king set on a low stool, with his young wife on his knee, and Lavalette beside them" with the entry of the Queen Mother on this domestic scene, and the consequent annoyance of the younger lady (No. 361) ; the king's reply in the same letter to the demands of one of his bloodsuckers, the Marshal de Retz, with its neat and cutting allusion to the position whence he had raised that personagea reply which like so much else makes us wish that Henry's character had been on a par with his wit ; old M. de la Mothe-Fnelon 'with his mild manner of protestation' a phrase which brings the man before us better than a page of description ; the scene in the Prince of Orange's sickroom, already quoted ; all these recall the men and manners of the time most vividly.

Of men either then famous, or to be so in future years, a good many pass across the scene. Ortelius the geographer ; Albericus Gentilis the jurist (who loses no time about soliciting Walsingham for a prebend or other preferment) ; Bodinus the political philosopher, who accompanied Anjou to Antwerp in some function of 'controller' ; tienne Lesieur, to become in the next reign Sir Stephen and hold important postsnow a mere useful young Frenchman, attached apparently to Philip Sidney's service, and employed in delicate diplomatic jobs. In the present case, his business was the delivery of Daniel Rogers from durance in the hands of Schenck and the Baron of Anholt. A Latin letter from Rogers to Wilson, dated Bredeford, June 28, gives in the Ciceronian style of the time an account of the unfortunate envoy's griefs. The Secretary never received this communication, for he had died in May. Curiously enough, no direct mention of his death occurs in the papers. Hubert Languet, the vir pietate gravis of the Calvinistic party, passed away at Antwerp on the last day of September ; and Marshal Coss, in his own way something of a moderating influence on the other side, on January 15, 1582. Almost, or quite, before the breath was out of his body, his offices were distributed.

Father Parsonsthis and not the modern refinement 'Persons' is the spelling we find in these lettersgives now and then a sign of his ill-omened presence. After the arrest and execution of his weaker accomplice, and probably sop to the wolves, Campion, a true enthusiast, whose constancy under torments must earn the respect even of those who shudder at the thought of what his and his companion's success would have meant to England, Parsons had to avoid the public gaze a good deal.

An individual whose adventurous career has rendered him somewhat famous, Franois de Civille, appears (No. 637) as a correspondent of Walsingham's.

The personage known in the last volume as 'Montbreny,' d'Aubigny's kinsman and secretary, appears again under sundry other forms. He is the person of whom Calderwood writes : "M. Montbirneau, a merry companion, able in body and quick in spirit, a fit instrument to be with a young king." I conjecture that his name was really Montbruneau ; Bowes calls him Mountburneau, and other adaptations ; but I can discover nothing of his family.

Ludovico Guicciardini brought out at the end of 1581 a new edition of his great Descrizione di Tutti gli Paesi Bassi (?) of which mention is made in some of Herle's letters. In March Fremyn mentions that the author was arrested at Antwerp for corresponding with the enemy. The charge was very likely true ; for the editions of the book after the Prince's death make it plain that Guicciardini's sympathies were with the reactionary cause. But he seems to have been let go, for Herle mentions a conversation with him a month later.

In No. 521 will be found mention of a lady who made some stir in Italy, the 'White Devil,' Vittoria Accorambona.

Of curious words and forms there are a fair number. The spelling 'Tennett' for Thanet shows what is the correct pronunciation, against the modern tendency to give the th its usual sound. It is exactly analogous to 'Thames.'

'His wife's alliance' in the sense of kindred, may be worth noting (No. 361). 'Padgens' for pageants is an eccentricity of Sir Henry Cobham, which for a second puzzled one reader. 'Porsellyne' seems now established (No. 407). In the last volume, it will be remembered, it was 'earth of China.' 'To shope them up' (No. 410) seems to mean to box them up. No. 458, a curious letter as to its contents, has one or two quaint forms'fratched' for freighted, 'lowabell' for (?) allowable, i.e. duty-free. 'Sorted' in the sense of Latin sortitus, occurs in Nos. 245 and 459 ; 'sortit' in that of French sorti in a Scotch letter, No. 657. In No. 497 Stokes uses 'sorrow' exactly in the sense of German sorgen'no man that sorrows for the cause.' In No. 597 the queerlooking word 'vyerwyis' should be 'oyerwyis,' i.e. otherwise. 'Scout' for contte (No. 519) is unusual. The use of 'remained' for 'were left dead' (No. 544) is perhaps oftener found in Italian than in English. 'For why ?' in two words and with a note of interrogation, has a modern look ; the usual form being 'forwhy,' (because). To 'visit,' meaning to inspect, letters (p. 577) is another phrase which has dropped out of use here, though still common in France. I do not feel sure whether the 'corsies' that were applied to the Prince of Orange's wound (No. 644) were caustics or corrosives ; perhaps a little of both. An old French form which Fremyn and perhaps others use is 'voisent,' for vont or aillentfor it seems to serve for both moods. 'A noiaporri' (No. 515) is an expression seemingly unknown to the Italian Dictionaries. 'Venetians' as an article of clothing (p. 551) appears to mean breeches. Several terms of haberdashery and tailoring will be found in Cobham's signalements of Jesuits.

The Index, as before, has been prepared by my daughter, Miss G. E. Butler.