The capitulation of Henry III. to the League brought Henry of Navarre prominently to the front. He had already shown his military abilities during the Lovers’ War, and, in 1581, he had been appointed ‘Protector of the Churches.’ He now became the representative of all those whose bigotry or whose interest did not destroy their patriotism.Altered position of the Huguenots and Catholics. It is interesting to note how completely the position of the two parties was reversed. The charges of opposing the legitimate successor, of holding republican doctrines, and of alliance with the foreigner, once brought against the Huguenots, could now be laid at the door of the Catholics; while the Huguenots could claim to be fighting for the principle of legitimacy and of national independence. Navarre was, accordingly, supported by the Politiques and by the Constable Henry of Montmorenci, who was, however, chiefly influenced by personal jealousy of the Guises. Even the ‘Parlement’ of Paris remonstrated against the intolerance of the Edict, and against the Papal Bull. Although opposed as before to the concession of the right of worship to the Protestants, its members were in favour of liberty of conscience, and resented, as they had always done, the papal claim to interfere in the internal affairs of France. Thus the party of the Huguenots was by no means a contemptible one. The centre of their position lay in the territories belonging to Henry of Navarre, or under his control. These, spreading from the Spanish frontier to the Dordogne, and from the Bay of Biscay to Languedoc, comprised Lower Navarre and Béarn, which Henry held in his own right, and seven fiefs which he held of the King of France. He was also Governor of Guienne, and he was not without adherents in Normandy and Brittany, while Languedoc was held by the Constable. And yet the position of the Huguenots was discouraging enough. If their party was not confined to those of their religious profession, this only added to the divisions which had always weakened them. The Catholics held by far the greater part of France; in the Netherlands, Alexander of Parma had secured Antwerp (August, 1585), and threatened to carry all before him, and were his task in the Netherlands finished, how should they resist the united forces of the League and of Philip II.? What wonder if many apostatised or fled, and that the beard of Henry of Navarre turned white with anxiety. Already Philip dreamed of overthrowing Elizabeth of England, of placing Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne, and of subjugating France under his lieutenant, the Duke of Guise. Fortunately, however, the King of Spain as usual procrastinated, and preferred to work his end by diplomacy and by bribes, rather than by arms. The Guises were not in complete accord with him, and Henry III. himself daily grew more impatient of the yoke. To these causes, and to the personal ability of the King of Navarre, the salvation of France must be attributed.
Henry III. hoped, in the war which now broke out, to humble the Huguenots, and yet curb the ambition of the Guises.Eighth Civil War. War of the three Henries.
—— 1585–April 30, 1589. He accordingly gave to the Duke of Joyeuse, his favourite, the command of the army which was to advance against the Huguenots, while he himself opposed the German ‘reiters’ whom Casimir, brother of the Elector Palatine, had sent to the assistance of the Protestants. Unfortunately for the King, Joyeuse was defeated and slain by Henry of Navarre at Courtras on the Isle (October 20, 1587), and although the ‘reiters’ were forced to retire,Battle of Courtras. Oct. 20, 1587. the Guises succeeded in gaining the credit of their retreat. ‘Saul,’ cried the fanatics of Paris, ‘has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands.’ Philip was anxious at this moment to prevent any interference with his schemes for the Armada. His envoy, Mendoza, therefore urged the Duke of Guise to make further demands on the King; and on his hesitating to comply with these, the Duke entered Paris in defiance of the royal command (May 12). The attempt of the King to reassert his authority by ordering the Municipal Guard and the Swiss to secure the important points of the city was answered by the ‘barricades’;The Barricades. Aug. 12, 1588. and Henry III., finding himself no longer master of his capital, retired to Chartres, never again to enter Paris. Forced for the moment to submit to the League, the feeble monarch next tried to outbid the Guises with the deputies of the States-General, which assembled at Blois on September 16, 1588.Assassination of Henry of Guise. Dec. 23, 1588. But so extreme were the views adopted by the League at this moment that this proved impossible. Accordingly, the King turned to the last expedient of the coward, and ordered the assassination of Henry of Guise in his royal palace of Blois (December 23, 1588). The Cardinal of Guise the brother of the Duke, was executed the next day, and the Cardinal of Bourbon was held a prisoner. ‘Now at last I am King,’ said Henry. The illusion was soon to be dispelled, for the assassination of the Duke led to the open revolt of the League. Supported by the decision of the Sorbonne, it declared that the crown was elective; and when the ‘Parlement’ resisted, its more obstinate members were imprisoned. The Duke of Mayenne, the eldest surviving brother of the murdered Duke, was made Lieutenant-General of the realm, and ruled Paris with a Council of forty, formed of deputies from the affiliated societies of the League. The example of Paris was followed elsewhere, and the League secured most of the important towns of the centre and south of France. Meantime, the failure of the royal army in Guienne destroyed the last chance of maintaining an independent attitude, and the King at last did what he should have done four years before, and threw himself into the arms of Henry of Navarre.Ten years Truce. April 30, 1589. A truce for a year was made between the two Henries (April 30, 1589). The King promised to leave the Huguenots undisturbed, and Navarre engaged to oppose the Duke of Mayenne. The armies of the two Kings shortly after advanced on Paris, which seemed doomed, when the dagger of the Dominican,Death of Catherine, Jan. 5;
Assassination of Henry III. July 31, 1589. Jacques Clement, an emissary of the League, avenged the assassination of the Duke of Guise (July 31). The death of the last Valois King had been preceded only a few months by that of Catherine de’ Medici, his mother. She died (January 5, 1589), with the reproaches of the Cardinal of Bourbon ringing in her ears: ‘If you had not deceived us and brought us here (to Blois) with fine words, the two brothers (the Guises) would not be dead, and I should be a free man.’
§ 6. Henry IV. and the League, July 1589—May 1598.
By the assassination of Henry III., Henry of Navarre became the legitimate King of France. The question was, whether he would make good his claim. Had he now been willing to declare himself a Roman Catholic, he would have at once won over the more conservative of the people, for the League was daily becoming more anarchical; the Cardinal of Bourbon, who was by it acknowledged as King Charles X., was but a puppet of Spain; and the Spanish alliance was ever growing more unpopular. But conversion would have probably lost him the support of the Huguenots, while it would not have gained the more fanatical members of the League. Accordingly, Henry refused. He offered to recognise Catholicism; to grant to the Huguenots no privileges beyond those they had hitherto gained; and to submit ‘to the instruction’ of a National or General Council. In thus acting he was guided by policy, not by conviction; and the interpretation he would put on his favourite phrase ‘receiving instruction’ would depend on his success in the field.
Not feeling strong enough to attack Paris itself, Henry determined to hold Picardy, Champagne, and Normandy, whence the capital drew her supplies.9th and last Civil War. 1589–1595. The Duke of Longueville was therefore sent to Picardy, the Marshal d’Aumont to Champagne, while Henry himself dropped back on Normandy, and occupied Dieppe, the most important of the Norman ports, and valuable on account of its proximity to England. The attempt of the Duke of Mayenne to dislodge him was foiled at the battle of Arques (September 21). In the following March, 1590, the still more brilliant victory of Ivry, near Dreux,Battle of Arques, 5 Sept. 1589; and of Ivry, March 1590. conclusively proved the superiority of Henry over his antagonist. Henry perhaps ‘committed the bravest folly’ that ever was in staking the fate of a kingdom on a single battle, in which he had far inferior forces; but at least his intrepidity won for him the admiration of his countrymen. Possibly if he had pressed on at once, Paris might have been taken; but Henry had not the faculty of making the best of a victory, and preferred to continue his more cautious policy of starving the city into submission. He occupied Corbeil, Lagny, and Creil, which commanded the upper Seine, the Marne, and the Oise, and by the end of August, Paris was reduced to fearful straits. ‘Nothing was cheap except sermons.’Siege of Paris. As at Sancerre, dogs, cats, rats, and mice were eagerly devoured; some, it is said, even ate the flesh of children; and the people were loudly clamouring for peace or bread, when the approach of Alexander of Parma, from the Netherlands, baulked Henry of his prey, and forced him to retire (September 10). In the year 1592, Parma again entered France, and saved Rouen from Henry’s clutches.Death of Alexander of Parma. Dec. 1592. In December, however, the death of the great commander freed the King from immediate apprehension, and left the League without any leader who could match him in the field. Nevertheless, the war seemed likely to be indefinitely protracted. The party of the League indeed threatened to break up. Mayenne was impatient of Spanish influence, and was becoming daily more disgusted with the extravagance of the League in Paris. In the preceding November, the Sixteen had even dared to execute Brisson, the president of the ‘Parlement,’ and two other judges who opposed them, and had established a reign of terror. Accordingly, Mayenne had marched into the city, seized and condemned four of the Sixteen to death, and reasserted his authority. Hated, however, as he was by the fanatics, he was in no position to carry on the war with vigour unless with Spanish help, which he wished to do without.
Henry, too, was gaining popularity. Although his sensuality, his lack of real conviction, his cynical indifference, prevent our making altogether a hero of the King of Navarre,Position of Henry of Navarre. his superabundant energy, his splendid courage, his frankness, affability, and genuine humanity, coupled with his caustic wit, had already endeared him to his countrymen. And yet he was not powerful enough to win his country by the sword; the Catholics would not consent to see a heretic on the throne of France; his Declaration of Mantes. July, 1591.attempt to settle the religious difficulty by the Declaration of Mantes (July, 1591), which acknowledged the Catholic religion as that of the State, while he himself remained a Protestant, pleased neither party. Too many, like the Marshal Biron and D’O, who had control of the finances, were interested in perpetuating the war, lest a return of peace might deprive them of employment, or of the hope of carving out a fortune for themselves.
Meanwhile, France was going to ruin. Trade was at a standstill. Even the more patriotic of the nobles—whether Catholic or Protestant—despairing of peace, were aiming at their own independence, and the enemies of France were taking advantage of her weakness; Philip II. hoped to place his nominee on the throne, and to secure Brittany; the Duke of Savoy was attempting to encroach on her south-east frontier; and even Elizabeth of England was demanding Calais, or some other return for help, niggardly and intermittent though it was. The earnest desire, therefore, of all the moderate Catholics in France who were not sold to Philip, that Henry would ‘go to Mass,’ cannot excite surprise.The States-General. Jan. 26, 1593. In the spring of 1593, the meeting of the States-General, summoned to settle the question of the succession, brought matters to a crisis. The Cardinal of Bourbon had died in 1590; and, according to the Catholic view, the throne had been vacant for three years. Philip II., therefore, instructed his representative the Duke of Feria, to propose that the crown should be conferred on the Infanta (who through her mother represented the House of Valois in the female line). If, however, the Salic Law could not be violated, he was to suggest that the Archduke Ernest, the Governor of the Netherlands, and brother of the Emperor Rudolf, should be chosen King, or, failing him, the young Duke of Guise, who should take the Infanta as his Queen. In all probability, had the Duke of Feria at once proposed the Duke of Guise as King, he would have been accepted; but fortunately for Henry IV. he first suggested the Infanta, and thereby aroused the indignation of the ‘Parlement’ and of all those who cared for the fundamental laws of the country, and were not wholly sold to Spain. Convinced that delay was perilous,Henry IV. ‘receives instruction.’ July 23, 1593. Henry now accepted the offers of a deputation of the Estates-General sent to hold conference with him at Suresnes, and promised to ‘receive instruction’ within two months, while at the same time he strengthened his position by occupying Dreux. On July 23, Henry IV. recognised the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church as the true one, and promised obedience. On the following February 27, he was anointed in the Cathedral of Chartres, since Rheims, where this ceremony should have been performed, was still in the hands of the League.
In dealing with the justification of Henry’s ‘conversion’ it must always be remembered that, although by no means a disbeliever, he had no strong convictions as to the relative merits of Catholicism and Calvinism, and was a man on whom religious scruples sat somewhat lightly. To him, therefore, the question would necessarily be one to be decided on the grounds of political expediency. But some may be disposed to think that, even if Henry had been convinced of the superiority of the Huguenot faith, it would still have been his duty to guide his policy by the same considerations. Any one in his position, it has been said, would have been justified in accepting Catholicism as the State religion if he had good grounds for believing: first, that there was no other way of giving peace to his country; and secondly, that he could, while officially recognising Catholicism, secure complete and lasting toleration for the Huguenots. Of the first, it was not difficult to convince himself. He had attempted to win France by arms and had failed. We must remember also that the Huguenots, after all, represented but a small minority of the nation, and that a large number of the Catholics preferred the Duke of Guise with his Spanish wife to a heretic King. Nor is it easy to believe that, if Henry had been willing to efface himself, any settlement which the Huguenots would have accepted could have been arrived at. On the second point, opinions will probably always differ. The danger was that in accepting Catholicism, he would revive the idea as to the intimate connection between Church and State in France which led men to look on heresy as treason. We know that the Edict of Nantes did not last; but whether the Revocation was inevitable, and, if so, whether Henry ought to have foreseen it, may well be questioned.
The King of Navarre was thus at last acknowledged King of France. By his ‘conversion’ he won to his side all Catholics except the most fanatical of the Leaguers, and those who, like the Dukes of Mayenne and of Mercœur, were intent on their personal interests. While, therefore, Henry restrained as far as possible all hostile operations, he steadily pursued a policy which he had long adopted of buying over those whose opposition was still to be dreaded. The governors of provinces were confirmed in their governorships, or offered pensions; the smaller nobility were tempted by subordinate offices and money; the cities were promised exemption from extraordinary taxation and freedom from Huguenot worship within their walls. The wisdom, and indeed the necessity, of this course have been disputed, and certainly the evil results of it—the independence of the nobility, the venality of the government, the serious straining of the finances—long outlived the King himself. Yet at least it must be confessed that the policy succeeded. On March 17, Rouen surrendered, and Henry secured all Normandy. Four days later Brissac, just appointed Governor of Paris by the Duke of Mayenne, accepted the offers of Henry, brought over the Parisian magistrates,Henry secures Rouen, March 17; and enters Paris, March 21, 1594. and opened the gates. The Duke himself had already left, the Spanish troops were forced to evacuate the city with some sixty of the more prominent Leaguers, and Henry was at last master of his capital. ‘That which is Cæsar’s has been given unto Cæsar,’ said one to the King. ‘Given?’ said he, looking at Brissac; ‘No, sold, and for a goodly price.’
Henry, anxious to secure his eastern frontier which was always threatened from the Netherlands, next laid siege to Laon, which surrendered on the 2nd of August, 1594. A fortnight later Amiens, and other towns of Picardy, followed its example. The spring of the year 1595 was marked by a far more important event. Henry succeeded in conciliating the Duke of Lorraine and the young Duke of Guise.Dukes of Lorraine and Guise come to terms. The former restored the cities of Toul and Verdun; the latter surrendered his governorship of Champagne in exchange for that of Provence, where he shortly proved his loyalty by driving out Épernon, one of Henry III.’s ‘Mignons,’ who, after joining Henry IV., had played him false. The only important nobles who still held out were the Dukes of Mayenne and of Mercœur, both members of the House of Guise, and the Duke of Nemours. The two first were loth to abandon the ambitions of their family, and hoped, by the aid of Spain, to turn their governorships of Burgundy and of Brittany into hereditary principalities. The Duke of Nemours, with the support of Savoy, threatened the country round Lyons. Henry, therefore, after some futile negotiations with Spain, in which the idea of Henry’s marrying the Infanta was entertained, determined to declare open war against Spain. An open war, he held, was far preferable to a continuation of unavowed hostilities;Jesuits expelled. Dec. 1594.
War declared against Spain. Jan. 17, 1595. the national enthusiasm against the foreigner might be aroused; all those who continued to resist would incur the charge of treachery to their country; while the English and the Dutch promised their assistance. The war was preceded by the expulsion of the Jesuits. Introduced into France by Henry II. they had made many enemies; the ‘Parlement’ objected to their extravagant assertions of papal supremacy, and to their attacks on the prerogatives of the crown; the Bishops resented their claim to be free from episcopal authority; the older orders grudged them their popularity, the University their educational success. Although it does not appear that the Jesuits had taken any prominent part in the organisation of the League, and though they were, as a matter of fact, at this time out of favour in Spain, where they opposed the tyranny of the Inquisition, they were nevertheless denounced as the tools of Philip. An attempted assassination of Henry IV. by one of their pupils, though not apparently instigated by them, brought matters to a crisis. They were convicted by the ‘Parlement’ of attempting to subvert the laws of Church and State, of instigating to rebellion and assassination, and were expelled the kingdom (December 29, 1594).