Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/144

 124 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 58. ation, and perhaps by nobler motives. Coligny said that whoever was against the war was no true French- man,, and the Court appeared to agree with Coligny. The Princess Margaret's marriage, independent of its political bearing, was in itself a defiance of the Papacy. Pius Y. had refused absolutely to allow or sanction it, till the King of Navarre was reconciled to the Church. Pius had died in the May preceding, but his successor, Gregory XIII., had maintained the objection, and though less peremptory, had attached conditions to his consent to which Charles showed no signs of sub- mitting. The only uncertainty rose from the attitude of Eng- land. Catherine de Medici had acquiesced in the war, with the proviso from the first that France and Eng- land should take up the quarrel together. As the Catholic opposition increased in intensity, Elizabeth's support became more and more indispensable. If the King risked the honour of France alone in a doubtful cause, and experienced anything like disaster, what- ever else happened his own ruin was certain. As soon therefore as it was discovered that Elizabeth was not only playing with the Alencon marriage, but was treating secretly with Alva to make her own advantage out of the crisis, the Queen-mother's resolution gave way or rather, for resolution is not a word to be thrown away upon Catherine de Medici she saw that war was too dangerous to be ventured. Religion, in its good sense and in its bad sense, was equally a word without meaning to her. She hated and she despised