[260] He was Cardinal Caietano, brother of the Duke of Sermoneta. He arrived in Paris on January 5.
[261] The people of Dijon eleven years before had been desirous of having a separate bishopric, but were prevented by the opposition of the Bishop and Chapter of Langres, in which diocese Dijon was situated.—Gallia Christiana, iv. 637.
[262] These reports were not unfounded. Sultan Amurath had in fact written to Navarre promising protection against Spain, and offering to send a fleet of 200 sail to Aigues-Mortes.—Collection des Documents Inédits sur l’Histoire de France, Lettres Missives de Henri IV., iii. 364. Part of the letter is quoted by Motley, United Netherlands, iii. 48.
[263] The citadel of Rouen was actually betrayed to the Royalists on February 19, but was recovered by Aumale four days afterwards.
[264] The siege began on January 9, and was raised in the middle of February. Aubigné, Histoire, vol. iii. bk. iii. ch. iv; Thuanus, v. 41-3.
[265] This letter is not dated, but from the mention of the Legate’s arrival and the siege of Meulan, it appears to have been written towards the end of the first half of January 1590. Busbecq was probably then at Mantes, the place from which the next letter was written. Mantes is about twenty-five English miles from Evreux, which corresponds roughly with ten of Busbecq’s miles. See vol. i. page [82], note.
[266] Pierre d’Espinac was born in 1540, and became Archbishop of Lyons in 1574. He was Speaker, or Prolocutor, of the States-General held at Blois in 1576. Catherine de Medici, when the Leaguers first took up arms, sent him to negotiate with them (see p. [246].) However, he went over to that party, and was thenceforth one of the strongest partisans of the League. According to his own account, he was forced to take this step by the insults he received from Epernon, the King’s favourite; his enemies, on the other hand, asserted that his motive was the hope of gaining a Cardinal’s hat. After the assassination of Guise, at Blois, in December 1588, the Archbishop was one of those arrested, and he shared the prison of the Cardinal, the brother of the murdered duke. Each expected to meet the same fate, and each confessed to the other, and received absolution at his hands. The Cardinal was put to death the following day without trial, but the Archbishop’s life was spared. On his trial he refused to answer when interrogated by the judges, on the ground that, as Archbishop and Primate, he was subject only to the jurisdiction of the Pope, or of delegates appointed by him. He was then imprisoned at Amboise. On his release he again joined the League, and was Mayenne’s strongest partisan. He died in 1599, refusing to the last to acknowledge Henry IV.—Thuanus, v. 855.
[267] Nanteuil-le-Haudoin, 49 kilometres, or about 31 English miles, from Paris. Busbecq’s ‘French miles’ must therefore be leagues. The château had been purchased by Schomberg from the Guises in 1578, and he derived from it his title of Comte de Nanteuil.
[268] The appointment of these commissioners, and the seizure of Mayenne’s letters, are mentioned by Busbecq, and, as far as we have been able to discover, by Busbecq alone. These facts are not noticed by Sismondi. As has been already remarked (vol. i. page [64], note), these letters have apparently entirely escaped the notice of historians.
[269] Little more than two years intervened between the date of this letter and the writer’s death. See vol. i. pp. [70], [71].