Revival of the AlenÇon match—Dr. Dale’s interview with Catharine de Medici—AlenÇon’s letters to Elizabeth—Illness and death of Charles IX.—Imprisonment of AlenÇon—Huguenot plots and execution of La Mole and Coconas—AlenÇon kept in durance and the marriage negotiations discontinued.

Dr. Valentine Dale had replaced Walsingham as English ambassador in France, and soon after the signing of the peace of Rochelle, he and his temporary colleague, Edmund Horsey, were summoned by Catharine and asked whether their mistress was willing to carry through the AlenÇon match, now that her condition with regard to peace had been fulfilled. Dale replied that if it were announced that peace had been effected through AlenÇon’s intervention their Queen would be willing to proceed in the matter. This was accepted, and it was arranged that, as the Queen of England intended to stay a week at Dover in the ensuing month of August, an opportunity for a meeting between her and the Prince might be found. The Queen-mother told Dale that AlenÇon had grown greatly during his absence at Rochelle, “and that his beard had grown, which helps much his imperfections.”85 He had good hopes, too, that the young Prince would openly become a Protestant. When August came, however, Catharine began to cry off, and Dale thought she would not let her son come unless “some further word of comfort be given,” thinking of the “honte” if the affair fell through after all. As for the Prince, he was not only ready but eager to make the journey, and managed to convey as much to Dale, who thus describes him on August 2nd: “His pock-holes are thick but not great, as are seen in some men whose faces are little disfigured with them, if the visage and colour are otherwise liked. He was bashful and blushing at parting. His speech is not so fast as his brother’s, and he seems more advised. He is of 'statura mediocre.’”86

A few days after this Catharine sent Cavalcanti to see Dale and sound him about Elizabeth’s present sincerity. He talked about the “honte” to them all if the Duke went to England and nothing came of it, and hinted that he, Cavalcanti, or a greater personage might first be sent to the English Court to “learn the Queen’s mind.” Dale prudently counselled Cavalcanti not to deal alone in the matter, but to have some other pair of shoulders to bear part of the responsibility if the affair fell through. This was not very encouraging, and two days afterwards AlenÇon providentially fell ill of fever. This was at once seized upon as the excuse for his not meeting the Queen; and Gondi, Count de Retz, was sent to England in the last week of August to see Elizabeth at Dover and explain the reason for AlenÇon’s absence. He took letters from the King, Catharine, and AlenÇon, and was to obtain, if possible, some assurance from the Queen. He accompanied her as far on her journey to London as Canterbury, and there took his leave with many loving but vague messages. By him Elizabeth wrote to AlenÇon (September 15th) thanking him for the visit he intends making her, and saying she considers herself fortunate that the sea cannot restrain his desire to see her. Besides the formal letter he had sent by Retz, AlenÇon had written another in much warmer terms. “He had been,” he says, “twice near his last sigh, but is now, thank God, better, although still with continual fever. He is told that there are some in France who, par finese, cotele, ou ruze, wish to bring about that she shall love him no longer. He begs her not to believe them, for if such should be the case he should die,” and he sends her a ring as a love token. This was a fair beginning of a romance between a “feather-headed” prince of eighteen and the clever Queen of forty, and for a time all looked prosperous again. Retz’s report was favourable, and Catharine was more inclined to let her son go. Dale saw the Prince, and wrote to Burleigh in October that he had “shot up” much since his sickness, and that his “colour was amended of the ruddiness it had”; but, he adds, “as for the rest, the liking or misliking is in the hands of God.”

Elizabeth had vigilant agents who kept her informed of the progress of events in France, and it was soon seen that great changes were impending there, for which it behoved her to move with caution. Charles IX., although only twenty-four, was in declining health. The Huguenots were clamorously discontented with the terms granted at Rochelle, and were demanding further concessions; and above all the “politicians,” or moderates, under the Montmorencis, were joining the Huguenots, and the combined parties were much stronger than the Guises and Catholics. Elizabeth therefore began to talk about the unfortunate pock-marks in AlenÇon’s face again. It appears that Retz had raised some difficulty about AlenÇon’s visit, and Elizabeth affected to believe that the real reason was a fear that the pock-marks were too deep, and she would dislike him if he came. She therefore sent Thomas Randolph, late in October, to see and report closely on his appearance, and to compare it with a portrait of the Prince that had been sent to her. If he found the marks very bad, he was confidentially to tell Retz that there were several obstacles to the match, which was unpopular in England, and so put off the matter. He was also to study how the impending changes and Anjou’s absence in Poland would affect AlenÇon. Anjou had delayed his departure until the sick king grew suspicious and insisted upon his going. Catharine went with him to the French frontier, and as she dared not lose sight of Navarre and AlenÇon, she took them with her. Whilst the party were in Picardy, a few miles only from the English coast, the Huguenot agents were busy planning the escape of the two younger princes to England, from whence they might rally the Protestant forces and work their will in France. As soon as AlenÇon took leave of his brother, the new King of Poland, he sent one of his valets de chambre to Elizabeth with a loving letter dated early in November, to communicate with her the details of his proposed flight. Maisonfleur also, who had now quite gained the Queen’s good graces, wrote, urging his master most emphatically not to fail this time. If, he says, you do not hasten to come this time, the Queen will have some reason to believe that all your past delays, and all the fine words you have written to her have only been so many deceptions practised upon her by the advice of Madame la Serpente, in order to draw out matters and keep them in hand for some design which nobody understands. “What will you say to that, Lucidor? You are summoned, you are entreated to hasten your coming. O! Lucidor, the most fortunate prince in the world, if only he know how to take advantage of his fortune.”87 Once more the plan of escape fell through, divulged this time by the faithless Valois wife of Henry of Navarre, and Catharine took good care thenceforward that neither her son nor her son-in-law should give her the slip.

The position was a somewhat curious one. The King and his mother were quite as anxious to bring about the marriage as were AlenÇon and the Huguenots, yet each party tried to frustrate the other’s efforts to that end. In fact, unless the marriage were effected on such terms as would enable the King to get rid of his turbulent brother and protect him in future from Huguenot aggression in France, it would have been worse than useless to him; whilst, on the other hand, it would have been equally useless to the Protestant party if it were effected on such conditions. When, therefore, La Mothe FÉnÉlon, on Randolph’s return from Picardy with a fairly favourable report, submitted the final terms for the match on the King’s behalf, Elizabeth fenced and prevaricated again. The Duke should come to England incognito and not publicly. She refused to fix a date for the visit. She alleged that the Protestants at La Rochelle were being treated treacherously; and, in her usual fashion, thus again involved the matter in clouds of uncertainty. Her reason for this was not far to seek. She knew, as we know now, that a vast Protestant conspiracy enveloped France from one end to the other, strong enough to overwhelm the Guises and seize the Government. The absence of the figurehead AlenÇon in England at such a time would have been unfavourable to the Huguenot cause, unless he had gone thither under Huguenot auspices, and was ready to sail from there at any moment to lead the great revolt. Catharine had taken him and Navarre to St. Germain with her, and it had been arranged that the general movement was to be preceded by the forcible rescue of the princes by a body of chosen horsemen under an officer named Guitry. But the intention was betrayed in time to frustrate it, panic seized the courtiers, La Mole, AlenÇon’s chosen friend, lost his head, and told the whole story to Navarre’s wife Margaret, who divulged it to her mother. Flight to Catholic Paris was the only course for Catharine and the sick King, and thither they fled during the night, the Queen-mother taking with her in her own carriage both AlenÇon and Navarre.88 Both the princes were kept prisoners for the next month or so, but the faithful La Mole and the Count de Coconas were busy the while planning their escape. Elizabeth had given a safe conduct, all was ready and the horses waiting on the 18th of April, but Catharine was on the alert and once more stopped the princes. La Mole and Coconas were seized with an Italian magician, and charged, amongst other things, with causing the illness of the King by witchcraft. Young La Mole was subjected to the most inhuman torture, his legs crushed by the boot, his flesh seared with fire, but the poor lad could only cry out in pity for himself, and declare that he had plotted nothing but his master’s flight. Coconas and others, who were probably deeper in the secret intentions of the Huguenots, made more incriminating admissions,89 and Catharine grasped the nettle firmly. Marshals Montmorenci and De CossÉ, the leaders of the “politicians,” were imprisoned, and armies were sent to crush the various Huguenot risings in the South—an easy task now that all the leaders were under lock and key. Elizabeth did not forget young La Mole in his trouble, and Dr. Dale besought his life as a favour to his Queen. But Catharine refused coldly, and referred to the Duke of Norfolk’s execution as a similar case. Elizabeth afterwards made a grievance of it against Catharine, who, she said, had promised Dale to spare La Mole’s life. The King certainly had promised AlenÇon to do so. The Duke was beside himself with sorrow and rage. He alternately stormed and implored, cast himself at his mother’s feet in an agony of tears; and at last the King promised him the life of his friend. But suddenly, and without notice, La Mole and Coconas were beheaded on the 30th of April. Then AlenÇon fell seriously ill of excitement and fear for his own life. Elizabeth evidently was also apprehensive, both as to the fate of her youthful suitor and the immediate future of the Protestant cause. She therefore sent, early in May, Thomas Leighton, Governor of Guernsey, to France, ostensibly to reassure the King with regard to an anticipated Huguenot descent upon Normandy from that island, but really to advise Catharine “to avoid violent counsels, and especially in the division of the two brothers,” and to beg Charles IX., in Elizabeth’s name, not to be hard upon AlenÇon.

The King was dying by this time, and could not receive Leighton for several days. On the 15th of May, although too ill to stand, he saw the envoy, and in reply to his message affected to be surprised at the rumours that he and his brother were bad friends. They were on the best of terms, he said; and when Leighton asked whether he might see the Duke, he replied: “Oui Jesus!” as one would say, why of course you can. But AlenÇon well knew the falseness behind it all, and was afraid to say anything; so Leighton got no confirmation from him. He afterwards saw the Queen-mother, who was somewhat indignant at Elizabeth’s meddling in her family quarrels, and retorted, sarcastically, that as “she was so careful of AlenÇon, it was an undoubted argument and good augury of some good effect to follow of the former matters that had been moved.”90 The result of Leighton’s remonstrances, however, was that AlenÇon and Navarre were “allowed to go abroad for supper for countenance sake.”

When Leighton took leave of the King at the end of May Charles was sinking, and AlenÇon was in daily fear of poison and the Bastille from the Guises and their friends. Charles IX. finally expired on the 30th of May, and almost before the breath was out of his body his mother, without any authority other than an alleged dying order of the King, seized the regency, placed Navarre and AlenÇon under strict guard in rooms with grated windows, “where none dared speak with them.” To all of Dale’s remonstrances she gave smooth answers, and “took AlenÇon about with her as a show, “but she never relaxed her hold upon him and Navarre for one moment. When her son himself asked why she was keeping him prisoner, she told him she must hold him fast until his brother Henry came from Poland. She was no doubt right in doing so, for the Huguenots were suspiciously busy, and Catharine almost came to words with Leighton about the plots of some of his suite. During the interview she had with him she pointed out how she had always desired to be friendly with his mistress, and had offered her the hand of each one of her sons in turn. AlenÇon entered the room at the moment, and his mother turned to Leighton and said, “Here is another one whom I would willingly give to her.” The Duke, who had been taught his lesson, protested his fidelity to the new King, his brother, and when he took leave Leighton whispered some words in the Duke’s ear which Catharine was curious to learn, and asked her son what Leighton had said. “He told me,” replied AlenÇon, “that Queen Elizabeth had nothing that was not at my service.”91

Lord North was sent by Elizabeth to congratulate the new King, and was present at a grand ball in his honour at Lyons. He sat next to the Queen-mother, and watched AlenÇon and his frail and beautiful sister Margaret dancing together. North’s eyes were all for the lovely Queen of Navarre, but Catharine directed his attention to her brother. “'He is not so ugly nor so ill-favoured as they say, do you think so?’ she asked. North of course agreed with her, when she replied, 'It is from no fault on our part that the marriage with your mistress has not taken place.’”92 When Lord North took leave of AlenÇon in November the prince was careful not to mention love matters, but only spoke of “service” and “duty,” but, says Dale, he wrung him by the arm, the old token between them, as one that would say “et cupio et timeo.”93 North, however, went home with the fixed idea that Catharine was making fun of his mistress. He thought her praises of Elizabeth’s beauty were suspiciously overdone, and told his Queen so. She of course was furious; and when La Mothe FÉnÉlon, instructed by the Queen-mother, once more advanced the marriage negotiations, he found the Queen on her dignity, and advised Catharine to discontinue the matter for the present.