[1513] “There have been no other speeches but war with Spain.”—Killegrew to Lord Burghley, December 8, 1571; C. S. P. For., No. 2,163; cf. Nég. Tosc., III, dispatches of April 17 and 20, 1572 and C. S. P. For., Nos. 2,156, 2,162, November 29, December 7, 1571. Alva fully expected war (Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II sur les Pays-Bas, II, 259, Alva to Philip II, May 24, 1572).
In the spring of 1572 Schomberg was dispatched to Germany to contract alliances with the Lutheran princes (Arch. de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, III, 403; C. S. P. For., No. 189, March 25, 1572). The German princes anticipated that if the Low Countries were united to the crown of France that power would become too formidable. They wanted France to content herself with Flanders and Artois. As for Brabant and the other provinces that were once dependent upon the empire, their purpose was to put them upon their old footing and to give the government of them to some prince of Germany, who could not be other than the prince of Orange. Holland and Zealand were to be united to the crown of England (Walsingham, 143, French ed., letter of August 12, 1572 to Leicester). Yet momentous as the French project in the Low Countries was, it was but part of a grander scheme, for France aimed also to acquire a decisive influence in Germany, with the ultimate purpose of acquiring so great ascendency over the German states as to be able to transfer the crown of the empire, for centuries hereditary in the house of Hapsburg, to the head of the French prince (Rel. vén., I, 445). This project was part of the mission of Schomberg in Germany (Arch. de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, IV, Introd., 23, 268-73). In Germany the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse were strong partisans of France (ibid., IV, Introd., 25).
The strongest advocate of France for the imperial crown was the elector palatine, who burned with an ambition to “Calvinize the world,” and embraced with ardor a project which could not fail to redound to the honor of the Huguenots. The elector of Saxony and the landgrave were less complacent. The first was a friend of the emperor Maximilian and expressed his indignation at the imperial pretensions of Charles IX. Even William of Hesse, in spite of his hereditary attachment to the crown of France, returned a guarded reply (ibid., IV, Introd., 28 and 123).
[1514] The revolt took place on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1572. On the whole subject of the revolt of the Netherlands at this time see Janssen, History of the German People, VIII, chap. ii; La Gravière, “Les Gueux de Mer,” Revue des deux mondes, September 15, 1891, p. 347; November, 1891, p. 98; January 15, 1892, p. 389.
[1515] See the letter of President Viglius to Hopper in Arch. de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, III, 415, and C. S. P. For., No. 260, April 19, 1572.
[1516] Archives de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, III, 418-19. On the alliance concluded at the Frankfurt Fair see ibid., III, 448. For the whole subject consult Waddington, “La France et les protestants allemands sous les règnes de Charles IX et Henri III,” Revue historique, XLII, 266 ff.
[1517] The treaty of Blois provided for a defensive league between Queen Elizabeth and Charles IX and stipulated the amount of succor by sea or land to be rendered by either party in case of need; if either party were assailed for the cause of religion or under any other privileges and advantages for the pretext, the other was bound to render assistance; a schedule of the number and description of the forces to be mutually furnished, together with their rates of pay, was annexed. De Frixa and Montmorency were sent to England to ratify the treaty. A full account of the gorgeous reception of Montmorency will be found in Holinshed and the Account Book of the Master of the Revels. The earl of Lincoln left for France, May 26, 1572. He was instructed to say, if any mention was made of the Alençon marriage, that Elizabeth felt offended by the way she had been treated in the Anjou negotiations and that in any case “the difference in age should make a full stay.”
Text of the treaty of Blois in Dumont, Corps diplomatique, V, Part I, 211. The letter of the King to Elizabeth after the signature is in Bulletin de la société du prot. français, XI, 72.
[1518] Mémoires et correspondance de Du Plessis-Mornay, I, 36-38 (Paris, 1824).
[1519] Ibid., II, 20-39; cf. Whitehead, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, 248. On the authorship of the memoir consult same volume Appendix II.