of Duke William said likewise that it preferably appertained to him because it was concluded in the contract of the marriage of that Lady that in case an issue Male were wanting to the house of Juliers the Succession should return to him and his descendants Now that arriving it necessarily followed that the Succession was open to him The Duke of Nevers pretended likewise to the Dutchy of Cleves as he alone carrying the Name and Arms of Cleves and the Count of Maulevrier for the same reason demanded the County de la Mark for he was the Eldest de la Mark and in this quality he pretended likewise to the Dutchy of Bouillon and the Signory of Sedan which were held by the Viscount of Turenne Marshal de Bouillon The Emperour said that all the pretensions of those concurrents were ill founded for that those Lands being Fiefs Masculine could not fall to Daughters but in default of Males were devolved to the Empire and therefore he to have the disposal of them And upon this right he secretly gave the investiture to Leopold of Austria Bishop of Strasbourg and sent his forces to seize those lands under pretext of Right and in the mean time assigned the parties to appear before his Imperial Majesty to give in their reasons The pursuits of the Duke of Nevers and the Count of Maulevrier were not very hot because they were made understand that the Fiefs they demanded were united and could not be dismembred The Right of the Marquis of Brandenbourg and that of Newbourg being most apparent the greatest contestation was between them The Landgrave of Hesse their common friend became Mediator for them and made them pass a transaction to decide their difference friendly without imploying their forces except against Usurpers the administration of the Succession remaining equal and common amongst them saving the Rights of the Emperour But in the mean time Leopold of Austria arrives with his forces and seizes Juliers The two Princes resolved to drive him out sought assistance on all sides and particularly implored the Kings to whom they sent the Prince of Anhalt with the Letters of the Electors Palatine and of the Duke of Wirtenbourg who assured him that his Arms would be just powerful and by the grace of God victorious The Prince of Anhalt without doubt discoursed with him of many other things touching the great design The King gave his person a most gracious reception and received his propositions with an unparallel'd joy he answered him in terms as obliging as he could that he would march in person to the assistance of his good Allies and that till such time as he could mount on horseback with an Equipage befitting a King of France he would dayly make some Troops advance which he did about the end of the year 1609. But moreover he prayed him to let the Confederate Princes understand that they would do him great wrong if they thought that he intended any prejudice to the Catholick Religion in that Country for he desired above all things that the Exercise of it should be conserved in the same estate it was before the death of Duke William who was a Catholick but Brandenbourg and Newbourg were Protestants The Emperor likewise sent to him Ambassadors one of his chiefest Confidents intreating him not to favour the rebellion and injustice of these Princes and to consider that he could not assist them without doing wrong to the Catholick Religion Henry the Great answered him That being the Thrice-Christian King he should know well how to maintain and amplifie it but that he acted not to that intent that the question was onely about succouring his friends in which he should never be wanting so long as he had life During the whole Winter he gave order for all preparations for this Expedition which was onely the cover to a greater Being resolved to pursue himself the success he had deliberated before his departure from the Kingdome to establish so good an Order for the Government of it that no trouble could arrive For this effect he believed that the best way was to leave the Regency to the Queen but because he knew that she was governed by Conchini whom he did not at all love he would have her assisted by a Council composed of fifteen persons to wit the Cardinals of Joyeuse and du Peronne the Dukes of Mayenne Montmorency and Montbazon the Marshals of Brissac and de Fervaques Chasteau-Neauf who should have been Keeper of the Seals of the Regency for the King would take his Chancellour with him Achilles de Harlay first President of Parliament Nicholas first President of the Chamber of Accounts the Count of Chasteauvieux and the Lord of Lian-court two wise Gentlemen Pontcarre Counsellour of Parliament Gesvres Secretary of State and Maupeou Controuller of the Revenues Moreover he would establish a little Council of five persons in every one of the twelve Provinces of France to wit one person for the Clergy one for the Nobility one for Justice one for the Revenues and one for the Body of the Cities and these twelve little Councils should have correspondence with and dependence on the great one which should have taken its resolutions from the plurality of voices the Queen having onely hers Nor could it indeed take any but according to the general Instructions formed by the King or without his Majesties being informed of it if it were a thing which his Instructions did not clearly enough explain Thus though absent he kept the Reins of his Government and tied up the hands of the Queen for fear lest she should take too much Authority or have been induced to abuse her Command Whilst he applyed his spirit to these things some persons amongst others Conchini and his wife put it into the spirit of the Queen that she should to acquire more dignity and splendour in the eyes of the people and more advantagiously to authorize her Regency be installed and crowned before the departure of the King For the same Reasons that she desired it the King found it not agreeable to him besides that this Ceremony could not be made without a great deal of expence and without loosing much time which would keep him at Paris and retard his designes He had an extream impatience to depart from that City I know not what secret instinct pressed him to be gone as soon as possible but for this reason the Instalment troubled him yet he could not refuse this mark of his affection to the Queen who passionately desired it Sully recounts that he heard him say more then once My Friend this Instalment presages me some misfortune they will kill me I shall never depart from this City My Enemies have no other remedy but my death they have told me that I should be killed at the first great Magnificence that I make and that I should die in a Coach this makes me often times
sends likewise to complement him and he answers it by Byron To whom she shews the Earl of Essex head The King Queen enjoy the Jubilee at Orleans The Queen brought to bed of a Daulphine who is named Lewis after surnamed The Just. The King gives him his blessing and puts his sword in his hand Birth of the Infanta of Spain named Anne who after espoused King Lewis xiii The King makes divers Orders for the good of the Estate He suppresses the Triennial Officers for Revenues He establisheth a Chamber of Justice to call Treasurers and Collectors to account The onely remedy against their thefts The King prohibites the transport of gold or silver out of his Kingdome and wearing gold and silver lace or gildings Introduces the manufacture of silk into France The usury excessive in France which caused the ruine of the best families and the Merchants to abandon all traffick The King reduces interests to six in the hundred His great care to enrich his Kingdom He favours the establishment of manufactures After his example all labour for their benefit Idleness punished 1602. The King remedies two things capable to overthrow France The tax of a Sol pour livre burthensome It causes commotions in the Provinces The King to appease them goes to Poictiers His wise and just remonstance to the Deputies of Guyenne * He had sold the Lands of his Patrimony He calms the seditions and revokes the Sol pour livre Conspiracy of the Marshal Byron Laffin discovers it to the King * Vidame is a Lord who holds his Lordship in Fief of a Bishop How he got the Notes written with Byron's own hand The Duke of Savoy keeps Renaze Laffins Secretary Propositions betwixt Byron the Duke of Savoy and the Count Fuentes Byron had demanded pardon of the King but after fell again He speaks ill of the King and boasts excessively of himself Two things compleat his loss Laffin comes to Court and reveals all to the King The King sends for Byron to Court who at first excuses himself In the end Byron comes The King conjures â—im the first time to confess the truth He insolently vindicates himself The King prayes the Count of Soissons to exhort him to confess his crime But he is more obstinate The King speaks to him the second time but in vain He is troubled what to resolve on He resolves to leave him to Justice Yet tries the third time to draw truth from him He finds it in vain leaves him By on and the Count of Auvergne Arrested prisoners His kindred intercede for him The Parliament make his Process He defends himself weakly Letters of the King revoking the pardon granted him at Lyons He reproacheth not Laffin Renaze appears before him at which he is much astonished He is conducted to the Parliament and heard Sentence of death voted against him The King removes the execution to the Bastille Sentence pronounced His head cut off He was very ignorant but a great lover of predictions A reflection very necessary for great men Laffin and Renaze pardoned * That is the Rack So is the Baron of Lux and confirmed in his Charges Montbarot imprisoned and soon released Fontanelles broke on the wheel Duke of Bouillon had a hand in the conspiracy The King sends for him to Court but he presents himself to the Chamber of Castres After he retires to Geneva thence to Heidelberg to the Prince Palatine his Kinsman The favour of Rosny a pretext to the discontents of the great ones Yet the King gave him not too much power but keeps it to himself An important truth A memorable example that a King ought not to yeild too much to his Ministers Enterprizes of the Duke of Savoy on Geneva Thirteen of the Enterprizers â—anged The Duke of Savoy excuses himself to the Suisses From whom the City of Geneva was held It was an Allie of the Suisses and under protection of France The Genevans make War on Savoy But the King obliges them to peace The inhabitants of Mets rise against Sobole their Governour The Duke d' Espernon kindles the fire more The King goes in person The Jesuites present their request to the King for their reestablishment He re-establisheth them gloriously 1602 1603. He visits his sister at Nancy Renews his alliance with the Suisses and Grisons Hears of the death of Queen Elizabeth of England She beheaded Mary Queen of Scots James 6. King of Scotland and Son of Mary succeeded to the Kindom of England He was James the first of that name among the Kings of England Ambassadors go from France and Spain to desire his friendship Piety yeilds to Interest The King labours to conserve peace Excellent speeches of a good King His divertisements Employs of the Nobility Duels too frequent The King makes an Edict against this madness He makes Acts for working the Gold Silver and Copper Mines An enterprize to joyn the Seine and Loire Another design to joyn the two Seas Navigation to Canada Establishment of Religious Orders at Paris The King gives Verneuil to Madamoiselle d' Entragues She despises and offends the Queen * Alluding I suppose to the Dukes of Florence who are all Merchants The Queen on her part troublesome to the King Leonora Conchini her husband foster the Queen in ill humors 1604. The Kings debaucheries cause the Gout The Queen threatens the Marchioness Who prays the King to see her no more And her Father demands leave to retire with her out of France They treat with the Ambassador of Spain The King resolves to hinder them To this end he sends for Auvergne who is at Clermont and refuses to come He is Arrested prisoner and carried to the Bastille D' Entragues and the Marchioness likewise Arrested * The Common Goal of Paris Sentence of Parliament against them The King pardons them and justifies the Marchioness But the Count of Auvergne remained at the Bastille and is despoiled of his County Which is adjudged to Queen Margaret who gives her Estates to the Daulphin The designes of the Duke of Bouillon discovered The King had done him many favours and he had as well served the King But after the Kings conversion he excites the Hugonots against him and would make himself chief of their party His Emissaries endeavour to form a party in Guyenne The King goes to prevent them All the Conspiracy dissipated The King returns to Paris He in vain endeavours to make the Duke of Bouillon humble himself He resolves to besiege Sedan Rosny makes all necessary preparations The King makes him Duke of Sully Inconveniences in the siege of Sedan The King chuses rather to receive the Duke into favour On what conditions The Duke demands pardon of of the King who enters Sedan and thence goes to Paris A great example of generosity in our Prince Notwithstanding which there are many conspiracies Treason of l' Oste. 1605. Treason of Merargues He is surprized talking with the Spanish Ambassadours
burned the suburbs of Toulouse in such manner that the sparkles of that fire flew into that great City The War being thus kindled in the heart of France he shewed himself on the other bank of the Rhone with his troops gained by storms the City of St. Julien and St. Just and obliged St. Estienne en Forez to capitulate From thence he descended to the banks of the Saone and afterwards into the middle of Burgongne Paris trembled the second time at the approach of an Army so much the more formidable because it seemed to be re-inforced by the loss of two-battles and to have now gained some advantage over that of the Catholicks which the Marshal de Cosse commanded The Counsel of the King fearing to hazard all by a fourth Encounter judged it more to the purpose to plaister up a peace with that party it was therefore treated of the two Armies being near each other and concluded in the little City of Arnay-le-Duc on the eleventh of August This Peace made every one retire home the Prince of Navarre went to Bearn King Charles the ninth married with Elizabeth Daughter to the Emperour Maximilian the second and nothing else seemed thought of but Feasts and Rejoycings In the mean time the King having found that he could never compass his Desires on the Hugonots by force resolved to make use of meáns more easie but much more wicked he began to caress them to feign that he would treat them favourably to accord them the greatest part of those things they desired and to lull them asleep with hopes of his making War against the King of Spain in the Low-Countries a thing they passionately desired and the better to allure them he promised as a gage of his faith to marry his Sister Margaret to our Henry and by these means drew the principal Chiefs of their party to Paris His mother Jane who was come before to make preparations for the marriage died a few days after her arrival a Princess of a Spirit and Courage above her Sex and whose Soul wholly virile was not subject to the weaknesses and defaults of other women but in truth a passionate Enemy of the Catholick Religion Some Historians say that she was poisoned with a pair of perfumed Gloves because they feared that she having a great spirit would discover the designe they had to massacre all the Hugonots but if I be not deceived this is a falsity it being more likely which others say that she died of a Tissick since those that were about her and served her have so testified Henry her Son who came after her being in Poictou received news of her death and presently took the Quality of King for hitherto he had onely born that of Prince of Navarre So soon as he came to Paris the unhappy Nuptials were celebrated the two parties being espoused by the Cardinal of Bourbon on a scaffold erected for that purpose before the Church of Nostre-Dame Six days after which was the day of St. Bartholomew all the Hugonots which were come to the solemnity had their throats cut amongst others the Admiral and twenty other Lords of remark twelve hundred Gentlemen three or four thousand Souldiers and Burgesses and through all the Cities of the Kingdome after the example of Paris near an hundred thousand men Execrable action which never had nor ever shall again if it please God finde its parallel What grief must it needs be to our young King to see in stead of Wine and Perfumes so much Blood shed at his Nuptials his best friends murthered and hear their pitiful cries which pierced his ears into the Louvre where he was lodged And moreover what trances and fears must needs surprize his very Person for in effect it was consulted whether they should murther him and the Prince of Condé with the rest and all the murderers concluded on their death nevertheless by a miracle they after resolved to spare them Charles the ninth caused them to be brought to his presence and having shewed them a mountain of dead bodies with horrible threats not hearkning to their reasons told them Either Death or the Mass. They elected rather the last then the first and abjured Calvinism but because it was known they did it not heartily they were so straitly observed that they could not escape the Court during those two years that Charles the ninth lived nor a long time after his death During this time our Henry exquisitely dissembled his discontents though they were very great and notwithstanding those vexations which might trouble his spirit he cloathed his visage with a perpetual serenity and humour wholly jolly This was without doubt the most difficult passage of his Life he had to do with a furious King and with his two Brothers to wit the Duke of Anjou a dissembling Prince and who had been educated in massacres and with the Duke of Alenzon who was deceitful and malitious with Queen Katherine who mortally hated him because her Divines had foretold his reign and in fine with the house of Guise whose puissance and credit was at present almost boundless He was doubtless necessitated to act with a marvellous prudence in the conduct of himself with all these people that he might not create in them the least jealousie but rather beget a great esteem of himself make submission and gravity accord and conserve his Dignity and Life in the mean time he dis-engaged himself from all these difficulties and from all these dangers with an unparallell'd address He contracted a great familiarity with the Duke of Guise who was about his own age and they often made secret parties of pleasure together but he agreed not so well with the Duke of Alenzon who had a capritious spirit nor was he over-much troubled at his ill accord with him because neither the King nor Queen-mother had any affection for this Duke However he gave no credit to the ill counsel of that Queens Emissaries who endeavoured to engage his contending in Duel against him so much the rather because that he considering him as the brother of his King to whom he ought respect he knew well it would have proved his loss and that she would not have been wanting to take so fair a pretext to ruine him He shunned likewise other snares laid for him but yet not all for he suffered himself to be overtaken with the allurements of some Ladies of the Court whom it is said that Queen served her self expressly of to amuse the Princes and Nobles and to discover all their thoughts From that time for Vices contracted in the blossome of youth generally accompany men to their tomb a passion for women was the greatest feebleness and weakness of our Henry and possibly the cause of his last misfortune for God punisheth sooner or later those who wickedly abandon themselves to this criminal passion Besides this he contracted no other
at the instigation of the friends of the defunct Admiral and of de la Mole who had been his favourite many believed this to be a thing devised by the Queen-mother of purpose to astonish and weaken the spirit of her Son and the reason they had to believe it was because she obliged the King to pardon this crime so lightly none either of the Complices or Instigators being punished for it However it were Henry the third testified in this occasion a particular confidence in our King of Navarre who assisted by his friends served him as Captain of his Guards through the whole way never stirring from the boot of his Coach and in this appeared so much the more generous having no reason to love him beside the obligation of his duty being his kinsman and his vassal Henry the third being arrived at Rheims was on the fifteenth of the month of February installed by the Cardinal of Guise and on the marrow espoused to Louise de Lorrain daughter of the Count of Vaudemont which added yet a great lustre to the house of Guise of which Duke Henry was chief who was at present in favour though after killed at Blois This Prince one of the bravest in all manners that Age produced had ever promised himself to govern the King by Queen Louise his kinswoman He had contracted a very strait familiarity with the King of Navarre whom he called his Master as that King called him his Gossip Queen Margaret who to speak the truth could not live without Intrigues nor Galanteries contributed with all her power to the entertainment of this good intelligence and essayed to make the Monsieur who is he we call Duke d' Alenson enter into it whom she most passionately loved But the union of Princes being the ruine of Favorites and those that governed the Queen-mother straight broke this designe begetting in the King a jealousie of his wife incensing Monsieur against the Duke of Guise by the remembrance of the massacre of the Admiral continually confounding the King of Navarre by the intrigue of some Ladies but particularly of de Sauves who enjoying such person as Katherine commanded her received the love and services of Monsieur to create a difference between them The Queen-mother entertained likewise an irreconcileable hatred between the King and Monsieur by which means there arrived an affair which as much proclaimed the greatness of Courage and Generosity of our Henry as any action he had done in his life The King being fallen sick and in great danger of death with a pain in his ear believed himself to be poisoned as Francis the second had been and accused Monsieur In this belief he sent to seek the King of Navarre and commands him to dispatch Monsieur so soon as he was dead enforcing himself by all reasons possible to perswade him that that wicked one would make him perish and all his if he prevented it not The favorites of the King having the same opinion with their Master seeing Monsieur pass sacrificed him already to their revenge by murthering regards Our Henry endeavoured to sweeten the fury of the King and remonstrated to him the horrible consequences of this command but the King not content with reasons contrary to them emported himself in such manner that he would he should presently execute it for fear lest he should fail of it when he were dead If the two brothers to wit the King and Monsieur had been out of the world the Crown appertained to him Now one in all appearances was about to die and he might easily finde a death for the other having the Favorites the Officers of the King the Guise all their friends and almost all the Nobility at his devotion for Monsieur was a Prince of an ill presence and of low inclinations yet malign and cruel and for all these fair qualities hated by almost all the world and sustained onely by the brave Bussy d' Amboise How few Princes are there that would have let slip so fair an occasion I dare boldly speak it how few are there would not seek it and yet our Hero for in such an action I must of force call him so was so far from prevailing himself of it that he conceived a horrour at the furious vengeance of Henry the third There is no nobler ambition then to know how to moderate ambition when it is not just and to endeavour to conserve our conscience and honour rather then acquist a crown by wicked ways Diadems gained by ill means are not marks of glory to those fronts that carry them but rather frontlets of infamy such as are placed on Thieves and Villains Heaven without doubt approved the generous sentiments of our Henry and destined to him the Scepter of the Flower de Luce because guiltless of an impatience to reach it before his degree On the contrary these brothers of the house of Valois who endeavoured to ravish it one from the other died all unhappily and had him for their successour who by a crime refused to be so Henry the third being recovered knew well that he had wrongfully accused his brother to have impoisoned him yet he loved him never a whit the more he dayly suffered his favorites to give him a thousand affronts and to domineer over him in the publick Assemblies He would likewise cause Bussy d' Amboise who was his favorite and onely support to be murthered by night at the gates of the Louvre and it was believed he had given order if the Duke of Alenzon had gone to his assistance for there were people appointed to come and tell him that Bussy was assassinated to slay him likewise In such manner that getting the bridle out of his teeth he escaped from Court put himself in the field gathered together some male-contents composed an Army and joyned with that of the Hugonots commanded by the Prince of Condé and by Casimir youngest son of the Count Palatine who in these civil wars of the Religion twice or thrice led great levies of German Horse into France Our Henry was puissantly sollicited to follow him and Monsieur said he had promised him to do it but they had taken from about him all those who might favour his escape and placed in their stead people of their own hire He was moreover promised the Lieutenant-Generalship of the Kings Army which was a strong lure to retain him nor was the love of the fair de Sauves less powerful However the natural spurs of his courage and the fear he had left Monsieur and the Prince of Condé should seize on the chief Command amongst the Hugonot party which had been his Cradle and was to be his Castle the remonstrances of some of his servants and the inventions of Queen Katherine who expresly incensed the King against him in the end obliged him to escape and made him take his resolution He saved himself therefore by feigning to go on the Chace
had to entertain the League He sent therefore to him the Duke d'Espernon who Essayed to Convert him by reasons of interest and policy Our Henry hearkened to him but he testified that those were not motives sufficiently puissant to make him Change and sent him back with many Civilities The Hugonots were so vain as to publish and cause to be Printed the conference of this Prince with Espernon to shew that he was unshaken in his Religion and possibly likewise to engage him more strongly in it The Duke of Guise was not wanting to profit himself of it and to remonstrate to the Catholique people the stubbornness of this Prince and what they might hope if he came to the Crown with such sentiments To stop therefore his way to it he made the zealous openly renew the League and boldly bringing it into Paris where some new religious persons inspired this Ardour into peoples souls by Confessions held the first publique Assembly at the Colledge de Fortet which was called the Cradle of the League Many Burgesses many Tradesmen and likewise some Clerks of Paris entred into it They carried it to Rome and presented it to Pope Gregory the 13. for his approbation but he never would give it and continually so long as he lived disavowed it So soon as it grew a little great and strong those who had engendred it made it appear that it was not only to provide for the security of Religion for the future but that at present they might approach themselves neer to the Crown and that they not onely would have it against the King of Navarre who was to Succeed but against Henry the third who now reigned They kept in Salary certain new Divines who durst openly sustain that a Prince ought to be deposed who acquits himself not well of his duty That no power but that which is well ordered is of God otherwise when it passes due bounds it is not Authority but Usurpation and that it is as absurd to say that he ought to be King who knows not how to govern or who is deprived of understanding as to believe a blind man a fit guide or an immoveable Statue able to make living men move In the mean time the Duke of Guise was retired to his Government of Champagne feigning himself discontented but it was to make the Duke of Lorrain sign the League out of hopes he would cause his Son to Succeed to the Crown to which he pretended to have right by his Mother Daughter to Henry the Second He held to this purpose a Treaty at Joinville where he likewise found Agents from the King of Spain who signed to the Treaty and as it was reported did by Letters of Exchange supply the Duke of Guise with great sums of money At his departure thence the Duke assembled Troops on all sides his friends seized on as many places as they could not onely amongst the Hugonots but likewise amongst the Catholiques The King might easily have dissipated these Levies had he taken the field But the Queen-Mother like to self-interested Physitians who would for their profit augment the disease withheld and amused him in his Closet perswading him that if he would leave to her the management of this affair she would easily reduce the Duke to his obedience To this purpose she held a Conference with him at Vitry and so gave him time to strengthen his party and when he saw himself in an Estate to fear nothing he broke the Conference and made shew of some resolutions to come directly to Paris The King astonished prayed his mother to conclude an accommodation upon any terms which she did by the Treaty of Nemours by which she granted to the Duke and other Princes of his house the Government of several Provinces many great sums of money together with a most bloudy Edict against the Hugonots which forbad the profession of any other Religion then the Catholique under Penalty of Confiscation of Goods and Estate with Command to all Preachers and Ministers to depart the Realm within one moneth and all Hugonots of what degree or quality soever within six months or otherwise abjure their false Religion This Edict was called the Edict of Juillet which the League farther constrained the King to carry himself into the Parliament and cause it to be ratified A little after arrived news from Rome that Sixtus the fifth who succeeded Gregory the eighteenth had approved the League and had besides fulminated out terrible Bulls against the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde declaring them Hereticks Apostates Chiefs Favourers and Protectors of Hereticks and as such falling under the Censures and Pains concluded on in the Laws and Cannons depriving them and their descendants of all Lands and Dignities incapable to succeed to any Principality whatsoever especially to the Kingdome of France and not onely absolving their Subjects from all Oaths of Fidelity but absolutely forbidding them to obey them It was now that our Henry had need of all the forces both of his Courage and Vertue to sustain so rude assaults He seemed in a manner lull'd asleep by his pleasures when the noise of these great assaults awakened him he recalled all his Vertue and began to make it appear more vigorously then ever before And certainly he afterwards avowed that his enemies had highly obliged him by persecuting him in this manner for had they left him in repose that rest had possibly Entombed him in a corner of Guyenne and he not have been constrained to think of his affairs so that at the death of Henry the third he would not have been in an Estate to attempt or entertain the Crown He now did two Actions of great renown the first was his commanding Plessis Mornay a Gentleman of excellent Education and who could be reproached with nothing but being a Hugonot to answer the Manifesto of the League by an Apologie and by a Declaration which he caused to be drawn In this last piece the Chiefs of the League having spread abroad divers calumnies against his honour he with all submission besought the King his Soveraign that he would not be offended if he did pronounce saving still the respect due to his Majesty that they did falsely and maliciously lye and moreover that to spare the blood of his Nobles and shun the desolation of the poor people those infinite disorders and above all those blasphemies burnings and violations which the license of War must cause he offered to the Duke of Guise chief of the League to decide this quarrel by his person against his one to one two to two ten to ten or what number he should please with Arms generally in use by Cavaleers of honour either in the Realm of France or in such place as his Majesty should command or else in such place as the Duke of Guise himself should chuse This Declaration had a great effect o'er peoples spirit They said
Germans having received many checks in several places but especially at Auneau in Beausse where the Duke of Guise slew or took Prisoners Three thousand Reistres afterward at Pont de Gien where the Duke d' Espernon took Twelve hundred Lansquenets or Foot and almost all the Cannon willingly hearkened to an agreement which the King caused to be proposed to them and afterwards retired by Burgongne and by the County of Montbeliard but were still pursâ—ed farther in that County by the Duke of Guise Now began the year One thousand five hundred eighty eight which all Judicial Astrologers had called the wonderful year because they foresaw so great a number of strange accidents and such confusion in natural causes that they were assured that if the end of the world came not there would happen at least an Universal Change Their Prognosticks were seconded by a a number of terrible Prodigies which arrived throughout all Europe In France there were great Earth-quakes along the River Loire and likewise in Normandy The Sea was for six weeks together disturbed with continual tempests which seemed to confound both heaven and earth In the Aire appeared divers Phantasmes of fire and on the four and twentieth of January Paris was covered with so horrible a darkness that those who had the best eyes could scarce see any thing at noon-day without the help of lights All these Prodigies seemed to signifie what soon after Arrived the death of the Prince of Conde the Besieging of Paris the Subversion of the whole Realm the Murthering of Messieurs de Guise and in fine the Parricide of Henry the third As for the Prince of Conde he died in the month of March at S. John d' Angeli where he then made his residence Though there had been a secret jealousie between him and the King of Navarre even to the making of two factions in their party yet the King resented this losse with an extreme grief and having shut himself up in his Closet with the Count de Soissons he was heard to cast forth great cries and say that he had lost his right hand However after his grief was a little evaporated he recovered his Spirit and casting all his trust on Divine Protection he came forth saying with a heart full of Christian assurance God is my refuge and my support it is in him alone I will hope and I shall not be confounded It was truly a great losse for him he was now alone to Support all the weight of affairs and being denuded of this assister remained more exposed to the attempts of the League who had now only to give a like blow to his person to remain Conquerours in all their affairs He had therefore just cause to fear their attempts However the Duke of Guise had a heart so Noble and great that whilst he lived he would never suffer such detestable waies The Confidence of the League encreased wonderfully by the death of this Prince they testified extraordinary rejoycings and published that it was an effect of the Justice of God and of the Apostolick curses The Hugonots on the contrary were in an extreme consternation considering that they had lost in him their most assured Chief because they believed him firmly perswaded in their Religion but had not the same opinion of the King of Navarre In effect the Confusion and Disorder was so great amongst them that in all appearance had they continued strongly to prosecute them they might have soon ruined them The King hated them mortally and would willingly have consented but he would mannage things in such manner that their destruction should not prove the agrandizing of the Duke of Guise and his own losse but this Duke knowing his intentions pressed him continually to give him forces utterly to exterminate the Hugonots in whose ruine he infallibly hoped to involve the King of Navarre He had this advantage over the King that he had acquisted the love of the people principally by two means the first by his opposing himself to the new Imposts and the second by continually being at variance with the Favorites nor ever bending before them whilst the doing of things contrary had made the King fall into an extreme low Esteem and had likewise taken away the heat of some of his servants love See here an Example The King had two great men in his Councel Peirre d' Espinac Archbishop of Lyons and Villeroy Secretary of State The Duke d'Espernon who was fierce and haughty would treat them according to his proud humour they grew exasperated against him and thereupon change their affection to the Duke of Guise his party but without doubt still in their hearts remaining most faithful to the King and Crown of France as afterward well appeared especially in the person of Villeroy In the mean time the King lived after the ordinary manner in the profusions of an odious Luxury and in the laziness of a contemptible Retreat passing his time either in seeing Dances or in playing with little Dogs of which he had great numbers of all sorts or else in Teaching Parriquito's to speak or in Cutting of Images or in other Occupations more becoming an Inâ—ant then a King But the Duke of Guise lost no time he made dayly new friends conserved his old ones caressed the people testified a great zeal for the Ecclesiasticks undertook their defence against all would oppress them and every where appeared with the Splendor and Gravity of a Prince but yet without Pride without Arrogancy The Parisians were intoxicated with esteem for him the greatest part of the Parliament and most part of the other Officers attended his motions and testified to him the affection they ought to the service of the King There were an infinite number of people who had signed the League and in the sixteen Quarters or Wards of Paris when they could not gain the Quarteniers or Aldermen they chose one the most violent of the Leaguers to act in their function by reason of which they afterwards called at Paris the Principal of this party and their faction the sixteen not that they were but sixteen for their number exceeded Ten thousand but all dispersed through the sixteen Quarters Now the King principally incited by the Duke d' Espernon resolved to punish the forwardest of these sixteen who in all occasions shewed themselves furious enemies of that Favorite By this means he thought to overthrow the League and absolutely ruine the Credit and Reputation of the Duke of Guise He caused therefore some Troops secretly to enter into Paris and gave order to seize on those persons The Duke of Guise being advised of it posts from Soissons where he then was resolving to perish rather then lose his friends Barricadoes were raised in the month of May even to the Gates of the Louvre and the Kings Troops were all cut in pieces or disarmed The Queen-mother according to her ordinary
custome became mediatrix of an Accommodation but the King fearing to be inclosed in a fright retires to Chartres The League by this becoming Mistress of Paris take possession of the Bastille the Hostel de Ville and the Temple hang the Provost of the Merchants and the Civil Lieutenant And at the same time they assured themselves of Orleans Bourges Amiens Abbeville Montreuil Rouen Rheims Chaalons and more then twenty other Cities in several Provinces the people every where crying Long live Guise Long live the Protector of the Faith The King not without much reason was extreamly affrighted The Parisians deputed some to him to Chartres to ask pardon but withal they demand the extirpation of Heresie All the world encreased his fears none fortified his Courage In this distress he knew no securer way to shun that danger which threatned him then by essaying to disarm his subjects To this effect he sends one of his Masters of the Requests to the Parliament to let them understand that his absolute intention was to forget all that was past so that every one returned to his Duty and to labour diligently for the Reformation of the Kingdome for which end he found it convenient to assemble the General Estates at the end of the year where they might provide for the assuring a Catholick Successor of the Blood-Royal protesting that he would observe inviolably all the Resolutions of the Estates but that he would have them free and without Faction and that from that day all his Subjects should lay down Arms. It much troubled the Duke of Guise to consent to the laying down Arms fearing lest when he was left defenceless he should remain at the mercy of his enemies and particularly of the Duke d' Espernon He therefore stirred up the Parisians by a famous deputation to demand the continuation of the War against the Hugonots and the expulsion of that Duke The King after some resistance granted both the one and the other for he caused to be Ratified in Parliament an Edict most advantagiously favourable for the League and most bloody against the Hugonots and he bid Adieu to the Duke d' Espernon who retired into his Government of Angoumois After this the Duke of Guise came to attend the King at Chartres having the Queen-mothers word for his Security and both gave great assurances of his Fidelity and received all the testimonies he could wish of the affection of the King insomuch that he made him great Master of the Gens d' Arms of France In the mean time the League gained the upper hand throughout all the Provinces on this â—ide the Loire and caused Deputies for the Estates to be elected at its pleasure In the moneth of November the Estates assembled in the City of Blois It is not necessary here to recount all their intrigues In fine the King perswading that they had conspired to dethrone him caused the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal his Brother to be slain in the Castle and kept prisoner the Cardinal of Bourbon the Archbishop of Lyons the Prince of Joinville who after the Death of his Father was called Duke of Guise and the Duke of Nemours brother by the mother to the first Duke The Queen-mother under whose word the Guises thought to have been in security was so touched with the reproaches made her and with the â—lightings of the King her Son who after this believed he had no more need of her that she died with grief and envy few days after lamented by no person not so much as by her Son and generally hated by all parties In truth if ever there were an Action ambiguous or problematical it was this The servants of the King said that he was constrained to it by the extream audacity of the Guises and that if he had not prevented them they had shaved him and shut him up in a Monastery But the ill repute he had among all men the general esteem these Princes had acquisted and the odious circumstances of the murther made it appear horrible even to the eyes of the very Hugonots who said that this much resembled the bloody Massacre of St. Bartholomew Our Henry conserved a wise Mediocrity in this rencounter he deplored their death and gave praises to their Valour but he said That certainly the King had very puissant Motives to treat them in that manner and for the rest that the Judgements of God were great and his Grace thrice-special towards him having revenged him of his Enemies and neither engaged his Conscience nor his hand in it For certain Gentlemen having often offered themselves to him with a determinate resolution to go kill the Duke of Guise he had always let them know that he abhorred such a Proposition and that he would neither esteem them his friends nor honest men if they conserved it in their thoughts His Council being assembled upon this great News found that he ought not for it make any change in the conduct of his Affairs because the King though himself might be willing to it durst not for some moneths speak of a Peace with him for fear lest he should make it be believed that he had slain the Guises to favour the Hugonots so that he continued the War and kept several places In the mean time the progress of Affairs beat him out a path to lead him to the heart of the Kingdom and return him to the Court which was the post he ought most to wish for Henry the third amusing himself after the murther of the Guises to examine the Acts of the Estates at Blois in stead of mounting presently to horse and shewing himself in those places where his presence was most necessary the League which at first had been astonished at so great a blow regained its spirits The great Cities and principally Paris who were possessed with this madness having had leisure to dissipate their amazement passed from fear to pity and from pity to fury The Sixteen chose at Paris the Duke of Aumarle for their Governour The Preachers and Church-men declaimed horribly against the King the people snatched down his Arms where-ever they found them and dragged them through the dirt The Parliament who would have opposed this rage were imprisoned in the Bastille by Bussy le Clerk a simple Proctor but very much esteemed among the Sixteen and were forced to regain their Liberty to swear to the League At their coming forth of the Bastille there were many who continued to hold the Parliament at Paris the others stole away by little and little and went to the King who transported the Parliament to Tours where they kept their Session until the reducement of Paris in the year fifteen hundred ninety four These without doubt testified most fidelity to their King but those who remained at Paris rendred him afterwards much greater service as shall be observed in its place The Widow of the Duke
of Guise presented her request to these to take information of the Death of her Husband and demanded of the Commissaries that process might be made against those should be found convicted of it She received favourable Conclusions from the Proctor-General and they proceeded very far on this subject even against the person of Henry 3. but I cannot say to what point because the Papers were taken from the Registers of Parliament when Henry the Great re-entred into Paris We cannot sufficiently detest like Revolts against a Soveraign but these Examples ought to make him know that though he holds his power from on high yet the Obedience depends on the Caprichio of the people and that he ought so to carry himself as not to attract their hatred otherwise since men have the impudence to blaspheme God why may they not have it to revolt against Kings Whilst these things were acting Henry the third understood that Pope Sixtus the fifth had excommunicated him for the murther of Cardinal de Guise This great fire in a little time flamed quite through France The Duke of Mayenne who was at Lyons making war against the Hugonots being advertized by a Courrier from Roissieâ— his Secretary who prevented the Kings departing from that City came into his own Government of Burgongne assured himself of Dijon and of Province and thence passed into Champagne who stretched out their Arms to him after to Orleance which was already revolted and so Chartres whom his approaches made likewise rise and in the end he came to Paris The Sixteen and many of his friends would have advised him to have taken the Title of King which they would have caused to be given him by the Council which the League had established but he refused contenting himself with the Title of Lord-General to the Estate and Crown of France which he took as if the Throne had been vacant They likewise broke the Seals of the King and made others whereon on one side was engraven the Arms of France and on the other a Throne empty and for inscription about it the Name and Quality of the Duke of Mayenne in this manner Charles Duke of Mayenne Lieutenant of the Estate and Crown of France All France took part in this occasion and almost all the Cities and Provinces of the Realm ranged themselves on the Duke of Mayenne's side The King fearful that he should be shut up in Blois retired to Tours There now rested onely one way for him to defend himself against so many dangers as were ready to environ him and this was to call to his assistance the King of Navarre who had five or six thousand men old Souldiers by whom he was well beloved Yet he durst not do it for fear to be esteemed a Favourer of Hereticks or incur the blame of violating those Edicts against the Hugonots he had so solemnly sworn to in the Estates of Blois He tryed therefore all sorts of ways to appease the resentment of the Duke of Mayenne offering him very advantagious Conditions But what assurance said the Leaguers can this Duke have his Brothers being murthered in so perfidious a manner So that he not hearkning to any Proposition of Accommodation Henry the third was constrained to turn his thoughts toward the King of Navarre This Prince above all things would have a passage over the River Loire the City of Saumur was given to him where he established Governour Plessis Mornay who fortified the Castle and made it the head of the Hugonot-Garisons Being afterwards from thence approached Tours his old Captains kept him for some time in distrust and hindred him from going to see the King whom they feared they said lest in a time wherein a Treason was so necessary for him to draw him out of that Labyrinth wherein the Action of Blois had involved him he should buy his Absolution at the price of the King of Navarre's Life The Duke d' Espernon who was returned to Court to serve his Master at his need and the Marshal d' Aumont would have engaged him to it and given him their words but his friends could not consent that he should expose himself to the Faith of a Prince who as they believed had not any In truth their fears were just and our Henry was without doubt possessed with them as well as they However after he had well considered that he acted now for the safety of France for the service of the King and to open to himself a way to defend that Crown appertained to him he resolved to hazard all and to resigne himself absolutely to the holy Guard of the soveraign Protector of Kings The City of Tours is situated as it were in an Island a little below the place where the River Cher mingles its streams with the Loire having coasted that great River three or four Leagues The King of Navarre's people would not that he should engage himself between these Rivers but that the Conference should be held beyond the Cher. He almost alone was of opinion contrary to them all nevertheless to content them he was constrained to hold a Council on the Banks and after to permit his Captains to pass first as if to sound the Ford. He passed after them and arrived at Plessis les Tours about three a Clock in the Afternoon in a War-like Habit all durty ready to be covered with his Cuiraâ—s himself onely having a Cloak all his people being in their Doublets and ready to put on their Arms that he might shew he was not come to compose his Court but to serve him well He went to meet the King who heard Vespers at the Minimes The crowd of the people was so great that they were a long time before they could joyn Our Henry being within three paces of the King cast himself at his feet endeavouring to kiss them but the King would not permit him but lifting him up embraced him with great tenderness they reiterated their embraces three or four times the King naming him his Thrice-dear Brother and he calling him his Lord. There were now heard eccho the joyful Cries of Vive le Roy which had for a long time been silent as if the presence of our Henry had given a new birth to the peoples affections which seemed extinct for Henry the third After the two Kings had for some time entertained each other our Henry passed the River and went to lodge at the Suburb of St. Simphorien for he had been obliged to promise thus much to the old Hugonots who believed snares and traps every where laid for him But he who was pricked forward by other Motives and who was endowed with that generous Principle That we ought not be too sparing of our Lives when there is something to be gained which ought to be more precious then Life it self to a great Courage departed the next morning at six of the Clock without advertizing his people
and attended onely by one Page passing the Bridge went to give a visit to the King They entertained one another a long time in two or three Conferences in which our Henry gave great marks of his Capacity and Judgement Their Resolution in sum was to raise a puissant Army to assault Paris which was the principal head of the Hydra and gave motion to all the rest a thing easie for them to do because the King expected great Levies from towards the Switzers whither he had sent Sancy for that purpose adding that the designe of the siege being published it would infallibly draw a great number of Souldiers and Adventurers out of hopes of so rich a pillage The two Kings having passed two days together he of Navarre went to Chinon to cause the rest of his Troops to advance who hitherto had refused to mingle themselves among the Catholicks During his absence the Duke of Mayenne who had taken the Field fell upon the Suburbs of Tours thinking to surprize the City and the King within it by means of some intelligence The Combat was very bloody and the Dukes designe wanted little of taking effect but after the first endeavours having lost the hopes to compass it he easily retired Afterwards the Kings Troops being wonderfully increased they marched conjoyntly he and the King of Navarre towards Orleans took all the little places thereabouts and from thence descended into Beauce and drew together all of a suddain towards Paris All the Posts round about it as Poissy Estampes and Meulan were either forced or obtained Capitulation in which they desired no other security then the word of the King of Navarre to which they trusted more then to all the Writings of Hen. 3. So great a profession made he of keeping his word even to the prejudice of his interests Let us consider a little the different Estate to which these two Kings were reduced by their different conduct The One for having often broken his Faith was abandoned by his Subjects and his greatest Oaths found no belief amongst them and the Other for having always exactly kept it was followed even by his greatest Enemies in all occasions he gave marks of his Valour and Experience in point of War but above all of his Prudence and of those Noble Inclinations he had to good and to oblige all the world He was always seen in the most dangerous places to accelerate Labours animate his Souldiers sustain them in Sallies comfort the wounded and cause Money to be distributed amongst them He observed all inquired into all and would himself with the Marshal of the Camp order the Lodgings of his Souldiers He observed strictly what was done in the Army of Henry 3. where though he often found faults he concealed them out of fear to offend those who had committed them by discovering their ignorance and when he believed himself oblito take notice of them he did it with so much Circumspection that they could not finde any reason to take it in ill part He was never niggardly of giving praises due to Noble Actions nor of Caresses and generous Deport to those came near him he entertained himself with them when he had time to do it or at least so obliged them with some good word that they still went away satisfied He feared not at all to make himself familiar because he was assured that the more men knew him the more they would esteem him In fine the conduct of this Prince was such that there was no heart he gained not nor no friend he had who would not willingly have become his Martyr Paris was already besieged the King lodged at St. Clou and our Henry at Meudon keeping with his Troops all that is between Vanvres to the Bridge of Charenton Sancy was already arrived with his Levies of Suisses and they laboured with Orders to give a general Assault to the end they might gain the Suburbs beneath the River The Duke of Mayenne who was in the City with his Troops expecting those Supplies the Duke of Nemours was to bring was in great apprehensions that he should not be able to sustain the furious shock was preparing when a young Jacobin of the Convent of Paris named James Clement spurred on by a Resolution as devilish and detestable as it was determinate smote King Henry the third with a blow of a knife in the Belly of which he died the morrow after If the frantick Monk had not been slain upon the place by the Kings Guards many things might have been known which are now concealed Our Henry being advertized late in the Evening of this mournful Accident and of the danger in which the King was came to his Lodging accompanied onely by five and twenty or thirty Gentlemen and being arrived a little before he expired he fell on his knees to kiss his hands and received his last Embraces The King named him many times his Good Brother and Legitimate Successour recommended the Kingdome to him exhorted the Lords there present to acknowledge him and not to disunite In fine after having conjured him to embrace the Catholick Religion he gave up the Ghost leaving all his Army in an astonishment and confusion which cannot be expressed and all the Chiefs and Captains in Irresolutions and different Agitations according to their Humours Fancies or Interests The Second PART OF THE LIFE OF Henry the Great Containing what he did from the day he came to the Crown of France until the Peace which was made in the year 1598. by the Treaty at Vervin THE Death of Henry the third caused an entire change in the face of affairs Paris the League and the Duke of Mayenne were transported from a profound Sadness to a furious Joy and the Servants of the Defunct King from a Pregnant Hope to see him Revenged to an extreme Desolation This Prince who had been the object of the peoples hatred being now no more it seemed that that hatred should cease and by consequence the heat of the League relent but on the contrary not only all those who composed that faction but likewise many others who had held it for a Crime to League themselves against Henry the third their Catholick and Legitimate King believed themselves in Conscience Obliged to oppose themselves against our Henry at least till such time as he should return into the bosome of the true Church a qualification they believed absolutely necessary for that him should succeed Charlemagne of S. Lewis So that if the League lost that heat which hatred gave it it gained one much more specious from a zeal to Religion and had likewise a most plausible pretext not to lay down Arms till Henry should Profess the Religion of his Ancestors It was very difficult to judge whether the point of time wherein this unhappy Parricide arrived were good or ill for him for on one side it seemed that Providence had not drawn him from the
utmost parts of the Kingdom where he was like a banished man and led him by the hand to the fairest Theatre in France but only to make known his goodness and virtue and put him in an Estate to gain that Succession to which had he been absent he had never been called But on the other side when the multitude of his Puissant enemies which armed themselves against him are considered the small Treasure and few Forces he had the Obstacle of his Religion and a thousand other difficulties it could not be certainly judged whether the Crown was ordained for him to enjoy or fallen upon his head to crush him in Pieces and there might be reason to say that if this Conjuncture Elevated him it was upon a Throne trembling and erected on the brink of Precipices Whilst Henry the third was in his Agony our Henry held many Tumultuary Councels in the same lodgings with those whom he Esteemed his most faithful Servants So soon as he understood he was expired he retired to his quarter at Meudon and attired himself in the mourning Purple he was presently followed by a great quantity of Noblemen who accompanied him as well for Curiosity as affection The Hugonots with those Troops which he had led presently swore Allegiance to him but this number was very small Some of the Catholicks as the Marshal d' Aumâ—nt Givry and Humieres swore Service to him until death and that willingly without desiring any Condition of him but the greatest part of the others being either estranged by inclination or exasperated by some discontent or else believing now to have found the time to make their Services be bought kept at a greater distance and held several little Assemblies in divers places where they formed a number of Fantastick designs Each of these proposed to make themselves Sovereigns of some City or some Province as the Governours had done in the decadence of the house of Charlemagne The Marshal of Byron among others would have had the County of Perigord and Sancy not to reject him spoke to the King This Proposition was very dangerous for if he denied it he incensed him and if he accorded to his demand he opened the way to all others to make the like and so the Kingdome would be rent in Peices It was only his great spirit and understanding which could walk safely in so dangerous a path he therefore charged Sancy to assure him on his part of his affection of which he would willingly in time and place give him all the markes a good Subject could expect from his Sovereign but at the same time he furnished him with so many puissant reasons wherefore he could not accord to what he desired that Sancy being himself first perswaded found it not difficult to work the same effect on the spirit of Byron whom he obliged not only to renounce that pretence but likewise to protest that he would never suffer any peice of the Estate to be dismembred in favour of whomsoever We may without doubt conclude that the great Henry did reason puissantly and that he explained his reasons in the best manner since he could in occasions so important perswade such able Spirits against their proper interests Byron being thus gained went with Sancy to assure themselves of those Suisses which Sancy had brought to the deceased King but who being of the Catholick Cantons made some difficulty to bear Arms for a Hugonot Prince and that without new order from their Superiour As for the French Troops of the Defunct King it was not so easie to gain them The Lords who Commanded them or who had their Chiefs under their dependance had every one divers designs one would have one thing and the other another according to their several interests or Caprichio's There were six Princes of the house of Bourbon to wit the old Cardinal of Vendosme the Count of Soissons the Prince of Gonti the Duke of Montpensier and the Prince of Dombes his Son which in stead of being his firmest Prop gave him no little inquietude because there was none of them which had not his particular pretence which proved to him a continual Obstacle Many of the Lords which were in the Army were not very well intentionated particularly Henry Grand Prior of France Natural Son to Charles the ninth after Count of Auvergne and Duke of Angoulesme the Duke of Espernon and Termes Belle-garde who out of the fear they had formerly had lest he should deprive them of the favour of their Master had opposed him in divers Rencounters For the Courtiers as Francis d' O and Manou his brother Old-Castle and many others they knowing that our Henry detested their Villanous Debaucheries and that he would not prove a person of so ill management as to lavish out his Revenues to supply their Luxury had no great inclination for him Nevertheless hoping to find things better they resolved to declare in his favour but with such Conditions as should restrain and bridle him and in some manner oblige him to depend on them For this purpose there met an Assembly of some Noblemen at d' O's Palace a man Voluptuous Prodigal and by consequence not very scrupulous but who at present made Conscience a Cloak to render himself necessary who there resolved not to acknowledge him till he were a Catholick Francis d' O accompanied with some Noblemen had the confidence to carry to the King the Resolutions of this Assembly and added a studied discourse to perswade him to return to the Catholick Religion but the King who had already past over his greatest fears made them an answer so mixt with sweetness and gravity with spirit and reservedness that Couragiously repulsing them without too severely taunting them he testified to them that he desired to conserve them his but that after all he feared not much the loss of them Some time after the Nobility after divers little Assemblies held a great one with Francis de Luxembourg Duke of Piney There many Propositions being made at last the Dukes of Montpensier and Piney subtilly Matraged the Spirits and Steered the Opinions of the most importunate to this Resolution That they would acknowledge Henry for King upon these Conditions 1. Provided that he would cause himself to be instructed for they presupposed conversion must necessarily follow instruction 2. That he should not permit the exercise of any but the Catholick Religion 3. That he should neither give charge nor employment to the Hugonots 4. That he should permit the Assembly to depute Agents to the Pope to let him understand and agree to the Causes which Obliged the Nobility to remain in the Service of a Prince separated from the Romane Church The King had the knowledge of this Resolution from the Duke of Piney he thanked them for their zeal for the Conservation of the Estate and the affection they had for his person promising them that he would sooner
likewise Meulan on the Seine seven leagues off Paris and laid Siege before Dreux At the noise of these Conquests the Duke of Mayenne was obliged in reputation to come forth of Paris to assemble his Troops and to receive contrary to his inclination fifteen hundred Lanciers and five hundred Carabines from the Duke of Parma Governour of the Low-Countries these forces were Commanded by the Count d' Egmont After this Duke had regained several little places which incommodated Paris and the Country adjacent he passed the Seine o'er the Bridges of Mantes to go succour Dreux imagining he might do it without hazarding any thing The King so soon as he had advice of his advance raises his siege but with an intent to fight him and came to this effect to lodge at Nonâ—ncourt on the passage of the River of Eure. Two things principally obliged him to that resolution of giving him battail the one because wanting money he could not long keep his Troops in the body of an Army and had he led them into Normandy he should unprofitably have spent all the revenue of that Province which alone he valued above all others he held The other because he perceived so great a rejoycing throughout all his Army who seemed to leap for joy when they were told they should go to find out their enemy demonstrating by their outward appearances that a day of fighting should be unto them as a day of feasting The Duke of Mayenne was not of opinion that he ought to engage his fortune and honour to the hazard of one day especially considering the valour of the Kings forces in comparison of his the great experience and incomparable vertue of that Prince and with all this his great fortune which had already gained so great an ascendant over his that he believed he could no better overcome him then by avoyding encounters with him But the reproaches of the Parisians the instances of the Legat which the Pope had sent to support the interests of the League the Spanish Cabal which on which side soever fortune turned it self promised themselves great advantages from this battail and in fine the shame to have lost more then forty places in six months without having endeavoured to succour any of them led him as it were perforce to the relief of Dreux and when he was so near it the false advice he had that the King retired towards the City of Verneuil au Perche and the Bravadoes of the Count of Egmont who boasted himself capable with his Troops alone to defeat the Army of the King engaged him with an extraordinary diligence to pass the River of Eure over the Bridge of Yvry To speak truth both the King and he were equally surprised the King to understand that he had so soon passed and the Duke to see that the King whom he believed to have taken the way towards Verneuil came directly towards him but now though they would they could neither withdraw but of force must come to a battail which happened on the fourteenth of March neer the Bourg of Yvry The Histories do at large declare the description of the field of the battail the order of both Armies the Charges which the Battalions and Squadrons both on the one and the other side made and the faults of the Chiefs of the League We shall therefore speak nothing but what concerns the person of our Prince His rare intelligence his wonderful genius and his indefatigable activity in the Mystery of War were all admired It was wondred how he knew how to give orders without perplexing his intellectuals but with as little Confusion as if he had been in his Closet how he could know so perfectly to range his Troops and how having observed the enemies design he could in a quarter of an hour change the whole order of his Army How during the fight he could be every where take notice of every thing and himself give orders as if he had had a hundred eyes and as many armes The noise confusion dust and smoak augmenting rather then troubling his judgement and knowledge The Armies being ready to joyn he lifted up his eyes to heaven and joyning his hands called God to witness of his intention invoking his assistance and praying that he would reduce the Rebels to an acknowledgement of him whom the order of Succession had given them for Legitimate Sovereign But Lord said he if it pleaseth thee to dispose otherwise or that I should be of the number of those Kings whom thou dedicatest to thy anger deprive me of my life with my Crown consent that I may this day fall a victim to thy holy will let my death deliver France from the Calamities of War and my blood be the last that shall be shed in this quarrel Immediately after he caused to be given him his Habiliment for his head on the top of which he had a plume of three white feathers and having put it on before he pulled down his Viziere he told his Squadrons My Companions if you this day run my fortune I shall likewise run yours I will overcome or dye with you let me only conjure you to keep your rankes and if the heat of the Combat make you quit them think as soon of rallying it will be the gain of the Battail you may do it between those three trees which you see there on high on your right hand they were three Pear-trees and if you lose your Ensigns Cornets or Banners lose not the sight of my white Feather which you shall always find in the Road to Honor and Victory The Decision of the Battail having been a long time uncertain was in the end favourable to him The Principal glory being due to himself alone so much the more because he Charged most impetuously on that formidable body commanded by the Count of Egmont and that having entred that forest of Lances with his sword in his hand rendred them useless and constrained them to come to their short Arms at which his had a great advantage because the French are more agile and active then the Flemings so that in less then a quarter of an hour he pierced them dissipated them and put them to rout the cause of the entire gain of the Battail Of sixteen thousand men which the Duke had there were scarce four thousand saved There remained above a thousand horse on the place with the Count of Egmont four hundred prisoners of Note and all the Infantry for the Lansquenets were all cut in pieces They took all his Baggage Cannon Ensigns and Cornets to wit twenty Cornets of Cavalry the white Cornet of the Duke the Colonel of his Reistres or German horse the great Standard of Count Egmont and sixty Colours of foot The Duke of Mayenne behaved himself as valiantly as he ought and many times endeavoured to make some rally but in the end for fear of being encompassed he retired toward the
The King seeing his men so pressed gave two vigorous Charges during which they drew forth the greatest part of the Baggage out of the Bourg but all the body of the Dukes Cavalry coming on the King lost many of his men and himself ran great danger of being slain or taken prisoner but God permitted that he was only wounded with a Pistol-shot on the Reins which had been mortal if the Bullet had had more force but it pierced only his cloths and his shirt and somewhat razed the skin His valour and his good fortune both equally contributed to draw him out of this peril and to bring after so sharp a check both his person and what remained of his Troops into safety The Duke of Parma admired this action but praysed the Courage which our Henry had testified more then his Prudence for when he was demanded what he thought of this Retreat he answered That in effect it was very gallant but for his part he would never bring himself into a place where he should be forced to retire This was tacitely to say that a Prince and a General ought to secure themselves better And so all the Kings faithful servants came the same evening to intreat him that he would spare his person on which the safety of France depended And the Queen of England his most faithful friend prayed him that he would preserve himself and at least keep within the terms of a great Captain who ought not to come to handy-stroaks but in the last extremity After the raising the siege of Rouen the greatest part of the Kings Army passed into Champagne in pursuit of the Duke of Parma and laid siege before the City of Espernay and took it The Marshal of Byron was killed by a Faulcon-shot which carried away his head as he was viewing the place His eldest Son who was named the Baron of Byron as great a Captain as the Father and much loved by the King was a little after honoured with the same Charge of Marshal of France but he lost his Head somewhat less gloriously then his Father The Duke of Mayenne and the Duke of Parma being parted ill satisfied one with the other it was not difficult to renew the Conferences between the first and the Royalists however things were not yet ripe there were some seeds sown which some time after brought forth fruit for the King consented that he would within six moneths permit himself to be instructed by those means which might not wrong either his Honour or his Conscience He gave leave likewise to the Catholick Lords of his party to depute some towards the Pope to let him understand the duties he applyed himself to and to intreat him to add his Authority and that in the mean time Peace should be dayly treated of The Duke of Mayenne and his party demanded Conditions so advantagious that they were ill resented and to speak truth many things in this Conjuncture did much trouble our Henry that which most of all perplexed him was that the Duke of Mayenne violently pressed by the instances of the Pope and the King of Spain by the remonstrances of those great Cities which took his party and likewise by the necessity of his Affairs had called the Estates-General to Paris to proceed to the Nomination of a King Now this Nomination had been the indubitable ruine of France and possibly caused the absolute expulsion of our Henry For there was much appearance and likelyhood that all the Catholick Potentates of Christendome would have acknowledged that King whom the States should have elected that the Clergy would have done the like and that the Nobility and people who followed not our Henry but because he had the Title of King would not have made conscience to have quitted him for another to whom the Estates had granted it To the end therefore he might hinder this mortal blow he wisely advised with himself to propose a Conference of the Lords of his Party with these pretended Estates The Duke of Mayenne was well content with this Expedient because he saw well that the King of Spain desired that he who should be elected should espouse his Daughter Isabella-Clara-Eugenia and thus the Election could not regard him since he was married and had Children but likewise out of fear lest they should hearken to an acknowledgement of our Henry he under hand stirred up some Doctors to say That this Conference with a Heretick was unlawful and by vertue of this advice he wrought in such manner that the Estates agreed they would not confer with him neither directly nor indirectly touching his Establishment nor touching the Doctrine of the Faith but that they would confer with the Catholicks holding his party for the good of Religion and the publick Repose The Legat knowing well what this would come to endeavoured with all his power to hinder the effect of this Deliberation of the Estates but in the end he was constrained to lend his hand to it The Conference was then concluded and the Deputies of one part and the other assembled at the Borough of Surene near Paris The Estates were assembled in the month of January in the year 1593. and sate in the great Hall of the Louvre There were few Noble-men a great number of Prelates and a sufficient quantity of Deputies of the third Estate but the most part Creatures of the Duke of Mayenne or payed by the King of Spain This Prince desiring at any price soever to have the Crown for his Daughter had destined to send a puissant Army into France which should hasten the Resolutions of the Estates but happily for our Henry the incomparable Duke of Parma was dead and the Spaniard had not in the Low-Countries any Captains capable of great things The Count of Mansfield had order to lead his Troops the Duke of Mayenne went to meet him They re-took Noyon but that was all afterward they melted away and became so weak that not daring to pass any farther they returned into Flanders where Prince Maurice of Nassaw found them sufficient employment During the Siege of Noyon the young Byron to whom the King had newly given the charge of Admiral yeilded up by the Duke of Espernon in change for the Government of Provence had besieged Selles in Berry to take that Thorne out of the foot of the City of Tours The King perceiving that this paltry Town held him too long time had called him thence to go and relieve Noyon which notwithstanding he durst not enterprize These little disgraces wonderfully puffed up the hearts of the Kings enemies cool'd his friends and eâ—boldned the faction The third party who had kept under a covert now began to move and likewise a report ran that there were some Catholicks who had conspired to seize the person of the King in Mantes under colour of snatching him out of the hands of the Hugonots and would carry him
the King granted him and the Conditions are so honourable that never Subject had greater Advantages from any King of France but they had been greater if that before his party had been so much ruined he had treated for those great Cities who yet held him as their Chief and whom by this means he might still have kept firm to his interests Some time after he came to Monceaux to salute the King who seeing him coming along an Alley where he was walking advanced some paces towards him with all Alacrity and good Countenance possible and thrice straitly embracing him assured him that he esteemed him so absolute a man of Honour that he doubted not of his word treating him with as much freedom as if he had always been his most faithful servant The Duke surprized with his goodness said at his departure That it was now onely that the King had compleatly vanquished him And he ever after as well remained in the duty of a most faithful Subject as the King shewed himself a good Prince and exact Observer of his word At the same time that this Duke had concluded his Treaty and obtained an Edict from the King which confirmed it the Duke of Nemours his Brother by the Mothers side and who was called Marquiss of St. Sorlin whilst the brave Duke of Nemours his elder Brother was living by the means of his Mother reconciled himself likewise to the King and brought under his Obedience some little places which he yet held in Lyonnois and in Forez His elder Brother one of the most noble and generous Courages was ever known died the year before of a strange malady which made him vomit through the mouth and through all his pores even to the last drop of his blood Were it that this malady happened to him out of his extream grief when he was shut up in the Castle of Pierre-Encise to hear of the surrendry of Vienne which was his surest retreat or were it caused by a sharp and scalding poyson reported to be given him by those who feared his resentment he died without being married and his younger Brother of whom we speak was Father to those Messieurs de Nemours whose deaths we beheld in the years last past The Duke of Joyeuse who after the death of his younger Brother slain in the Battel of Villemur near Mountauban had quitted his habit of Capuchin to make himself chief of the League in Languedoc and had maintained the City of Tolouse and the Neighbouring Countries on his party took likewise this time to make his Accommodation and obtained very favourable Conditions by the means of Cardinal de Joyeuse his other Brother among other things he had the Staff of Marshal of France The Lord of Boisdaufin had the same recompence though he had no more then two little places in Mayne and Anjou to wit Sable and Castle-Gontier the King granting him this good Treatment rather in Consideration of his Person then his Places There were now no more to reduce besides the Duke of Merceur and Marseilles This City was governed by Charles de Casaux Consul and by Lewis d' Aix the Viguier or Judge As these two men were upon the point to deliver it to the Spaniards a Burgess named Libertat with a Band of his friends caused the Inhabitants to rise against them and having killed Casaux and driven out Lewis d' Aix put it in full Liberty under the Obedience of the King As for the Duke of Merceur the King granted him a prolongation of the Truce because he was not in capacity at present to go so soon to dispossess him of the rest of Brittany being much hindred by the Siege of la Fere where he was in person and where he had made little progress in three or four moneths Moreover it happened when he least thought of it that the Arch-Duke Albert who commanded the Spanish Army incited by the counsels of that Rosny of whom we have spoke came to fall upon Calais and that Rosny who was a great Captain having at first took the Forts of Risban and Nieule the Spaniards forced the place on the 24 of April and put all to the sword A little after the King took la Fere which surrendred for want of Victuals The Spaniards having made the Treaty would have no Hostages from him saying That they knew he was a generous Prince and of good credit a Testimony so much the more glorious for him because coming from the mouth of his enemies The grief which he had for the loss of Calais was redoubled by that of the Cities of Guines and Ardres which were likewise taken by the industry and valour of Rosny who had done many such other exploits if some months after he had not been killed happily for France at the Siege of Hâ—lst near to Gaunt Now the noise of these four or five great losses received one upon another cast some terrour into the hearts of the people and the Emissaries of Spain excited as much as they could new seeds of division in their spirits serving themselves to that purpose of all sorts of pretexts but above all of that of the oppression of the people Truely it was great but it was caused by the pillages of War and by the necessity of Affairs rather then the Kings fault who had no greater desire then to procure the ease of his Subjects as we shall see This cast him into a great affliction and trouble because he had no Treasure to continue the War and he foresaw by the murmurs already excited that if he crushed the people more he should raise against himself a new tempest In this trouble he had recourse to that great Remedy accustomed to be practised when France is in danger which is the Convocation of the Estates but because the pressing necessity gave him not time to assemble them in a full body he called onely the chiefs of the Peers of his Estate of the Prelates and of the Nobility with the Officers of Justice and of the Revenues He desired that the Assembly should be held at Rouen in the great Hall of the Abby of St. Ouen in the midst of which he was seated in a Chair elevated in form of a Throne with a Cloth and Canopy of Estate On his sides were the Prelates and Lords behinde the four Secretaries of Estate beneath him the first Presidents of the soveraign Courts and the Deputies of the Officers of Justice and of the Revenues He made his Overtures to them by a Speech worthy a true King who ought to believe that his Greatness and Authority consists not onely in an absolute power but in the good of his Estate and the safety of his people If I should account it a glory said he to them to pass for an excellent Orator I should have brought hither rather good words then good will but my ambition tends to something higher
but I with my Gray Jacket will give you good effects I am all Gray without but you shall find me Gold within I will see your desires and answer them the most favourably I can possible All his Prudence and all his Address were not too much to teach him to govern himself so that both the Catholicks and Pope might be content with his Conduct and the Hugonots have no cause to be alarmed or cantonize themselves His Duty and his Conscience carried him to the assistance of the first but Reason of State and the great Obligations he had to the last permitted him not to make them despair To keep therefore a necessary temperature he granted them an Edict more ample then the precedent It was called The Edict of Nantes because it was concluded the year before in that City whilst he was there by this he granted them all liberty for the exercise of their Religion and likewise license to be admitted to Charges to Hospitals to Colledges and to have Schools in certain places and preaching every where and many other things of which they are since deprived by reason of their Rebellions and divers Enterprizes The Parliament strongly opposed it for more then a year but in the end when they were made understand that not to accord that security to the Hugonots who were both powerful and quarrelsome were to rekindle new War in the Kingdom they confirmed it On the other side to sweeten the Pope who might be troubled at this Edict the King shewed him all possible manner of respect and strenuously embraced his interests as appeared in the action of Ferrara in the years 1597. and 1598. This Dutchy is a Fief Male of the holy Seat of which the Popes had formerly invested the Lords of the house of Est in charge of its reversion in default of legitimate Males Alphonso d' Est second of that name and last Duke died in the year 1597. without Children and had left great Treasures to Caesar d' Est Bastard to Alphonso the first his Kinsman He had done what possibly he could to obtain the Investiture of the Dutchy on this Bastard who not able to obtain it yet ceased not to take possession of it after the death of Alphonso the second resolving to maintain it by force of Arms. Clement the eighth was obliged to make War against him to dispossess him the Princes of Italy took part in the Quarrel and the Dukes of Guise and Nemours were upon the point to undertake the defence of Caesar whose near Kinsmen they were being the issues of Anne d' Est Daughter of Hercules the second Duke of Ferrara and of Madam Renee de France for that Anne in her first marriage had espoused Francis Duke of Guise and in her second James Duke of Nemours The King of Spain likewise favoured him underhand not desiring that the Pope should grow greater in Italy by the re-union of that Dutchy But Henry the great was not wanting to take this occasion to offer his Sword and his Forces to the holy Father The Allies knowing it were extreamly disheartned and he constrained to treat with the Pope to whom he surrendred all the Dutchy of Ferrara There remained to him onely the Cities of Modena and Regia which the Emperour maintained to be Fief of the Empire and of which he gave him the Investiture From whence came the present Dukes of Modena If the heat which the King testified in this occasion for the interests of the holy Seat sensibly obliged the Pope that care which he made dayly appear to bring back the Hugonots into the bosome of the Church was no less agreeable to him He acted to this purpose in such a manner that from day to day many of the most understanding and of the best quality were converted But that which was more important was his taking the young Prince of Conde from the hands of the Hugonots who had kept him diligently at St. John d' Angely ever since the death of his Father which happened in the year 1587. and brought him up in the false Religion with great hope to make him one day their Chief and Protector The King considering how it would be both prejudicial to the safety of the young Prince and to his own interests to leave him longer there knew so well how to gain the principal of the party that they suffered him to be brought to Court and he gave him for Governour John Marquess of Pisani a Lord of a rare merit and of a wisdome without reproach who forgot not to instruct him well in the Catholick Religion and in the truest sentiments of Honour and Vertue He was yet but seven or eight years old when he came to nine the King gave him the Government of Guyenne loving him tenderly and cherishing him as his presumptive Successour During this calm of the peace nothing was spoken of but rejoycings feasts and marriages That of the Infanta of Spain Isabella-Clara-Eugenia and of the Arch-Duke Albert was solemnized in the Low-Countries and that of Madam Katherine sister of the King with Henry Duke of Bar eldest son to Charles the second Duke of Lorrain at Paris Katherine was forty years of age more agreeable then fair having one Leg a little short She was very spiritual loved Learning and knew much for a woman but was an obstinate Hugonot The King feared lest she should marry some Protestant Prince who by this means might become Protector of the Hugonots and be like another King in France by reason of which he gave her to the Duke of Bar thinking moreover to gain more belief among the Catholicks by allying himself with the house of Lorrain Before this he had used all possible means to convert her even to the employing of threats but not being able to do it he said one day to the Duke of Bar My Brother it is you must vanquish her There was some difficulty about the place and the Ceremony of Celebration of this marriage the Duke would have it done at the Church and the Princess by a Hugonot-Minister The King found a mean he caused it to be done in his Closet whither he led his Sister by the hand and commanded his natural Brother who had for about two years been Archbishop of Rouen to marry them This new Archbishop at first made some refusal of it alledging the Canons but the King representing to him that his Closet was a consecrated place and that his presence supplyed the default of all solemnities the poor Archbishop had no longer power to resist him This Marriage being made for the good of the Catholick Religion it seemed that the Pope should have been content Nevertheless not willing to suffer an ill that a good might come of it he declared that the Duke of Bar had incurred Excommunication for having without the dispensation of the Church contracted with an Heretick nor ever could the Duke
dangerous enemies so that no year passed but with many conspiracies against his person he hoped that in the end some of them might succeed In effect that year there had been three discovered of which that which made most noise was of a woman who offered to the Count of Soissons to poison him but the Count discovered it and she was buried alive in the Greve To the end therefore to gain time he desired to come himself into France having so good an opinion of his own cunning and slights that he assured himself he should obtain of the King the gift of this Marquisate or at least he pretended to make such propositions and to employ so many artifices that there should pass more then a year before he should untangle them He said that his Ambassador had sent him word that he had heard the King say that if they were together they would decide this difference like friends and that it was this good word had set him on his voyage But many suspected and that with some appearance that he had a design to gain some people in the Kings Council to sound the affections and observe and watch the discontented to cast abroad seeds of corruption and division and renew that intelligence might be useful to him at Court Others imagined that he was discontented with Spain because Philip the second having given the Low-Countries in Dower to his youngest Daughter he had left to the eldest wife of this Duke only a Crucifix and an Image of our Lady Moreover he had indeed received some displeasures from the Ministers of Spain and he spread a report abroad were it true or not that he had undertaken this voyage without communicating any thing to Philip the third his Brother-in-law In fine every one judged according to his fancy and possibly none divined the secrets of his thoughts there being never any Prince more close or less penetrable then he And some said his Heart was covered with mountains as well as his Country that is because that he was Hulch-back't as Savoy was mountainous He brought with him a Train which well set forth his degree for he had with him twelve hundred horse but all his Officers were clad in mourning by reason of the death of his Wife which many took as an ill presage The King desiring to receive him according to his dignity commanded all the Cities and the Governours to render him the same honour as if he were there in person He came to Lyons by the River of Roan and was received by la Guiche Governour of that City But the Chapiter of St. John would not give him the place of Canon and Count of that Church because he no longer possessed the County of Villars by virtue of which the Counts of Savoy had been at other times received Adding to this that he had not his Titles nor would give time to make proof of his Nobility of which the Chapiter dispences not with any whatsoever beside our Kings From Lyons he came to Roanna descended by water to Orleans and after came post to Fontain-bleau where the King was He arrived the twentieth of December accompanied with seventy horse and presently to acquist confidence with him he lamented highly against the Spaniards discovered or feigned to discover to him his most secret thoughts and a designe he had to drive them out of Italy He told him his friends his ways and his intelligences for that he would make him believe that he would open his heart to him that he was an absolute French-man and desired to fix himself to the interests of France without reserve The King hearkned to him with attention and thanked him for his good thoughts but after all he finished with this I am of opinion that we should decide first those affairs between us and then talk of others Three days after the King went to Paris where they were to discourse more amply on the subject had brought him into France Now was the beginning of the last year of the fifteenth Age which is counted the One thousand six hundredth celebrated for the Centenary Jubilee which was opened at Rome There were found there four and twenty thousand French some moved by devotion others by curiosity among which there was a good number of Hugonots who went to see the great Ceremony They might do it with all security for during the great Jubilee the Inquisition ceases at Rome where at other times it is much less rigoâ—ous then in Spain The Duke of Bar was in a concealed habit at this Jubilee he went to demand absolution of the holy Father but his submission how great soever could not obtain it nor had he it till the death of Madam Katherine his Wife The beginning of this year beheld the King and the Duke of Savoy live with so much familiarity and so many proofs of friendship that it was believed that they had both but the same heart The French Courtesie and Civility obliged the King to give the Duke all sorts of good Treatments and the desire which the Duke had to obtain from him the Marquisate moved him to a great Complacency and to seek all means to render himself agreeable to so great a King The Court of France avowed it had never seen a more perfect Courtier the Ladies a more pleasing Gallant and the Officers of the King and the great ones a Prince more liberal He knew how to govern himself in such manner with the King that he neither acted his Companion nor his Servant and if he would appear inferiour to him in Grandeur he endeavoured to be superiour to him in Generosity and Liberality he gave with full hands especially to the principal men of the Court The King permitted them to accept his presents and on his side gave very great ones to the Duke he treated him and made the Chiefs of the Court treat him every day shewing him some new subject of divertisement Among other things he desired that he should see his Parliament which our Kings have usually shewn to strange Princes as a Compendium of their greatness and the place where their Majesty sits with the greatest splendour They went together into the Lantern of the great Chamber where they with great delight heard pleaded a very singular Cause chosen of purpose and the sentence or agreement pronounced by Harlay first President a Personage so grave and so eloquent that all which came from his mouth seemed to come from that of Justice her self There was no Civility or Courtesie which the King shewed not to the Duke but after all he released not to him the Marquisate The Duke tryed the business all ways possible sometimes he offered to hold it in homage from the Crown sometimes he proposed to the King his great Designes on the Milanois and on the Empire sometimes he laid before him the platform of a puissant League to destroy
the Spaniard in Italy But the King was too wise to be gulled by gilded shadows he answered That he had no ambition to conquer the Estate of another but onely to recover his own That he would not speak of this Affair to the Duke but that they ought refer that to their Council In effect they named some persons who conferred together but those of the King insisting dayly on its restitution and the Duke endeavouring to free it to himself nothing was concluded Yet though all hopes were wanting to the Duke of obtaining any thing he lost not at all his Courage but trusted to the secret intelligences he had renewed with some great ones of the Court and particularly with the Duke of Byron Many believe that he began now to debauch him and that to this effect he served himself of one named Laffin a Gentleman of Bourgongne of the house of Beauvais la Nocle but the most pernicious and most trayterous Fellow that could be found in France he making a Trade of carrying Tales from one to another The King knew him well and often seeing him very familiar with Byron he had the goodness to tell the Marshall more then once Let not that man approach you he is a plague be will ruine you The Duke knew that Byron loved the King because he had raised him to the greatest Dignities of his Realm and that the Prince likewise honoured him with his Good-will It was therefore necessary to make him loose this affection to render him capable of any evil designe Byron was without doubt brave and valiant to the utmost but so puft up with his Gallantry that he could not suffer any person to equal him After the peace of Vervin not having any thing more to do he continually boasted of his great Actions according to his own words he had done all and he intoxicated himself in such manner with his own praise that he raised his own Valour above the Kings He believed that he ought him his Crown that he could refuse him nothing and that he should govern him absolutely These Bravadoe's pleased not the King he was troubled that his Subject should think that he equalled him in Valour but much more that he should have the presumption to hope to govern him who had ten times more brains and good judgement then the Marshal It is certainly a noble Ambition and not onely well placed but absolutely necessary for a King to believe none of his Subjects more worthy then himself When he hath not this good opinion of himself he lets himself be governed by him whom he believes a more able man then himself and by this means soon falls into Captivity therefore though he may be deceived he ought still to esteem himself the most capable person to govern in his whole Realm I may say rather that he cannot deceive himself in this because there is no person more proper then himself however ignorant he be to rule his Estate God having destined this Function to him and not to others and the people being always disposed to receive Commands when they come out of a sacred Mouth Henry the Great had therefore taken some disgust against the Marshal of Byron by reason of his vanity so that the Duke of Savoy praising one day the Noble Actions and great Services of Byron both Father and Son the King answered That it was true they had served him well but that he had taken great pains to moderate the drunkenness of the Father and the violent passions of the Son The Duke remembred these words and caused them to be carried by Laffin to Byron who touched in his most sensible part was transported to a thousand extravagancies and having lost all respect lost likewise that affection he had left for the King It hath been suspected that he at present abandoned himself to all manner of wicked designes and that he promised to enter into a League which the Savoyard was to make with the King of Spain on condition that he gave him his Daughter in marriage and assisted him to make himself Duke of Bourgongne After that the Duke of Savoy had remained more then two moneths in the Court of France shewing as the Proverb says A merry Countenance at an ill game and shadowing his discontent with an apparent joy but not knowing how to return without shame nor how to stay longer without any fruit The King who would not give him subject to say that he had treated him with the utmost rigour gave him to understand that if the Marquisate was so commodious to him and that he could not restore it without a notable inconveniency he would be content to take la Bresse in exchange This Condition seemed no less hard to the Duke then that of the restitution of the Marquisate however that he might have some pretext to retire with honour he seemed not averse to it and there were some Articles drawn up which he professed were not disagreeable to him But he demanded time to consider of the Alternative of the Restitution or Change and to take advice of the Grandees of his Estate on so important a thing There were granted him to this purpose three entire moneths which was to the end of February in the year sixteen hundred A little after he took leave of the King who conducted him to Pont de Charenton and gave order to the Baron of Lux and to Praslin to accompany him to the Frontier He returned by Champagne and Bourgongne from which he entred la Bresse and went to the Bourg They had great joy to see him arrived because they feared lest he should be arrested in France Indeed some there were would have counselled the King to have kept him till such time as he should restore the Marquisate but the King much offended at this Proposition answered in anger That they studied to dishonour him but that he should chuse rather to loose his Crown then to incur the least suspition of having falsified his Faith even to the greatest of his enemies The three moneths being expired and the Duke not having satisfied his promise the King was troubled and pressed him to resolve either on the one or the other interchange The Duke finds new delays but promises him dayly that he will satisfie him In the mean time he remonstrates to the Council of Spain the danger in which he was that the loss of the Marquisate would put him in such an estate that he should not have the power to serve the Spaniards that it would open a door to the French to go trouble Italy and that this tempest after having laid waste his Country would fall upon Milain The Council of Spain apprehended well the importance but acting very slowly were a long time before they resolved In fine the Count of Fuentes Governour of Milain had order but two moneths later then was necessary puissantly to assist
of Good-fortune who foretold that he should be a very great Lord but that he should have his head cut off at which being troubled he outragiously beat him That another Diviner told him he should be King if a blow of a sword behinde hindred it not And another that he should die by the hand of a Burgonian and it was found that the Executioner who cut off his head was a Native of Bourgongne Divers others were reported but to speak the truth the most of these Predictions are ordinarily known after the Events and though they do effectually precede the event it must be believed by chance and not by knowledge the Prognosticators telling so many stories that it is impossible but some should happen It is therefore a great wisdome to disabuse our spirits of these sorts of curiosities for besides that they have no foundation in Reason we offend God by believing them and give money to let our selves be fool'd and led by the Noses nor do ever wise men give any faith to them though sometimes they serve to deceive the simple Laffin and Renaze had their full pardon One named Hebert Secretary to Marshal Byron suffered the ordinary and extraordinary Question without confessing any thing yet he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment but a little after the King gave him his liberty yet the resentment of what he had suffered having more power over him then the favour he fled into Spain where he finished his days The Baron of Lux Byrons chief Confident came to Court on the Kings word He told him all that he knew and possibly more by which means he obtained his pardon in what form he pleased and was confirmed in his Charges and in the Government of the Castle of Dijon and the City of Beaune The King kept the Government of Bourgongne for Monseur le Dauphine and gave the Lieutenancy to Bellegarde who afterwards was Governour in chief Montbarot Lord Breston was put into the Bastille upon some suspitions had of him but being found innocent the Gates were soon opened to him The Baron of Fontanelles a Gentleman of a very good house had not the same fortune for for having a hand in the conspiracy and besides that treating of his own accord with the Spaniards to deliver to them a little Island on the Coast of Bretany he was broke on the Wheele in the Greve by sentence of the great Council The King in consideration of his house which was very illustrious granted to his Kindred that in the sentence he should not be called by his proper Name but History could not be silent in it The Duke of Bouillon finding himself likewise somewhat involved in Byrons business judged it convenient to retire into his Viscounty of Turenne where the King being advised that he yet plotted something sent for him to come and justifie himself In stead of coming he writ to him a very eloquent Letter by which he represented to him That having understood that his Accusers were both extreamly wicked and very cunning he entreated him to dispense with his coming to Court and think fit that to satisfie his Majesty all France and his own Honour his Process should be made at the Chamber of Castres by vertue of the priviledge he had granted to those of the pretended Religion and that he would send thither his Accusers and Accusations In pursuance of which he came to Castres presented himself to the Chamber and took an Act of his appearance The King was not at all pleased with this Answer blamed the Judges of Castres for having given him that Act and sent to tell him that there was yet no question of leaving him over to Justice and that therefore he should the rather come Being advertized by those friends he had at Court of the Kings resolution who had sent to him the President Commartin to let him understand his will he departed from Castres went to Orange passed by Geneva and so retired to Heidelberg to the Prince Palatine saying like a sage Politician as he was That he ought neither to Capitulate with his King nor yet go near him whilst his anger lasted This business lay a breeding some years we shall see in its place how it terminated It must here be acknowledged that the favour of Rosny served in this time for a pretext to almost all the discontents and all the conspiracies of the great ones The King had truely raised him by four or five great Charges because he believed he could not sufficiently recompence those services he had rendred him And in that this Prince merits onely praise for a good Master cannot do too much for a good and faithful servant But though the troublesome and discontented Spirits might complain that the King gave him too many Charges and Employments yet they could not lament his giving him too much power or that he gave it to him alone for we may with truth sayâ— that Rosny had not the liberty to do the least grace of his own accord He was forced in all things to address himself directly to the King who would himself distribute his favours and recompences to those he knew worthy that they might acknowledge the whole Obligation and dependence from him This great Prince knew well That he who gives all may do all and that he who gives nothing is nothing but what it shall please him who gives all He had too much Honour and too much Glory to suffer that another should act in the most noble Function of his Royal Authority Whatever favour or whatever familiarity any had with him if they were wanting to conserve it with a profound respect or should speak or act with him otherwise then with their Master and with their King they would doubtless as soon fall into disgrace and this was as we have observed one of the causes of Byron's loss Judge then if he who would not that any should in any thing in the world act the Companion with him would have endured that they should act the Soveraign Judge if he would have been contented that his Ministers should simply have taken his consent in a business or that they should speak to him of things in manner of discharge after having themselves resolved them No without doubt He would that all Resolutions should come from his own Head and from his own Motion that the choice should be his that he alone should have the power to raise and throw down and that none but himself should be Arbitrator in the Fortunes of his Subjects Not but that he considered as it was just the Recommendations of the great ones of his Estate and of his Ministers in the conferring of his Favours Employments and Charges but it was still in such a manner that he made them to whom he gave them know that they ought onely to hold them from him which the following Example well demonstrates The Bishoprick of
Poictiers becoming vacant Rosny very instantly besought him to consider in this occasion one named Frenouillet reputed a knowing man and a great Preacher The King notwithstanding this Recommendation gives it to the Abbot of Rochepozay who besides his own particular good Qualities was Son to a Father who had served him well with his Sword in his Wars and with his knowledge and spirit in Embassies Some time after the Bishoprick of Montpellier became vacant the King out of his own proper motion sent to seek Frenouillet and told him that he would give it him but on this condition that he should acknowledge no Obligation but to himself By which it may be seen how he in some sort considered the Recommendation of Rosny but it may likewise be perceived that the power of that Favourite who caused so much jealousie in the world was bounded I call him Favourite by reason that he had the most splendent Employments though to speak truth he had no pre-eminence over others of the Council for Villeroy and Janin were more considered then he in Negotiations and Forraign Affairs Bellievre and Sillery for Justice and Policy within the Kingdome and it is not to be imagined that those people did in any manner depend on him There was onely one head in the Estate which was the King who alone made all his Members and from whom onely they received spirits and vigour About the end of this year the Duke of Savoy thinking to revenge himself and repair the loss of his County of Bresse on the City of Geneva attempted to take it by storm The Enterprize was formed by the Counsels of the Lord of Albigny and the Duke having passed the Mountains believed it infallible D' Albigny conducted two thousand men for this purpose within half a League of the City yet was not so rash as to engage himself but left the conduct to others More then two hundred men mounted the Ladders gained the Ramparts and ran through all the City without being perceived In the mean time the Burgesses were awakened by the cries of some that fled from a Guard which had discovered the Enterprizers and as soon beheld themselves charged by them The Gunner who was to have broken a Gate within to cause those without to enter was unhappily slain after which they were weakned on all sides The greatest part endeavoured to re-gain their Ladders but the Cannons on the Flankers having broken them in pieces they were almost all slain or broke their necks by leaping into the Ditch There was thirteen taken alive almost all Gentlemen amongst the others Attignac who had served as second to Don Phillipin bastard of Savoy They yeilded upon assurance given them that they should be treated as prisoners of War But the furious cries of the common people who represented the danger wherein their City was of Massacres Violation universal Destruction or perpetual Slavery forced the Council of this little Republick to condemn them to the infamous death of the Gibbet like to Thieves Their heads with fifty four others of those that were killed were stuck on Poles and their bodies cast into the Rhone The Duke of Savoy confused with such ill success and much more with the reproaches of all Christendome for having endeavoured such an Enterprize in time of absolute peace repassed the Mountains in haste leaving his Troops near to Geneva and endevoured to excuse himself to the Suisses under whose protection that City was as well as under that of France for having attempted to surprize it saying That he had not done it to trouble the repose of the Confederacy but to hinder Lesdiguieres from seizing it for the King The Dukes of Savoy have for a long time pretended that this City appertained to their Soveraignty and that the Bishops who bore the title of Earls and were for some time Lords of it held it from them which is however a thing that the Bishops never acknowledged always maintaining that they depended immediately on the Empire The City on their part sustained that it was a free City and not subject in temporal things neither to their Bishops whom they quite drave out in the year 1533. when they unhappily renounced the Roman Catholick Religion nor to the Duke of Savoy but onely to the Empire for which reason they always bore the Eagle planted on their Gates Both one and the other have very specious Titles to shew their rights but for the present the City of Geneva enjoyed full liberty and had for above sixty years being become an Allie of the Cantons of Switzerland Now the Suisses were comprehended in the Treaty of Vervin as Allies of France and by consequence so was the City of Geneva and the King had sufficiently declared it to the Duke of Savoy notwithstanding which he ceased not to attempt this Enterprize hoping that if it succeeded the King of Spain and the Pope would sustain him in it and that the King for so small a thing would not break the peace The Genevans furiously incensed against him began to make War couragiously entred his Country and took some little Towns They hoped that the King and the Suisses would second these motions of their resentment and that all the Princes of Germany would likewise come to their assistance But the King desired to keep the peace and was too wise to kindle a War in which he could not make Religion and Policy agree or unite the Honour and Interests of France obliged to protect its Allies with the good favour of the Pope moved by his duty to the ruine of the Hugonots He therefore sent de Vic to assure them of his protection but with order to let them know that Peace was necessary for them and War ruinous and that they ought to embrace the one and shun the other And they having little power for so much anger and not being able to do any thing without his assistance were constrained to consent and enter into a Treaty with the Savoyard by which it was said that they were comprized in the Treaty of Vervin and that the Duke could not build any Fortress within four Leagues of their City It happened almost in the same time that the City of Mets rose against the Governour of that Citadel He was called Sobole who having been made Lieutenant by the Duke of Espernon to whom Henry the third had given the Government in chief had deserted this Duke I know not for what consideration and had taken provision of the King He had a Brother who seconded him in the Charge of this Government During the last War against Spain these two Brothers had accused the principal inhabitants of Mets for having conspired to deliver the City to the Spaniards There were many imprisoned some put to the rack but none found culpable so that all the Burgesses believing with reason that this was a Calumny conceived a hatred against these Soboles and drew up
caused likewise the Registers of Parliament and of the Notaries to be taken off the File with all informations which might conserve the memory of his Crime By this see an example how time causes a mutability in all things and how it changeth the greatest hatreds into the greatest affections and on the contrary transmutes the strongest affections into mortal hatreds By searching into the plot of the Marchioness her Father to deliver her with her Children to the Spaniards the designes of the Duke of Bouillon were likewise discovered who at present was the onely person could give the King any trouble in his own Kingdom It is most certain that this Prince had conferred on him very considerable Favours having given him the Staff of Marshal of France and procured him the marriage of the Heiress of Sedan and this Lord had likewise very well served him in his greatest necessities But after he saw him converted to the Catholick Faith he diminished much of his affection and moved partly by Zeal for his false Religion and partly by Ambition he conceived vast designes of making himself Chief and Protector of the Hugonot party and under that pretext make himself Master of the Provinces beneath the Loire It was believed that for this effect he had much assisted to exasperate the spirit of the Marshal of Byron and that he had made a Treaty with the Spaniard who was to furnish him with what money he desired but not with forces for fear of rendring himself odious to the Protestants It was but too visible that after the conversion of the King he had instantly laboured to beget distrusts and discontents in the spirits of the Hugonots and to unite and Rally them together that they might make a body perswading himself that that body must necessarily have a head and that they could chuse no other but himself And for these Reasons so many Assemblies were made and so many particular and general Synods of those of this Religion held wherein nothing was heard but complaints and murmurs against the King whom they continually wearied with new Requests and Demands Moreover it was found that this Duke had Emissaries and Servants in Guyenne and particularly in Limosin and Quercy who held private Councils among the Nobility distributed money and took oath of those who promised him service and had formed designes against ten or twelve Catholick Cities The King judging that he ought to dig up the root of this mischief before it extended farther and not knowing indeed to what it might extend resolved himself to go and remedy it He departed from Fontainbleau in the month of December having sent before Jean-Jacques de Mesmes Lord of Rossy to make process against those that were culpable Immediately all this conspiracy flew into smoak The best advised came to the King to cast themselves at his feet The chief Agent of the Duke of Bouillon being advertized that there was order given to arrest him brought his head to the King and told him both all he knew before and all that he did not know The others either fled out of the Kingdom or else hid themselves Five or six unfortunate persons being taken were beheaded at Limoges and their heads planted on the tops of the Gates their bodies burnt and the ashes thrown into the Air. Three or four others suffered the same punishment at Perigord There were ten or twelve condemned for Contumacy and their Effigies hanged up amongst others Chappelle-Byron and Giversac of the house of Cugnac But in all these procedures there were found no proofs by writing nor yet by any formal deposition against the Duke of Bouillon so cautiously and subtilly had he carried his business Before these executions the King having made his entrance into Limoges returned to Paris He passionately wished that after this the Duke of Bouillon would acknowledge and humble himself For if he remained impenitent he was obliged to prosecute him to the utmost and if he did prosecute him he offended all that great body of Protestants which were his faithful Allies He employed therefore underhand all means which he could devise to induce him to have recourse to his Clemency rather then to the intercession of strangers which a Soveraign could not agree to in the case of his Officer and Subject The Duke desired as much as he to draw himself out of this trouble but he believed he could not finde security at Court because Rosny who was not his friend and who had conceived some jealousie to see him more authorized then himself in the Hugonot party had so great credit with the King So that after many Treaties and Negotiations the King resolved to go seek him at Sedan with an Army Rosny laboured with great Zeal to make preparation for this Expedition The King confided much in him and by honouring him desired to testifie to the Hugonots that if he assaulted the Duke of Bouillon it was not against their Religion but the Rebellion he made War For this purpose he erected the Land of Sully into a Dutchy and Peerage wherefore we shall henceforward call him Duke of Sully His thoughts were that the King should pursue the Duke of Bouillon to the utmost Villeroy and the rest of the Council were of a contrary judgement they would not have the Siege of Sedan hazarded because the length of that Enterprize might possibly revive divers factions in the other corners of the Kingdom give time to the Spaniard to assault the Frontiers of Picaray to the discontented Savoyard to cast himself with the Forces of the Milanois on disarmed Provence and to the Hugonots and Protestants of Germany to come to the assistance of their friends The King well foresaw all these inconveniences and therefore having advanced to Donchery during the absence of Sully who was gone to provide Artillery he treated with the Duke of Bouillon and received him into grace on condition that he humbled himself before his Majesty and received him into the City of Sedan and delivered up the Castle to him to keep it with what Garison he should think fit for foâ—h years These were the publick Conditions but by the secret Articles the King promised the Duke to stay but five days in Sedan nor to put but fifty men in the Castle which should immediately depart upon humble supplication made by the Duke All these things were faithfully executed and without the least distrust either on the one side or the other The Duke came to meet the King at Donchery where he besought his pardon The King received him as if he had never been faulty and five or six days after entred into Sedan where he stayed onely three days and then returned to Paris The Duke accompanied him as far as Mouson passing then no further but some days after when he understood that the Parliament had confirmed his pardon in which were likewise comprehended his
not here tell the mischiefs and inconveniencies which this wicked invention hath caused and doth daily cause The most stupid may easily know them and see well that it is a disease whose remedy at present is difficult I will not charge this History with all the Ceremonies and Rejoycings made at the Birth and Baptism of all the Children of Henry the Great nor at divers Marriages of the Princes and Grandees of the Court amongst others of the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Vendosme which were made in the Month of July 1609. The Prince of Conde Espoused Câ—anlatta Margarita of Montmorency Daughter of the Constable who was wonderfully fair and had a presence absolutely noble which the King having considered was more lively struck with her then he had ever been with any other which caused a little after the retreat of the Prince of Conde who carried her into Flanders and thence retired to Milain Not without the Kings extreme displeasure to see the first Prince of his blood cast himself into his enemies hands The Duke of Vendosme Espoused Madamoiselle de Merceur to whom he had been affianced since the year one thousand six hundred ninety seven as we have said before however the Mother of the Lady standing upon high punctilio's of honour brought many troubles to the accomplishment of this Marriage so that it had never been made had not the King highly concerned himself in it This was none of the least difficulties of his life for he had a high and obstinate spirit to bend however he employed only ways of sweetness and perswasion acting in this business only as a Father who loved his Son and not as a King who would be obeyed Now will I speak of his ordinary divertisements Hunting Building Feasts Play and Walking I will adde only That in Feasts and Merriments he would appear as good a Companion and as Jovial as another That he was of a merry humour when he had the glass in his hand though very sober That his Mirth and good Discourses were the delicatest part of the good Chear That he witnessed no less Agility and Strength in Combats at the Barriers Courses at the Ring and all sorts of Gallantries then the youngest Lords That he took delight in Balls and Danced sometimes but to speak the truth with more affection then good grace Some carped that so great a Prince should abase himself to such follies and that a Grey-beard should please to act the young man It may be said for his excuse that the great toiles of his spirit had need of these divertisements But I know not what to answer to those who reproach him with too great a love to playing at Cards and Dice little befitting a great King and that withal he was no fair Gamester but greedy of Coin fearful at great Stakes and humorous upon a loss To this I must acknowledge that it was a fault in this great King who was no more exempt from Blots then the Sun from Beams It might be wished for the honour of his memory that he had been only guilty of this but that continual weakness he had for fair Ladiesâ— was another much more blamable in a Christian Prince in a of his age who was married to whom God had shewed so many graces and who had conceived such great designs in his spirit Sometimes he had desires which were passant and only fixt for a night but when he met with beauties which struck him to the heart he loved even to folly and in these transports appeared nothing less then Henry the Great The Fable saies that Hercules took the Spindle and Spun for the love of the fair Omphale Henry did something more mean for his Mistresses He once disguised himself like a Country-man with a Wallet of straw on his back to come to the fair Gabriella And it hath been reported that the Marchioness of Verneuil hath seen him more then once at her feet weeping his disdains and injuries Twenty Romances might be made of the intrigues of his several loves with the Countess of Guiche when he was yet but King of Navarre with Jacqueline of Bueil whom he made Countess of Moret and with Charlotta d' Essards without counting many other Ladies who held it a glory to have some Charm for so great a King The high esteem and affection which the French had for him hindred them from being offended at so scandalous a liberty but the Queen his wife was extremely perplexed at it which hourly caused controversies between them and carried her to disdains and troublesom humours The King who was in fault endured it very patiently and employed his greatest Confidents and sometimes his Confessor to appease his spirit So that he had continually a reconciliation to make And these contentions were so ordinary that the Court which at first were astonished at them in the end took no more notice Conjugal duty without doubt obliged the King not to violate his faith to his Legitimate Spouse at least not to keep his Mistresses in her sight but if he in this point ought to have been a good husband so he ought to be likewise in that of Authority and in accustoming his wife to obey him with more submission and not perplex him as she did with hourly complaints reproaches and sometimes threats The trouble and displeasure of these domestick broiles certainly retarded the Execution of that great design which he had formed for the good and perpetual repose of Christendom and in fine for the destruction of the Ottoman power Many have spoken diversely but see here what I find in the Memoires or Notes of the Duke of Sully who certainly must know something being as he was so great a Confident of this Kings which makes me report it from him The King said he desiring to put in Execution those projects he had conceived after the Peace of Vervin believed that he ought first to establish in his Kingdom an unshaken Peace by reconciling all spirits both to him and among themselves and taking away all causes of bitterness And that moreover it was necessary for him to choose people capable and faithful who might see in what his Revenue or Estate might be bettered and instruct him so well in all his Affairs that he might of himself take Counsels and discern the good from the ill feasible from impossible enterprizes and such as were proportionate to his Revenues For an expence made beyond them draws the peoples curses and those are ordinarily followed by Gods He granted an Edict to the Hugonots that the two Religions might live in Peace Afterwards he made a certain and fixed Order to pay his debts and those of the Kingdom contracted by the disorders of the times the profusions of his Ancestors and by the payments and purchases of men and places which he was forced to make during the League Sully shewed him an account
Assaults to wit Hungary and Poland against those of the Turks and Swedeland and Poland against the Muscovites and Tartars After when all these fifteen Dominions had been well established with their rights their Governours and Limits which he hoped might be done in less then three years they should together of their own accord have chosen three general Captains two by Land and one by Sea who should all at once have assaulted the Ottoman-house to which each Dominion should have contributed a certain quantity of Men Ships Artillery and Money according to the Tax imposed The sum in gross which they should furnish out should amount to two hundred sixty five thousand foot-men fifty thousand horse a train of two hundred and seventeen pieces of Cannon with Waggons Officers and Ammunition proportionable and one hundred and seventeen great Ships without counting Vessels of less force Fire-ships or Ships of burden This establishment would have been advantagious to all the Princes and Estates of Europe There was onely the house of Austria which would suffer any loss and which was to be despoiled to accommodate others But the project was laid to make them either willingly or by force consent in this manner First it is to be supposed that on the part of Italy the Pope the Venetians and the Duke of Savoy were well informed of the Kings designes and that they ought to assist with all their forces especially the Savoyard who was moreover extreamly animated because the King gave his Daughter in marriage to his son Victor Amadeo In Germany four Electors to wit the Palatine Brandebourg Colen and Ments were likewise to know it and favour it and the Duke of Bavaria had their word and that of the King to raise him to the Empire and many Imperial Cities had already addressed themselves to the King to beseech him to honour them with his protection and to maintain them in their Priviledges which had been abolished by the house of Austria In Bohemia and Hungaria there was intelligence held with the Lords and Nobility and that the people desperate with the weight of that yoak were ready to shake it off and to relieve themselves on the first proffered occasion All these dispositions being so favourable to him the business of Cleves happened of which we at present shall speak which furnished him with a fair occasion to begin the execution of his projects which he was to do in this manner Having raised an Army of forty thousand men as he did he was in his march to dispatch towards all the Princes of Christendome to give them the knowledge of his just and holy intentions After under the pretext of going to Cleves he was to seize all the passages of la Mense and all at once assault Charlemont Mastrich and Namur which were but ill fortified At the same time the Cities of the Low-Countries had cryed out for liberty and the Lords put themselves in the Field for the same purpose and had blazoned the Belgique Lyon with the Flowers de Lis. The Hollanders had infested the Coasts with their Ships in very great number to hinder the Traffick of the Flemins by Sea as it was shut up by the French by Land which should have been done of purpose to hasten the people to shake off the Spanish Rule and to address themselves to the King and to the Princes his Associates to pray the King of Spain to put them in liberty and out of his goodness to restore peace to them which they could never hope so long as they were under his Dominion In all probable appearance at the approach of so great an Army by reason of the intelligences of the principal Lords by the insurrection of the great Cities and of the love which these people have still had for liberty Flanders would all have risen especially when they had seen the wonderful order and exact discipline of his souldiers who should have lived like good Guests paying for all and not doing the least outrage upon pain of death and when it should be known that he laboured for the safety of the people not reserving any thing of all his Conquests but the glory and the satisfaction of having restored those Provinces to themselves without keeping so much as a Castle or Village to himself At the same time that he had put Flanders into a free state and accommodated the difference of the succession of Cleves all the Princes interested in this business the Electors we have named and the Deputies of many great Cities were to come and thank him and intreat him that he would joyn his Prayers and his Authority to the supplications they had to make to the Emperour to dispose him to restore the Estates and Cities of the Empire to their ancient Rights and Immunities above all in the free Election of a King of the Romans without using any practices constraints promises and threats And that for this effect it should be from that moment resolved that they should elect one of another house then that of Austria They had agreed among themselves that it should be the Duke of Bavaria The Pope had joyned with them in this request which had been made with such instance that it had been difficult for the Emperor being unarmed as he was to have refused it The like request had been made to the King and his Associates by the people of Bohemia Hungary Austria Stiria and Carinthia above all for the right they had themselves to make choice of their Prince and to put themselves under that form of Government they should think best by the advice of their friends and allies To which the King condescending had used all sorts of fair means prayers and supplications even below his dignity that it might be seen he intended not so much to serve himself of power as of equity and reason After this the Duke of Savoy by the same way had demanded of the King of Spain with all sorts of civility and in the name of his children that he would be pleased to give them a Dower for their Mother as good and advantagious as he had to their Aunt Isabella and in case of refusal the King was to permit Lesdiguieres to assist him with fifteen thousand Footmen and two thousand Horse for the Conquest of Milan or the Country of Lombardy in which he would have been favoured by the greatest part of the Princes of Italy This done he with his Associates were to beseech the Pope and the Venetians to become Arbitrators between him and the King of Spain to terminate friendly these differences which were ready to break forth between them by reason of Naples Sicily Navarre and Roussillon And then to shew that he had no thought to aggrandize himself nor other ambition then to settle the repose of Christendom he had shewed himself ready to yeild to the Spaniard Navarre and Roussillon so that
accord the party had by this means conserved its bonds together and not been overthrown but appeased When he had got the upperhand in his Affairs and was reconciled to the Pope and that his subjects were reconciled with him the ill counsel of the Hugonots who desired always to see him in trouble perswaded him to declare a War against Spain It was now that he thought he should fall into a worse Estate then ever They took from him Dourlens after the gain of one battel Calais and Ardres by storm and Amiens by surprize The rest of the League which lay hid under the cinders began to rekindle the discontents of the great ones to be discovered Conspiracies were formed on all sides his servants were amazed his enemies emboldened But his Vertue which seemed to sleep in prosperity rouzed it self in adversity he encouraged his friends re-took Amiens and forced the Spaniard to make peace by the treaty of Vervin The Duke of Savoy thinking to deceive him in the restitution of the Marquisate of Saluces and to raise factions in his Realm which should hinder the King from demanding reason of him found that he had to do with a Prince who knew as well how to over reach him in his designes as to conquer his forces for he forced him among those rocks where he boasted he had nothing to fear but the thunder-bolts of Heaven and made him shamefully restore what he had unjustly usurped At the same time the King had thoughts as well for the security and tranquillity of France as for his own to generate Children of a lawful marriage Heaven gave him six and with them a peace of ten years which was onely lightly troubled by the conspiracy of Byron by the devices of the Duke of Bouillon and by some popular risings against the Pancarte or Sol pour livre During all this he laboured principally for two things the one his great designe of which we have spoken for which he made friends and allies on all sides cleared his revenues paid his debts with as good credit as if he had been a Merchant gathered monies and pacified all differences which were between those Princes with whom he would associate The other was to repair the damages and ruines of France which a forty years civil War had caused remove those causes which imbittered and divided spirits reform those disorders which disfigured the face of the Estate make it flourishing and rich to the end his subjects might live happily under the wings of his protection and his justice In the mean time himself was not free from troubles perplexities and disgusts his Mistresses caused him a thousand vexations in the midst of his pleasures he found thorns even in his Nuptial-bed and in the ill humour of his wife and Conchini was causer of griefs to him just as a little but vexatious Mouse may furiously trouble and turmoile the noble Lyon As he was ready to mount on horse-back to begin his great designe by the assistance of his Allies he lost his Life by the most detestable Parricide was ever known Thus he whom so many Pikes so many Musquets and Cannons so many Squadrons and Battalions of men could not hurt in the trenches and in the field of battel was killed with a Knife by a wicked and trayterous Rogue in the midst of his capital City in a Coach and on a day of publick Joy Unhappy blow which put an end to all the joys of France and which opened a wound which to this day hath left its scar. Henry was of a middle stature disposed and active hardened to labour and travel His body was well formed his temperament able and strong and his health perfect onely about the age of fifty years he had some light assaults of the Gout but which soon passed away and left behinde them no weakness He had his forehead high his eyes lively and assured his nose Aquiline his complexion ruddy his countenance sweet and noble and yet withal his presence Warlike and Martial his hair brown and very thin He wore his beard large and his hair very short He began to grow gray at the age of thirty five years upon which he was accustomed to say to those who wonder'd at it It is the wind of my adversities hath blown me this Indeed to consider well all his life from his very birth few Princes will be found who have suffered so much as he and it will be difficult to tell if he had more crosses or more prosperities He was born the Son of a King but of a King despoiled of his Estates He had a Mother generous and of a great courage but a Hugonot and an enemy of the Court He gained the battel of Coutras but he lost a little after the Prince of Conde his Cousin and his right hand The League stirred up his vertue and made him know it but it thought to overthrow him It was the cause that the King having called him to his assistance he found himself at the gates of Paris as if God had led him by the hand but Paris armed it self against him and all his hopes were almost dissipated by the scattering of the Army which besieged that City It was without doubt a great happiness that the Crown of France fell to him there having never been a succession more distant in any hereditary Estate for there were ten or eleven degrees between Henry the third and him and when he was born there was nine Princes of the blood before him to wit King Henry 2. and his five sons King Anthony of Navarre his father and two sons of that Anthony eldest brothers of our Henry All these Princes died to make room for his succession But he found it so embroyled that we may say he suffered an infinity of labours pains and hazards before he could gather the fair flowers of this Crown Young he espoused the sister of King Charles which seemed a match very advantagious for him but this marriage was a snare to entrap both him and his friends Afterwards that Lady in stead of being his Consort became his trouble and in stead of being his honour became his shame His second Wife brought him forth fair children to his no little joy but her grumblings and disdains were the causers of a thousand discontents He triumphed over all his enemies and became Arbitrator of Christendom but the more powerful he made himself the more was their hatred envenomed and the more means used they to destroy him so that after having plotted an infinite number of conspiracies against his life they found in the end a Ravaillac who executed in the end what so many others had failed in Now it must be acknowledged that all these adversities which he suffered ought to whet his spirit and his courage and that in fine he should be the greatest of Kings because he came to the Crown through so many difficulties and in an age very mature And certainly it is
sends forth enlivenings and joy into the eyes of all that behold it To continue the Metamorphosis I will yet say that so many wise Laws which he made for Justice for Policy and for his Revenues so many good and useful Establishments of all sorts of Manufactures which produced to France the yearly profit of many Millions so many proud buildings as the Galleries of the Louvre the Pont-neuf the Place Royal the Colledge Royal the Keys for Merchants of the River Seine Fontain-bleau Monceaux St. Germain so many publick works Bridges Causwaies Highwaies repaired so many Churches rebuilded in many places of the Realm should be as the Ingravements and Imbellishments Let us Crown then with a thousand prayses the immortal memory of that great King the love of the French and the terror of the Spaniards the Honour of his age and the Admiration of Posterity Let us make him live in our hearts and in our affections in despite of the rage of those wicked persons deprived him of life Let us shout forth as many Acclamations to his glory as he hath done benefits to France He was a Hereules who cut off the Head of the Hydra by overturning the League He was greater then Alexander and greater then Pompey because he was as Valiant but he was more Just he gained as many victories but he gained more hearts He conquered the Gaules as well as Julius Caesar but he conquered them to give them liberty and Caesar subjugated them to enslave them Let his Name then be raised above that of the Hercules the Alexanders the Pompeys and the Gaesars Let his Reign be the Model of good Kings and his Examples the clear Lights to illuminate the eyes of other Princes Let his Posterity be Eternally Crowned with the Flowers de Lis Let them be alwaies happy alwaies Triumphant And to compleat our wishes let Lewis the Victorious his Grand-child Resemble or if it be possible Surpass him FINIS The Life of Hen. the Great divided into three parts The first The second The third His Genealogie Who Antho. de Bourbon his father was a Peter sixth Son to Lewis le gross espoused Isabella Heiress of Courtnay and took both Name and Arms a fault very prejudicial to his posterity b The branch of Bourbon produced many among others that of Vendosme Charles Duke of Vendosme had Anthony and six other sons Who Jane d' Albret his Mother was 〈◊〉 of Bourbon Duke of Vendosme and Jane d' Albret married at Moulins 1547. 1552. Henry the Great conceived at la Fleche 1553. His mother sings at her delivery of him He cries not at his birth So soon as born his grandfather carries him into his chamber he rubs his lips with Garlick makes him taste wine The Spaniards Raillery concerning the birth of his mother Her fathers Reply to it 1554. Baptism of Hen. 4. His godfathers and godmother He was hard to bring up He had for Governess Madam de Miossens His grandfather permits him not to be nourished delicately * It hath been said that he was ordinarily nourished with coarse bread beef cheese and garlick and that oftentimes he was made to march with naked feet and brre headed The death of Henry d' Albret 1555. His daughter son-in-law succeed him and retire from the Court. 1557. 1558. 1559. Death of King Henry the second Francis 2. succeeâ—s Divisions at Court 1560. Death of Francis 2. Charles 9. succeeds Queen Katherine declared Regent and the King of Navarre Lieutenant-General of the Realm 1562. He is killed before Rouen 1562. The Queen his wife returns to Bearn and embraces Calvinism 1566. She taâ— her son from the Court and gives him a Master instructs him in ill Doctrine 1567. Henry Prince of Navarre declared chief of the Religion 1569. Louys Prince of Condé his Uncle his Lieutenant with Admiral Coligny A judicious action when yet an infant b This Duke of Anjou was King after Hen. 3 Another action very judicious at the battle of Jarnac Lewis Prince of Condé slain After his death the Admiral commands all He hazards the battle of Montcontour Our Prince impatâ—ent to engage but hindred Gives marks of his judgement 1570. He with the Admiral continues the War The peace of Arnay-le-Duc 1571. A Resolution to entrap the Hugonots and exterminate them Death of Jane d' Albret Her son takes the quality of King of Navarre He marries the King of France his sister Massacre of St. Bartholomew The grief and fear of our young King He is constrained to turn Catholick 1572. His great dangers troubles at Court His wise prudent conduct He contracts friendship with the Duke of Guise He shuns contention with Duke d' Alenzon but lets himself be overcome by the beauty of Ladies which was his greatest weakness 1572. He fell not into any other of the horrible Vices of the Court. 1573. The Duke of Anjou besieges Rochel and carries the King with him The siege raised by the election of Duke d' Anjou to the Kingdome of Poland 1574. Charles 9. falls mortally sick at Bois de Vincennes A league made at Court into which Henry enters The Queen-mother discovering it causes him the Duke Alenson c to be arrested and la Mole Coconas Tourtray to be put to death The Chancellour would examine the King of Navarre Charles 9. near his death sends for him 1574. Queen Katherine alarm'd would affright him After the death of Charles 9. she seizeth on the Regency The two Princes set at liberty The Prince of Condé was in Germany The King of Navarre cannot escape as he desires He falls in love with a Lady The Queen-mother alluminates all the factions and civil wars 1575. Conspiracy against Henry 3. who confides in our Henry Henry 3. anointed and espoused to Louis de Lorrain Familiarity between our Henry and the Duke of Guise The Queen-mother breaks this union Henry 3. falls very sick a Francis 2 died of an Aposthume in his ear which was believed to come of poyson A noble and generous action of our Henry 1575. 1576. Monsieur departs from Court and joyns with the Hugonots Our Henry could not soon follow him but at length saves himself at Alenzon Peace made with Monsieur and the Hugonots 1576. Our Henry again turns Hugonot He is received into Rochel and after goes into Guyenne The gates of Bourdeaux shut against him The birth of the League These Leagues a fair path for the ambitious to rise by The Duke of Guise makes himself chief of the League The War of Monsieur his joyning with the Hugonots the cause of the League The Cities of Picardy begin it and why Christopher de Thou hinders its procedure at Paris The Leaguers oblige the King to call the Estates They assemble at Blois War resolved against the Hugonots Henry 3. declares himself chief of the League 1577. He raises three or four Armies against the Hugonots The Queen-mother obliges him to grant them peace 1578. She makes a voyage to Guyenne
and carries with her her daughter Margaret The King of Navarre looses Agen and la Reole by two follies of youth Two exquisite Reflections Queen Margaret did not over-well love her husband nor he her but he draws advantages from her intrigues The Queen-mother Monsieur the Guises weary of the peace 1579. They under-hand perswade the King of Navarre to a Rupture which proves very disadvantagious to him Monsieur procures the peace Of much damage to the Estate being the cause the two Henries plunged themselves in pleasure Henry 3. hath favorites who prejudice his affairs Dispositions to the League to the loss of Hen. 3. 1584. a Monsieur intending to surprize Antwerp and treating ill the people of the Low-Countries who had called him was driven thence The death of the Monsieur begets thoughts of a Successor to the Crown The Queen-Mother designs to give the Crown to the children of her daughter married to the Duke of Lorrain A belief that the Duke of Guise hoped to Reign himself Henry 3. knew his design or was advertized of it by his favorites He sends the Duke d'Espernon to the King of Navarre to oblige him to return to the Catholick Church but he refuses The Duke of Guise profits himself of it The League Established at Paris The Pope disapproves it It is turned against Henry the third The Treaty of Joinville where the Spaniards enter into the League furnish money The League seize many places The Queen-mother enters into conference with Guise who breaks it when he sees himself in an Estate to fear nothing The King astonished grants him all he desires 1585. Pope Sixtus 5. excommunicates the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde The vertue of our Henry awakened He doth two noble actions He defies the Duke of Guise to single Combat Why the Duke of Guise accepted not the defiance The other gallant Action of our Henry He causes to be fixed up at the corners of the chief streets of Rome oppositions to the sentence of Sixtus 5. who at first is incensed but afterwards conceives a great estèem for him The King of Navarre makes a League to defend himself 1586. Henry 3. hated both the League the Hugonots and loved none but his favourites The Queen-mother endeavours an accommodation with the King of Navarre The Interview and conference at St. Brix A noble generous Action of our Prince His constancy in the whole conference A handsome answer to Duke de Nevers Conference at St. Brix produceth nothing Dances and Feasts in the Courts of the two Kings Blaise de Monluc Marshal of France who writ in these times says in his Memoires That whatever affair there were of force the Dancing was still to go forward 1587. An Army of German Protestants enter France It is followed by the Duke of Guise It doth nothing to purpose The King of Navarre would joyn with them but the Duke of Joyeuse makes head against him with an Army The Duke overtakes him near Coutras What the Army of Joyeuse was What that of the King His Exhortation to his Army and to the Princes of the Blood His valour bravery An Action of great Justice and Christian Humility The Battail of Coutras which he gains Joyeuse slain His moderation and admirable Clemency in his Victory He pursues it not and wherefore Defeat of the German horse The rest of that Army retire 1588 Prognostications of the evils of the year 1588. Death of the Prince of Conde The King of Navarre much afflicted But in his affliction puts his trust in God The League rejoyce The Hugonots afflicted Sentiments of Hen. 3. The Duke of Guise presseth him to give him forces to exterminate the Hugonots The Duke of Guise much loved and Hen. 3. much haâ—ed D' Espinac Villeroy become friends to the Duke of Guise and why The ill Conduct of Henry 3. The Conduct and employs of the Duke of Guise What the sixteen were The King would punish them The Duke of Guise hastes to defend them The King retires to Chartres The league becomes Mistriss Paris The Parisians send Deputies to the King The King pardons all so they lay down Arms. The Duke of Guise demands the expulsion of Espernon which is in the end granted And after comes to the Court at Chartres The Estates of Blois The death of the Guises Death of Queen Katherine de Medices Different Judgments concerning the death of the Guises Our Henry speaks very wisely He changeth not his Conduct 1589. Henry 3. amusiag himself too much at Blois the League is re-assured and grows furious The Parliament imprisoned in the Bastille by Bussy le Clerk forced to swear to the the â—eague A part remains at Paris and the others go to the King who transfers all to Tours Those of the Parliament remaining at Paris make process against Henry 3. An excellent reflection for Kings Henry 3. excommunicated by Pope Sixtus 5. The Duke of Mayenne assures himself of Burgongne and Champagne and comes to Paris He takes the quality of Lieutenant-General of the Estate and Crown of France they likewise break the Kings Seals Henry 3. for fear retires to Tours He in vain endeavours to appease the Duke of Mayenne He in the end calls the King of Navarre gives him Saumur The King perswaded by his friends not to trust him Yet he resolves to go arrive what will to which purpose he passes the River Cher. His interview with the King at Tours He repasses the River and lies in the Fauboâ—rg but on the morrow visits the King alone They resolve to besiege Paris Duke of Mayenne wants little to surprize King Hen. 3 â—â— Tours Great and profitable Reflections made on the different Conducts of Hen. â— and the King of Navarre Paris besieged King Hen. 3. killed by a Jacobin Our Henry comes to visit him dying What the King said to him and those present 1589 Change caused by the Death of Hen. 3. Problem if Hen. 3. died in a time favourable to Hen. 4. or not Henry 4. holds many Councels Same Catholicks acknowledge him but most refuse Some design to make themselves Sovereigns The Marshal of Byron among others but the King made him forgo his desire Byron and Sancy assure the Catholick Suiss to the Kings Service What was the disposition of the Princes of the blood towards the King Many Lords in Camp and Court ill intended Assembly of Noblemen at d' O's who would have the King converted d' O carrys him word of it The King answers them hansomely and couragiously Another greater Assembly resolved to acknowledge him provided he will permit himself to be instructed The Duke of Piney carries their resolution to the King who agrees to it and grants a Declaration touching the exercise of the Catholick Religion through all his Territories Many sign it with regret and others refuse as Vitry who becomes a Leaguer And the Duke of Espernon who retires The Duke of Mayennâ— troubled what party to take Two
Counsels given him He rejects them and causes to be Proclaimed the old Cardinal of Bourbon The King tries in vain several Treaties with the Duke He raises his League from Paris and why He writes to the Protestant Princes to justifie himself His troubles for 4. years to content both Catholicks Hugonots He had need of infinite prudence address eloquence Hee carries the Corps of Henry the third to S. Cornille de Compeigne Three advices touching the place to which he should retire 1590. He follows the last which was to march into Normandy Rolet brings him the Keyes of Pont d' Arche and Chattes of Diepe He would besiege Rouen but the Duke of Mayenne coming to its suecour drives him to Diepe and invests him The Duke reports he cannot escape him The Parliament at Tours counsel him to associate the Cardinal of Bourbon in the Royalty Others counsel him to retire to England He derides both one and t'other The Duke of Mayenne besieges Diepe Batâ—ail of Arques The Duke raises the siege retires goes into Picardy and why What hindred the success of his enterprize He knew not how to take his advantages Thâ—eeâ— auses for 〈…〉 which the great body of the League prospered not in their designes The distrust between the Spaniards and Duke of Mayenne The jealousie among the Chiefs of the League The sloth and negligence of the Duke of Mayenne Great activity and vigilance of Henry 4. Officers servants resemble their masters This History recounts onely the chief affairs The Parisians made believe the King was taken They arâ— much astonished to understand him marching towards them He takes the Faubourgs of St. Germain c. His moderation in this rencounter The Dukes of Nemours Mayenne post thither The King retires to Montlehery He takes Estampes Vendosm le Man 's Alenzon Want of mony stops his progress In what manner he made his Troops subsist He reduces almost all Normandy and besiegeth Dreux The Duke marches to succour Dreux The King advances to fight him Two reasons oblige him to it What causes engage the Duke of Mayenne to the Battail Battail of Yvry March 14 Wonderful intelligence of Henry the fourth His prayers to God His exhortation to his Souldâ—ers The battail won by the King Great loss of the Leaguers The Duke of Mayenne escapes to Mantes and thence to Paris The King too much exposes his person which Byron freely remonstrates to him His Clemency aâ— Generosi â— after the Victory His Acknowledgements and Justice A Noble Action he did Another worthy Action What hindred the King to go directly to Paris Devilish counsel The widow of Montpensier amuses the people The King departs from Mantes takes some Cities and goes to block up Paris The Duke of Mayenne was gone to meet the Duke of Parma and had left the Duke of Nemours at Paris The death of the old Cardinal of Bourbon troubles him The Spaniards the Sixteen â—â—â—â—s him to make a King he assignes the Estates to Paris He keeps to himself the Title of Lieutenant-General Nemours takes order for the defence of Paris Number of the inhabitants of Paris It proves not so easie to take it by famine The Hugonots would have it taken by force but the King will not Useless mouths starve Paris Great Clemency of the King to let the miserable people go forth His generous words Those of the Army send victuals into Paris Which makes them subsist The King takes all the Suburbs in one night The Duke of Mayenne advances to Meaux but dares not relieve Paris The Duke of Parma comes to joyn with him with an Army from the Low-countries He had so well contrived all things that he was assured to raise the siege of Paris The King never believed he would quit the Low-Countries He renews the Negotiation with the Duke of Mayenne who feigns to entertain it to amuse him The Kings Council mech ironbled The King would take a place of battel and not raise the siege Byron advises to raise the siege and carries it The Duke of Parma takes Lagny in the sight of the King relieves Paris Abundance of Victuals carried to Paris The Army of the King constrained to separate Duke of Parma besieges Corbeil and takes it He returns to Flanders Corbeil regained by storm The Duke of Parma counsels the King of Spain to become chief Master of the League The King of Spain no longer considers the Duke of Mayenne but thinks to render himself Master of the great Cities by factions The King endeavours to re-gain the Duke He endeavours likewise to regain the people Three means by which Henry 3. lost the affection of his subjects His negligence and inapplication The wasting his Revenues His ill keeping his word Three other ways quite contrary by which Henry 4. gained the esteem and affection of his subjects His activity and greatness of soul. His care of his Revenues Francis d' O Superintendant of the Revenues a great expender The King constrained to suffer him in this charge but pares his nailes His constant keeping his word and freedom His goodness He pardoned injuries and never knew vengeance This reconquered his kingdom rather then his sword 1591. Divisions and Jealousies in the party of the League and that of the King In the party of the King three factions of Hugonots Catholicks and Servants of Henry the third The Hugonots solicite the Protestants to send Henry 4. powerful assistance to hinder him from turning Catholick An Edict granted to the Hugonots Death of Pope Sixtus 5. Election of Gregory 14. Enterprize of the League on S. Denis where the Cavalier d' Aumale is killed Enterprize of the King on Paris called the battail of the Flour Chartres besieged and taken by the King President Janin sent to Spain on the part of the League The Spaniards design to profit themselves by the ruine of France Gregory 14. sends an Army to the League And a Bull of Excommunication against those Prelates follow the King and money to the Sixteen Oâ—r Henry well served by the Count of Turenne And by the Duke Lesdiguieres He becomes passionate of the fair Gabriella The Duke of Guise escapes from prison The judicious reasoning of Hen. 4. on his escape The Duke of Mayenne becomes jealous of his nephew The Sixteen lean to the Duke of Guise and would lose Mayenne They write to the King of Spain They drive the Cardinal of Gonde many others from Paris By a horrible attempt they cause to be hanged the President of Brisson and two Counsellours * The publick place of execution in Paris Some would likewise kill the Duke of Mayenne but want heart to do it Upon this the Duke comes to Paris and hangs four which quite quells the faction of the Sixteen He makes four Presidents of Parliament 1592. The King besieges Rouen where Villars was Governour Great and memorable Sally The City pressed Parma comes to relieve it The King raises his Siege and
order in the Revenues Effects of this good management of Rosny * A general place for receipt of Revenues whereof there be 20. in France viz. Paris Rouen Caen Nantes Tours Bourges Poictiers Agen Tholouse Montpellier Aix Grenoble Lyons Dijon Chaalons Amiens Orleans Limoges Soissons Moulin Expedients to hinder those of the Council to share with the Farmers The Collectors exclaim against Rosny but he derides them 1599. The King cannot yet provide for the Reformation of the Clergy His abuse of Benefices Remonstrance of the general Assembly of the Clergy to the King The Kings answer He had need of great Prudence to conduct himself with the Pope and with the Hugonots Edict of Nantes granted to the Hugonots The Parliament with great difficulty confirm it The King shews all respect â—o the Pope Cause of the Dutchy of Ferrara Caesar bastard of Ferrara would maintain it The Pope makes war against him The King offers his sword to the Pope Caesar quits Ferrara remains Duke of Modena Many Hugonots converts The King takes the young Prince of Conde from the Hugonots and causes him to be instructed in the Catholick Religion Marriage of the Infanta of Spain and Ratherine sister to the King Qualities of Katherine why the King married her to the Duke of Bar. The marriage made in the Kings Closet The Pope troubled at the Duke of Bar for this marriage Death of the Dutchess of Bar. The Duke of Joyeuse re-takes the habit of Capuchin The Marchioness of Bell ' Isle turns Feuillantine Duel of de Crequy and Phillipin bastard of Savoy The Apparition of the great Hunter to the King hunting at Fountainbleau What these fantasms may be The fair Gabriella demands the King to espouse her and legitimate his Children He feeds her with hope She in the end obliges the King to demand Commissioners of the Pope to judge of the divorce of Margaret The King remains at Fontainbleau to do his Easter-devotions and sends the fair Gabriella to Paris * A service in the Roman Church used three days before Easter which are called Les tâ—ois Jours de tenebres She dies in a strange manner The King comforts himself conserves an extream tenderness for her Children Queen Margaret presents a request to the Pope to dissolve her marriage The Lords and Parliament beseech the King to take a wife He presents his request to the Pope as well as Queen Margaret The Pope appoints Commissioners who pronounce the dissolution of the marriage After which Queen Margaret comes to Paris Her inclination 1600. Maria de Medicis demanded for Hen. 4. The contract of the marriage at Florence and the Nuptials Solemnized by Proxy The King falls into the snares of Madam d'Entragues afterwards March ioness of Verneuil A good reflection concerning flatterers The King gives an hundred thousand crowns to Madamoiselle d' Entragues Her cunning to bring him to her designs She gets a promise of marriage from him Sully tears it but the King makes another He pursues at Rome the decision of the Marquisate of Saluces How that Marquisate appertained to him How the Duke of Savoy seized it An accommodation spoke of He offers it to be held at faith homage By the Treaty of Vervin the business is remitted to the Popes Arbitration The Pope refuses farther medling with the Arbitration why The Duke of Savoy strives to gain time He would come to France to confer with the King What might be the motives of his voyage His Train The King causes him to be well received every where He passes Lyons Arrives at Fontainbleau where the King is His address to gain confidence with the King who is as subâ—ile as himself and carries him to Paris Overture of the Centenary Jubilee at Rome Great Demonstrations of friendship between the King and Duke How the Duke lived in the Kings Court. The King shews him his Parliament * A place I suppose so called which looked into the Parliament-House and where they might see and not be seen Yet the King releases not to him the Marquisate * The French hath it Prendre le Change which is taken for flying out at a wrong Deer like hounds of Riot The Duke not succeeding it is believed he endeavoured to debauch Byron by the means of Laffin The vanities of Byron become insupportable He esteems himself more then the King who takes disgust at it A good and important Reflection The Duke causes to be carried to Byron some disadvantagious words of the Kings The King proposes to the Duke the exchange of the Marquisate for la Bresse The Duke seems not a verse but takes three moneths to consider He takes leave of the King who accompanies him to Charenton Some had counselled the King to arrest him The Kings noble Answer The three months expired the King presses the Duke to chuse either the change or the restitution The Duke presses the Council of Spain to help him The Count of Fuentes comes to this purpose to Milain but too late The King again presses the Duke to chuse the change or restitution He promises positively to surrender the Marquisate But when the King sends his forces he takes off his mask and refuses The King declares war against him He gives advice of it to the neighbouring Princes * Julius Caesar would never let the tenth Legion fight but with him Byron conquers all la Bresse The Pope Alarm'd at this War sends to the King The Kings good and Christian answer The King enters Savoy Yet the Duke stirs not He trusts some vain predictions of Astrologers or to Byron much incensed against the King In fine the Duke takes the field but does nothing The Citadel of Montmelian taken and that of Bourg and fort St. Katherine The King visits Geneva The Pope endeavours a peace and sends to that purpose his Nephew Legat. The King comes to Lyons where his Queen expected him The Legat likewise comes and the Ambassadors of Savoy 1610. The peace agreed signed and published at Lyons They both gain by the exchange After the King goes to Paris followed by the Queen He carries her to see his buildings He divertised but never employed himself about buildings An excellent reflexion Count Fuentes would surprize Marseilles to break the peace His people might be intrapped by counter-intelligence but the King will not The Spaniards turn their Arms against the Infidels The Duke of Merceur commands the Emperoâ—rs forces and dies Gentlemen of the Ambassador of France in Spain kill some Spaniards The Magistrate violates the freedom of the Ambassadors house and takes them out Discourse of the freedom of Ambassadors Palaces The King being offended recals his Ambassador And goes in haste to Calais to visit his Frontier The Pope undertakes to accommodate the difference and doth it The Arch-Duke besieging Ostend sends to complement the King * This siege lasted three years three months and three days The King returns the civility to the Arch-Duke The Queen of England
Secretary His punishment The Ambassadours Secretary arrested Several discourses concerning Ambassadours priviledges The King forbids any process against the Secretary The Ambassadour makes a great noise and threatens his Kings resentment Treason of the Luquisses A fool makes an attempt on the Kings person Those who desire war whet the Kings spirit upon these Conspiracies Character of Philip 3. of Spair A good profitable reflection In what the courage of a Soveraign principally consists The goodness of Henry the Great But the King hastens not the War He makes himself Arbitrator of the differences of Christendom 1606. After the death of Clement 8. he causes to be chosen Leo xi who soon dies and Paul 5. succeeds A great difference between Paul 5. and the Venetians The Venetians had made a law to bound the Acquisitions of the Clergy They make other Decrees Paul 5. offended at these Decrees He sends Briefs to revoke them He Excommunicates the Senate They declare his sentence of Excommunication null and abusive 1607. Henry the great undertakes to accommodate the difference He sends to this purpose Cardinal Joyeuse who concludes an accommodation The Pope absolves the Signory There was nothing but the reestablishment of the Jesuites not obtained 1608. The King endeavours an accommodation between the Hollander and Spaniard He underhand assists the Hollander with men and money Janin sent for this accommodation They come presently to an eight months truce The King makes an offensive and defensive League with the Hollander The Spaniards Alarm'd at this League Don Pedro de Toledo makes great complaints to the King Things very curious which passed betwixt the King and Don Pedro. Their entertainments Lively and quick replies Don Pedro kisses the Kings Sword Two obstacles in the Treaty of the Hollanders surmounted by the King The Treaty ends in a twelve years Truce Great praise given by the republick of Venice to our Henry All desire his friendship and protection He will not protect Subjects against their Soveraign What the Maurisques were The Spaniards treat them ill * An avanie is when by a false accusation money is forced from any person They demand assistance of Henry the Great He refuses it The King of Spain banisheth them all They are horribly ill Treated by the Spaniards and by the French They are carried into Affrica but some stay in France The great designe of Henry 4. for the extent of the Christian Religion in the Levant He sends some to spy the Country He seeks means to raise mony without burthening his people He would disengage his demain * The Greffes is a due to the King of 63 â— 9 d. Tours upon the sale of wood in several places and take off the Impost by buying the Salt-Marishes He is constrained to acquit himself of old scores to make some new imposts creations He makes not always use of innocent means Inquisition of the rents of the City-house cause disturbance * Hostel de Ville is the same at Paris as Guild-hall at London Miron Provost of the Merchants sustains the interest of the people Some would incense the King against him The people rise to defend him The King counselled to take him by force The Kings wise answer worthy a great Polititian He will not pursue this business of the Rents Establishment of the Paulete Justice formerly administred in France by Gentlemen How it fell into the hands of the Plebeians who made profit of it The Parliament of France meddle with particular affairs and is made sedentary at Paris They make all other Judges subalternate to them The number of the Officers of Parliament small How Offices became vendible under Francis 1. * He had often said that fat Boy would spoile all and Henry 2. How this might be remedied But on the contrary is made incurable by the Paulete Which causes great abuses 1609. Marriage of the Prince of Conde And of the Duke of Vendosme What were the Kings divertisements He loved Play too much He was extremely given to women This passion made him do shameful things Three or four of his Mistresses This causes often contentions with his wife And hinders his great design What that was The means with which he served himself to put it in Execution To this purpose he grants an Edict to the Hugonots and pays his debts Which regains the reputation and credit of France He joyns to him all Christian Princes by promising his conquests He reunites them by accommodating their differences The Princes he made his friends How he would have accommodated the Protestant Princes with the Pope He treats with the Electors With the Lords of Bohemia Hungary Poland With the Pope Model of the designe of Hen. 4. He would part Christendome into fifteen equal Dominions To wit eleven Kingdoms and four Republicks What the Pope had had The Signory of Venice The Italian Common-wealth Duke of Savoy Republick of the Swisses The Low-Countries Kingdome of Hungary The Empire with free election Bohemia Hungary elective A general Council of sixty persons Three others of each twenty Order to hinder tyranny and rebellion and to assist the Provinces adjoyning to Infidels Three general Captains two by Land and one by Sea to war against the Turks What forces what train None but the house of Austria had suffered by this establishment In Italy the Pope Venetians and Savoyard would consent In Germany many Electors and had chosen the Duke of Bavaria Emperour In Bohemia and Hungary the Lords and Nobility The business of Cleves happens to give a beginning to the great designe The Cities of Flanders should revolt The Kingâ— Army should have lived in great order The King would have reserved nothing of his Conquests He had with other Princes prayed the Emperour to rerestore the Cities of the Empire to liberty Bohemia Hungary Austria had made the same request The Duke of Savoy had demanded the Dower of his wife from the Spaniard The Pope and Venetians to become mediators of the difference of Navarre Naples Savoy c. And the King had yeilded his right They had perswaded the King of Spain or else forced him The great Prudence and moderation intended by the King in the pursuit of his design The preparations he made The forces he had The Prince of Oranges Army That of the Electors German Princes That of the Venetians and Savoyard His Exchequer for defraying this great designe He would make the War powerfully that it might be short Great appearance it might have succeeded having no Princes to oppose it but the Dukes of Saxony and Florence What was the business of Cleves and Juliers Death of John Duke of Juliers without issue His succession disputed by many particularly by Brandenbourg and Newbourg The Emperour said it was devolved to the Empire He invests Leopold of Austria who whilst Brandenbourg and Newbourg dispute seizes Juliers They implore the Kings assistance who promises to march in person But tells him he intended to conserve the Catholick Religion in that Country Answer made to the Ambassador of the Empire He establishes good order in the Kingdom before his departure Leaves the Regency to the Queen but gives her a good Council He establishes little Councils in the Provinces who refer to the great one 1610. Some put it into the spirit of the Queen that she should be installed before the Kings departure He though unwillingly consents The instalment of the Queen Many Prognosticks which seemed to presage the death of Henry 4. Advice from several places that his life should be attempted He seems to believe them and fear Who Ravaillac was He is induced to kill the King but it is not known by whom The King departs the Louvre to go to the Arsenal What persons were with him His Coach stopt in the street of the Ferronnerie Ravaillac killeth him He is torn with burning pincers and drawn in pieces by four horses The Kings body opened and found that he might yet live 30 years He is buried at St. Denis The Queen made Regent The great desolation in Paris when they knew of the Kings death His age and the time of of his reign His two wives Margaret and Mary He had three Sons by Mary and three Daughters He had eight Natural children of divers Mistresses Two Sons and a Daughter of Gabriella A Son and a Daughter of the Marchioness of Verneuil Of the Countess of Moret one Son Of Madam d' Essards two daughters He loved all his children and would have them call him Papa Summary recital of the Life of Henry the Great Parallel of his adversities and prosperities * There are more then fifty conspiracies against his person His adversities whet his spirit and courage Why Princes who come young to the Crown seldome learn to govern well Those who come to a Crown at greater distance and a more ripe age are more capable and better The reasons of it A mystick Crown to the glory of Henry the Great
to them and giving to Anthony the Government of Guyenne which had been likewise held by Henry d' Albret his Father-in-law he retrenched him of Languedoc which he had a long time enjoyed About two years after they returned to the Court of France whither they brought their Son aged about four or five years who was the most jolly and best-composed Lad in the world but they stayed but few moneths and returned again to Bearn A little after King Henry the second was slain with a blow of a Lance by Montgomery Francis the second his eldest Son succeeded him and Messieurs de Guise Uncles to Mary Stuart his Queen seized themselves of the Government The Princes of the Blood could not suffer it and therefore Lewis Prince of Condé younger Brother to Anthony called that King into the Court to oppose it During these Divisions the Hugonots contrived the Conspiration d' Amboyse against the present Government and the two Brothers Anthony and Lewis being accused for the Chiefs of it were arrested Prisoners in the State of Orleance and processes made so hotly against the second that it was believed he would have been beheaded if the Death of King Francis the second had not happened Charles the ninth who succeeded him being under age Queen Katherine his Mother caused her self to be declared Regent of the Estates and the King of Navarre first Prince of the Blood was declared Lieutenant-General of the Realm to govern the Estate with her so that by this means he was stay'd in France whither he caused his Queen Jane and his young Son Prince Henry to come But he enjoyed not long this new Dignity for the Troubles dayly continuing by reason of the Surprizes which the new Reformers made of the best Cities of the Kingdome after having re-taken Bourges from them he came to besiege Rouen where visiting one day the Trenches as he was making water he received a Musket-shot in his left shoulder of which he in few days died at Andely on the Siene Had he lived longer the Hugonots had without doubt been but ill treated in France for he mortally hated them though his Brother the Prince of Condé were the principal Chief of their party The Queen his wife and the little Prince his son were at present in the Court of France The mother returned to Bearn where she publickly embraced Calvinism but she left her son with the King under the conduct of a wise Tutor named la Gaucherie who endeavoured to give him some tincture of Learning not by the Rules of Grammar but by Discourses and Entertainments To this effect he taught him by heart many fair Sentences like to these Ou vaincre avec Justice Ou Mourir avec Gloire Or justly gain the Victory Or learn with Glory how to die And that other Les Princes sur leur Peuple ont autorit◠grande Mais Dieu plus fortement dessus les Rois commande Kings rule their Subjects with a mighty hand But God with greater power doth Kings command In the year 1566. his mother took him from the Court of France and led him to Pau and in the place of la Gaucherie who was deceased she gave him Florentius Christian an ancient servant of the house of Vendosme a man of a very agreeable conversation and well versed in Learning but however a Hugonot and who according to the orders of the Queen instructed the Prince in that false Doctrine In the first troubles of the Religion Francis Duke of Guise had been assassinated by Poltrot at the Siege of Orleance leaving his children in minority this was in the year 1563. In the second the Constable of Montmorency received a wound at the battle of St. Dennis of which he died at Paris three days after the Eve of St. Martin in the year 1567. In the third and in the year 1569 Queen Jane rendred her self Protectoress of the Hugonot party being for this effect come to Rochel with her son whom she now devoted to the Defence of that new Religion In this quality he was declared Chief and his Uncle the Prince of Condé his Lieutenant in colleague with the Admiral of Coligny These were two great Chieftains but they committed notable errours and this young Prince though not exceeding thirteen years of age had the spirit to observe them For he judged well at the great skirmish of Loudun that if the Duke of Anjou b had had troops ready to assault them he had done it and that not doing it he was without doubt in an ill estate and therefore should the rather have been assaulted by them but they by not doing it gave time to all his troops to arrive At the battle of Jarnac he represented to them yet more judiciously that there was no means to fight because the forces of the Princes were dispersed and those of the Duke of Anjou firmly imbodied but they were engaged too far to be able to retreat The Prince of Condé was killed in this battle or rather assassinated in cold blood after the Combat in which he had had his Leg broken After that all the authority and belief of the Party remained in the Admiral Coligny who to speak truth was the greatest man of that time of the Religion he took part with but the most unfortunate This Admiral having gathered together new forces hazarded a second battle at Montcontour in Poictou he had caused to come to the Army our little Prince of Navarre and the young Prince of Condé who was likewise named Henry and gave them in charge to Prince Lodowick of Nassaw who guarded them on a Hill little distant with four thousand horse The young Prince burned with desire to engage in person but they permitted him not to run so great a hazard nevertheless when the Avant-Guard of the Duke of Alenzon was disordered by that of the Admiral there had been no danger to let him fall upon the Enemies who were much astonished However they hindred him and he now cryed out We shall loose our advantage and by consequence the battle It arrived as he had foreseen and it was at that hour judged by some that a young man of sixteen years of age had more understanding then the old Souldiers Thus he applyed himself entirely to what he did nor had he onely a Body but a Spirit and Judgement apt Being saved with the remnants of his Army he made almost a turn round the Kingdome fighting in retreat and rallying together the Hugonots troops here and there for five or six moneths during which he suffered so much travel that had he not been elevated in that manner he was he could not have been able to resist it This young Prince always accompanied with the Admiral led his troops into Guyenne and from thence through Languedoc where he took Nismes by stratagem forced several small places and
crimes in this Court and it ought to be attributed to a particular grace of Heaven that he was not infected with all for there was never any more vicious nor more corrupted Impiety Atheism Witchcraft all most horrible wickedness black ingratitude and perfidiousness poisoning and assassination reigning there in a soveraign degree yet all these abominations in stead of infecting him fortified him in the natural horror he had against them and though amongst wicked persons he had never any thoughts to become their Companion but many to be their Enemy On St. Bartholomews-day succeeding they would finish to exterminate the Hugonots and to this purpose the Duke of Anjou went to besiege Rochel carrying him with him but caused him to be so well observed that he could neither evade to the right hand nor the left It may be judged what heart-grief it was to him to be made an instrument in the destruction of those which yet remained his friends and servants and had refuged themselves in this City After a long siege it was relieved by the arrival of the Ambassadors of Poland who came to seek the Duke of Anjou whom the Estates of that Country had elected their King Some moneths afterwards Charles the ninth fell mortally sick vomiting forth blood through all the conduits of his body so that by many it was believed he was empoisoned but however it were it may justly be said if it be permitted to judge of Kings who ought to be judged by none but God That it was a Divine punishment for his blasphemies His extream malady gave birth to a league made by the Duke of Alenson the Marshals of Montmorency and Cossé and some Catholicks with the Hugonot party to deprive the Queen-mother of the Government and drive the Guises from the Court where they were very puissant Our Henry entred into it not out of any designe to oblige himself with those people but onely that he might have the means to retire with security into his own Country The Queen-mother having understood these practices caused him and the Duke of Alenson to be arrested and committed to Guard The Prince of Condé saved himself happily in Germany She caused likewise the two Marshals of Montmorency and Cossé to be secured and to let the world see she treated not Princes of their degree in this manner without sufficient cause she made them be strictly examined on many treasonable Interrogatories but which were all false there were onely put to death la Mole Coconas and Tourtray three Gentlemen of note who had engaged themselves in their intrigues and possibly this execution was necessary to calm the spirit of the Nobility and People who began to murmur that a son of France and the first Prince of the blood should be treated in this manner In this affair the Chancellour would have examined the King of Navarre but though captive and threatned he would not so much wrong his Dignity as to reply to him However to content the Queen-mother he made a long discourse addressing his speech to her by which he declared many things touching the present estate of affairs but charged no person as the Duke of Alenson had weakly and unworthily done King Charles the ninth being near his death and hating possibly not without reason both his two brothers and his mother sent to seek our Henry in whom alone he acknowledged to have found faith and honour and most affectionately recommended to him his wife and his daughter Katherine de Medicis knowing that he had sent for him was fearful lest he should leave to him the Regency and to this purpose would cast some fear into his soul to the end he should not dare to accept it As he went to attend the King who was at Bois de Vincennes she gave order he should be made pass under the Arches between the Guards who lay in ambush and posture to massacre him He startled at first with fear and recoiled two or three paces backwards however Nanzay le Chastre Captain of the Life-guards reassured him swearing to him he should receive no prejudice he was therefore constrained though he trusted but little to his words to pass through the Carabines and Halberds After the death of Charles the ninth Katherine de Medicis partly by force and partly by cunning seized on the Regency expecting the return of her dear Son the Duke of Anjou who was named Henry the third When he was returned from Poland she brought the two Princes before him to do with them what he pleased whom after some chidings and threatnings he set at liberty These two Princes making reflection on the continual dangers they had for two years past been in resolved with the first occasion to deliver themselves from these fears The Prince of Condé who was in Germany had raised Levies for the Hugonot party who about the end of the reign of Charles the ninth had retaken Arms and Damville second son to du Feu Constable and brother of the Marshal of Montmorency who was a prisoner in the Bastile had joyned himself to their party not taking Religion for his pretext because he was a Catholick but the publick Liberty and Reformation of the State This sort of Catholicks who joyned themselves in league with the Hugonots were named The Politicians Our Henry could not escape from the Court so soon as he desired he was diligently watched and his very Domesticks were as so many spies over him He well understood that if he were surprized whilst he endeavoured to save himself he should certainly be murthered and now whilst he sought occasions to do it with security he engaged himself in new snares becoming passionate of la Dame de Sauves wife to a Secretary of State and at present the fairest in the whole Court In the mean time the Queen-mother who with so much diligence kept him at Court could have been well contented he had been gone For the King her dear Son began to take some knowledge of his own affairs a thing much displeasing to her because she would have governed all she therefore apprehending that as he took the Authority into his own hands hers would be diminished believed that she ought to embroile all by factions and civil wars of which she alone as it may be said had the Key so that nothing could pass without her See here the reason wherefore so long as she lived she did underhand nothing but suscitate troubles and animate different parties both at Court and abroad that in the end after having caused the desolation of the Estate and the subversion of all Laws and all Orders she might her self perish in those flames which she had kindled and supplyed with so much fuel Amongst these transactions as the King went to Rheims to be enstalled a conspiracy was discovered against his Person fostred by the Duke of Alenson
both of the one and the other party into the Low-Countries made himself Mediator of the peace and obtained it by an Edict which was concluded after the Conference of Fleix This peace was the cause of almost as many evils to the Estate as all the former Wars had been The two Courts of the two Kings and the two Kings themselves plunged themselves in their pleasures with this difference however that our Henry was not so absolutely lull'd asleep with his delights but he thought sometimes of his affairs being awakened and lively reminded by the Remonstrances of the Ministers of his Religion and by the reproaches of the old Captains of the Hugonots who spoke to him with great liberty But Henry the third was wholly overwhelmed with softness and feebleness he seemed to have neither heart nor motion and his subjects could scarce know that he was in the world but because he dayly charged them with new Imposts all the money of which was disposed to the benefit of his Favorites He had always three or four at a time and at present he began to cast his graces on Joyeuse and the two Nogarets to wit Bernard and Jean-Lewis of whom the eldest died five or six years after and the youngest was Duke d' Espernon one of the most memorable and most wonderful Subjects that the Court had ever seen elevated in its favour and who certainly had qualities as eminent as his fortune In the mean time the excessive gifts which the King gave to all his favorites excited the cries of the people because they were trampled on and their monstrous greatness displeased the Princes because they believed themselves despised in such manner that they rendred themselves odious to all the world and the hate carried to them fell likewise upon the King whilst that violence which they obliged him to use towards his Parliaments to confirm his Edicts of Creation and Imposts augmented it yet more for if his Authority made his Wills pass as absolute he drew the peoples curses and if the vigour of the Soveraign companies as often happened stopt them he attracted their disdain The people who easily licentiate themselves to Rebellion against their Prince when they have lost for him all sentiments of esteem and veneration spoke strange things of him and his favorites The Guises whom the Minions for so the favorites were called opposed in all occasions endeavouring to deprive them of their Charges and Governments to re-invest themselves were not wanting to blow the fire and to increase the animosities of the people particularly of the great Cities whom favorites have always feared and who have always hated favorites These were the principal Dispositions to the aggrandizing the League and to the loss of Henry the third It is not to our purpose to recount here all the intrigues of the Court during five or six years nor the War of the Low-Countries from which Monsieur brought nothing but disgrace It is onely necessary to tell that in the year 1684. Monsieur died at Castle-Thierry without having been married that Henry the third had likewise no Children and that it was but too well known he was uncapable of ever having any by reason of an uncurable disease which he contracted at Venice in his return from Poland See here the reason why as soon as Monsieur was judged to death by the Physitians the Guises and Queen-Mother began to labour each on their side to assure themselves of the Crown as if the succession had been open to them for neither the one nor the other accounted for any thing our Henry so much the rather because he was beyond the seventh degree beyond which in ordinary successions is accounted no kindred and because he was not of that Religion of which all the Kings of France have been since Clouis and by consequence incapable to wear the Crown or bear the Title of Thrice-Christian Adde to this that he was two hundred Leagues distant from Paris and as it were shut up in a corner of Guyenne where it seem'd to them easie to ensuare him or oppress him The Queen-Mother had a design to give the Crown to the Children of her Daughter married to the Duke of Lorrain whom she would have treated as Princes of the bloud as if the Crown of France could fall under the command of the Spindle Nor was she carried to this onely out of the love she had for them but out of a secret hatred she had conceived against our Henry because she saw that contrary to all her wishes heaven opened him a way to come to the Throne Besides she was too much deceived for so able a woman to believe that the Duke of Guise would favour her in her design there was much appearance and after affaires sufficiently testified it that seeing himself persecuted by the Favorites and ill treated by the King himself for their sakes he had thoughts to assure the Crown for his own head For ill treatments work at least no other effect then to cast into extreme despaire Souls so Noble and Elevated as that of this Prince But he knowing well that of himself he could not arrive at so high a pitch and that specially because it would be difficult to divert the affection which the people of France naturally have for the Princes of the Bloud he advised himself to gain the old Cardinal de Bourbon who was Uncle of our Henry he promised him therefore that the death of Henry the third Arriving he would employ all his power and that of his Friends to make him King and that good man doting with age permitting himself to be flattered with these vain hopes made himself the Bauble of the Dukes Ambition who by this means drew to his party a great number of Catholiques who considered the house of Bourbon The Question was if the Uncle ought to precede the Son of the Elder Brother in the Succession and to speak truth the business was not without some difficulty because according to the Custome of Paris the Capital of the Realm and many other Customes collateral representation hath no place This point of right was diversly agitated by the Reverend Judges and many treats were had some in favour of the Uncle and others of the Nephew but these were but Combats of words the sword was to decide the difference It seemed to many great Polititians that the Duke of Guise acted contrary to his own interests and design by acknowledgeing that the Cardinal of Bourbon ought to Succeed to the Crown this being to avow that after his death which could suffer no long delay it would appertain to our Henry his Nephew Henry 3. knew well his design or rather was advertised of it by his Favorites who saw in it their certain ruine and therefore so much desired to bring back the King of Navarre to the Catholique Church to the end he might deprive the Leaguers of that specious Pretext they
That force could not justly be employed against him who so far submitted himself to reason and the greatest part of the Nobility approved this generous procedure and proclaimed aloud that the Duke of Guise ought not to refuse so great an honour That Duke wanted no courage to accept the Defiance but he considered that drawing his sword against a Prince of the blood was in France accounted a kinde of Parricide that otherwise he could willingly have reduced the cause of Religion and of the Publick to a particular Quarrel He therefore prudently answered That he esteemed the person of the King of Navarre and would have no controversie with him but that he onely interested himself for the Catholick Religion which was threatned and for the tranquillity of the Kingdome which onely and absolutely depended on the unity of Religion His other Action was thus Having understood the noise of those paper-Thunder-bolts which the Pope had thrown out against him he dispatched one to the King to make his Complaints to him and to remonstrate to him That this procedure concerned his Majesty nearer then himself That he ought to judge That if the Pope took upon him to decide concerning his succession and should seize to himself a right to declare a Prince of the blood unable of the Crown he might afterwards well pass further and dethrone himself as Zachary is reported to have formerly degraded Childeric 3. Upon these Remonstrances the King hindred the publication of those Bulls in his Dominions But our Henry not contenting himself there with knowing himself to have friends at Rome proved so hardy as to fix his and the Prince of Condé his opposition at the corners of the chiefest streets of the City by which those Princes appealed from the sentence of Sixtus to the Court of Peerage of France giving the Lye to whoever accused them of the crime of Heresie offering to prove the contrary in a general Council and in the end professing that they would revenge upon him and upon all his successours the injury done their King the Royal Family and all the Courts of Parliament It could not but be supposed that this opposition would incense to the utmost the spirit of Sixtus the fifth and indeed at first he testified a very furious emotion However when his Choler was a little asswaged he admired the great Courage of that King who at such a distance had known how to revenge himself and fix the marks of his resentment even at the gates of his Palace in such manner that he conceived so great an esteem for him so true is it that Vertue makes it self be reverenced by its very enemies that he was often afterwards heard say That of all those who reigued in Christendome there was none but this Prince and Elizabeth Queen of Enland to whom he would have communicated those great things which agitated his spirit if they had not been Hereticks Nor could all the prayers of the League ever oblige him to furnish any thing towards the charges of this War which possibly overwhelmed the greatest part of their Enterprizes because their hopes in part depended on a Million which he had promised them Now as on their side the Chiefs of the League endeavoured to engage on their party all the Lords and Cities they could our Henry on his part re-united with him all his friends both of the one and the other Religion the Marshal of Damville-Montmorency Governour of Languedoc the Duke of Montpensier Prince of the blood who was Governour of Poictou with his Son the Prince of Dombes the Prince of Condé who held a part of Poictou of Xaintonge and of Angoumois the Count of Soissons and the Prince of Conty his brother Of these five Princes of the blood the three last were his Cousen-Germans the two first were removed one degree further and all professed the Catholick Religion save onely the Prince of Condé He had likewise on his part Lesdiguieres who from a plain Gentleman had by his Valour elevated himself to so high a point that he was Master of the Daulphinate and made the Duke of Savoy tremble Claudius de la Trimouille who possessed great Lands in Poictou and Brittany and was sometimes before turned Hugonot that he might have the honour to marry his Daughter to the Prince of Condé Henry de la Tour Viscount of Turenne who either out of complacency or true perswasion had espoused the new Religion Chastillon son to the Admiral of Coligny la Boulaye Lord Poitevin Rene chief of the house of Rohan George de Clermont d' Amboise Francis Count of Rochefoucaud the Lord de Aubetterre James de Caumontla-force the Seigneurs de Pons Saint Gelais-Lansac with many other Lords and Gentlemen of remark all or most of the new Religion At the same time he dispatched to Elizabeth Queen of England and to the Protestant Princes of Germany such able Agents that they joyned all together in a strong Union The One to maintain the Other so that all these being united all things arrived contrary to what the League expected and our Henry found himself fortified in such manner that he had no longer any apprehension of being oppressed without having the means to defend himself I shall not make here a particular Recital of the Actions either of the one or the other party during the years 1585. and 1586. because I have observed nothing very considerable King Henry the third was extreamly perplexed at this War which was maintained at his expence and to his great prejudice since they disputed the succession he yet living and well and already considered him as one dead He loved neither the one nor the other party but did so much cherish his Favourites strange blindness that he could have desired had it been in his power to have parted his Estate amongst them The League on their side pretended to have power enough to carry it and our Henry hoped to frustrate the designes both of the one and the other The Queen-mother having other wishes for the children of her Daughter married to the Duke of Lorrain promised the King to finde means to calm all these tempests To this purpose she procured a Truce with our Henry during which an Interview was agreed upon between him and her at the Castle of St. Brix near Coignac where both the one and the other met in the month of December There was some difficulty to finde security both for the one and the other but especially for the Queen-mother who was wonderfully distrustful Our Henry hereupon did an Action of great Generosity which he managed in this manner There had a Truce been agreed upon for the security of this Conference in such sort that if either party broke it they were in fault and might justly be arrested now some of our Henry's followers feigning to be Traytors had enticed some of the Catholick-Captains too greedy of the booty to Fontenay which they
lose his life then the remembrance of those good services they had rendred him and granting them easily all the points they demanded only the second In stead of which he promised them to re-establish the exercise of the Catholick Religion through all his Territories and to remit the Ecclesiasticks into the possession of their Estates and of this he caused a Declaration to be ingrossed which after all the Lords and Gentlemen of Note had signed he sent to be confirmed by that part of the Parliament which was at Tours There were many who signed it with some regret and others who absolutely refused it among whom were the Duke of Espernon and Lewis d' Hospital Vitry This last disturbed as it was said by a scruple of Conscience cast himself into Paris and gave himself for some time to the League but first of all he abandoned the Government of Dourdan which the Defunct King had given him Such were then the Maxims of persons of true honour in the Civil Wars that in quitting one party which ever it was they quitted likewise those places they held and returned them to those had conferred them The Duke d' Espernon protesting that he would never be either Spaniard or Leaguer but that his Conscience would not permit him to stay with the King demanded leave of him to retire to his Government The King after having in vain endeavoured to retain him gave him leave with many Carresses and prayses but so much was he in his heart troubled at his abandoning him that it hath been believed he conserved against him a secret resentment so long as he lived The Duke of Mayenne was not a little troubled in Paris what resolution he should take he saw that all the Parisians even those who had held of the party of the Defunct King had fully resolved to provide for the security of Religion But that however they would all have a King contrary to some of the Sixteen who imagined they might form a Republick and turn France into Cantons like to the Suisses but those were neither sufficiently powerful in Number Riches or Capacity to Conduct such a design So that the most part of his friends counselled him to take the title of King but when he went about to sound this Gulfe he found that this proposition was neither agreeable to the people nor yet to the King of Spain from whom he received and was to receive his Principal stay and means of Subsistence Hereupon two other Counsels were given him the one to accord willingly with the new King who without doubt in the conjuncture wherein things were would grant him most advantagious conditions The other that he should by Declaration publish to the Catholicks of the Royal Army that all resentments remaining Extinct by the Death of Henry the third he had no other interest then that of Religion That that point being of Divine obligation and regarding all good Christians he summoned and conjured them to joyn with him to exhort the King of Navarre to return to the Church upon which they promised to acknowledge him immediately for King but if that he refused to do it they protested to Substitute in his place another Prince of the blood This advice was the best And indeed it was proposed by Jeannin President of the Parliament of Burgongne one of the wisest and most Politick heads of his Councel and who acted in his affairs without Sleights or Stratagems but with great judgement and singular Honesty The Duke of Mayenne equally rejected both these advices and took a third to wit the causing the old Cardinal of Bourbon who was at present detained prisoner by order of our Henry to be proclaimed King still reserving to himself the quality of Lieutenant-General of the Crown He published after several Declarations one of which he sent to the Parliament the other to the Provinces and the Nobility inviting them to endeavour to deliver their King and defend their Religion At the same time the King tried by divers Negotiations and caused him to be exhorted rather to seek his advancement by his friendship then by the troubles and miseries of France But to this the Duke answered that he had engaged his Father in the Publick cause and given Oath to King Charles the tenth for so they called the old Cardinal of Bourbon who was named Charles to whom according to the sentiment of the League the Crown appertained as to the nearest Kinsman of the Defunct And in the mean time he entertained Plots and Conspiracies in the Royal Army where his emissaries from day to day debauched many persons even of those whom the King believed most assured There were many Generous enough to resist the temptations of Silver but nothing was proof against the intrigues of the Ladies of Paris who cunningly attracted the Gentlemen and the Officers in the City sparing nothing to engage them The King knowing that there daily remained some catch'd in these snares and having just reason to fear that those which returned tempted by their Mistresses might bring back some perâ—itious designs and the Duke of Nemours being upon the advance with his Troops to joyne with the Duke of Mayenne the Duke of Lorrain being likewise to send his having cause to doubt his retreat might be cut off on all sides found it convenient to discamp from before Paris But before he dislodged he writ to the Protestant Princes to give them an account of what he did and to assure them that nothing should be capable to shake his Constancy or separate him from Christ and he spoke at present according to his thoughts and Conscience not having any desire to change which yet the Ministers of his Religion would not believe but watched him so close on this Subject that they became importunate It was oertainly an unspeakable trouble which continually for three or four years he was forced to undergo to hear on one side the exhortatious of those people and on the other the most instant Remonstrances of the Catholicks for it was necessary he should allay the distrust of the first and entertain the second with continual hopes of making himself be instructed How much prudence had he need of how much patience with how much jugdement and policy must he manage such great differences Certainly he could not do it without imploying all the powers of his Spirit and experience And he well knew how far it was necessary for a Prince to have his Spirit happily exercised and to be well instructed how to Negotiate and Speak well to be able at his necessity to serve himself of his talent Without falsity he might well at present praise those who having had the care of bringing him up had formed him in his youth to the Management of affairs to Treating with men and to the gaining the affections of all the world Those last devoirs he desired to render his Predecessor served as a fair
pretext for raising his Siege from before Paris To put his body in a place where the resentment of the Duke of Guises creatures might not outrage it he carried it to Compeigne and laid it in the Abbey of S. Cornille where he celebrated all the funebrous Ceremonies as honourably as the confusion of the time would permit Not able to assist himself because of his Religion he committed the care to Bellegarde and Espernon the last of which accompanied him thither and then retired into Angoumois There were three advices given concerning the place to which he ought to retire when he raised his siege from Paris The first was to repass the Loire and abandon to the League all the Provinces on this side it because he could difficultly maintain them The second to re-advance along the Marne and seizing those Bridges and Cities expect an assistance from the Protestant Suisses and Germans promised to come to him And the third to march down into Normandy to assure himself of some Cities whose Governours were not yet engaged in the League to gather the mony received for Taxes and to joyne with the Assistance of England which Queen Elizabeth had promised him and which could not be long absent He concluded on the last of these advices and so many of the Nobles who accompanied him desiring some time to go and refresh themselves he gave them leave He sent a part of his Troops into Picardie under the Conduct of the Duke of Longueville another into Campaine under that of Marshal d' Aumont and with three thousand French foot two Regiments of Suisses and twelve hundred horse only which he kept with him he descended into Normandy The Duke of Montpensier who was Governour there came to joyne him with two hundred Gentlemen and fifteen hundred Foot Rolet Governour of Pont d' Arche a man of Courage and Spirit brought him the Keys of that place demanding no other recompence but the honour to serve him Emer de Chattes a Commandadoâ—e of Malta did the same with those of Diepe After which the King approached Rouen where he believed to have some intelligence This Enterprize put him in extream danger but in revenge gave him a fair occasion to acquist Glory in retiring himself from so great a peril See how it passed The Duke of Mayenne came to the succour of Rouen with all his forces and passed the Rivers at Vernon The King much astonished retires to Diepe and sends to the Duke of Longueville and d' Aumont to return to him with diligence with their forces The Duke in the mean time takes all the little places about Diepe to inviron and invest himself within In effect he shuts him up so close that if he had not amused himself by an untimely motion to go to Bins in Hainault to confer with the Duke of Parma he had in that disorder dissipated the greatest part of his little Army He had already caused a report to be spread through France and had writ with assurance to all strange Princes That he held the King of Navarre so he called him shut up in a little corner from whence he could not get but either by yeilding himself to him or leaping into the Sea The danger appeared so eminent even to his most faithful servants that the Parliament at Tours sent expresly to him a Master of Requests proposing as the onely expedient they saw to save the Estate the associating him and the Cardinal of Bourbon his Uncle in the Royalty giving to One the conduct of Civil Affairs and the Other of Martial There were likewise the greatest part of the Captains of his Army of opinion that leaving his Forces on shore well intrenched in their posts he should as soon as possible embarque for England or for Rochel for fear lest if he should longer delay it he might be shut up by Sea as well as by Land To the Proposition of the Parliament he made answer That he had taken such good order that the intrigues of the Duke of Mayenne could not deliver the Cardinal of Bourbon as they apprehended and the Marshal of Byron so stoutly opposed those who counselled him to embarque that they desisted It appeared soon after by the proof that the Forces of the League which were thrice as great as his were not to be feared in proportion to their number and that the more Commanders they had the less their power was to be doubted The King was lodged at the Castle d'Arques which is seated on a little Hill to stop the passage of the Valley which goes to Diepe The Duke had formed a Designe to take this Post by Sea by four or five Reprises and on divers days he essayed to assault the Suburbs of Polet and four or five times was driven back Our Henry dayly doing wonders and exposing himself so much that once he thought he should have been surprized and encompassed by his Enemies In fine the Duke having lost eleven days time and a thousand or twelve hundred men raised the Siege and retired into Picardy It was believed that he passed into this Province upon a fear lest the Picards a free and honest people but very simple should permit themselves to be surprized by the Artifices of the Agents of Spain who would engage them to cast themselves under the protection of the King their Master It was observed likewise that that which hindred the success of his enterprize at Diepe and which kept him two or three days without enterprizing any thing at the time he ought to have done it was the jealousie and contentions between the Chiefs that accompanied him particularly of the Marquess dâ— Pâ—ntâ—-Mousson Son to the Duke of Lorrain of the Duke of Nemours and of Cavalier d'Aumale for they believing the taking of the King infallible or at least his flight assured and disposing already of the Kingdome as of their Conquest regarded one another with an Eye of jealousie and each formed designes in his head to have the better part of it It was observed likewise that in one of these Combats of Diepe the Duke of Mayenne having at present some advantage had gained an entire Victory if he had advanced but a quarter of an hour quicker but marching too slowly he let slip that opportunity he could never redeem which made the King who well observed his faulâ— say If he act not in another manner I shall be assured always to gain the Field I have recounted these Particularities because they make known the defaults of that great Body of the League and the true causes which hindred its progress and reduced it to nothing I finde three principal ones The first was the distrust which the Duke of Mayenne had of the Spaniards for though he could not be without them yet he could not but regard them as his secret Enemies and they assisted him not for love of himself but out of the
of his Conversion and in the mean time they would continually keep him as it were besieged by those strangers forces In effect Elizabeth who had zeal for the Protestant religion interested her self very strongly in the cause of this King daily generously assisted him and strenuously sollicited the German Princes to coâ—cur with her At the same time the Hugonots pressed with all their force that he would grant them an Edict for the Free exercise of their Religion they pursued it so strongly that he was forced to accord it them and they sent it to the Parliament sitting at Tours but they could never obtain it to be confirmed by them but with these words by proviso only shewing themselves as much enemies to this false Religion as they were to the factions of the League During this time Pope Sixtus 5. died leaving in the Treasury of the Church Five Millions of gold which he had heaped up He was much disgusted at the League and stretched forth his armes as much as he could to our Henry to recal him into the Church whilst the League endeavoured to shut the gates against him that they might exclude him from his Royalty To Sixtus succeeded Urban 7. who held the Seat only thirteen daies and to that Urban Gregory the 14. who being of a violent spirit and a Spaniard by inclination zealously embraced the party of the League as we shall see hereafter I silently pass over divers enterprizes made both by one party and the other The Parisians made one upon St. Denis The Cavalier d' Aumale one of their Chiefs whom they called the Lion Rampant of the League was killed in the midst of the City when he had made himself almost master of it The King on his side made an other attempt upon Paris It was called the battail of the Flour because he was to surprize the City under pretext of a Convoy of Flour or Meal carried thither but it was discovered and obliged the Duke of Mayenne upon the vehement cries of the Sixteen to receive four thousand Spaniards into the Garrison which retarded for more then a year the reduction of Paris It is convenient to understand that neither the one nor the other party having any foundation to keep continually their Armies on foot they only as we may say made War by intervals When they had been three months together they retired and then re-assembled again and according as they were stronger or weaker made their enterprises The King having Rendezvouzed his besieged the City of Chartres where la Bourdaisiere commanded There was but a small Garrison within yet however the siege was long difficult and bloody It s length gave subject to the third party to continue many dangerous intrigues but the taking of that place repressed them for some time He restored the Government to Chiverni Chancellour of France who had had it before the League seized it After this the Duke of Mayenne who beheld himself in no very good Estate following the Counsel of the Duke of Parma renewed a Conference for peace which ending without doing any thing the Princes Lorrains and the Principal Chiefs of the League held a general Assembly at Reims It was resolved that they being altogether too weak to resist the King and wanting money it was absolutely necessary to unite themselves more firmely with Spain then they had formerly done and to this Effect they dispatched the President Janin to Philip the second This President was a man of a strong brain and a good French-man who laboured for the League and for the Duke of Mayenne but who would save the Estate by saving the Religion so that he well endeavoured to serve himself of the Spaniard but he would not serve them or procure their advancement Yet we cannot doubt but as he had his ends they had likewise theirs and that they designed to make good their expences laid out for the League on the Kingdom of France The Spaniard had for Aid and Second in his design the new Pope Gregory the 14. who yet went on more swiftly and with more heat then he for without having regard either to the Letters which Monsieur de Luxembourg after Duke of Piney writ to him on the part of the Princes and Catholick Lords which were in the Kings party or to the submissions and three humble Remonstrances made him by the Marquis of Pisany who was there at Rome deputed from them he strenuously embraced the party of the League entertained correspondence with the Sixteen receiving Letters from them and writing to them and which is more he prodigally wasted that treasure which Sixtus 5. had heaped up to raise an Army of twelve thousand men giving the Command to Count Hercules Sfondrato his Nephew whom he made expresly Duke of Montmarcian to authorize him the more by this new title He accompanied this Army with a Monitory or Bull of Excommunication against the Prelates which followed the King and sent it by Marcelin Landriano his Nuntio with great quantity of Silver to the Sixteen of Paris to be distributed among them and the Chiefs of the Cabals in the great Cities The Parliament at Tours having had advice of this Monitory caused it to be torn by the hand of the Common Scavenger and decreed an Arrest against the Nuntio That at Paris on the contrary annulled that Arrest as being said they by persons without power and commanded that the holy Father and his Nuntio should be obeyed After all these Bulls produced no great effect at present and the Cardinal of Bourbon tormented himself in vain to make the assembly of the Clergy which was held at Chartres declare against the Arrest at Tours Nor did the Army of the Pope do any great exploits but was almost quite dispersed ere it came to render any Service The same arrived not to those Troops the King had caused to be raised in Germany by the Viscount of Turenne They served the King well in his affairs and gained him notable advantages In recompence he honoured this Lord with the Staff of Marshal of France to render him the more capable to Espouse Charlotta de la Mark Dutchess of Bouillon and Sovereign Lady of Sedan who though a Hugonot had been puissantly sought to both by friendship and force by the Duke of Lorrain who desired to marry her to his Eldest Son the Marquis du Pont. The King made this Match to oppose a man to the Duke of Lorrain who helped to sustain the League Of which the new Marshal acquitted himself having among other fair exploits surprized Stenay the night preceding his Nuptials The King had another great Captain in the Daulphinate which was Lesdiguieres who held that Country having reduced the City of Grenoble and who saved Provence for him of which the Duke of Savoy thought to seize himself and dismember that piece from the Crown This Duke being Son-in-law to Philip the second King of
Spain the puissance of his Father-in-law had raised his Ambition and Courage and made him forget that constant affection which his Predecessors have almost continually had for France insomuch that they have held themselves much honoured to be Pensioners to our Kings But the Conduct and Valour of Lesdiguieres made him repent all his high designs especially by the battails of Esparon de Palieres and of Pont-Charra where that Duke received as much loss as confusion About this time our Henry conceived a passion for the Fair Gabriella d' Estrees who was of a very noble house and that passion by degrees grew so strong that whilst she lived she held the Principal place in his heart so that after having had by her three or four Children he had almost resolved to marry her though he knew not how to do it but by hazarding great troubles and very dangerous difficulties Having taken the City of Noyon he gave the Government to Count d' Estrees Father of this fair one and a little after gave him likewise the charge of Great Master of the Artillery which had formerly been held by John d' Estrees in the year 1550. Not long after the Siege of Noyon he understood the escape of the Duke of Guise who after many other attempts had got at high-noon out of the Castle of Tours where he had been in prison since his fathers death The News at first no less touched the King then it surprized him he feared this great Name of Guise which had given him so much trouble and he doubted lest this young Prince should re-ingross the love of the people which his father had possessed to so high a pitch he was troubled to have lost such a Gage which might serve him in many things However after he had a little meditated he diminished his apprehensions and told those who were about him That he had more reason to rejoyce then be troubled for of force it must happen that either the Duke of Guise must take his party and that if he did so he would treat him as his Parent and Kinsman or that he must cast himself into the League and then it would be impossible that the Duke of Mayenne and he could continue any long time without contending and becoming enemies This Prognostick was very true The Duke of Mayenne having seen those Rejoycings which all the League testified at this News the Bonefires made in the great Cities those Actions of thanks which the Pope caused publickly to be rendred to God and the hopes which the Sixteen conceived to see revived in this Prince the Protection and Qualities of his Father which they had idolatrized the Duke of Mayenne I say seeing all this was struck with a very strong Jealousie and though he sent him monies with entreaties that they might have an Interview yet notwithstanding he looked not upon him as a new renforce but as a new subject of inquietude and trouble to him In effect this young Prince immediately knit himself in firm bond with the Sixteen and promised to take their protection By this means and by the help of the Spaniards they emboldened themselves in such manner that they resolved to loose the Duke of Mayenne not ceasing to cry down his Conduct among the people I have been assured that there was some amongst them who writ a Letter to the King of Spain by which they cast themselves into his Arms and intreated him if he would not reign over them to give them a King of his Race or to chuse a Son-in-law for his Daughter whom they would receive with all Obedience and Fidelity They advised themselves besides this to make a new form of Oath for the League which excluded the Princes of the Blood to the end they might oblige all suspected persons who would not swear a thing so contrary to their thoughts to depart out of the City and to abandon their Goods to them By this artifice they drave away many persons among others the Cardinal of Gonde Bishop of Paris whom they had begun to hate because that with some Clerks of the City he honestly endeavoured to dispose the people in favoâ—r of the King There remained nothing now but to dissolve the Parliament who watched them day and night and stopt their Enterprizes They had pursued the Condemnation of one named Brigard because he had Correspondence with the Royalists and the Parliament having pardoned him they were so incensed that the most passionate by conspiracy amongst them and by their private Authority having caused those of their faction to take arms went to seize on the persons of the President de Brisson and of de Larcher and de Tardiff Counsellours whom they carried prisoners to the Castelet and after some formalities one of them pronounced against them the sentence of death in execution of which they caused them all three to be hanged at the window of the Chamber and on the morrow to be carried to the Greve to the end they might move the people in their favour but the greatest part abhorred so damnable an attempt and even the most zealous of the party remained mute not knowing whether they ought to approve or blame it Yet there were some of these Sixteen found so determinate as to pass farther they said They must finish the Tragedy and rid themselves of the Duke of Mayenne if he came to Paris he being at present at Laon That after that they might assure to themselves the City elect a Chief who should depend of them re-establish the Council of Forty which that Duke had abolished and demand the Union of the great Cities And certainly there was some appearance that having the Bastille of which Bussy was Governour the common people and the Garison of Spaniards for them that they might render themselves Masters of Paris and afterwards treat at their pleasure either with the King or with the Duke of Guise or with the Spaniards but they wanted Resolution In the mean time the Duke of Mayenne having been in two days doubt whether he should come to Paris because he feared they would shut the Gates against him at length comes with a warlike attendance and seeing that the Parliament durst not attempt to make process against these people he resolved whatever might arrive to chastise them himself and thereupon without form of Process in his Cabinet condemns nine to death They could catch but four whom he caused to be hanged in the Louvre the other five saved themselves in Flanders The most remarkable of these five was Bussy le Clerke who had been constrained to yeild the Bastille to the Dukes people He was seen to lead a miserable life in the City of Bruxels yet still to conserve his hatred against the French even to the last gasp which he breathed forth a little before the last Declaration of War between the two Crowns This terrible blow having quite quelled the
to Mass whether he would or not He was so much affrighted at it or feigned to be so that he took the Field gathered together his surest friends and caused the English Forces to come and lodge in the Suburbs of Limay At the same time the Duke de Feria Ambassador from the King of Spain to the States-General arrived at Paris he presented to them a very civil Letter on the part of his Master and made them a large Speech by which he exhorted them to expedite the naming of a King offering them all assistance both of men and monies In effect the King of Spain passionately desired the chusing of one because as we have said he would give him in marriage his Daughter Isabella whom he singulaâ—ly loved It was therefore now time that our Henry should either publish to the world that he would persevere in his Religion without wavering in which case he must resolve on a War of which possibly he might never see the end or return into the bosome of the Catholick Church The Spaniolized Leaguers feared above all things this change which would take from them all pretext the good Catholicks ardently wished it they onely feared lest his Conversion should be feigned the rigid Hugonots endeavoured to divert him threatning him with the Judgements of God if he abandoned said they the Evangelical Truth But all Polititians both of the one and the other Religion counselled him not to delay it They told him that of all Canons the Canon of the Mass would prove best to reduce the Cities of his Kingdome they besought him that he would serve himself of it and to their Prayers they added Threats to abandon him and to retire themselves being wearied with consuming themselves in his service for the Capricio of some obstinate Preaching-Ministers who hindred him from embracing the Religion of his Predecessors Besides these humane Motives God who is never wanting to those who seek him with submission cleared his understanding with his holy Lights and rendred him capable to receive the saving instructions of the Catholick Prelates This resolution taken he immediately gives advice of it to the Deputies of the League in the Conference of Surene It cannot be imagined how great was their astonishment nor how the Duke of Mayenne was surprized for they least of all expected to hear this News The Spaniards and the Legat having advice that he was about to convert pressed the Estates more vehemently to elect a King and seeing that the French would not accept of any but one of their own Nation they proposed that their King should name a French Prince who should reign wholly and individually with the Infanta Isabella When the Parliament understood this and that the Estates were not averse to this Proposition that great Body though captive and dismembred remembring its ancient Vigour ordained That Remonstrances should be made to the Duke of Mayenne that he should maintain the Fundamental Laws of the Estate and that he should hinder the Crown the Lieutenancy of which was committed to him from being transferred to Strangers moreover declaring null all Treaties made or that should be made which should be contrary to that Law of the Estate It was suspected that this Arrest was made by Collusion with the Duke of Mayenne but Villeroy the greatest States-man of the Kingdom gave this Testimony for the Parliament that it took the counsel from himself Having no other Motives then those of Honour and Duty as persons who would chuse rather to loose their lives then be wanting either of the one or the other by conniving at the renversement of the Laws of the Realm of which by their institution they are Protectors and obliged to maintain them by the Oath given them at their Reception These words are all very memorable The Vigour of this Arrest made all those good French-men which were in Paris and in the Estates take heart and at the same time the taking of Dreux which the Kings Army forced caused a great astonishment among the most passionate Leaguers Nevertheless the Spaniards ceased not to pursue their designe The Duke of Mayenne thinking to stop their course made excessive Demands before any proceed should be made to the election of a King but that they might come to their point they granted him all and in the end they declared that their King would name to the Estates the Duke of Guise to whom he would give his Daughter in marriage and all forces necessary to assure him the Crown if they found it convenient to give him their Suffrages and elect him Never was man more astonished then the Duke of Mayenne when he saw that he should be constrained to obey his Nephew and that his Authority must end His Wife yet more impatient then he could not refrain from making appear her despite and jealousie and rather then suffer that they should confer the Crown on this young Prince she counselled her Husband to make peace with the King at any price whatsoever He was in effect resolved to do all things rather then raise his Nephew above himself and therefore he employed all sorts of means to hinder him and to this purpose he concluded a Truce with the King notwithstanding the oppositions of the Legat and Spaniards In pursuance of this Truce the King came to St. Denis where there met many Prelates and Doctors by whose care he caused himself to be instructed An Historian reports that the King causing a Conference to be held before him between the Doctors of the one and the other Church and hearing a Minister grant that one might be saved in the Religion of the Catholicks his Majesty breaking silence and speaking to the Minister How said he do you agree that one may be saved in the Religion of these Gentlemen The Minister answering that he doubted it not so that they lived well the King very judiciously replyed Prudence will that I should be of their Religion and not of yours because being of theirs I may be saved both according to their opinion and yours but being of yours I can be saved onely according to your opinion but not according to theirs Prudence therefore teaches me to follow the most assured And thus after long instructions in which he would amply be cleared in all his Doubts he abjured his Errour made profession of the Catholick Faith and received Absolution in the Abby-Church of St. Denis in the moneth of July by the Ministery of Renaud de Beaune Archbishop of Bourges That Evening the whole Champaign between Paris and Pointoise was made shine with fires of Joy and great number of Parisians who had flocked to St. Denis to see this Ceremony brought back an entire satisfaction and fill'd the whole City with esteem and affection for the King insomuch that they called him no longer Bearnois but absolutely King The Estates of Paris sate no long time after The Duke
of Mayenne dismissed the Deputies who the most part returned ill satisfied into their Provinces where they served not a little to dispose them to reduce themselves under the Obedience of their Legitimate Soveraign There rested now no other pretext to the League except that the King had not received Absolution from St. Peter's Chair that therefore he was not yet in the bounds of the Church and that they could not acknowledge him until he was entred at the great Gate He had sent the Duke of Nevers to Rome to Negotiate this affair with the Pope who was very much incensed that the Prelates of France had enterprized to absolve him though they had not absolved him but by provision ad Cautelam only for he said that he alone had authority to restore a relapsed person as having the only Sovereign power to bind and to loose and for this cause he appeared so difficult nor could ever be bended till he saw the party of the League quite overthrown Now since the life and actions of the King made it appear that his conversion was not feigned the League having no other valuable pretext was dug up as we may so say by the very foundation so that before the end of the year it fell to the ground and there remained to it only a very small number of places in the utmost parts of the Realm the other Chiefs not being willing to run to the end the fortune of the Duke of Mayenne This Prince was very irresolute and knew not what he ought to do as well because of his natural slowness as out of the regret he had to quit the Sovereign authority which he had in his hands and out of fear likewise not to find safety with the King In the mean time Vitry desiring to be the first should re-enter under his obedience as he had been the first had separated from it brought back the City of Meaux The Count of Carces delivered that of Aix in Provence Lyons surrendred of it self of which the Duke of Mayenne was in part cause by having endeavoured to make himself master of that City and snatch it from the Duke of Nemours his brother by the mothers side who intended to establish a small Sovereignty in that Country That he might compass his design he had by secret contrivances made the Burgesses rise against that young Prince so that they having seized of his person had made him a prisoner in the Castle of Pierre-Encise But he found that in this he more laboured for the King then for himself for the Burgesses who had made prisoners the Duke of Nemours fearing lest the brothers should agree among themselves to their prejudice treated secretly with Colonel Alfonso d' Ornano Lieutenant-General for the King in the Daulphinate and being well fortified took the White-scarfe and cried Vive le Roy. The Castle likewise returned to its duty with the Cities of Orleans and Bourges The reduction of Paris happened on the two and twentieth day of March The Parliament the Provost of the Merchants and the Sheriffs having disposed this great City received the King maugre the vain endeavours of some remnant of the faction of the Sixteen The Duke of Mayenne was gone into Picardy and Brissac to whom he had confided the Government of Paris for some months past having taken it from the Count of Belin broke his faith with him believing he ought it rather to the King then him The King had a little before caused himself to be anointed at Chartres with the Cruse of St. Martin of Tours The City of Reims was yet in the hands of the League but he would not longer defer his Coronation because he knew that that Ceremony was absolutely necessary to confirm to him the affection and respect of his people It was almost a miracle how that there being four or five thousand Spaniards Engarisoned in Paris and ten or twelve thousand factious persons remaining of the Cabal of the Sixteen who all cruelly hated the King he could nevertheless render himself master of it without striking stroak or without shedding blood except that of five or six Mutineers who came into the streets to cry to Arms. His Troops having by intelligence seized on the gates ramparts and publick places he entred triumphantly into the City by the new gate by which Henry the third had unhappily fled six years before and went directly to Nostredame to hear Mass and cause Te Deum to be sung afterward he returned to the Loâ—vre where he found his Officers and his Dinner ready as if he had always remained there After Dinner he gave the Spanish Garison a saâ—e-Conduct and a good Convoy to conduct them as far as the tree of Guise in all security for so those had desired who brought them into the City The Garison departed about three a Clock the same day of his entrance with twenty or thirty of the most obstinate Leaguers who chose rather to follow strangers then obey their Natural Prince He would needs see them depart and regarded them passing from a window by St. Denis gate they all saluted him with their hats very low and with a profound inclination he returned the salutes to their Chiefs with great courtesie adding these words Recommend me to your Master go in a good hour but return no more The same day that he entred into Paris the Cardinal de Pelleve Archbishop of Sens a passionate Leaguer expired in his Palace of Sens. The Cardinal of Placentia Legat from the Pope had safe-Conduct to retire home but he died by the way Brissac for recompence had the Staff of Marshal and a place of Honourable Counsellor to the Parliament a favour very rare in that time D' O was re-placed in his government of Paris which he had had under Henry the third but he enjoyed it not long dying soon after That part of the Parliament which was at Tours was recalled and that which was at Paris re-enabled for it had been interdicted and both re-united to serve conjoyntly the King By noon of that day on which our Henry entred Paris the City was every where peaceable the Burgesses in a moment grew familiar with the Souldiers the Artificers worked in their shops In a word the Calme was so profound that nothing interrupted it but the Ringing of the bells the Bonfires and the Dances which were made through all the streets even till midnight It is certain that that which caused this joy and wonderful tranquillity was the great opinion which the people had conceived of the generous goodness of this Prince and the Commands he gave for the orderly government of his Souldiers There were two actions which he did the same day he entred Paris worthy observation proceeding from an admirable Justice Goodness and Policy The first was that he suffered the Baggage of la Noue one of his principal Chiefs to be Arrested at his entring
it apparent That it is another thing to assault a stranger equal in puissance over whom nothing is to be gained but by force of Arms then to have to do with rebellious Subjects and in ones proper Country where intrigues and intelligences make more then one half of the enterprizes This year the Cities of Beaune of Auton and of Aussonne reduced themselves under the Kings obedience Those of Mascon and Auxerre were returned the year before The City of Dijon followed their example and fortified it self against the Castle which Byron went to besiege But in the mean time the Constable of Castile descended with a great Army of Millanois into Bourgongne by the French County and passed the Saone at Gray with the Duke of Mayenne The King who was gone into that Country had the assurance to advance as far as Fountain-Franzoise it was there that with only fifteen hundred men he made head against that great Army and did an exploit of War scarce imaginable Villars-Oudan and Sanson two of the Principal Chiefs of the enemies Army charged furiously on his Troops Villars charged a body commanded by the Marshal of Byron and Sanson another on the side of it they made them both give ground and retreat flying within sight of that of the King It was reported that Villars knowing he was there so puissant is the name of a King durst not assault him but retired on the left hand but Sanson was not so happy for the King having with him but one hundred horse but all chosen Gentlemen of note and mounted to advantage with his sword in his hand mingled amongst them and cut them in pieces Sanson endeavouring to rally his people lost his life by acquitting no small honour The King was in so great danger in this fight that he said himself That in other occasions wherein he had been engaged he had fought for Victory but that in this he had fought for his Life Having therefore made the Constable by this occasion see in what manner he was to act he so much abashed his courage that he durst enterprize nothing but a little after retired The Duke of Mayenne likewise despairing at such ill success and not knowing longer where to hide his head had resolved to retire to Sommerive in Savoy from whence he would send to demand safe-conduct into Spain to give an account of his Actions to King Philip the second But the goodness of the King tooke care to divert him from this Precipice and to lay open to him ways of accommodation He to this effect sent to seek Lignerac his Confident entertained him of the good will he always had for that Duke testified to him that he pitied him and assured him that he would be always disposed to receive him into his favour permitting him to retire in all safety to Chalons on the Saone till they could finish a Treaty of Accord The Duke accepts this favour and having understood that the Pope was disposed to receive the King into the Church he demanded a general Truce for the rest of his party The greatest part of the Kings Council who considered the Delays and Artifices which he had for six years used having begun fifty Treaties without ever concluding any advised that the King should grant him no intermission but pursue him to the utmost But the prudence and goodness of the King conformed not with this Sentiment because he was not ignorant of two Maximes which are most true ones the one That Kings may always when they please reduce the most rebellious to their duty the other That it is very dangerous to make great persons despair especially persons of the quality of the Duke of Mayenne And for these Reasons of his proper motion contrary to the advice of his Council he grantted him a Truce That which followed after demonstrated well that this sage Prince had more knowledge then all his Ministers and how prejudicial it would have been to his interests to do the contrary In the mean time of those three Cities which we have said remained to the League in Picardy to wit la Fere Ham and Soissons the Governour of the first named Colas had delivered it to the Spaniards and d'Orvilliers had done the same with Ham. However this last remained not theirs Humieres one of the bravest Gentlemen of those times came and at the same hour so hotly assaulted it that after a long and bloody defence they were hewen in pieces but Humieres was killed and more then two hundred brave Gentlemen with him This loss did in such manner excite the indignation of the Loyal French against the Leaguers that the greatest part of them despairing fled into the Low-Countries and into Spain where they found at first a favourable Reception and good Employments by which they did very great mischief to France Amongst others was a valiant Captain named Rosny who imagining that they would extend their utmost rigour upon such who not being Governours had no places to buy their peace with resolved to make the War so well that the Spaniards should have cause to recompense him or the King to redeem him This was he who inspired the Count of Fuentes with the designe to besiege Cambray after he had forced Cattelet and who perswaded him to facilitate this great Enterprize to take Dourlens first to the end the French might not bring an Army to relieve it It was likewise by his counsel that Fuentes went to meet the Duke of Nevers the Marshal of Bouillon and the Admiral Villars who came to the relief of Dourlens that he fought them and defeated them with a great slaughter of the of the French Nobility and caused Villars to be slain in cold blood one of the bravest men of his time Afterwards returning to Cambray he took it by Famine and despoiled Balagny of his pretended Principality But News most important and long time expected comforted the King for these two great losses of Dourlens and Cambray which was that he received advice that the holy Father passing by all those difficulties which the Spaniards formed had granted his Absolution on the sixteenth of September by the Negotiation and pursuits of d'Ossat and du Perron his Procurers in the Court of Rome who were afterwards upon his Recommendation honoured with Cardinal Caps After this the Duke of Mayenne having no more Excuses nor more Hopes longer to subsist resolved to treat It was very late and he could not well expect other then an utmost rigour if the Generosity of the King had not been greater then his obstinacy It is most true that the fair Gabriella very officious to those who sued for his favour and being at present in hopes to create her self friends and supports to come to the marriage of the King to which she aspired did not a little assist to obtain a most favourable Accommodation Certainly the terms of the Edict which
from him he would chastise him for his temerity Upon which the King judging that he was sufficiently punished by his folly commanded that he should onely be kept in prison where he died not long after Those who desired War lost not the occasion to incense the Kings spirit upon all these Conspiracies and Enterprizes of the Spaniards They remonstrated to him That he ought not to expect other from his perpetual Enemies That having used all their endeavours to hinder him from coming to his Crown they continued dayly to attempt something against his Repose and Life That their Ambushes were more to be feared in Peace then in War That it were better to break with them because they would have less means to hurt him being no longer in the Entrails of his Estate That he had more advantage to act against them by open force then to counterplot all their treacherous devices which they held under the cloak of Peace and Friendship They moreover presented to him the ill estate of the Affairs of Spain that having expended all their Treasure in the Low-Country-Wars they were sain to have recourse to extraordinary ways to recover it But above all they forgot not to lay before him the great and advantagious Qualities that he had above Philip the third his Adversary that he might be the easier induced to assault a man whom they taught him to despise and esteem feeble â— may say to this purpose of this King that though he had his spirit very clear and that the diligences of Philip the second his Father had given him all knowledge necessary to govern nevertheless out of a certain timidity and distrust of himself too ordinary in many great men shunning labour and pains he had absolutely discharged himself of the Government on the Marquiss of Denia whom he made soon after Duke of Lerma It will be difficult to express how this man rendred himself odious and how the other was little esteemed so long as he endured but in fine God of his grace opened the eyes of this young Prince he broke his chains and he who was become as it were his Master believed himself no better able to divert all those disgraces which might happen then by becoming a Church-man and a Cardinal We may in passing make some reflection of the pitiful estate to which a Soveraign reduces himself who for not comporting himself as he ought necessarily falls into the disdain and aversion of his Subjects Without doubt the greatest misfortune can arrive him is to be regarded as inferiour and subject to another to have his Ears continually filled with that voice of his people crying on all sides Govern us and to permit himself to be guided rather by five or six wicked Flatterers who make him believe that he is Master though he exercises no one Function then by the truth or judgement of his whole Kingdome For if he desire to know whether he be truely Soveraign or no he need onely regard himself without flattery If it be he that gives Charges of his proper motion if it be he that chuses the persons if the Officers about him are of his own making if he have ever said I will have it so in any affair of importance if he see himself always followed and accompanied by Grandees if those who have business who seek employments and who have need of his favour are in his Anti-chamber in fine that none in his Realm hath more respect and more assiduity and then he shall clearly know who it is that reigns But it is not enough for him to know who it is he must after the example of Philip the third of whom we were now speaking endeavour to put himself in possession of his Authority It is in that the Courage of a Prince principally consists for in what can he better make known his Resolution and Valour then in taking upon him that degree and power which God hath given him Is there a truer point of honour for a King then in maintaining in his person the rights of his Royalty Without dissembling it is more weakness and shame for a Soveraign to submit himself to him who ought to be submitted to his will then to flee in the day of battel before his enemies for the bravest are sometimes put to the worst and the courage of a King consists much less in fighting with his hands then governing with his head What would it be for him to overcome his enemies if he sees himself beneath his own subject who under pretext to serve him reduces him and his Estate into fetters and who dares invest himself with all the glory and all the advantage of command making him believe that it is to ease him of the burthen Our Henry was not of this temper his goodness was extream but it was neither weak nor timid his knowledge and understanding were not useless but always laborious and active nothing was above him but God himself nothing on any side of him but Justice and Clemency his two faithful Counsellours The most hardy of his Ministers trembled when he but bent his brow all familiarities immediately ceased and none durst be other then silent when he was pleased to take the tone of Master Now this great King conserving still the splendour of his Majesty we cannot wonder if he were esteemed above Philip the third who for the present suffered himself to be absolutely governed And therefore because they knew he understood his fault they believed that he would be more easily perswaded to make War against him Indeed he was sufficiently resolute and after so many injuries as he had received from the Spaniard his resentment had no great need of a spur However before he would engage himself in so great an Enterprize he would manage all his Affairs so exactly gather together so much Money Artillery and Ammunitions fortifie so well his Frontiers take such good order within his Kingdom assure himself of so many Friends and Allies raise such powerful Armies and in fine make his Party so strong that the success should not at all be doubtful and that assaulting that ambitious power he might be assured to overthrow it and therefore he judged it not to the purpose too much to hasten In the mean time he neglected not other means to acquire reputation not thinking it less glorious to blazon forth his name by the repute of his wisdom in Counsels then by the power of his Arms. By the last he had been victorious over the Rebels and the Spaniards by the other he rendred himself Arbitrator of the great differences of Christendome and acquired a superiority so much more noble because given him without constraint Pope Clement viii being dead about the end of the year 1605. he would employ his credit to make a Pope of his Friends The Cardinal of Joyeuse his Ambassadour and his other Agents laboured so well that they made the Votes fall
it to be opened in the presence of twenty six Physitians aâ—â— Chirurgeons who found all parts so sounâ— â—hat in the course of Nature he might yet have lived thirty years His Entrails were the same hour sent to St. Denis and interr'd without any Ceremony The Fathers Jesuites demanded the heart and carried it to their Church de la Fleche where this great King had given them his house to build that fair Colledge at present seen The Corps embalmed in a sheet of Lead covered with a Coffin of Wood and a cloath of Gold over it was placed in the Kings Chamber under a Canopy with two Altars on each side on which Mass was said for eighteen days continuance Afterwards it was conducted to St. Denis where it was buried with the ordinary Ceremonies eight days after that of Henry the third his Predecessor For it is to be understood that the body of Henry the third remained till then in the Church of St. Cornille in Compeigne from whence the Duke of Espernon and Bellegarde great Esquire formerly his favourites brought it to St. Denis and caused his funerals to be celebrated Civility obliging that he should be buried before his Successor The Kings death was concealed from the City all the rest of that day and a good part of the morrow whilst the Queen disposed the Grandees and the Parliament to give her the Regency She obtained it without much difficulty having led the young King her Son to the Parliament and the Prince of Conde and the Count of Soissons who alone could have opposed it being absent The first was at Milan as we have said before and the second at his house at Blandy whither he was retired discontented some days before the Instalment of the Queen When the fame of this Tragical accident was spread through Paris and that they knew assuredly that the King whom they believed only wounded was dead that mixture of hope and fear which kept this great City in suspence broke forth on a suddain into extravagant cries and furious groans Some through grief became immoveable Statue-like others ran through the streets like mad men others embraced their friends without saying any thing but Oh what misfortune some shut themselves up in their houses others threw themselves upon the ground women were seen with their disheveled haire run about howling and lamenting Fathers told their Children What will become of you my Children you have lost your Father Those who had most apprehension of the time to come and who remembred the horrible calamities of the past Wars lamented the misfortune of France and said that that accursed blow which had pierced the heart of the King cut the throat of all true French-men It is reported that many were so lively touched that they died some upon the place and others a few days after In fine this seemed not to be mourning for the death of one man alone but for the one half of all men It might have been said that every one had lost his whole family all his goods and all his hopes by the death of this great King He died at the age of fifty seven years and five months the thirty eighth of his reign of Navarre and the one and twentieth of that of France He was married twice as we have said before First with Margaret of France by whom he had no children The second time with Mary of Medicis Margaret was Daughter to King Henry the second and Sister to the Kings Francis the second Charles the ninth and Henry the third from whom he was divorced by sentence of the Prelates deputed for that purpose from the Pope Mary of Medicis was Daughter to Francis and Niece to Ferdinand Dukes of Florence She had three Sons and three Daughters The Sons were all born at Fontain-bleau The first named Louis came into the world on the 27 September in the year 1601. at Eleven a Clock at night He was King after him and had the Surname of Just. The second was born on the 16 of April 1607. he had the title of Duke of Orleans but no name because he died before the Ceremony of his Baptism was celebrated in the year 1611. The third took birth on the 25 of April 1608. and was named John Baptista Gaston and had title Duke of Anjou but the second Son being dead that of Duke of Orleans was given him which he bore to his death which happened two years ago The eldest of the Daughters was born at Fontain-bleau the 22 of November 1602. she was the second child and was named Elizabeth or Isabella she was married to Philip the fourth King of Spain and died some years past She was a Princess of a great heart and had a spirit and brain above her Sex the Spaniards therefore said that she was truly Daughter to Henry the Great The second was born at the Louvre at Paris the 10. of February 1606. There was given to her the name of Christina and she Espoused Victor Amadeo then Prince of Piedmont and after Duke of Savoy a Prince of the greatest vertue and capacity in the world The third was born in the same place on the 25. of November being the Feast of St. Katherine in the year 1609. and had name Henrietta-Maria This is the present Queen-Mother of England widow of the unfortunate King Charles Stuart whom his Subjects cruelly despoiled of his Royalty and Life but heaven the protector of Soveraigns hath gloriously re-established his Son Charles the second Besides these six Legitimate children he had likewise eight Natural ones of four different Mistresses without counting those whom he did not own Of Gabriella d' Estrees Marchioness of Monceaux and Dutchess of Beaufort he had Caesar Duke of Vendosme who yet lives and was born in the month of June in the year 1594 Alexander great Prior of France who died prisoner of Estate and Henrietta married to Charles of Lorrain Duke of Elbeuf Of Henrietta de Balsac d' Entragues whom he made Marchioness of Verneuil he had Henry Bishop of Mets who yet lives and Gabriella who Espoused Bernard of Nogaret Duke of Valette at present Duke of Espernon by whom she had the Duke of Candale dead some time since and a Daughter at present a Religious Carmilite after which she died Of Jacqueline de Bueil to whom he gave the County of Moret was born Anthony Count of Moret who was killed in the Service of the Duke of Orleans in the Battail of Castlenaudary where the Duke of Montmorency was taken This was a young Prince whose Spirit and Courage promised much The Marquis of Vardes Espoused afterward this Jacqueline de Bueil Of Charlotta d' Essards to whom he gave the land of Romorantin came two Daughters Jane who is Abbesse of Fontevrault and Mary-Henrietta who was of Chelles He loved all his children Legitimate and Natural with a like affection but with different consideration He would