in his right hand, and the balance in his left, with a group of heads under his feet, surrounded by these words; Virtus iu Rebelles; "Courage in punishing Rebels44." At Rome, and in Spain, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, which no popish writer of the present age mentions without detestation, was the subject of public rejoicings; and solemn thanks were returned to God for its success under the name of the Triumph of the Church Militant! Among the Protestants it excited incredible horror; a striking picture of which is drawn by Fenelon, the French ambassador at the court of England, in his account of his first audience after that barbarous transaction. "A gloomy sorrow," says he, "sat on every face; silence, as in the dead of night, reigned "through all the chambers of the royal apartment; the "ladies and courtiers clad in deep mourning, were ranged "on each side; and as I passed by them, in my approach to "the queen, not one bestowed on me a favourable look, or "made the least return to my salutations45." The English nobility and gentry were roused to such a pitch of resentment, by the cruelty and perfidy of the French court, that they offered to levy an army of twenty-two thousand foot, and four thousand horse; to transport them into France, and to maintain them for six months at their own expence. But Elizabeth, cautious in all her measures, moderated the zeal of her subjects. She was aware of the dangerous situation in which she now stood, as the head and protectress of the Protestant body, and afraid to inflame. farther the quarrel between the two religions, hy a hazardous crusade; she therefore judged it prudent, not only to refuse her consent to the projected invasion, but to listen to the professions of friendship, still made her by the French monarch. Meantime she prepared herself against that attack which seemed to threaten her from the combined force and 44. Mathieu. Dupleix, Le Gendre. Mezeray. 45. Carte, from Fenelon's Dispatches. -VOL. II. 32 violence, violence of Charles and Philip; two princes as nearly allied in perfidy and barbarity as in bigotry, and whose machinations she had reason to dread, as soon as they had quelled their domestic disturbances. She fortified Portsmouth; put her fleet in order; exercised her militia; and renewed her alliance with the German princes, no less alarmed than herself at the treacherous and sanguinary measures so universally embraced by the Catholic powers46. But Elizabeth's greatest security against the attempts of those princes, was the obstinate resistance made by the Protestants in France and the Low Countries. The massacre, instead of annihilating the Hugonots, only rendered them more formidable. Animated by the most ardent spirit of civil and religious liberty, inflamed by vengeance and despair, they assembled in large bodies, or crowded into the cities and fortresses in the possession of their party, and finding that they could repose no faith in capitulations, nor expect any clemency from the court, they determined to defend themselves to the last extremity. After one of the most gallant defences recorded in history, the town of Sancerre was obliged to surrender, but the inhabitants obtained liberty of conscience. Rochelle, before which, A. D. 1573. in a manner, was assembled the whole force of France, sustained a siege of eight months. During that siege, the citizens repelled nine general, and twenty particular assaults, and obliged the duke of Anjou, who conducted the attack, and lost twenty-four thousand men, in the course of his operations, to grant them an advantageous peace 7. Thus ended the fourth civil war, by a treaty which the court did not intend to observe, and to which the Protestants never trusted. The miseries of France increased every day; Charles grew jealous of his brothers, and many of the most considerable men among the Catholics, displeased with the measures 46. Camden. Digges. 47. Davila, lib. v. Mezeray, tom. v. of of the court, favoured the progress of the Hugonots. All things tended to confusion. In the midst of these disorders died Charles IX. of a distemper so extraordinary, that A. D. 1574. it was universally considered by the Protestants as a visible stroke of divine vengeance. The blood exuded from every pore of his body. Though the author of so many atrocious crimes, he was only twenty-four years of age; and that unusual mixture of ferocity and dissimulation which distinguished his character, threatened still greater mischiefs both to his native country and to Europe48. As he left no male issue, he was succeeded in the throne of France by his brother, the duke of Anjou, lately elected king of Poland. 48. The character of Charles IX. as might be expected, has been very differently drawn by the contemporary historians of the two religions. And an attempt has lately been made by an ingenious writer, who affects liberality of sentiment, to vindicate that prince from what he considers to be the calumnies of the Protestants. In prosecution of this design, the gentleman who has undertaken to white-wash the author of the massacre of Paris, endeavours to shew, by a display of the elegant qualities of Charles, his taste for the polite arts, and his talent of making verses, that his mind was naturally sound and generous, but corrupted by a pernicious system of poliey, and enslaved by the machinations of his mother, Catharine of Medicis. As much might be said in favour of Nero, and with more justice. But this writer, in attempting to confound our ideas of virtue and vice, has happily furnished us with an antidote against his own poison. He owns, that some weeks after the massacre had ceased, Charles was not only present at the execution of the two Hugonot gentlemen, who had escaped the general slaughter, “but so desirous of enjoying the sight of their last agonies, that, as it was night before they were conducted to the gibbet, he commanded torches to be held up to the faces of the criminals." (Hist. of the Kings of France of the race of Valois, vol. ii.) And the authors, who attest this fact, have left us many others of a similar kind; so many, indeed, as are sufficient to induce us to suppose that the bigotry and cruelty of Charles IX. were equal to the execution of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, without the instigation of his mother. One anecdote deserves particular notice when the prince of Conde hesitated in renouncing his religion, the king exclaimed, in a furious tone, accompanied with a menac ing look, "DEATH, MASS, or the BASTILE!" Davila, lib. v. Mezeray, tom. v. : But But before we carry farther the account of the civil wars of France, or resume the history of those in the Low Countries, I must turn your eye, my dear Philip, back to the affairs of the empire, Spain, Italy, and Turkey. LETTER LXVIII. GERMANY, FROM THE RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. IN 1556, TO THE DEATH OF MAXIMILIAN II. IN 1576, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE AFFAIRS OF SPAIN, ITALY, AND TURKEY, DURING THAT PERIOD. CHARLES V. as we have already seen, was succeeded in the imperial throne by his brother Ferdinand I. the beginning of whose reign was distinguished by the diet of Ratisbon, which confirmed the peace of religion, by reconciling the house of Hesse to that of Nassau'. A. D. 1557. Pius IV. was raised to the papacy in 1559, less obstinate than his predecessor, Paul, confirmed the imperial dignity to Ferdinand. He also issued a bull for re-assembling the council of Trent, the most memorable occurrence under the reign of this emperor. A. D. 1561. On the publication of that bull, the Protestant princes assembled at Naumburg in Saxony, and came to a resolution of adhering to the confession of Augsburgh, whatever should be determined in the council of Trent. Meanwhile Ferdinand issued orders for convoking a diet at Frankfort, where he managed matters with so much address, that his son Maximilian, already promoted to the throne of Bohemia, was elected king of the RoA. D. 1562. mans, with the unanimous consent of the Germanic body. The emperor also endeavoured, on this occa 1. Heiss, liv. iii. sion, but in vain, to persuade the Protestants to submit to the general council. They continued unshaken in their resolution of rejecting its decrees. The pope, they maintained, had no right to convoke such an assembly; that prerogative belonging to the emperor alone, to whom, as their sovereign, they were at all times willing to explain themselves on any subject, either civil or religious2. Finding the Protestants obstinate in denying the autho rity of the council of Trent, Ferdinand resolved to pursue another method of uniting them to the church. For that purpose he presented a remonstrance to the fathers of the council, exhorting them to attempt a reformation of manners among the Romish clergy, in order to remove those abuses of which the Protestants so justly complained. But the pope, affirming that such reformation was his peculiar province, would not allow the council to take cognizance of the subject. The emperor was also disappointed in a demand which he made, that the council should permit the communion both with and without the cup, among the laity, and the marriage of priests in the imperial dominions. His holiness would consent to neither of these requests3. A. D. 1563. This famous council, which had been so often suspended and renewed, and which proved the last assembly of the kind, was finally dissolved in December 1563. Its decrees, like those of all other general councils, were calculated to exalt the church above the civil power; but being little suited to the spirit of the times, they were rejected by some Catholic princes, coldly received by others, and deservedly turned into ridicule by the reformers4. The declared object of the council of Trent, in this meeting, was the reformation of the church, by which means only a reconciliation with the Protestants could have been effected. Instead, however, of confining themselves to theological errors, or attempting to eradicate ecclesias 2. Thuanus, lib. xxviii. Barre, tom. ix. 3. Id. Ibid. |