[1485] Smith’s comments to Burghley are candor itself. “These two brethren be almost become ‘Capi de Guelphi et Gibellini.’ The one has his suite all Papists, the other is the refuge and succour of all the Huguenots, a good fellow and lusty prince.”—Ibid., No. 23, January 9, 1572. He glosses over Alençon’s imperfections by the remark that “he is not so tall or fair as his brother, but that is as is fantasied,” and adds: “Then he is not so obstinate, papistical, and restive like a mule as his brother is.”—Ibid., No. 28, January 10, 1572.
[1486] See below for details of this treaty. Coligny’s letter is analyzed in C. S. P. For., No. 500, July 22, 1572 (not in Delaborde).
[1487] La Ferté to——; draft, endd. by Burghley: Windsor, 6th September, 1572.—C. S. P. For., No. 555.
[1488] C. S. P. For., No. 502, July 23, 1572, the Queen to Walsingham.
[1489] Walsingham to Lord Burghley: “ ... and if he sees no hope then to further what he may the league.”—C. S. P. For., January 17, 1572; Hatfield Papers, II, 46.
[1490] Charles IX to M. de la Mothe-Fenelon: Directs him to inform the queen of England that the duke of Alva does all he can to encourage the 500 or 600 English refugees in Flanders in their enterprise against England, in which they will be assisted by Lord Seton with 2,000 Scots, who have determined to seize on the prince of Scotland, and send him into Spain. Directs him and M. de Croc to watch and do all in their power to frustrate this design (C. S. P. For., No. 330, May 2, 1572; cf. Introd., xii, xiii and No. 257).
[1491] On the efforts of Alva to revive the commerce of Flanders see D’Aubigné, Book V, chap. xxxii, p. 265; C. S. P. For., Nos. 94, 95, January 28 and 31, 1572; Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, chap. v; Altmeyer, Histoire des relations commerciales des Pays-Bas avec le Nord pendant le XVI siècle; Bruxelles, 1840; Reiffenberg, De l’etat de la population, des fabriques et des manufactures des Pays-Bas pendant le XVe et le XVIe siècle, Bruxelles, 1822.
[1492] “The answer of the Merchant Adventurers to the French king’s offer to establish a staple in France” in C. S. P. For., No. 515, July, 1572: It would be no commodity for them to have a privilege in France, as those things in which they are principally occupied, viz., white cloths, are chiefly uttered in Upper and Lower Germany. Besides, if they alter their old settled trade, they would also have to seek for dressers and dyers in a place unacquainted with the trade. It is dangerous to have the vent of all the commodity of the realm in one country, especially seeing the French have small trade to England. There is besides such evil observance of treaties and so evil justice in France. The drapers of France so much mislike the bringing of cloth into France that they will not endure it, insomuch as January last, by proclamation, all foreign cloth was banished. The converting of the whole trade of England into France would be hurtful to the navy, for that the ports there are so small that no great ship may enter.
For the Merchant Adventurers in the sixteenth century see Burgon, Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, I, 185-89.
[1493] C. S. P. For., No. 278, April 20, 1572, Queen Elizabeth to Charles IX.