But affairs soon after took a new turn: Marre died of melancholy, with which the distracted state of the country affected him: Morton was chosen regent; and as this nobleman had secretly taken all his measures with Elizabeth, who no longer relied on the friendship of the French court, she resolved to exert herself more effectually for the support of the party which she had always favored. She sent Sir Henry Killegrew ambassador to Scotland, who found Mary’s partisans so discouraged by the discovery and punishment of Norfolk’s conspiracy, that they were glad to submit to the king’s authority, and accept of an indemnity for all past offences.[*] The duke of Chatelrault and the earl of Huntley, with the most considerable of Mary’s friends, laid down their arms on these conditions. The garrison alone of the Castle of Edinburgh continued refractory. Kirkaldy’s fortunes were desperate; and he flattered himself with the hopes of receiving assistance from the kings of France and Spain, who encouraged his obstinacy, in the view of being able, from that quarter, to give disturbance to England. Elizabeth was alarmed with the danger; she no more apprehended making an entire breach with the queen of Scots, who, she found, would not any longer be amused by her artifices; she had an implicit reliance on Morton; and she saw, that by the submission of all the considerable nobility, the pacification of Scotland would be an easy, as well as a most important undertaking. She ordered, therefore, Sir William Drury, governor of Berwick, to march with some troops and artillery to Edinburgh, and to besiege the castle.[**]
* Spotswood, p. 268.
** Camden, p, 443.
The garrison surrendered at discretion: Kirkaldy was delivered into the hands of his countrymen, by whom he was tried, condemned, and executed; Secretary Lidington, who had taken part with him, died, soon after, a voluntary death, as is supposed; and Scotland submitting entirely to the regent, gave not, during a long time, any further inquietude to Elizabeth.
The events which happened in France were not so agreeable to the queen’s interests and inclinations. The fallacious pacifications, which had been so often made with the Hugonots, gave them reason to suspect the present intentions of the court; and after all the other leaders of that party were deceived into a dangerous credulity, the sagacious admiral still remained doubtful and uncertain. But his suspicions were at last overcome, partly by the profound dissimulation of Charles, partly by his own earnest desire to end the miseries of France, and return again to the performance of his duty towards his prince and country. He considered, besides, that as the former violent conduct of the court had ever met with such fatal success, it was not unlikely that a prince, who had newly come to years of discretion, and appeared not to be rivetted in any dangerous animosities or prejudices, would be induced to govern himself by more moderate maxims. And as Charles was young, was of a passionate, hasty temper, and addicted to pleasure,[*] such deep perfidy seemed either remote from his character, or difficult and almost impossible to be so uniformly supported by him. Moved by these considerations, the admiral, the queen of Navarre, and all the Hugonots, began to repose themselves in full security, and gave credit to the treacherous caresses and professions of the French court. Elizabeth herself, notwithstanding her great experience and penetration, entertained not the least distrust of Charles’s sincerity; and being pleased to find her enemies of the house of Guise removed from all authority, and to observe an animosity every day growing between the French and Spanish monarchs, she concluded a defensive league with the former,[**] and regarded this alliance as an invincible barrier to her throne. Walsingham, her ambassador, sent her over, by every courier, the most satisfactory accounts of the honor, and plain dealing, and fidelity of that perfidious prince.
* Digges, p. 8, 39.
** Camden, p. 443.
The better to blind the jealous Hugonots, and draw their leaders into the snare prepared for them, Charles offered his sister, Margaret, in marriage to the prince of Navarre; and the admiral, with all the considerable nobility of the party, had come to Paris, in order to assist at the celebration of these nuptials, which, it was hoped, would finally, if not compose the differences, at least appease the bloody animosity of the two religions. The queen of Navarre was poisoned by orders from the court; the admiral was dangerously wounded by an assassin: yet Charles, redoubling his dissimulation, was still able to retain the Hugonots in their security; till, on the evening of St. Bartholomew, a few days after the marriage, the signal was given for a general massacre of those religionists, and the king himself in person led the way to these assassinations. The hatred long entertained by the Parisians against the Protestants, made them second, without any preparation, the fury of the court; and persons of every condition, age, and sex, suspected of any propensity to that religion, were involved in an undistinguished ruin. The admiral, his son-in-law Teligni, Soubize, Rochefoucault, Pardaillon, Piles, Lavardin, men who, during the late wars, had signalized themselves by the most heroic actions, were miserably butchered without resistance; the streets of Paris flowed with blood; and the people, more enraged than satiated with their cruelty, as if repining that death had saved their victims from further insult, exercised on their dead bodies all the rage of the most licentious brutality. About five hundred gentlemen and men of rank perished in this massacre; and near ten thousand of inferior condition.[*] Orders were instantly despatched to all the provinces for a like general execution of the Protestants; and in Rouen, Lyons, and many other cities, the people emulated the fury of the capital. Even the murder of the king of Navarre, and prince of Condé, had been proposed by the duke of Guise; but Charles, softened by the amiable manners of the king of Navarre, and hoping that these young princes might easily be converted to the Catholic faith, determined to spare their lives, though he obliged them to purchase their safety by a seeming change of their religion.
Charles, in order to cover this barbarous perfidy, pretended that a conspiracy of the Hugonots to seize his person had been suddenly detected; and that he had been necessitated, for his own defence, to proceed to this severity against them. He sent orders to Fenelon, his ambassador in England, to ask an audience, and to give Elizabeth this account of the late transaction. That minister, a man of probity, abhorred the treachery and cruelty of his court, and even scrupled not to declare that he was now ashamed to bear the name of Frenchman;[**] yet he was obliged to obey his orders, and make use of the apology which had been prescribed to him. He met with that reception from all the courtiers which he knew the conduct of his master had so well merited. Nothing could be more awful and affecting than the solemnity of his audience. A melancholy sorrow sat on every face: silence, as in the dead of night, reigned through all the chambers of the royal apartment: the courtiers and ladies, clad in deep mourning, were ranged on each side, and allowed him to pass without affording him one salute or favorable look, till he was admitted to the queen herself.[***]
* Davila, lib. v.
** Digges, p. 24[**?]
*** Carte, vol. iii. p. 522,
That princess received him with a more easy, if not a more gracious countenance; and heard from Fenelon’s Despatches, his apology, without discovering any visible symptoms of indignation. She then told him, that though, on the first rumor of this dreadful intelligence, she had been astonished that so many brave men and loyal subjects, who rested secure on the faith of their sovereign, should have been suddenly butchered in so barbarous a manner, she had hitherto suspended her judgment, till further and more certain information should be brought her: that the account which he had given, even if founded on no mistake or bad information, though it might alleviate, would by no means remove the blame of the king’s counsellors, or justify the strange irregularity of their proceedings: that the same force which, without resistance, had massacred so many defenceless men, could easily have secured their persons, and have reserved them for a trial, and for punishment by a legal sentence, which would have distinguished the innocent from the guilty: that the admiral in particular, being dangerously wounded, and environed by the guards of the king, on whose protection he seemed entirely to rely, had no means of escape, and might surely, before his death, have been convicted of the crimes imputed to him: that it was more worthy of a sovereign to reserve in his own hands the sword of justice, than to commit it to bloody murderers, who, being the declared and mortal enemies of the persons accused, employed it without mercy and without distinction: that if these sentiments were just, even supposing the conspiracy of the Protestants to be real, how much more so if that crime was a calumny of their enemies, invented for their destruction? that if, upon inquiry, the innocence of these unhappy victims should afterwards appear, it was the king’s duty to turn his vengeance on their defamers, who had thus cruelly abused his confidence, had murdered so many of his brave subjects, and had done what in them lay to cover him with everlasting dishonor: and that for her part, she should form her judgment of his intentions by his subsequent conduct; and in the mean time should act as desired by the ambassador and rather pity than blame his master for the extremities to which he had been carried.[*]
* Digges, p. 247, 248.