venturers. Unable to maintain a regular fleet at sea she had let CHAP VIII loose the privateers, whose exploits hereafter will be 1564 more particularly related. In this place it is enough to say that they had found in the ships of Spain, Flanders, The Ador even of their own country, more tempting booty than in the coasting traders of Brittany. English merchants and sailors were arrested in Spanish harbours and imprisoned in Spanish dungeons, in retaliation for depredations committed by the adventurers;' while a bill was presented by the Government at Madrid of two million ducats for injuries inflicted by them on Spanish subjects.' In vain Philip struggled to avoid a quarrel with Elizabeth; in vain Elizabeth refused to be the champion of the Reformation: the animosities of their subjects and the necessity of things were driving them forward towards the eventually inevitable breach. Mary Stuart was looking to the King of Spain and the King of Spain to Mary Stuart, each as the ally designed by Providence for the other; and the English Government in this unlucky war with France was quarrelling with the only European power which since the breach of Henry the Eighth with the Papacy had been cordially its friend. The House of Guise was under eclipse. The Queen of Scots' ambitions were no objects of interest to the Queen-mother. The policy of France was again ready to be moderate, national, anti-Spanish, and anti-Papal; to be all which England would most desire to see it. It was imperatively necessary that Elizabeth should make peace, that she should endure as she best might the supposed ingratitude of Condé, and accept the easiest terms to which Catherine de Medici would now consent.2 1 Reasons for a peace with France, March 10, 1564. French MSS. Rolls House. A letter of Sir John Mason to Cecil expresses the sense entertained by English statesmen of the necessity of CHAP VIII The diplomatic correspondence which had continued since the summer had so far been unproductive of result. January The French pretended that the Treaty of Cambray had 1564 for peace. been broken by the English in the seizure of Havre, Negotiation and that Elizabeth's claims on Calais and on the half million crowns which were to be paid if Calais was not restored were alike forfeited. They demanded therefore the release of the hostages which they had given in as their security; and they detained Sir Nicholas Throgmorton on his parole until their countrymen were returned into their hands. we see daily proof both by sea and land. It is high time therefore for her Highness to take some good way with her enemy, and to grow with him to some reasonable end, yielding to necessity cui ne Dii quidem resistunt, et non ponere rumores ante salutem; and to answer our friends in reason, so as rebus foris constitutis, she may wholly attend to see things in better order at home; the looseness whereof is so great, as being not remedied in time, the tempest is not a little to be feared cum tot coactæ nubes nobis minantur, which God of his mercy, by the prayer of decem justi, a nobis longissime avertat. peace: My health, I thank God, I The Queen is expected to go north on progress, whereunto no good man city and about it numbers of men LANS January The English maintained on the other side that they CHAP VIII had acted only in self-defence, that the treaty had been 1564 first violated by the French when Francis and Mary assumed Elizabeth's arms and style, that the House of Guise had notoriously conspired against her throne, and that Calais therefore had been already forfeited to themselves. Between these two positions Paul de Foix the French ambassador in London, Sir Thomas Smith, Elizabeth's ambassador in Paris, and Throgmorton with a special and separate commission, were endeavouring to discover some middle ground of agreement. The French hostages individually had proved themselves a disagreeable burden on Elizabeth. They had. been sent to reside at Eton, where they had amused themselves with misleading the Eton boys into iniquity; they had brought ambiguous damsels into the Fellows' Common Room, and had misconducted themselves in the Fellows' precincts 'in an unseemly manner.' To give them up was to acquiesce in the French interpretation of the Calais question. They were therefore arrested in retaliation for the arrest of Throgmorton, and were thrown into prison. Yet the exigencies of England required peace, and France knew it; and the negotiations took a form which might without difficulty have been foreseen; Elizabeth made demands on which she durst not insist, and she acquiesced at last in a conclusion which was made humiliating by the reluctance with which it was accepted. On the 28th of January Sir Thomas Smith reported that the Queen-mother and her ministers were anxious to come to terms, that they desired nothing better than a return to the natural love' which had existed between old King Francis and King Henry;' but that to speak any more of the ratification of the Treaty of Cambray CHAP VIII was lost labour.' 1 Elizabeth knew that she must give 1564 way, yet she desired to give way with dignity: instead of January replying to Smith she wrote to Throgmorton, who was intrusted with powers to negotiate independently of his colleague. She admitted that if the treaty was not to be ratified she could not stand out upon it; yet unwilling to commit herself formally she desired Throgmorton to go 'as of himself' to the Queen-mother and inquire whether she would consent to a general peace with a mutual reservation of rights. She said that she would not part with the hostages. If their restitution was demanded as a right she would rather abide the worst that could be done against her.' There might be a private understanding that on the signature of the treaty they should be released from arrest; but even so they must remain in England' until the French had either paid the money or had given mercantile security for it. To surrender them otherwise would be an admission that the Treaty of Cambray was no longer binding. February was consumed in diplomatic fencing over these proposals; and Throgmorton tried in turn the Queenmother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Constable, the Cardinal of Bourbon, and the Chancellor. But if Elizabeth was afraid of doing anything to compromise the treaty the French were equally afraid of doing anything to acknowledge it. They would give no second security to recover the hostages; they would not pay the half million crowns because it was the sum which the treaty 1 Sir Thomas Smith to Elizabeth, January 28.- French MSS. Rolls House. 2 We mean not by any our own act to consent that the hostages should depart hence, as persons in whom we had no interest in respect of the treaty of Cambray, without we may have caution according to the treaty; and though they be not here but for a sum of money, yet if we should let them depart, having neither the money nor other hostages, nor yet caution of merchants, we should thereby to onr dishonour consent that the treaty was void.'-Elizabeth to Throgmorton February 3. MS. Ibid. named. Throgmorton said that his mistress would make CHAP VIII no objection to six hundred thousand if they were afraid 1564 of the stipulated figures; but this way out of the diffi- February culty did not commend itself. La Halle, a gentleman of the court, aiming at Elizabeth through her weak side, suggested a present of a hundred thousand crowns to Lord Robert. The Queenmother offered to add to it some rich jewel from the French crown; but Sir Nicholas encouraged this suggestion, as little as the French court had encouraged the other. At last the Cardinal of Lorraine in private told him that a hundred and twenty thousand crowns would be paid for the hostages-so much, and no more. The Prince of Condé and those in the French council whom the Queen of England had obliged the most, were opposed to making any concessions at all and only wished the war to continue; and the Cardinal hinted as a reason for Elizabeth's consent that it was well known that she could not trust her own subjects. parties in To this last suggestion Throgmorton answered that"Though there were some that desired the Roman religion as he thought there were yet the former agitations and torments about the change of religion had so wearied each party, that the whole were resolved to endure no more changes, for they were so violent; all State of sorts, of what religion soever they were, did find more England. ease and surety to serve and obey than to rebel; and for proof the greatest numbers of those that had lost their lives in the wars at Newhaven and other places were reported to be of the Roman religion: so as surely the diversity of conscience did not in England make diversities of duties or breed new disobedience.' 1 1 Throgmorton to Elizabeth, February 28.-French MSS. Rolls House. |