The German princes as a whole tried to prevent soldiers from going out of Germany. The landgrave Philip of Hesse arrested an officer of cavalry who was secretly enlisting horsemen in Hesse and who said he was doing so for Roggendorf, tore up the officer’s commission before his face, and made him swear to leave his castle without a passport. The duke of Württemberg also took care that no volunteers should march through Montbéliard into France, and Strasburg forbade anyone to enlist under severe penalties. The bishops of the Rhine kept quiet; only in Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics was Catholic enlisting unimpeded. The recruiting-sergeant of the Guises in Germany was the famous Roggendorf, a Frisian by birth who had been driven out of his native land in 1548 and since then had lived the life of an adventurer, part of the time in Turkey. (See an interesting note in Poulet, I, 542, with references.) On April 8 the king of Navarre in the name of Charles IX, signed a convention with him engaging the services of 1,200 German mounted pistoleers and four cornettes of footmen of 300 men each (D’Aubigné, II, 33, n.). These forces entered France late in July and reached the camp at Blois on August 7 (D’Aubigné, II, 76, n. 3).
One reason why the Protestant princes of Germany were unable immediately to make strong protest to the French crown was that the envoys of the elector palatine, the dukes of Deuxponts and Württemberg, the landgrave of Hesse and the margrave of Baden, were unprovided for a month with letters of safe conduct, by the precaution of the Guises, with the result that Roggendorf led 1,200 cavalry in the first week in May across the Rhine and through Trèves into France for the Guises, though the Protestant princes did all they could to hinder the passage and expostulated with the bishops of Trèves and Cologne for allowing them to be levied in their territories. Failing greater things, the Protestant princes of Germany, in July, 1562, put Roggendorf under the ban in their respective states (cf. C. S. P. For., Nos. 244 and 269, June 13 and July, 1562). In the end, despite the enterprise of the Guises, the French Catholics may be said to have been unsuccessful beyond the Rhine, that is in Germany proper, but not in Switzerland or the episcopal states. D’Oysel, who was sent by Charles IX in July to Heidelberg (D’Aubigné, II, 97, and n. 1; Le Laboureur, I, 430) received a short and definite answer “which showed him how groundless were his hopes of aid from that quarter, a document to which so much importance was attributed that it was forthwith printed for wider circulation” (C. S. P. For., No. 414, August 3, 1562, and the Introduction, xi).
The king of Spain’s captains had money and were ordered that as soon as soldiers were taken from Germany into France they should enlist men for the defense of his territories (C. S. P. For., No. 11, May 2, 1562). In the bishopric of Trèves soldiers were enrolled easily, as the passage from thence to France was short (ibid., No. 74, May 19, 1562).
In Switzerland the Huguenots endeavored to prevail upon the Protestant cantons to prevent the Catholic cantons from lending support to Guise (C. S. P. Ven., No. 285, April 29, 1562). The Guises asked for a levy of foot from the papist cantons of Switzerland in the King’s name (Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis, I, 289, April 8, 1562). The cantons promised to send 15 ensigns; but the Protestant cantons especially Bern, told the prince of Condé that they would not suffer any soldiers to be levied against him in their territory, on pain of confiscation of goods. Nevertheless the Catholic Swiss managed to make some enrolments, the men quitting home on July 8. On August 7 these mercenaries arrived at Blois, having come by way of Franche Comté (De Thou, Book XXX). They were commanded by Captain Froelich (see D’Aubigné, II, 148; Zurlauben, Hist. milit. des Suisses, IV, 287 ff.; Letter of Hotman in Rev. hist., XCVII, March-April, 1908, 307).
[533] Correspondance de Chantonnay, K. 1,497, No. 22.
[534] “La fleur du monde.”—L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 41. For details see ibid., 24, 26-29, 36-38, 41, 50-54; Correspondance du cardinal de Ferrare, Letter 40, July 3, 1562; D’Aubigné, II, 91, and n. 2; Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d’Albret, 220.
[535] St. Sulpice was dubious of Philip II’s purpose and suspected political designs “sous le titre de notre secours” (L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 39). Nevertheless he believed in Philip’s methods of repression—even the Inquisition. See his letter to the French ambassador at Trent on p. 28.
[536] C. S. P. For., No. 46, §3, May 11; No. 86, §1, May 23, 1562. Cf. No. 248—Challoner to Elizabeth from Bilboa, June 24, 1562. Spain established a naval base at La Réole to help Noailles, lieutenant of the King in Guyenne (L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 61).
[537] Correspondance de Chantonnay, K. 1,497, No. 21, April 8, 1562; C. S. P. Eng. For., No. 1,058, April 27, 1562; ibid., No. 6, §2, May 2, 1562.
[538] Correspondance de Chantonnay, K. 1,497, No. 33, May 2, 1562. Philip has commented on the margin to the effect that if the Catholics were as active as the Huguenots they would be better off.