Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/433

A.D. 1563.] arrival of 6,000 mercenaries from Germany, advanced towards Paris; and at Dreux, on the banks of the Dure, where the Duke of Guise achieved a victory over the Huguenots, Condé and Montmorency, a leader of each party, were taken prisoners; and Coligny, who now became the chief Huguenot general, fell back on Orleans, and sent pressing entreaties to Elizabeth for the supplies which she was bound by the treaty to furnish. The English queen, never fond of parting with her money, had at this crisis none in her exchequer. But money must be forthcoming, or the cause of Protestantism must fail through her bad faith. The German mercenaries were clamorous for their pay, none of which they had received, and the representations of Coligny were so urgent, that Elizabeth was compelled to summon a Parliament, and ask for supplies.

Parliament met on the 13th of February, 1563; but as Elizabeth had just had a dangerous attack of small-pox, in which her life had been despaired of, the Commons immediately presented to her an address, praying her to set the mind of the country at rest as to the succession, by choosing a husband, or by naming her heir. To get rid of this awkward dilemma, she saw herself required to name the Queen of Scots, or the Lady Catherine Grey, whom she had imprisoned, and whose children she had bastardised, as her successor. This she was resolved not to do; but, as she had now the Duke of Würtemberg as a fresh admirer, she preferred thinking of a husband. Parliament not being able to get from her anything more decisive, consented to vote her a subsidy upon land, and two-tenths and fifteenths upon movables. She called for it, on the plea of defending her throne against the Papists of France, as she had before defended it from those of Scotland, who, if they could succeed in putting down the Protestants, contemplated designs dangerous to Protestant England.

It was pretended that the same dangerous spirit existed in the Roman Catholics of this country, and Parliament was called upon to pass an act extending the oath of supremacy to all such subjects. Before, it had been confined to such only as being heirs, holding under the crown, sued out the livery of their lands, or who sought appointments or preferment in Church or State. It was now not only sought to impose it on all persons, but to make its first refusal punishable by premunire, its second by death. So severe a law, had it passed, and been carried with any considerable rigour into effect, would have revived the dreadful persecutions of the late reign. The bill was violently opposed, especially by Viscount Montague in the peers. He contended that the Papists had created no disturbance; that they neither preached, disputed, nor disobeyed the queen, and that such compulsion could only create hypocrites, or rouse the resentful into enemies. The bill passed eventually, though shorn of much of its mischief, yet still extending its liability to members of the House of Commons, schoolmasters, private tutors, attorneys, and to all persons who had held office in the Church or any ecclesiastical court during the three past years, who should hereafter seek such office, or who should disapprove of the established worship, or attend mass publicly or privately. Members of the House of Commons, schoolmasters, or attorneys, could only have the oath tendered once, so that they could only be fined and imprisoned; but all others, if not peers, were liable on refusal to death.

After so barbarous a law, the reformed Church had little cause to boast of its advance in toleration over its opponents; and Convocation equalled Parliament in the intolerant character of its proceedings. It new-modelled the articles of the Church, making them thirty-nine, as they still remain; but, instead of leaving them as matters of voluntary acceptance, they decreed that any one openly declaring his dissent from them, or attempting to bring them into discredit, should, for the first offence, pay a fine of 100 marks, 400 for the second, and for the third should forfeit the whole of his possessions, and be imprisoned for life. But the Privy Council disallowed of this decree, which, indeed, was wholly unnecessary to place the Catholics under the foot of the law, for the oath of supremacy did that effectually.

Convocation having voted the queen a subsidy of six shillings in the pound, payable in three years, Parliament was prorogued.

Meantime affairs in France had been anything but satisfactory. The Huguenot chiefs had promised Elizabeth, as the price of her assistance, the restoration of Calais. Elizabeth, on her part, ordered the Earl of Warwick not to advance with his troops beyond the walls of Ham; and when Coligny reduced the principal towns of Normandy, he gave up their plunder to his German auxiliaries, and, instead of awarding any share to the English, complained loudly of the neutrality of Warwick's troops, and the more so when he saw the Duke of Guise preparing to lay siege to Orleans. But Guise was assassinated by Poltrot, a deserter from the Huguenot army, and this circumstance produced a great change amongst the belligerents on both sides. The Catholics were afraid of the English uniting with Coligny, and gaining still greater advantages in Normandy; and, on the other hand, Condé was anxious to make peace, and secure the position in the French Government which Guise had held. A peace was accordingly concluded on the 6th of March, in which freedom for the exercise of their religion was conceded to the Huguenots in every town of France, Paris excepted; and the Huguenots, in return, promised to support the Government.

Elizabeth, in her anger at this treaty, made without any reference to her, appeared to abandon her own shrewd sense. Though the French Government offered to renew the treaty of Cateau, to restore Calais at the stipulated time, Havre being of course surrendered, and to repay her all the sums advanced to the Huguenots, she refused, and declared that she would maintain Havre against the whole realm of France. But when she saw that the two parties were united to drive the English troops out of France, she thought better of it. She dispatched Throckmorton to act for her, in conjunction with Sir Thomas Smith, her ambassador. But Throckmorton arrived too late. The united parties were now pretty secure of the surrender of Havre, and, as Throckmorton's intrigues in France were notorious, to prevent a repetition of them, they seized him on pretence of having no proper credentials, and deferred audience to Sir Thomas Smith from day to day, whilst they pushed on the siege.

To prevent insurrection, or co-operation with the French outside, Warwick had expelled most of the native