Interview of Walsingham and Smith with Catharine de Medici respecting AlenÇon—Treaty between England and France—Cavalcanti’s negotiations—Montmorenci’s mission to London—Walsingham’s description of AlenÇon—La Mole’s visit to the Queen—The AlenÇon match prospers—The St. Bartholomew—Resumption of negotiations—AlenÇon’s first letter to the Queen—Maisonfleur’s mission—Special embassy of Castelnau de la MauvissiÈre—Civil war in France—Anjou elected King of Poland—Disappears as a suitor for Elizabeth’s hand.

On the 21st of March Walsingham, who had now returned to his post, was walking with Smith in the park at Blois, when by accident or design they met the Queen-mother. A quaint account of the interview with her is given in a letter from Smith to Cecil dated the following day. They were speaking of the Duke of Norfolk’s conspiracy, when the Queen-mother seized the opportunity of once more trying to urge the suit of her youngest son. “I would,” she said, “that the Queen were quiet from all these broils; doe you (Smith) know nothing how she can fancie the marriage with my son the Duke of AlenÇon?” “Madam,” said Smith, “you know me of old; I can affirm nothing except I have some good ground. Why, if she be disposed to marrie, I do not see where she shall marrie so well; and yet, saith she, I may as a mother be justly accounted partial, but as for those which I have heard named, as the Emperor’s son or Don John, they be both lesser than my son is, and of less stature by a good deal, and if she should marrie it were pity any more time were lost. Madam, quoth I, if it pleased God that she were married and had a child, all these braggs and all these treasons would soon be appalled, and on condition that she had a child by M. d’AlenÇon, for my part I care not if ye had the Queen of Scotland here, for you would then take as good care of her as we do.” Catharine de Medici confirmed this view, and said that there was no reason why they should not have several children. “And if the Queen,” she said, “could have fancied my son Anjou, why not this one, of the same house, father and mother, and as vigorous and lusty as he, and rather more? And now he beginneth to have a beard come forth, for that I told him the last day that I was angry with it, for I was now afraid he would not be so high as his brethren. Yea, Madam, I said, a man doth commonly grow in height to his years, the beard maketh nothing. Nay, said she, he is not so little; he is as high as you, or very near. For that, Madam, quoth I, I for my part make small account, if the Queen’s Majesty can fancie him, for Pepin the short did not reach his wife’s girdle and yet had Charlemagne. It is true, said she, that it is heart and courage and activity that is to be looked for in a man. But have you no word of your Queen’s affection that way? Can you give me no comfort?” But Smith was not to be drawn out of his reserve without special instructions from England, and these did not come; so that although the conversation continued in the same strain for a long time, Catherine could get nothing definite in the way of encouragement to AlenÇon.

In the meanwhile the “rough hewing” of the treaty had been steadily going on, and on the 19th of April the draft protocol was signed at Blois. Aid was to be given unofficially by both nations to the revolted Hollanders; the fleets of Protestant privateers in the Channel were to be sheltered and encouraged, and, above all, the Huguenot Henry of Navarre was to marry Margaret of Valois, the King’s sister. Catharine wrote a letter to Elizabeth on the 22nd of April, through Smith, expressing her joy at the prospect of peace and harmony in France, which the treaty and her daughter’s marriage held out, and Marshal de Montmorenci and de Foix were sent as a special embassy to England for the ratification of the formal alliance, whilst Lord Admiral Clinton, the Earl of Lincoln, was to proceed to France for a similar purpose. The Protestant party in France were thus for the moment victorious all along the line, and the connection between England and France closer than it had been for many years. Catharine, naturally desirous of securing a double hold upon England whilst these relations lasted, by settling her youngest son as Elizabeth’s consort, instructed Montmorenci to make a formal offer of his hand to the Queen. As usual, Cavalcanti was sent over as a harbinger, and took with him a flattering portrait of the Prince, which was given to the Queen through Leicester. AlenÇon was deeply pitted with the small-pox from which he had recently suffered, and otherwise was far inferior in appearance to his brother Anjou, so that to a person of Elizabeth’s temperament he was less likely to be acceptable. She had, moreover, obtained by the treaty of Blois the close alliance with France and the predominance of the Huguenots which she desired, and could therefore afford to hold off somewhat in the marriage negotiations in which she personally had never been sincere. She accordingly instructed Lord Lincoln72 that if any mention were made to him of the marriage, he might say that he believed she considered she had not been well treated in the Anjou business; and moreover the disparity of years between herself and AlenÇon was so great as in her opinion to be a complete “stay” to the match.

Montmorenci and de Foix arrived in London on the 13th of June and were lodged at Somerset House, their entertainment being the most lavish and splendid that had been seen in England for many years. After the swearing of the alliance on the 15th at Westminster, the ambassadors had audience of the Queen and presented her with Catharine’s letter offering the hand of her son. She again objected to her suitor’s youth, and sustained the discussion with Montmorenci until supper was announced. Subsequently, at Windsor, he returned to the charge, when Elizabeth once more raised the religious question. The ambassador said they would be contented with the concessions which Smith had offered at Blois when Anjou was under discussion. But matters were changed now, and the Queen said she did not recollect to have made any such concessions; besides which the difference of age was so great as to be an obstacle. De Foix replied that the disproportion was not so very great after all. AlenÇon was strong and vigorous, capable of begetting children, whilst she who was used to command would be better pleased with a young and docile husband than with an older one. There was much beating about the bush on the religious question, but the ambassadors made it evident that AlenÇon was not a bigot like his brother, and that no great stand would be made on that point. On their departure, therefore, at the end of the month the matter was still left in suspense.

As soon as they had gone Burleigh sent some account of their visit to Walsingham in France. “They were,” he says, “entertained as never before in man’s memory. The honour done them also by the Queen was such as she could do no more. All the higher nobility attended them, the only difference from the Lord Admiral’s entertainment in France being that no lord but my Lord Leicester entertained them, saving I at Midsummer eve did feast them and all their gentlemen with a collation of all things I could procure, not being flesh to observe their manner.” He deplores that the presents of plate given to the ambassadors were not so great as he would have wished, although they both got “cupboards of plate and Montmorenci also a great gold cup of 111 ounces.” With regard to AlenÇon, “they got neither yea nor nay, only a month’s delay.”

But at the end of the letter it is clear that Elizabeth, who was not now in such a hurry, was determined if she did marry to drive as hard a bargain as possible. Walsingham is instructed to get full information of the Prince’s age, stature, condition, devotion, &c., with all speed, for the Queen; and Burleigh assures his correspondent that he sees no lack of will in the Queen but on account of AlenÇon’s age. “If we could counter-balance that defect with some advantage such as Calais for their issue, he being governor for life.”73 Otherwise, he says, he doubts the result, as the Queen mislikes AlenÇon’s youth and appearance.

In the meanwhile Lincoln came back from Paris loaded with 2,800 ounces of gilt plate, worth, says Walsingham, 10s. per ounce, and full of the magnificence and gaiety of his entertainment in France. His stay had been one succession of splendid feasts, and AlenÇon especially had treated him with marked distinction. Coligny and the great Huguenot chiefs had emphatically praised the young Prince to him, and Lincoln came back to his mistress greatly impressed with all he had heard and seen, and assured her that AlenÇon, far from being inferior, was better than his brother, both in bearing and credit. She characteristically objected that he was not nearly so good-looking, and that the small-pox had not improved him. Lincoln’s favourable opinion was to a great extent confirmed by Walsingham’s report to Cecil. The Duke, he said, was born on the 25th of April, 1555, and his stature is about the same as that of Lord Lincoln. He was reputed to be prudent and brave, but also somewhat feather-headed, which, says Walsingham, is a common fault with his countrymen. Coligny was in great hope of him in religion, and thought he might soon be brought to a knowledge of the truth; and Walsingham concludes his good character of the Prince by hinting that he was really in love with the Queen. But it will be noticed that he says not a word as to his physical charms, which indeed could not compare with his brother Anjou’s somewhat effeminate beauty. He is thus described at the time by the Venetian ambassador in Paris. “His complexion is swarthy and his face pitted with small-pox, his stature small but well set, his hair black and curling naturally. He wears it brushed up from the forehead, which lengthens the oval of his face. He affects popular manners, but his prodigal promises of reforms are only a cloak for his unbridled desire for trouble and dissension.”74

On the 20th of July the Queen sent instructions to Walsingham saying that “although the forbearing of her Majesty’s consent to the motion of Marshal Montmorenci for a marriage with the Duke of AlenÇon was grounded on their ages, yet a greater cause of misliking proceeds from the report made by all of his great blemish in his face by means of small-pox, which is such that none dare affirm to her Majesty the good liking of him in that respect,”75 and Walsingham is directed to let this view be known to the Queen-mother, as if coming from himself without instructions. The Queen herself wrote a letter to Walsingham at the same time, going over the whole ground. She says she was moved by the importunity of Montmorenci to consider the match, notwithstanding her treatment in the matter of Anjou and the youth of AlenÇon, but “has now spoken to Lord Lincoln and others from France, and finds the conditions and qualities of the said Duke nothing inferior to the Duke of Anjou, but rather better liked. But as to visage and favour everybody declares the same to be far inferior, and especially for the blemishes of small-pox; so, the youngness of his years being considered, she cannot bring herself to like this offer, especially finding that no other great commodity is offered with him, whereby the absurdity that the general opinion of the world might grow, might in some measure be recompensed.” Walsingham is to decline with thanks. She has no lack of desire for their friendship but, really, the ages of her suitor and herself were too disproportionate, particularly “as she cannot hear of anything which may countervail the inconvenience.”76 She again repeats that although the official objection is AlenÇon’s youth, yet his pock-marked visage has had a large share in personally influencing her to refuse the offer, unless indeed some great countervailing advantage—such as the restoration of Calais—could make her forget it. In another letter, a few days later, she enlarges upon these points, but says that the only way to overcome the difficulty will be for them to meet and see whether they could fancy each other. But she knew that this trick to feed her vanity was getting stale, and foresaw the answer. If, she says, the King and Queen-mother reply that it is not usual for princes of the house of France thus to go on approval, and that she only makes the suggestion for the purpose of increasing her own reputation and not to marry him, Walsingham is to point out that the prize he aims at is a great one and worth some small sacrifice. If they hold out on the point, Walsingham is to propose that the question of religion should be left open, so that it may be used as an excuse for breaking off, if she and AlenÇon do not fancy each other when they meet, and thus the Prince’s amour propre may be saved. The reason why Elizabeth was again presenting the bait of marriage is not far to seek. A few days before this letter was written an answer came from Charles IX. to the Queen’s letter taken by Montmorenci. The French king was already beginning to cry off of his bargain about aiding the revolted Netherlands against Philip. Pressure was being brought to bear upon him from the Pope and the Emperor, whispers of Huguenot plots and treasons against him were instilled into his ear from morn till night by his Catholic nobles; and the Queen-mother herself had taken fright at the arrogance of the now dominant Protestant party, who were riding roughshod over their enemies. Paris was in a ferment at the supersession of its beloved Guises; and Charles IX. and his mother felt that in avoiding the Scylla of Catholic subjection they had fallen into the Charybdis of complete Huguenot thraldom. Their connection with the “Englishwoman” had gone too far for the patience of Paris, and the King’s throne was in danger. As usual, the cooler he grew towards the English alliance the more openly was the bait of marriage held out by the Queen. There was an additional reason, too, for his holding back. The Huguenot force under Genlis, which had entered Flanders, had been completely crushed and routed by Don Fadrique de Toledo, and it was clear to Charles IX. that unless he could disconnect himself from the unsuccessful attempt, he might be dragged down by the overthrow of the Huguenot party. On the day, therefore, that the news of Genlis’s defeat reached Paris the King was closeted for hours with Montmorenci, and the result of this conference was the dispatch the same night of a young noble named La Mole to England. He was a mere lad, a great friend of AlenÇon’s, and the reason for choosing him was that he might fittingly seem to be pressing AlenÇon’s suit, and so keep Elizabeth from quite breaking away, whilst really his object was to dissociate the King from any act of hostility against Spain in Flanders, and thus practically to withdraw from the treaty of alliance of which the ink was hardly yet dry.

La Mole travelled post night and day, and arrived in London only on the fourth day after he had left Paris: he brought flattering letters of introduction from Walsingham, Montmorenci, and Coligny, whose main hope it is clear to see by his letter, now rested upon AlenÇon’s marriage with the Queen. La Mole arrived in London on the 27th of July, and on the following night at eleven o’clock Burleigh had a long private interview with him and La Mothe FÉnÉlon at the house of the latter. The Queen was on her progress towards the splendid visit to Kenilworth, and it was some days before her decision with regard to receiving La Mole could arrive. He started from London with La Mothe FÉnÉlon on the 1st of August, and reached the Queen on the night of the 3rd, Sunday. He was at once secretly introduced into the Queen’s chamber, Leicester, Smith, and La Mothe FÉnÉlon alone being present. The Queen, we are told, was full of graciousness and caresses,77 for the envoy was young and gallant, but she could hardly have been pleased with his mission. “His King,” he said, “could not openly declare himself in the matter of Flanders, as she desired ... as otherwise it would provoke a league of the Pope, the King of Spain, the Venetians, and others against which he could not defend himself. He was against any rash action. The King of Portugal had a large force of 12,000 or 15,000 men, and he was assured the Duke of Savoy was fully armed—all this must be considered before any bold step was taken.”78 The next day La Mole went openly to the palace ostensibly only as an emissary from AlenÇon, “with all the tricks and ceremonies of the French and these people. He is still at Court, being feasted and made much of.”79 The Queen, indeed, was so pleased with him that she carried him to Kenilworth where a grand supper was given specially in his honour, at which Elizabeth herself presided and drank the young envoy’s health. The next day he and La Mothe were entertained at dinner by Cecil, and Elizabeth was again present. After dinner she fully explained her new position towards the AlenÇon match with her usual nimble volte face, to suit the changed circumstances. La Mothe FÉnÉlon gives an account of the conversation as if the Queen’s expressions were quite spontaneous; but it is instructive to note that everything she said was carefully drawn up by Cecil, and the interesting paper is still at Hatfield.80 They (the French), she said, had quite misunderstood Walsingham. It would have been absurd for her to have said that her marriage with AlenÇon was impossible and immediately afterwards to have suggested a meeting between them. She only raised certain difficulties as to their ages, religion, and the like, but these might doubtless be overcome. And so she again holds out her hand, smooths away obstacles, suggests a meeting between the Duke and herself, proposes the adoption of the Anjou articles, with the exception of religion, which she and AlenÇon will settle between them, and generally opens wide once more the door for negotiation. At this and subsequent interviews at Kenilworth she exerted all her powers of fascination upon La Mole and La Mothe, who were both ready enough to flatter her to the top of her bent. She played her spinet to them, sighed that she was determined to marry and must see the Duke at once, and persistently set her cap at young La Mole as proxy for his master. Solid Cecil and jocose Smith appear to have been almost as much carried away as La Mole. They both wrote to Walsingham the belief that at last the affair would prosper in good earnest, if only the lover would take the trouble to run over to England and see the object of his affection. There are plenty of ways, said Smith, of coming over; and he would do more in an hour than we could do in two years—“Cupido ille qui vincit omnia in oculis insidet,” and so on. Everything seemed to be prospering in the wooing, though the Queen herself was no more in earnest than before; and doubtless she and Leicester laughed in their sleeves at the way they were hoodwinking some of the keenest eyes of both nations. One person they certainly did not deceive, and that was Catharine de Medici; for at the very moment when all this billing and cooing was going on the massacre of St. Bartholomew was being planned, and the person who was being kept in hand and cajoled into a false sense of security, notwithstanding the refusal of Charles IX. to help the Hollanders, was Elizabeth herself. But deceived though she was, she had prudence enough to mistrust the curious new attitude adopted by the French, whose one object was to draw her into a position of overt enmity to Spain in the Netherlands, whilst Charles IX. deprecated taking up such a position for himself. La Mole’s blandishments were not powerful enough for this; and after twenty days’ stay he and La Mothe left the Queen with great professions of love and affection and a gold chain worth 500 ducats for the young envoy, and came to London, where they arrived on the 27th of August. On the same day there arrived at Rye two couriers from Paris, one with letters from Walsingham to the Queen, and the other with despatches for La Mothe FÉnÉlon, the French ambassador. Acting by order the English courier immediately on his arrival caused the authorities of the port to seize the papers of the other courier and send them together with Walsingham’s letters in all haste to the Queen at Kenilworth. The Queen was out hunting when they arrived, and read in them first as she rode the news of St. Bartholomew—overwhelmed with the great tragedy which seemed to be as much directed against herself as against the French Huguenots. All rejoicings were stopped, mourning garb was adopted, and long, anxious conferences took the place of gay diversion. Before the Queen herself received the news the dire calamity had become known in London. Terrified Huguenots by the hundred, flying, as they thought, from a general massacre, were scudding across the Channel to the English ports in any craft they could get. From mouth to mouth spread the dreadful story, growing as it spread, and for a time London and the Court were given up to panic at what was assumed to be a world-wide murderous conspiracy against Protestantism. The treachery of the French was especially condemned, and La Mole lost no time in getting away from a country where he could be of no more use. La Mothe was ordered by Elizabeth to keep in his house until the safety of her ambassadors in France could be ascertained, and for several days La Mothe himself was but imperfectly informed as to what had happened on Navarre’s terrible wedding-day. It was not until the 7th of September that the Queen received him at Woodstock on her way to Windsor. She and her Court were in deep mourning, and La Mothe was received in silence and with no greeting from the Queen except a cold inquiry whether the news she had heard was true. He made the best of the sad story; repeated the assertion that there was a plot of Coligny and the Huguenots to seize the Louvre; urged that the massacre was unpremeditated, and that the King was obliged to sacrifice Coligny to save himself. In the midst of his reading the King’s letter Elizabeth interrupted the ambassador and said that her knowledge of events would suffice to prevent her from being deceived, or giving entire credit to the King’s assertions; but even if they were all true, she did not understand why harmless women and children should have been murdered.81 La Mothe urged the continuance of the French friendship, but Elizabeth knew that such friendship would be a false one so long as the Guises ruled in the Councils of the King, and dismissed La Mothe with a plain indication of her opinion.

Philip and the Catholics were of course overjoyed, and the Guises soon made their heavy hands felt. And then, not many days after the massacre, Catharine de Medici saw the mistake she had made, and tried so far as she could to retrace her steps, by again raising hopes of the Huguenots and redressing the balance of parties. She accordingly sent Castelnau de la MauvissiÈre, a moderate man known in England, to Walsingham for the purpose of once again bringing the AlenÇon match forward. Walsingham, sick with the horrors he had lately witnessed, bluntly told him he had no belief in their sincerity, and in a subsequent interview with Catharine he repeated the same to her, much to her indignation. But Walsingham carefully reported that AlenÇon himself was entirely free from complicity in the massacre, which he openly and loudly condemned, taking the side of the Huguenots and swearing with Henry of Navarre to avenge the murdered admiral. He was closely watched at Court, and was for long meditating an escape and flight to England. On the 21st of September he had a private interview with Walsingham, whom he satisfied of his good faith personally, and on the following day he signed a letter to Elizabeth which was the beginning of the extraordinary correspondence which continued for years, most of which still may be found at Hatfield.82 The body of the letter is written by a secretary, and is full of the most fulsome flattery of Elizabeth, of “her rare virtues and infinite perfections.” “His affection and fidelity for her are such that there is nothing in the world, however great or difficult it may be, that he would not willingly do in order to render her more certain thereof;” and with this he begs her to listen to what will be said on his behalf by the bearer of the letter, a certain L’huillier, seigneur de Maisonfleur. At the bottom AlenÇon has scrawled a postscript himself in his ridiculously illiterate boyish French, saying, “Madame je vous supli mescuser si sete letre nest toute escripte de ma min, et croies que nay peu faire autrement.” Maisonfleur was a strangely chosen emissary for such a mission. He had been a follower of the Guises and a sergeant-carver to Catharine, and was now a Protestant and an equerry of AlenÇon. It was arranged that after seeing Elizabeth, he should return to Dover and receive AlenÇon, who had planned to escape and sail for England. When Maisonfleur arrived at Court he found the Huguenot nobles who were with the Queen had told her something of his history and she refused to give him audience. Either for this reason or from the Duke’s misgivings AlenÇon’s flight to England on this occasion fell through, and Maisonfleur returned to London from Dover without having seen his master. After his return he managed to obtain access of the Queen, and gradually broke down her distrust. In a letter of great length, dated December 1st, he wrote to his master under the name of Lucidor, giving him an encouraging account of Elizabeth’s attitude, and urging him to fulfil his former intention of escaping to England. He says: “She would not use the short word you desire, but her heart seemed to speak to me through her eyes—'Tell him to come and to despair of nothing; if I marry any prince in the world it will be he.’”83 He urges AlenÇon that it will be useless to attempt to bring about the match by ordinary diplomacy, and above all by the intervention of Madame la Serpente, as he calls Catharine de Medici, the deepest distrust prevailing of the ruling powers in France since St. Bartholomew. The only way, he says, will be for Don Lucidor to strike out a line independent of his relatives, to break with the Catholics, draw to his side the Huguenots, and the German and Swiss Protestants, come over and marry Madame L’isle (Elizabeth) and become a great sovereign. Maisonfleur, in a postscript which he showed to Burleigh, laid down full instructions for AlenÇon’s escape and urged him to bring Navarre and CondÉ with him, but only a few attendants, amongst whom should be La Mole, to whom he also wrote begging him to urge his master to escape.

A few days before this letter was written Castelnau de la MauvissiÈre arrived in London with great ostentation, as a special ambassador from the King of France. He was a persona grata with Elizabeth, and his task on this occasion was to smooth down the distrust and asperity caused by the St. Bartholomew and thus to induce her to refrain from actively helping the Huguenots in France. Stern Rochelle, Protestant to the backbone, was still held firmly against the Catholics, Guienne, Languedoc and Gascony, where the reformers were strongest, had now recovered the panic of St. Bartholomew and were arming for the fray; Portsmouth, Plymouth, and the eastern ports of England were swarming with shipping, being fitted out for Rochelle and the Netherlands; privateers in the interest of Orange held command of the North Sea, and emissaries were going backwards and forwards between England and Germany to plan concerted action for the defence of Protestantism the world over. Henry of Navarre, CondÉ, and AlenÇon were looked upon by the Catholics in France with daily growing suspicion, whilst Montgomeri and the Vidame de Chartres, at the Court of Elizabeth, were unceasing in their vigilance to pledge the young princes ever deeper to the cause of England and the Protestants. Castelnau’s task was therefore not an easy one, and was only partially successful. Elizabeth consented to stand sponsor to Charles IX.’s infant daughter, and the personal relations between the sovereigns became somewhat less strained, but not for a moment did Elizabeth’s ministers slacken in their aid to beleaguered Rochelle and the stubborn Dutchmen in the North. Anjou was at the head of the Catholic army before Rochelle and his brother AlenÇon, much against his will, was forced to accompany him. Over and over again he planned to escape to Montgomeri’s fleet outside, and prayed his mother to place him in command of the King’s ships. But the Catholics well knew they dared not trust him, and he was never allowed out of sight. Month after month Anjou cast his men fruitlessly against the impregnable walls of Rochelle; well supplied with stores from England by Montgomeri’s fleet, the townspeople bade defiance to the Catholics, and the reformers through the rest of France were rendered the more confident thereby. It was clear to Catharine and her son that Protestantism had not been extinguished in the blood of St. Bartholomew, and they began to think it time to make terms with an enemy they saw they could not crush. On the 7th of March, 1573, therefore, La Mothe FÉnÉlon saw Elizabeth and assured her that “his King would most faithfully continue in the league and confederation which he had sworn to her, and would strictly uphold it without departing therefrom for any reason in the world.” He begged her to lay aside her distrust of him, and then again broached the subject of her marriage with AlenÇon. The King and Queen-mother, he said, would never trouble her with the matter again if she would only let them know her pleasure now. They reminded her that she had said that she would be obliged to marry for the sake of her subjects, and that the only question at issue was that of religion. Although AlenÇon was a purely Catholic prince, and she would be the first person to reject him as unworthy if he changed his religion out of the mere ambition to marry her, yet he would be content to perform his religious exercises behind closed doors, guarded by one of her own ushers.84 The Queen thought these approaches afforded her a good opportunity for striking a bargain in favour of Protestantism, and said she would proceed no further in the matter of the marriage unless fair terms were given to the Huguenots and peace made at Rochelle. There was nothing Catharine desired more. Anjou was heartily sick of his unsuccessful siege. The heroic Rochellais ostentatiously feasted out of their meagre store, and danced round the maypole on May-day, under his very eyes. Montogomeri’s swift smacks threaded their way safely through the King’s blockading fleet outside, and it was seen that the starving, plague-stricken, and disheartened besiegers were in far worse case than the heroic besieged. The elective crown of Poland, moreover, was already within Anjou’s grasp, and both he and his mother were only too glad to end a bad business by granting to the Protestants some of the terms they demanded. The draft treaty was signed by Anjou on the 25th of June and ratified a fortnight later by the King. A general amnesty was granted, full religious liberty was accorded in the towns of Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes, and private household worship elsewhere in France. Anjou was then elected to the throne of Poland, which he changed for that of France a year later (May 24, 1574) and thenceforward disappears as one of the possible suitors for Elizabeth’s hand.