Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/551

] surrender; but the Spaniards had taken the precaution to lay waste the neighbourhood and destroy all the provisions, or carry them into the city, so that famine, fever, and want of powder soon compelled the English to retire. They found that their pretender, Don Antonio, was everywhere treated as a pretender—not a man would own him; and they marched to Cascaes, which they found already plundered by Drake and his squadron. They there embarked for England, but were soon dispersed by a storm, and reached Plymouth in straggling disorder, one of the sections of the fleet having, before leaving Spain, plundered the town of Vigo. It was found that out of their 21,000 men, they had lost one-half. Out of the 1,100 gentlemen who accompanied the expedition one-third had perished. Elizabeth secretly grumbled at the expense and loss, but publicly boasted of the chastisement she had given to Philip.

Essex, on his return, found his post of favourite occupied by two gay cavaliers, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Charles Blount. Sir Walter was a gentleman of Devonshire, who, besides his handsome person and courtly address, had really much to recommend him—had already, as we have seen, distinguished himself under Lord Gray in Ireland, and since in the attack on the Armada. Though with all his talent, which we shall notice in another place, and the smallest of which gifts was not that of flattery. Sir Walter united an ambition by no means scrupulous, he never took that rank in the queen's favour which made him a dangerous rival to a youth of Essex's gay and passionate character. He was soon dismissed to look after his 14,000 acres in the south of Ireland; and Sir Charles Blount, who was the second son of Lord Mountjoy, and a student of the Inner Temple, was not much longer his antagonist. Their mutual jealousy occasioned them to fight a duel, in which Essex was wounded in the thigh; and Elizabeth, highly flattered by two such knights fighting the quarrel of her beauty—for she still thought herself handsome—made them shake hands, and they soon after became great companions.

In a short time Essex married the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, the daughter of Walsingham, which gave great offence to his Royal mistress, who never could endure that her favourites should show preference to another; but she soon appeared to forget it, and grew more absurdly fond of Essex than ever. In 1591 he endeavoured to get justice for the unfortunate secretary, Davison. Walsingham died on the 6th of April of that year, and Essex strongly recommended him as his successor; but Burleigh had long calculated on the office for his son Robert, afterwards Earl of Salisbury. The queen, who never would appear to forgive and do justice to Davison, secretly favoured Burleigh's son, and not to refuse Essex, conferred the office on Burleigh himself, at the same time letting him know that he could give his son the post in effect by employing him in it as his deputy. Essex was very violent on the occasion, and heaped liberal abuse on "the old fox," as he styled Burleigh, which that cold-blooded minister remembered to his cost. Essex was impatient to get once more from Court, and affairs in France opened a way for him.

The feud betwixt Henry III. and the Duke of Guise, the head of the ultra-Catholic party, continued to rage more and more violently. To cope with his domestic enemies, Henry gathered by degrees a considerable number of troops into Paris; but the Guise party, detecting the object, soon roused the populace to resistance, who rose on the 22nd of September, cut off the communication betwixt the different quarters of the soldiers by barricading the streets, and placed the Duke of Guise in possession of the capital. To rid himself of so troublesome a subject, the king summoned an assembly of the states in November at Blois. There his partisans dispatched the Duke of Guise on his way to the royal chamber, and the next day executed the same royal vengeance on his brother the cardinal, and threw the Cardinal of Bourbon and the other chiefs of the party into prison. Henry thought he had now triumphed by death and the dungeon over the troublesome factionists whom he could by no other means control, but he was deceived. The populace rose at the news in Paris, demanding vengeance for the murdered noblemen, whom they pronounced the martyrs of the popular cause. The third brother of Guise, the Duke of Mayence, who was at Lyons, obeying the call of the infuriated multitude, hastened to Paris, assumed the command under the title of governor, and maintained the city against the king.

Henry had not the vigour to follow up the blow he had given. He allowed the insurgents time to fortify and strengthen themselves every way; and finding himself unable to cope with them, made common cause with the King of Navarre, and their united forces invested the capital. Within the city the most furious spirit raged against the king. The doctrine of deposing and punishing sovereigns was then coming into fashion; it had been openly declared in Scotland, taken up by Goodman and Languet, and was now adopted by the university, the preachers, and the Parliament of Paris. It was declared that Henry, by his crimes, had forfeited his crown; that he was a murderer and an apostate; and that the highest act of patriotism and religion was to free the country of such a wretch. It was not long before a fanatic was found to put in practice this levelling principle. This was a young Dominican friar of the name of Jacques Clement. On pretence of a message from the President of the Parliament, and by means of a forged letter in his name, he obtained access to the king, and stabbed him. At the outcry of the king the attendants rushing in, dispatched the murderer, but by that means prevented any discovery of his accomplices or instigators.

On the death of the king, Henry of Navarre, a lineal descendant of St. Louis, by his youngest son Robert, Count of Clermont, assumed the crown as Henry IV. But Henry's known Protestantism placed him in extreme difficulty, even with those who had hitherto supported himself or the late king. The Papist followers of that monarch insisted that he should sign an engagement to maintain their worship, and that to the exclusion of every other, except in the places in which the Protestant form was already established. They bound Henry to hunt out and punish the murderers of the late king; to give no offices in the State, in cities or corporations, except to Papists, and to permit the nobles of the Roman Catholic league to defend to the Pope their proceedings. But by conceding these conditions, he mortally offended the Protestants, who had hitherto faithfully adhered to him, and who refused any longer to fight under the