[272] “Lettres-patentes du roi Charles IX; pardon-général au sujet des affaires de religion.” The Spanish ambassador had been summoned to the court that he might write to Philip II to stand ready to offer assistance in case of need.—Despatches of Suriano [Huguenot Society], December 3, 1560; K. 1,493, No. 113, December 3, 1560. Chantonnay’s correspondence shows that the Spanish King was fully informed of the progress of events in France, which is confirmed by Throckmorton. “The King of Spain has given order to stay the five thousand Spaniards in the Low Countries who were to go to Sicily ... the posts run apace and often between the kings of France and Spain.”—C. S. P. For., No. 737, November 28, 1560.
[273] La Place, 76; Claude Haton, I, 116.
[274] Despatches of Suriano (Huguenot Society), December 3, 1560.
[275] C. S. P. For., No. 773, December 6, 1560. “They have not only already good forces in this town at their devotion, but have sent for more men-at-arms to be here with all diligence ... so that if they cannot get it by good means, they see none other surety for themselves but to get it by such means as they can best devise ... if the Guise forces and party be best, they will not fail to betrap them all and to stand for it whatever it costs them.”—C. S. P. For., No. 771, December 6, 1560. Catherine de Medici detested Mary Stuart. She called her “notre petite reinette écossaise.”
[276] Claude Haton, I, 118, 119. The Guises wanted, above all, to prevent the undivided regency of Catherine de Medici and even cited the Salic law as a bar to such result (Chantonnay to Philip II, December 28, 1560; K. 1,494, No. 12). They favored the regency of the pliable Antoine of Bourbon, or a combination of the king of Navarre and the queen mother. In either event a galaxy of the Guises was to surround the throne, I. e., the cardinals of Tournon and Lorraine, the duke of Guise, the chancellor and the two marshals Brissac and St. André; cf. Nég. Tosc., III, 434, and De Crue, Anne de Montmorency, 288-90, a good brief statement.
[277] Catherine sent the sieur de Lansac at once to the constable at Etampes (cf. D’Aubigné, I, 299, and n. 2) who in turn went to consult with his son, Damville, at Chantilly, where he was kept by his wife’s illness, those two in turn conferring with the princess of Condé (La Place, 76).
[278] Despatches of Suriano (Huguenot Society), December 18, 1560.
[279] How much Antoine yielded to the temptation the following report of an interview between Throckmorton and the king of Navarre shows: “Throckmorton said that there was a bruit that the Spaniards had passage given them by Bayonne and other forts of the French King. The king of Navarre said that it was true, and that he was about to verify the letters that are yet denied.”—C. S. P. For., No. 732, December 31, 1560, § 7.
On Sardinia see Rel. vén., I, 555. Even the prospect of becoming emperor was held out to him (ibid., I, 559; II, 76).
[280] “Although the duke of Guise is popular, above all with the nobility, yet everybody so detests the cardinal of Lorraine that if the matter depended upon universal suffrage, not only could he have no part in the government, but perhaps not in the world! It is cynically reported that his Right Reverend and Lordship took the precaution to send his favorite and precious effects early into Lorraine.”—C. S. P. Ven., No. 221, December 16, 1560.