Europe in the Sixteenth Century 1494-1598 Part 34

| Amiens recovered. Sept. 19, 1597.

| Philip agrees to a truce.

| The Duc de Mercur submits. Mar. 20, 1598.

Yet what Henry gained with one hand he was, with his usual recklessness, ready to spend with the other. Much of the money thus obtained was being thrown away on expensive festivities in Paris, when the news suddenly arrived that Porto Carrero, the Governor of Doullens, had seized the important town of Amiens by a clever _coup de main_ (March 11, 1597). 'Enough,' said Henry, 'of playing the King of France; 'tis time to be the King of Navarre again.' Biron was despatched to besiege Amiens forthwith. In June, the King followed himself with an army, in which the presence of Montmorenci, Mayenne, and epernon showed that the old factions had been well-nigh extinguished. The English and the Dutch also sent reinforcements, in pursuance of a treaty of alliance which they had made in the previous year (August-October, 1596). On September 3, Porto Carrero died. The Archduke Albert, unable to raise supplies even on credit, owing to Philip's late act of repudiation, could not advance to the relief of the garrison till September 12; then, finding himself in the presence of a superior force, he retreated 'like a priest,' and on September 19, 1597, Amiens was at last recovered. Henry now determined to take advantage of his success to negotiate with Spain. Philip did not refuse his offer. Tortured by disease, knowing that his end was approaching, that Spain could no longer bear the strain of war, and that his feeble son was not likely to succeed where he had failed, he was anxious to leave his country at peace. He accordingly agreed to a truce, and to hold a conference at Vervins in the following January for finally settling the terms of peace. The affairs of Brittany Henry was determined to settle without any foreign interference; and this he succeeded in doing without drawing the sword. The Bretons, despairing of successful resistance now that the aid of Spain was withdrawn, deserted the Duke of Mercur, who was forced to come to terms at Angers (March 20). He surrendered the governors.h.i.+p of Brittany, with the hand of his daughter, to Caesar, the illegitimate son of the King by Gabrielle d'Estrees, and received a pension in return. Thus at last all resistance had ended, and France was once more united.

| The Edict of Nantes. April 15, 1598.

The King was now in a position to attend to the grievances of the Huguenots. On entering Paris he had republished the Edict of 1576, with the amendments added thereto by the treaties of Bergerac and Fleix. Since he could no longer be their Protector, nor allow any other to hold that position, he had also authorised the Huguenots to organise themselves into a federative system for defence, and ten provinces had been formed, each with its elected a.s.sembly and a General Council of ten nominated by the a.s.semblies. But the Huguenots were not satisfied; they complained that these concessions were not sufficient, and that they were often violated. All members of the League, whether n.o.ble or town, who came to terms were allowed to forbid the exercise of the Protestant religion within their jurisdiction, and what security had the Huguenots that one who could so lightly change his own religion would care or dare to protect that of others? They therefore had demanded more formal ratification of the privileges already granted them, an extension of the system of 'Chambres mi-parties' to all the 'Parlements' of France, and admission to all offices. The King, in spite of the grave discontent which at times threatened to break out in open war, had hitherto refused to satisfy their demands; until the Catholics were completely reconciled such a policy might be dangerous, and certainly would be futile, since Henry was not strong enough to enforce his promises. Now, however, that he was really master of France, he had neither the excuse nor the wish to delay any longer. Negotiations had, indeed, been going on for some time, and finally led to the Edict of Nantes, which was published on April 15, 1598. The clauses of this famous Edict followed closely on the lines of the Treaty of Bergerac of 1577. The Huguenots were permitted to hold divine service in all towns specified by that treaty, or in which it had been held in 1596 and 1597; and besides this, in one town in each bailiwick and in the fiefs of Protestant n.o.bles. In these privileged towns they were also allowed to found colleges and schools, and to print books. Paris, however, as before, with a circuit of five leagues, was especially exempted till 1606, when the King allowed a temple to be built at Charenton, five miles distant. Huguenot ministers were to be exempt from military service, and the King promised to contribute an annual sum for their support; while the Protestants, on their part, were to pay t.i.thes. In the 'Parlements' of Paris, Rouen, and Rennes, special 'Chambres de l'edit'--one of the judges of which was to be a Protestant--were to be established to try cases in which Huguenots were concerned; while three 'Chambres mi-parties' at Castres, Bordeaux, and Gap were to exercise a similar jurisdiction in the south. Finally, the Huguenots were to be allowed to hold synods, to have admission to all colleges and schools; all offices were to be open to them, and they were to suffer in no way for their religion. They were to hold the eight cities they possessed for eight years, but to allow the Catholic wors.h.i.+p to continue there. Considering that the Huguenots did not number more than one-twelfth of the population of France, the terms they thus obtained were as favourable as they could expect, and all that was perhaps possible in the existing condition of France.

But the principle on which the Edict was based was radically faulty. It can scarcely be called an Edict of general toleration, for no other religion but that of Calvinism was allowed. Moreover, the concession of the privilege of wors.h.i.+p to individual n.o.bles, and to congregations in special towns, tended to accentuate the independence and isolation of the Huguenots, and to perpetuate the centrifugal tendencies, both of feudalism and of federative republicanism, which the wars of religion had intensified, and which were yet to give trouble to France. As long as there was a King on the throne willing and able to enforce the Edict, the compromise continued fairly satisfactory. But after he was gone, the chances that the Edict would be permanent day by day became less. The Huguenots, partly in self-defence, partly in pursuance of political aims which the Edict had fostered, attempted to form those towns which had been granted them into a semi-independent federation; and when, to check this, Richelieu deprived them of these pledges for the fulfilment of the Edict, he left them to fall defenceless before the tyranny and bigotry of Louis XIV.

| Peace of Vervins. May 2, 1598.

While Henry was thus removing the last traces of opposition in France, the negotiations with Spain had been going on; and, on May 2, the Peace of Vervins was signed. Spain evacuated all the conquests she had made in France during the last war with the exception of Cambray; Henry, on his part, restoring the county of Charolais. The Duke of Savoy came to terms at the same time; he surrendered Berre, the only place he held in Provence; while the question as to the Marquisate of Saluces, which he had seized in 1588, was referred to the arbitration of the Pope.[84] Neither the Dutch nor the English were included in the Peace. The Dutch refused to enter into any treaty which did not recognise their independence, while Elizabeth was not unwilling to see the war continue between France and Spain. She had even attempted to make capital out of the negotiations, going so far as to suggest to Philip that he should cede Calais in exchange for Brille and Flus.h.i.+ng, which she still held. Henry accordingly contented himself with securing the right of his allies to become parties to the treaty within six months.

Conclusion.

| Condition of Europe at the Peace of Vervins.

| Decline of Spain.

The Treaty of Vervins scarcely made any alteration in the political geography of Europe. Its importance lies rather in the changed conditions which accompanied it, and followed it. A few months after the signing of that treaty, Philip II. died (September 12, 1598) in his seventy-second year, at the Escurial--that magnificent though somewhat strange mixture of 'a palace, a monastery, and a tomb,' which is the chief architectural monument of his reign. Had Philip been a wiser man, he might have retained the obedience of the Netherlands, and profited by their industry and their colonies. He might have developed the resources and the const.i.tutional liberties of his country, and enriched her by commerce with America. He might have turned her arms against the Turk, made himself master of the Mediterranean, and left Spain consolidated and prosperous. Intent, however, on more magnificent schemes, he had failed disastrously. His attempt to lead the Catholic reaction, and to re-establish the unity of the Church on the basis of Spanish supremacy, had ended in disaster. The defeat of the Armada had saved England from both Spain and Rome. The United Provinces had virtually won their religious and political freedom, and Henry IV. had bowed the Spaniard from his doors. Meanwhile Spain, exhausted by the constant drain which the vast attempts involved, and ruined by the disastrous policy pursued at home (cf. ch. vii.), was fast declining. After Philip's death her royal race degenerated rapidly; and with a shrinking population, paralysed industries, and attenuated resources, she was forced to step aside and leave the struggle for supremacy to others.

| Successes of the Catholic Reaction.

And yet the Catholic reaction, of which Philip had been the leading spirit, had not been without its successes. If England, the United Netherlands, and the Scandinavian kingdoms had decisively broken away from Rome, Protestantism had been completely crushed out in Spain and in Italy, and in 1587, Catholicism was finally restored in Poland by Sigismund. In France, if the Huguenots had secured toleration, that toleration was not to last; and Catholicism had not only captured the King, but had again been recognised as the religion of the State. In Germany, too, the advance of Protestantism had, since the middle of the century, been arrested. The Jesuits had by this time made their influence felt, not only by their missionary and educational work among the people, but also on the policy of the Princes. In Bavaria, Albert III. (1550-1579) drove out the Protestants, and made his Duchy a stronghold of Catholicism. In 1576, Rudolf II. succeeded his father, Maximilian II., in the most important of the Austrian dominions,[85]

and was elected Emperor. Maximilian had been half-inclined towards Lutheranism. Rudolf, educated under the influence of his mother, the daughter of Charles V., and subsequently at the Spanish Court, was strongly Catholic. He dismissed the Protestant preachers from Vienna, and supported a Catholic policy in the Empire. The advance of Catholicism was also favoured by the dissensions between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, who were respectively headed by the Electors of Saxony and of the Palatinate. Under these circ.u.mstances, quarrels over the controverted clauses of the Peace of Augsburg were inevitable (cf. pp. 248-9). The Catholics questioned the right of the Bishop of Magdeburg to a seat in the Diet, and, in 1581, had driven Gebhard Truchsess from his Electoral See of Cologne, because these two prelates had embraced Protestantism.

| Disorganised condition of Germany.

Day by day the relations between the adherents of the two creeds became more strained. Already the Thirty Years' War was looming in the distance--a war in which Protestantism was indeed to hold her own, but at the price of the destruction of German nationality and unity, almost of German independence, and of the crippling of national prosperity and intellectual growth for more than a century.

| Condition of France.

| Revival of the Royal authority.

France, it is true, had suffered severely from her civil war of thirty-six years. Trade and industry had been ruined, and her finances heavily strained. The venality of her administrative system had been increased. The Estates-General and the 'Parlements,' the representatives of const.i.tutional life, had been discredited; the former by the extreme views it had at times adopted, both by their subservience to the League. The power and self-importance of the n.o.bles had been increased during the civil wars, and by the system adopted by Henry IV. of buying off their opposition. The desire for federative republicanism had grown with the growth of Calvinism. All these things had been the results of the religious wars. Yet after all, it was the royal power and prestige which in the end had benefited most from the internal discords. It was Henry who had given his country peace at last, and thereby earned the grat.i.tude of his people; he it was who chiefly gained by the discredit into which the organs of const.i.tutional life had fallen, and by the divisions and dissensions of his subjects. The n.o.bles, indeed, were dangerous, but Henry IV. was successful in defeating their intrigues. His able, though self-sufficient and egotistical minister, Sully, reorganised the finances, and did something to check the venality and corruption which existed. The marvellous recuperative powers of the country came to his a.s.sistance; and France under the clever, though somewhat cynical, rule of her great King became once more a first-rate Power. Had Henry lived longer, or had he been succeeded by a capable son, the Thirty Years' War would probably not have occurred, or would have been ended sooner. The House of Hapsburg might have been humbled to the dust, and France might have established a dangerous supremacy in Europe. The a.s.sa.s.sination of Henry IV. in 1610 prevented this; France, on his death, became the victim of a weak minority, and a troubled regency; and Europe was not threatened with a French supremacy until the reign of Louis XIV.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] Probably a corruption of the German word 'Eidgenossen'

(confederates), first applied to the Protestant party in Geneva.

[81] Cf. Appendix I. for meaning of this.

[82] Henry held Lower Navarre and the Princ.i.p.ality of Bearn in his own right, and, as fiefs, the Duchies of Vendome, Beaumont, and Albret; the Counties of Bigorre, Armagnac, Rouergue, Perigord, and Marle; the Viscounties of Limoges, and other lords.h.i.+ps. See Map of France.

[83] While Sully had been doing something to replenish the exchequer of King Henry, his antagonist, Philip, attempted a more summary method. On November 20, 1596, he publicly revoked all a.s.signments, or mortgages by which the taxes on the royal domain had been pledged for money advanced to him. The pretext for this wholesale repudiation was that his exertions for Christianity had reduced him to beggary, while the money-lenders had been growing rich at his expense. The deed, however, produced a panic. The chief merchants and bankers suspended payment, and the credit of Spain received a shock from which it did not easily recover.

[84] The Marquisate of Saluzzo in Piedmont had been ceded to France by the Treaty of Cateau Cambresis, cf. p. 257. Henry IV.

in 1601 exchanged it with the Duke of Savoy for Bresse, Bugey, and Gex.

[85] His brothers, Ferdinand and Charles, received Tyrol and Styria. These were reunited to Austria proper under Ferdinand II., and the Austrian dominions were declared indivisible, 1621.

APPENDIX I

THE FRENCH CONSt.i.tUTION IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.

Cf. Gasquet, _Inst.i.tutions Politiques et Sociales de la France_. Cheruel, _Dictionnaire Historique des Inst.i.tutions de la France_.

I. Central Administration.--_Conseil du Roi_ (King's Council), or _Conseil d'etat_ (Council of State). The supreme Executive Council of the realm. It also exercised _Legislative_ powers through its Ordinances, and high _Judicial_ power until organisation of the Grand Conseil.

=1.= Sometimes heard ultimate appeals from the Sovereign Law Courts.

=2.= Evoked cases from other Courts in which public interests were involved.

=3.= Heard complaints against the royal officials. These Judicial Powers were subsequently transferred to--

=a.= The Grand Conseil.--Finally organised in 1497, to decide questions of disputed jurisdiction between the other sovereign Courts, but never very important. Composed of the Constable (the Chief Military Officer), the Chancellor (the Supreme Civil Officer), the Princes of the Blood, Officers of State.

=.= The Conseil Prive or des parties. A Judicial Committee of the Council erected in the seventeenth century.

A number of clerks (Maitres de Requetes) under the Conseil du Roi, worked various Departmental Councils, such as those of War and Finance.

II. Central Courts of Justice.

_A._ The Parlement of Paris.--The Central Judicial Court of the Realm, sharing with the Grand Conseil the right of hearing appeals from all subordinate Courts.

It also (1) issued Arrets, or Injunctions.

(2) Registered all royal ordinances, treaties of peace, and other public doc.u.ments; and, from the reign of Louis XI., claimed the right of refusing to register--a right which gradually ripened into a right of veto. The King, however, could always override its veto by holding a 'Lit de Justice'--_i.e._ by summoning the Parlement, in solemn a.s.sembly, before the Peers of France and the officers of State, and ordering it to register.

Its members held office for life, and were, since the reign of Louis XI., irremovable, unless convicted of some penal offence. As members.h.i.+p was generally purchased from the King, they became saleable, and, after the reign of Henry IV., practically hereditary.

The Parlement was divided into five Courts:--

1. _The Grand Chambre._--This heard all appeals of great importance, and cases of first instance which concerned the Peers; cases of treason; and criminal charges against royal officials and members of the Parlement.

2. _Chambre des Requetes._--Decided smaller cases of first instance.

3. _Chambre des Enquetes._--Heard smaller cases of appeal, and prepared the more important appeals for the Grand Chambre.