[Sidenote: 1572 Parliament and Mary (May)]
The effect was seen when a new Parliament met in May. The people of England believed with an absolute conviction in the truth of the whole indictment against the Scots Queen. Nor was there any question that she had appealed both to France and Spain to liberate her; so far at least she was implicated in the Ridolfi plot, even if the assassination proposals had not come within her ken. She was believed to be a criminal, who had forfeited all right to sympathy and consideration; she was palpably a standing menace to the internal peace of the realm, a standing incitement to its enemies abroad. The Commons therefore demanded her attainder; as for the technical right, no sovereign at the time or in the past would have hesitated to ignore or evade the point. The question was outside the range of technicalities. The plea that England had no right to detain her, or to judge her, that she had a right to seek her own release by any available means, was perfectly sound; the counter-plea that the safety of the State forbade her release, and her attempts to procure war against it justified her destruction, was equally unanswerable. But Elizabeth could not resolve to act upon either plea, ignoring the other. So Mary remained a prisoner, and the centre of intrigue. Even an alternative Bill, supposed to have Elizabeth's approval, which merely excluded Mary from the succession, never reached the statute book.
[Sidenote: Lepanto; April Revolt of the Netherlands]
A notable triumph had recently been achieved for Philip's arms, in the crushing defeat of the Turks at Lepanto by the combined Venetian and Spanish fleets commanded by the Spanish King's half-brother, Don John of Austria. To this perhaps may be attributed the less defiant tone of communications with Spain. The narrow seas were swarming not only with English privateering craft, but with Dutchmen commanded by the privateer De la Marck on behalf of William of Orange, who were habitually succoured in English harbours. But though these were now ordered to depart, and the English mariners aboard them were commanded to leave them, there is no doubt that their privy equipment was deliberately connived at, in the flattest possible contradiction to the public declarations. At the close of March, De la Marck's fleet sailed from Dover to fall upon a Spanish convoy; a few days later, it appeared in the Meuse before Brille. The town promptly surrendered. The whole of the Netherlands was seething under Alva's savage rule; trade, already in a fair way to be ruined by the cessation of commerce with England since the seizure of the treasure ships, was being throttled also by the system of taxation which Alva had recently instituted. The capture of Brille fired the train. City after city raised the standard of revolt. The rebellion which Alva fancied he had utterly stamped out was suddenly in full blaze once more; and on the south, Mons, like Brille, was seized by a rapid dash of Lewis of Nassau, operating from French territory.
[Sidenote: The Alençon marriage]
In the meantime also the Alençon marriage project seemed to be advancing, and in April a defensive treaty was struck between England and France, where it appeared that Coligny was paramount at court. Both English and French volunteers were fighting in the Netherlands. Small wonder that Burghley and Walsingham believed that a French marriage would clinch matters, make France a virtually Huguenot Power, and secure a combination which would bring the Pope and the King of Spain to their knees. The approaching marriage of the French King's sister, Margaret, to young Henry of Navarre—now standing next after the King's brothers in the line of succession—pointed emphatically in the same direction.
Walsingham however also knew that, to achieve the desired end, the Huguenots must at once have convincing proofs that they could depend on the English alliance. The marriage, and concerted armed intervention in the Netherlands, were the conditions. But Alençon [Footnote: He was singularly ugly, and Elizabeth who had nicknames for many of her Court, used to call him her "Frog" when he was wooing her, later.] was an incredibly distasteful husband; and however near Elizabeth might suffer herself to be brought to the brink of war, she hung back when the time came. There was very good reason [Footnote: State Papers: Spanish, ii., 338.] for believing that even now she was secretly negotiating with Alva, and in a very short time the English and French volunteer contingents in Flushing [Footnote: S.P., Foreign, x., 491, 530.] were on the verge of hostilities. The power of the Huguenots was on the surface; fanatics themselves when their religion was not merely political, they were the objects of savagely fanatical hatred. The queen-mother, who had always striven to preserve her own domination by holding the balance between Guises and Huguenots, saw Charles falling more and more under Coligny's influence instead of her own. It may be that if she had felt sure of Elizabeth, she would have gone through with the proposed policy; distrusting the English Queen she resolved to end it. She made a desperate and successful attempt to recover her ascendancy over her weak-minded son. She played upon his terrors, and prepared for one of the most appalling tragedies in all history.
[Sidenote: Aug. St. Bartholomew]
A plot for the assassination of Coligny failed, the Admiral being but slightly wounded. Paris was full of Huguenots, who had gathered for the celebration of Navarre's marriage on August 18th; the attempt on Coligny led to threatening language against the Guises. Katharine stirred her son into a sudden panic. The attack on the Admiral had taken place on August 22nd; with the booming of a bell on the early morning of the 24th, St. Bartholomew's day, the most recklessly devastating mob in the world found itself let loose on its prey, headed and urged on by the Guises and other Catholic chiefs. The Huguenots, utterly surprised, were slaughtered from house to house; with the taste of blood the populace went mad; Paris was a shambles. How many thousands were massacred in that awful frenzy none can tell. The tale of the tragedy flew from end to end of France; all over the country, wherever the Catholics were in a majority, like scenes were enacted. The total of the victims has been computed as high as a hundred thousand; a fourth of that number would certainly not be an exaggerated estimate. In England, all the martyrs for religion in the century did not amount to a thousand, on both sides; in France, twenty thousand at least were slain in a few days' orgy of fanaticism. And the new Pope Gregory sang Te Deum in solemn state; and the morose monarch of Spain laughed aloud in unwonted glee; but Charles of France, men said, was haunted to the hour of his death by red visions of that ghastly carnival of blood.