The wars of religion in France, 1559-1576; the Huguenots, Catherine de Medici and Philip II

Front matter

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Preface

No one acquainted with the history of historical writing can have failed to observe how transitory are its achievements. Mark Pattison's aphorism that "history is one of the most ephemeral forms of hterature" has much of truth in it. The reasons of this are not far to seek. In the first place, the most laborious historian is doomed to be superseded in course of time by the accumulation of new material. In the second place, the point of view and the interpretation of one generation varies from that which preceded it, so that each generation requires a rewriting of history in terms of its own interest.

These reasons must be my excuse for venturing to write a new book upon an old subject. It is now nearly thirty years since the appearance of the late Professor Henry M. Baird's excellent work. The Rise of the Huguenots (New York, 1879), and little that is comprehensive has since been written upon the subject in English, with the exception of Mr. A. W. Whitehead's admirable Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France (London, 1904). But the limitations imposed by biographical history compel an author inevitably to ignore movements or events not germane to his immediate subject, which, nevertheless, may be of great importance for general history. Moreover, a biography is limited by the term of life of the hero, and his death may not by any means terminate the issue in which he was a factor — as indeed was the case with Cohgny.

An enumeration of the notable works — sources and authorities — ^which have been published since the appearance of Professor Baird's work may serve to justify the present volume. First and foremost must be mentioned the notable Lettres de Catherine de Medicis, the lack of which Ranke deplored, edited by the late Count Hector de la Ferriere and M. Baguenault de la Puchesse (9 vols.), the initial volume of which appeared in 1880. Of diplomatic correspondence we have the Ambassade en Espagne de JeanEbrard,

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Vlll PREFACE

seigneur de St. Sulpice de 1562 a ij6j (Paris, 1902), edited by M. Edmond Cabie, and the Depeches de M. Fourquevaux, ambassadeur du roi Charles IX en Espagne, i^6j-'/2, in three volumes, edited by the Abbe Douais (Paris, 1896), Other sources which have seen the hght within the last three decades are M, Delaborde's Vie de Coligny (3 vols., 187 7-), the title of which is somewhat misleading, for it is really a collection of Cohgny's letters strung upon the thread of his career; the Baron Alphonse de Ruble's Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d'Albret (4 vols., 1881); M. Ludovic Lalanne's new annotated edition of D'Aubigne (1886), and the new edition of Beza's Histoire ecclesiastique (ed. of Baum, 1883). Finally, among sources should be included many volumes in the " Calendar of State Papers." Professor Baird has rightly said that "Too much weight can scarcely be given to this source of information and illustration." His praise would probably have been even greater if he could have used the correspondence of Dale and Smith as freely as he did that of Throckmorton and Norris.

When we pass from sources to authorities the list of notable works is even longer. La Ferriere's Le XVP siecle et les Valois —the fruit of researches in the Record Office in London — appeared in 1879; M. Forneron's Histoire de Philippe II (4 vols.) was published in 1887, and is even more valuable than his earlier Histoire des dues de Guise (1877). Besides these, in the decade of the 8o's, are Durier's Les Huguenots en Bigorre (18S4); Communay's Les Huguenots dans le Beam et la Navarre (1886); Lettenhove's Les Huguenots et les Gueux (1885) ; the baron de Ruble's Le traite de Cateau-Cambresis (1889), and the abbe Marchand's Charles de Cosse, Comte de Brissac (1889). M. de Crue's notable Anne, due de Montmorency appeared in the same year and his no less scholarly Le parti des politiques au lendemain de Saint Barthelemy three years later. M. Marlet's Le comte de Montgomery was published in 1890; M. Georges Weill's Les theories sur le pouvoir royal en France pendant les guerres de religion, in 1891; M. Henri Hauser's Frangois de La None in 1892; M. Bernard de Lacombe's Catherine de Medicis entre Guise et Conde in 1899, and, most recently of all, M. Courteault's Blaise de Montluc (1908).

PREFACE ix

Many contributions in the Revue historique, the Revue des questions historiques, the English Historical Review, the Revue d'histoire diplomatique, the Revue des deux mondes, and one article in the American Historical Review, January, 1903, by M. Hauser, "The Reformation and the Popular Classes in the Sixteenth Century," are equally valuable, as the notes will show. I have also consulted many articles in the proceedings of various local or provincial historical societies, as the Societe de Paris et de ITle de France; the Societe de I'histoire de Normandie, the Societe d'histoire et d'archeologie de Geneve, etc., and the admirable series known as the Bulletin de la Societe d protestantisme frangais, which is a mine of historical lore.

While the present work falls in the epoch of the French Reformation, no attempt has been made to treat that subject in so far as the Reformation is assumed primarily to have been a religious manifestation. Doctrine, save when it involved polity, has been ignored. But into the political, diplomatic, and economic activities of the period I have tried to go at some length. As to the last feature, it is not too much to say that our interpretation of the sixteenth century has been profoundly changed within the last! twenty years by the progress made in economic history. Such| works as Weiss's La chamhre ardente and Hauser's Ouvriers du temps passe have revolutionized the treatment of this subject.

Such an interpretation is merely a reflection of our own presentday interest in economic and social problems. In this particular it is the writer's belief that he is the first to present some of the results of recent research into the economic history of sixteenth-century France to English readers. My indebtedness to M. Hauser is especially great for the help and suggestion he has given me in the matter of industrial history. But I have tried to widen the subject and attempted to show the bearing of changes in the agricultural regime, the influence of the failure of crops owing to adverse weather conditions, and the disintegration of society as the result of incessant war and the plague, upon the progress of the Huguenot movement. In an agricultural country like France in the sixteenth century, the distress of the provinces through the

X PREFACE

failure of the harvests was sometimes nearly universal, and the retroactive effect of such conditions in promoting popular discontent had a marked influence upon the religious and pohtical issues.

It has been pointed out that "the religious wars of France furnish the most complete instance of the constant intersection of native and foreign influences."' The bearing of the Huguenot movement upon Spanish and Dutch history was intimate and marked, and this I have also attempted to set forth. In so doing the fact that has impressed me most of all is the development and activity of the provincial Catholic leagues and their close connection with Spain's great Catholic machine in France, the Holy League.

The history of the Holy League in France is usually represented as having extended from 1576 to 1594. This time was the period of its greatest activity and of its greatest power. But institutions do not spring to life full armed in a moment, like Athene from the head of Zeus. "The roots of the present lie deep in the past," as Bishop Stubbs observed. Institutions are a growth, a development. The Holy League w^as a movement of slow growth and development, although it has not been thus represented, and resulted from the combination of various acts and forces — apolitical, diplomatic, religious, economic, social, even psychological — working simultaneously both within and without France during the civil wars. I have tried to set forth the nature and extent of these forces; to show how they originated; how they operated; and how they ultimately were combined to form the Holy League. Certain individual features of the history here covered have been treated in an isolated way by some writers. The late baron de Ruble and M. Forneron have disclosed the treasonable negotiations of Montluc with Philip II. M. Bouille and more recently M. Forneron have followed the tortuous thread of the cardinal of Lorraine's secret negotiations with Spain. Various historians, chiefly in provincial histories or biographies like Pingaud's Les Saulx-Tavannes, have noticed the local work of some of the provincial Catholic associations. But the relation of all these

I The Wars of Religion ("The Cambridge Modern History," Preface).

PREFACE XI

various movements, one to the other, and their ultimate fusion into a single united movement has not yet been fully brought out. What was the number and form of organization of these local Catholic leagues ? What influenced their combination ? What bearing did they have upon the course of Montluc and the cardinal of Lorraine ? Or upon Philip II's policy ? How did the great feud between the Guises and the Montmorencys influence the formation of the Holy League and its hostile counterpart — the Association of the Huguenots and the Politiques ? These questions I have tried to answer and in so doing two or three new facts have been brought to light. For example, an undiscovered link in the history of the Guises' early secret intercourse with Philip II has been found in the conduct of L'Aubespine, the French ambassador in Spain in 1561; the treasonable course of the cardinal of Lorraine, it is shown, began in 1565 instead of 1566, a fact which makes the petty conflict known as the "Cardinal's War" of new importance; the history of the Catholic associations in the provinces, hitherto isolated in many separate volumes, has been woven into the whole and some new information established regarding them.'

The notes, it is hoped, will sufficiently indicate the sources used and enable the reader to test the treatment of the subject, or guide him to sources by which he may form his own judgment if desired.

In the matter of maps, the very complete apparatus of maps in Mr. Whitehead's Gas par d de Coligny, Admiral of France, has greatly lightened my task, and I express my cordial thanks to Mr. Whitehead and Messrs. Methuen & Co., his publishers, for permission to reproduce those in that work. My thanks are also due to M. Ch. de Coynart and MM. Firmin Didot et Cie for permission to reproduce the map illustrating the battle of Dreux from the late Commandant de Coynart's work entitled UAnnee 1562 et la hataUle de Dreux; and to M. Steph. C. Gigon, author of La hataille de Jarnac et la campagne de ij6g en Angoumois, for

I In the appendix I have published the constitution of two of these provincial leagues hitherto unknown.

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permission to use his two charts of the battle of Jarnac. Those illustrating the Tour of the Provinces in 1564-66, the march of the duke of Alva and Montgomery's great raid in Gascony are my own. Some lesser maps and illustrations are from old prints which I have gathered together, in the course of years, except that illustrating the siege of Ha vre-de- Grace and the large picture of the battle of St. Denis, which have been photographed from the originals in the Record Ofhce.

During the preparation of this volume, which has entailed two prolonged visits to Paris and other parts of France, and to London, I have become the debtor to many persons. Among those of whose courtesy and assistance I would make special acknowledgment are the following: His Excellency, M. Jean- Jules Jusserand, French ambassador at Washington; M. Henri Vignaud, charge d'affaires of the American legation in Paris; MM. Charles de la Ronciere and Viennot of the Bibhotheque Nationale; MM. Le Grand and Viard of the Archives Nationales, where I chiefly worked in the K. Collection. At the Record Office, Mr. Hubert Hall and his assistant, Miss Mary Trice Martin, were unfaihng in the aid given me. For the transcript of the "Discorso sopra gli humori del Regno di Francia," from the Barberini Library in Rome, I am indebted to P. Franz Ehrle, prefect of the Vatican archives. I also hold in grateful memory the friendship and assistance of the late Woodbury Lowery, author of The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States: Florida (1562-74), New York, 1905, with whom I was a fellow worker at the Archives Nationales in the spring and early summer of 1903.

Finally, I owe much to the suggestive criticism of my friend and colleague, Professor Ferdinand Schevill, and my friends. Professor Herbert Darling Foster, of Dartmouth College, and Professor Roger B. Merriman, of Harvard University, each of whom has read much of the manuscript.

James Westfall Thompson

The University of Chicago January 1909

Contents

PAGE

List of Maps and Plates xv

CHAPTER

Chapter I

THE BEGINNING OF THE HUGUENOT REVOLT. THE CON- SPIRACY OF AMBOISE

The last day of June, 1559, was a gala day in Paris. The marriages of Phihp II of Spain with Elizabeth of France, daughter of King Henry II and Catherine de Medici, and that of the French King's sister, Marguerite with Emanuel Phihbert, duke of Savoy, were to be celebrated. But "the torches of joy became funeral tapers'" before nightfall, for Henry II was mortally wounded in the tournament given in honor of the occasion.^ It was the rule that challengers, in this case the King, should run three courses and their opponents one. The third contestant of the King had been Gabriel, sieur de Lorges, better known as the count of Montgomery, captain of the Scotch Guard,^ a young man, "grand et roidde," whom Henry rechallenged because his pride was hurt that he had not better kept his seat in the saddle in the first running. Montgomery tried to refuse, but the King silenced his objections

1 Mem. de Tavannes, 239.

2 The constable Montmorency, in a letter to Queen Elizabeth dated June 30, ' 1559, says tbat the accident happened "yesterday," i. e., June 29. — C. S . P. Eng.

For., No. 698. Almost all the sources, however, give June 30. Cf. Castelnau, Book I, chap. i. Throckmorton gives June 30. See p. 3, note i.

3 The origin of the Scotch Guard goes back to the Hundred Years' War. In 1420, five years after the battle of Agincourt, when Henry V was in possession of all of northern France, the dauphin, Charles VII, sent the count of Vendome to Scotland to ask for assistance in virtue of the ancient league between the two nations. In 1421 a body of 1,000 Scots arrived in France under the earl of Buchan. They fought at Bauge in Anjou in that year, but were almost all destroyed in 1424 in the furious battle of Verneuil. The remnant, in honor of their services, became the king's own guard. See Skene, The Booh of Pluscarden, II, xix-xxi, xxvi-xxix; Houston, L'Escosse jrangois (Discours des alliances commencees depuis I'an sept cents septante, et continuees jusques a present, entre les couronnes de France et d'Escosse), Paris, 1608; Forbes Leith, The Scots Men-at-Arms and Life Guards in France, from Their Formation until Their Final Dissolution, 2 vols., 1882. The Guard consisted of the principal captain, the lieutenant, and the ensign, the marechal-de-loges, three commis, eighty archers of the guard, twenty-four archers of the corps; the pay of whom amounted annually to 51,800 francs, or 6,475 pounds sterling. — C. S. P. For., No. 544, December, 1559.

with a command and reluctantly' Montgomery resumed his place. But this time the Scotch guardsman failed to cast away the trunk of the splintered lance as he should have done at the moment of

MONTGOMERY IN TOURNAMENT COSTUME (Bib. Nat., Estampes, Hisl. de France, reg. Q. b. 19)

the shock, and the fatal accident followed. The jagged point crashed through the King's visor into the right eye.^ For a minute

1 Claude Haton, whose Catholic prejudice was strong, believed this reluctance to be feigned (Memoires, I, 107).

2 D'Aubigne, Book II, chap, xiv, says the blow raised the King's visor, and that the end of the lance, which was bound with a morne, or ring, to dull the point, crashed through the helmet like a bludgeon. Tavannes, chap, xiv, says that the King had failed to take the precaution to fasten his visor down.

Henry reeled in his saddle, but by throwing his arms around the neck of his horse, managed to keep his seat. The King's armor was stripped from him at once and "a sphnt taken out of good bigness."' He moved neither hand nor foot, and lay as if benumbed or paralyzed, ^^ and so was carried to his chamber in the Tournelles,3 entrance being denied to all save physicians, apothecaries, and those valets-de-chambre who were on duty. None were permitted for a great distance to come near until late in the day, when the duke of Alva, who was to be proxy for his sovereign at the marriage, the duke of Savoy, the prince of Orange, the cardinal of Lorraine, and the constable were admitted. ^

After the first moment of consternation was past, it was thought that the King would recover, though losing the sight of his eye,-' since on the fourth day Henry recovered his senses and his fever was abated. Meanwhile five or six of the ablest physicians in France had been diligently experimenting upon the heads of four criminals who were decapitated for the purpose in the Conciergerie and the prisons of the Chatelet. On the eighth day VesaHus, Philip II' s physician, who had long been with the emperor Charles V, and who enjoyed a European reputation, arrived and took special charge of the royal patient.^ In the interval of consciousness Henry commanded that the interrupted marriages be solemnized. Before they were celebrated the King had lost the use of

1 Throckmorton to the Lords in Council, C. S. P. For., June 30, 1559.

2 D'Aubigne, loc. cit. La Place, 20, says that the King spoke to the cardinal of Lorraine. De Thou, Book II, 67/!, on the authority of Brantome, doubts it.

3 The Palais des Tournelles stood in the present Place Royale. It was torn down in 1575.

4 Throckmorton, loc. cit.

5 The constable Montmorency to Queen Elizabeth, C. S. P. For., No. 898, June 30, 1559. Throckmorton, ibid., No. 928, July 4, "doubted the King would lose his eye."

6 C. S. P. For., No. 950, July 8, 1559- De Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d'Albret I, 432, has published Vesalius' official report. Henry II had a body-physician who also enjoyed a European reputation. This was Fernal. He was the author of a Latin work upon pathology which was translated into French in 1660 under the title: La pathologic de Jean Fernal, premier medicin de Henry II, roy de France, ouvrage tres-utile a tons ceux qui s'appliquent a la connoissance du corps humain.

speech and lapsed into unconsciousness, and on the morrow of the marriages he died (July lo, 1559). On August 13 the corpse was interred at St. Denis.' When the ceremony was ended the king of arms stood up, and after twice pronouncing the words "Le roi est mort," he turned around toward the assembly, and the third time cried out: ''Vive le roi, tres-chretien Francois le

DEATHBED OF HENRY II

A. Catherine de Medici

B. Cardinal of Lorraine

C. Constable Montmorency

D. Couriers

E. Courtiers

F. Physicians deuzieme de ce nom, par la grace de Dieu, roi de France." Thereupon the trumpets sounded and the interment was ended. ^ A month later, on September 18, Francis II was crowned at Rheims. Already Montgomery had been deprived of the captaincy of the Scotch Guard and his post given to "a mere Frenchman," much to the indignation of the members of the Guard. ^

1 There is an account of the funeral in Arch, cur., Ill, 309-48. The MS account of the funeral expenses is in the Phillipps Collection, 2,995. Compare Galembert, Funerailles du roy Henri II, Roole des parties et somme de deniers pour le )aict des dits obseques et pompes funebres. Public avec une introduction. Paris, Fontaine, 1869.

2 See the description of Throckmorton, written to Queen Elizabeth, C. S. P. For., No. 1,190, August 15, 1559.

The reign of Henry II had not been a popular one. He had neither the mind nor the appHcation necessary in pubhc affairs.' On the very day of the accident the Enghsh ambassador wrote to Cecil: " It is a marvel to see how the noblemen, gentlemen, and ladies do lament this misfortune, and contrary-wise, how the townsmen and people do rejoice."^ The wars of Henry II in Italy and in the Low Countries had drained France of blood and treasure, so that the purses of the people were depleted by an infinity of exactions and confiscations; offices and benefices had been bartered, even those of justice, and to make the feeling of the people worse, Henry II was prodigal to his favorites.^ Finally the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (1559) was regarded as not less disadvantageous than dishonorable. ^

Meanwhile much politics had been in progress.^ The new king was not yet sixteen years of age.^ He was of frail health and insignificant intellect, being quite unlike his wife, the beautiful and brilliant Mary Stuart, who was a niece of the Guises, Francis, duke of Guise, and his brother Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, who had been in no small favor under Henry 11. Even in the king's lifetime the ambition of the Guises had been a thing of wonderm ent

1 Rel. ven., T, 195. "De fort petit sens," says La Planche, 202.

2 Throckmorton to Cecil, June 30, 1559, C. S. P. For., 899.

3 And yet the evil nature of Henry II's reign may be exaggerated. An extended and critical history of his reign is still to be written. Claude Haton, no mean observer of economic conditions says: "En ce temps et par tout le regne du dit feu roy, faisoit bon vivre en France, et estoient toutes denrees et marchandises a bon marche, excepte le grain et le vin, qui encherissoient certaines annees plus que d'aultres, selon la sterilite, et toutesfois esdittes treize annees de son regne n'ont este que trois ans de cherte de grain et de vin, et n'a valu le ble froment, en la pluschere des dittes trois annees, que 14 et 15. s. t. le bichet (a la mesure de Provins), et les aultres grains au prix le prix, et ne duroit telle cherte que trois moys pour le plus." A valuable table of prices of food stuffs follows. — Claude Haton, I, 112, 113.

4 See De Ruble, "Le traite de Cateau-Cambresis," Revue d'hist. diplomatique (1887), 385, and the more extensive work (1889) with the same title by this author.

5 On the general situation between the wounding and the death of Henry II see Neg. Tosc, III, 400.

6 Castelnau, Book I, chap. i. He was sixteen on January 19, 1560. Cf. Castan, "La naissance des enfans du roi Henri de Valois," Revue des savants, 6™^ ser., III.

and his unexpected death opened before them the prospect of new and prolonged power. Henry II had scarcely closed his eyes when the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine took possession of the person of Francis II and conducted him to the Louvre, in company with the queen-mother, ignoring the princes of the blood, the marshals, the admiral of France, and "many Knights of the Order, or grand seigneurs who were not of their retinue." There they deliberated without permitting anyone to approach, still less to speak to the King except in the presence of one of them. Francis II gave out that his uncles were to manage his affairs.^ In order to give color to this assumption of authority, as if their intention was to restore everything to good estate again, the Guises recalled the chancellor Olivier, who had been driven from office by Diane de Poitiers, Henry II's mistress.^

Even before these events the Guises had shown their hand, for on the day of Henry II's decease the constable, the cardinal Chatillon and his brother, the admiral Coligny, had been appointed to attend upon the royal corse at the Tournelles, by which maneuver they were excluded from all active work and the way was cleared for the unhampered rule of the King's uncles. Rumor prevailed that D'Andelot, the third of the famous Chatillon brothers, was to be dismissed from the command of the footmen and the place be given to the count de Rochefoucauld. ^ Before the end of the month the duke of Guise was given charge of the war office and the cardinal of Lorraine that of finance and matters

j: Throckmorton to the queen, July i8, 1559, C. S. P. For., No. 1,009. This information was given to the council and a deputation of the Parlement, but no official proclamation was made. — D'Aubigne, I, 243, n. i.

2 Claude Haton, I, 106; Tavannes, 245. The deposed beauty surrendered the keys of the royal cabinets and some bags of precious jewels to the new queen, La Planche, 204; Baschet, 494, dispatch of the Venetian ambassador, July 12, 1559. Cf. Guiffrey, Lettres inedites de Diane de Poitiers, 1866; Imbart de St. Amand, Revue des deux mondes, August 15, 1866, p. 984. For light upon her extravagance see Chevalier, Archives royales de Chenonceau: Cotnptes des recettes et despences jaites en la Chastellenie de Chenonceau, par Diane de Poitiers, dtcchesse de Valentinois, dame de Chenonceau et autres lieux (Techener, 1864). Hay, Diane de Poitiers, la grande seneschale de Normandie, duchesse de Valentinois, is a sumptuously illustrated history.

of state. ^ At the same time, on various pretexts, the princes of the blood were sent away,^ the prince of Conde to Flanders, ostensibly to confer with Philip II regarding the peace of Cateau-Cambresis,3 the prince of La Roche-sur-Yon and the cardinal Bourbon to conduct Elizabeth of France into Spain, so that by November " there remained no more princes with the King save those of Guise," '^ who had influential agents in the two marshals, St, Andre^ and Brissac.^

1 Castelnau, Book I, chap, ii; C. S. P. For., No. 972, July 11, 1559; No. 1,080, July 27, 1559.

2 La Planche, 208; Claude Haton, I, 108; Pauiin Paris, Negoclations, 108, note.

3 Tavannes, 245; Paris, Negoclations relatives au regne de Frangois II, 61, 76, 80, 83, 86; La Planche, 207; C. S. P. For., No. 1,121, August 4, 1559; ibid., August I, 1559, No. 1,101, Throckmorton to the Queen: "The French .... are in fear because of the king of Spain, who has not as yet restored S. Quentin's, Ham nor Chastelet, the Spanish garrisons of which daily make courses into the country as far as Noyon, about which the governor of Compegny has written to the King, adding that it were as good to have war as such a peace." C. S. P. For., July 13, 1559, No. 985, Throckmorton to the Queen: "It is thought that the treaty already made is void by the French King's death; .... that the king of Spain, seeing his advantage and knowing the state of France better than he did when he made that peace, will either make new demands, or constrain France to do as he will have them, who would be loath to break with him again."

4 Tavannes, op. cit.

s Jacques d'Alban de St. Andre, born in the Lyonnais, marshal 1547, favorite of Henry II. He was taken prisoner at the battle of St. Quentin. After the death of Henry II, fearing prosecution for his enormous stealings in office, he became the tool of the Guises. See La Planche, 205, 206; Livre des marchands, 438, 439; and especially Boyvin du Villars, 904 ff., on his administration in Provence.

•5 Brissac was governor of Piedmont under Henry II, where he sustained the interests of France so energetically that Philip hated him. The Guises made great efforts to attach him to their party, with the hope of playing him against the Bourbons and Montmorencys (Paris, Negociations, 73, note). After the peace of Cateau-Cambresis, the fortresses of the duke of Savoy were dismantled, to the intense anger of the latter. Cf. Fillon Collection, 2,654: Letter of July 16, 1560, to the duchess of Mantua, complaining that the people of Caluz have revolted against the authority of the marshal Brissac. This hard feeling probably explains Brissac's transfer to the government of Picardy, in January, 1560, to the chagrin of the prince of Conde, who asked for the place (Varillas, Hist, de Frangois II, II, 35; De Thou, Book XXV, 518) after the marriage of Emanuel Philibert to the sister of Henry II. See Marchand, Charles I de Cosse, comte de Brissac, Paris, 1889, chap. xvi.

Much depended upon the attitude of Antoine of Bourbon, sieur de Vendome and king of Navarre, who was first prince of the blood, and the person to whom the direction of affairs would naturally fall. At the time of Henry II's death he was in Beam, whither La Mare, the King's valet-de-chambre, was sent to notify him," the Guises having shrewdly arranged to have the ground cleared of the opposition of the Bourbons and Chatillons when he should arrive.^

But not all the opposition had been overcome. While Henry II had been generous to the Guises, he had been even fonder of the constable Montmorency, a bluff, hearty man of war, who became the royal favorite upon the fall of the admiral Hennebault, after the death of Francis I.^ Montmorency was the uncle of the three Chatillons, Odet, the cardinal-bishop of Beauvais, Gaspard, the admiral Cohgny, and Francois de Chatillon, sieur d'Andelot, and the King was openly accused of having made a disadvantageous peace in order to protect the constable and secure the ransom of Coligny, who was captured at the battle of St. Quentin.^ In order to prevent the constable and the king of Navarre from meeting one another and concerting an arrangement, the Guises contrived Montmorency's summary dismissal from court, ^ Francis II at their instigation sending him word to retire at once (August 15), The old war-dog^ took the affront gallantly, and hke an artful