The Death of Francis of Guise [pp. 254-269]

THE DEATH OF FRANCIS OF GUISE.
revived, however. For was not the coast lined with splendid
churches enriched by the piety of the simple Norman sailors?
And were there not abbeys in the neighborhood, wealthy and defenceless, capable of recompensing a pious free-lance for'his sufferings in the cause of the Gospel? The plunder of the churches
and monasteries of Normandy amply consoled them for their disappointment, at least for the time.
But the money so long delayed arrived at last. Elizabeth
had, for a wonder, been liberal, and Coligny was able to glut the
avarice of his followers to the fullest extent. He set out on his
return march with high hopes, for Elizabeth had promised that
if the Huguenots would recognize her as their sovereign she
would recognize him as her lieutenant-general.* Indeed, to such
want of patriotic spirit, to such degradation had fanaticism and
ambition brought the once proud houses of Chatillon and Cond6
that there was nothing they would not promise Elizabeth to attain their ends. They had already surrendered Havre and Caen
into her hands. Calais and Boulogne were to follow. The public spirit and patriotism of the Catholic aristocracy of England
when the Armada of Spain threatened their shores forms a pleasant contrast to the disloyal treachery of the Huguenot nobility
of France.
However, while using every effort to get the English to invade France, Coligny did not neglect to avail himself of another
aid to his own ambition and his country's ruin. He had written
to Elizabeth in January that he had given three strong places of
safety on the Cher into the hands of the Germans, and he eagerly
pressed her for the money to pay them. France was to have a
semicircle of fire closing in on her, the English on the north and
the Germans on the east. So in February the Duke of Holstein,
who had been taken into the pay of Elizabeth, was to invade the
country from the Rhine, while an English army co-operated in
Normandy.
But there was one drawback in the reckoning of Coligny.
The armies might not arrive in time, for Guise had Orleans almost in his clutches, and with the capture of the last refuge of
the Huguenots their cause was hopeless. And it looked as if
Guise would carry Orleans and take, as he tersely expressed it,
the foxes in their burrow.
But years before there had been sinister prophecies in the
temples that at the moment when the fortune of Lorraine would
be highest his fall would be lowest. Occidite nobis vitulurn was a
* Instructions to Throckmorton, 12th of February, x563. Record Office.
256
[Nov.,