37. Francis II.
CHAPTER XXXVII. Francis II. (1559-1560)
Henry left four sons, of whom the eldest was between fifteen and sixteen, and he was crowned king, and is known as Francis II. Besides being so young, he was in very bad health, and weak and foolish by nature, so that he was quite unable to govern for himself. But there were plenty of people ready to advise and help him, the only question was which of them (would be able to make him) listen (to them). His mother, Catherine of Medicis, and his wife Mary Stuart, who had been betrothed to him when he was five years old, and married to him a short time before he became king, were the advisers to whom he listened most. Mary, as I have before said, was the niece of the Duke of Guise and his brother, and did whatever they wished. Catherine was also their friend, because she thought that they were stronger than any one else in the kingdom, and that it would be dangerous to have them for enemies. They persuaded her and the king to make them the chief ministers in the country; and it was settled that the Duke of Guise should have the management of everything belonging to war; that his brother the cardinal should be in charge of all the money and treasure of the kingdom; and that the other offices of government should be taken away from the enemies of the Guises and given to men who were their friends.
Francis II. reigned only for one year. During that time France had no war with any other country, but there was a great deal of what was almost civil war in France itself. The great question to be settled was how the Huguenots were to be treated. The king had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, the Guises and some other great people in the country were Roman Catholics also, and most anxious to put a stop to heresy. But the number of Huguenots or heretics was growing greater every month. Many of the chief men in France had taken their side. At this time there were so many important people about the king, some his friends and some his enemies, that it is best to mention them all at once to prevent confusion.
There were three sets of brothers, of whom the most important were the Guises. The Duke of Guise was the eldest of this set, the Cardinal of Lorraine the second, and there were four others; they were all Roman Catholics, friends of the Pope and of Spain. The king's wife Mary was one of the same family. The constable Montmorency was also a Roman Catholic, and was secretly a friend of the King of Spain, though at first he was inclined to help the Protestants from a dislike to the great power of the Guises. On the Protestant side there were three brothers, of whom Coligny was one; his younger brother was a soldier, the eldest a cardinal; they were all three brave honest men, and the nephews of the constable. There were two other Huguenot brothers, the elder of whom was looked on as the head of all the Huguenots. These were the King of Navarre and Louis, Prince of Condé. The King of Navarre was a weak, changeable man, and did his friends as much harm as good, for they could not depend upon him, as there was always a chance of his being won over by their enemies and suddenly leaving them when they wanted him most. His brother Condé was brave, ambitious, and warlike, but poor, without any place in the Government to make him a person of importance. These two were rivals of the Guises, who were always afraid lest Catherine of Medicis should make friends with them, and govern by their help instead of by that of the Guises.
Catherine was indeed very doubtful which side to take, and whose advice to listen to. At first the Guises had everything their own way, and a very bad way it was for the Huguenots. Laws were made to stop all meetings by day or night, and saying that every one who went to any should be put to death. This was to prevent the Huguenots from holding any services, which, as they had no churches, were of course only meetings either out of doors, or in the house of one of their own party. Every day some of them were thrown into prison or driven out of the country. Stories were invented about wicked things of all kinds which the Huguenots were supposed to do when they met together, and the common people were set against them as much as possible.
At the corners of the streets in Paris, little images of saints were set up, and whenever any one passed one of these without taking off his hat, or stopping to make a prayer to it, the people cried out that he was a heretic, and often attacked him or beat him, or carried him off to prison (on the spot). (I have said before that) one of the differences between Protestants or Huguenots and Roman Catholics was that the Roman Catholics thought it right to pray to saints and to the Virgin Mary, and the Protestants thought it wrong and foolish.
The Huguenot minister whom Henry II. had put into prison at the end of his reign, was tried and put to death.
The Guises had one great difficulty in governing the country, there was very little money in the treasury. They looked for ways of making more, and found some that were unjust; they persuaded the king to refuse to pay back money which had been lent to the kings who had gone before him, and which he was bound by law to pay. Francis gave orders that (every one) who had come to the court to ask for payment of debts, or for rewards of any kind, or for favours, should go away within twenty-four hours, and that if they did not go they should be hanged. Most of the people who had lent money to the kings were noblemen; they were very angry at being treated in this way, and knowing it was the Guises who had given the young king bad advice, they all joined together against them, and resolved to take away their power (from them). In order to be strong enough to do this, they joined with the Huguenots, who had been still worse treated than they. The Huguenots had been taught that it was never right to resist a ruler, however bad or unjust he might be; but the nobles told them that the young king was their real ruler, and that what they wished to do was to set Francis free from the Guises, who were making him do whatever they liked, and treated him as a slave.
A leader was wanted; and the King of Navarre, who was the most important man of the Huguenot party, might have seemed the right chief for them to have; but he had been so much frightened by a letter from the King of Spain, promising to help the young king and the Guises, that he did not dare to do anything against them. His brother Condé was bolder, and agreed to be their leader, but not openly. He was to have nothing to do with the rising up which they were planning, but when all had been done, the Guises made prisoners and the young king in the power of the Huguenots, Condé was to take the place which the Guises now held, to guard the young king, and advise him as to ruling the country. Condé, as he was not expected to take any share beforehand in what went on, was called the dumb captain, and a gentleman of the south of France was found to be captain in the meanwhile, and make necessary preparations. The plan was to take the town, in which were the king and the Guises, without fighting, if possible, if not, by force. All would be easy if the plot could be kept a secret, but among the many people to whom the secret had been told, was one who was at heart a Roman Catholic, and who went to the Guises and told them all he knew.
They at once took the king to a stronger town, which had a castle to defend it, and they arranged that soldiers should be brought into the country, and should be kept near to the town, ready to gather together at once as soon as they were sent for.
When the Huguenots at last made their attack, they found every one ready to meet them. Many of them were seized separately and carried off as prisoners, others were attacked by the king's soldiers; their leader fell in the fight. Those who were left alive joined in one body and attacked the town openly, but they were driven back and could do nothing more than fly from their lines, followed by their cruel enemies. The Prince of Condé, when he saw they had not succeeded, saved his life by declaring that he had had nothing to do with them, and offering to fight any one who did not believe him. The Guises certainly did not believe him, but as they were afraid to do him any harm, they did not say so, and he went away unhurt, while every one who had had a share in the plot was hunted down by the soldiers, thrown into prison, and put to death without any trial.
It was a new thing in France to see men put to death without anything being declared in public as to their crime, their punishment, or even their names. Some were hanged, some drowned, some beheaded; and it explains the hatred many people had for the Guises, that they and the great people of the court, both men and women, used to look on at the executions as if they were a show. They always happened outside the palace windows, and the young king and his little brothers were brought to look on as well, and at last grew so well accustomed to the sight, that they laughed at it and thought it an amusement. The people had been told that the Huguenots had wished to take the king prisoner and to do harm to the Roman Catholics, while the Huguenots themselves declared they had only wished to get rid of the Guises. This rising up, which ended so badly, is called the Conspiracy of Amboise.
After this the Guises had as much power as ever, but Catherine, the king's mother, was now afraid of their becoming so strong that she would be obliged to do all they wished, and she began to turn towards the Huguenots. She had for chancellor a wise and prudent man named l'Hôpital, who wished to make some plan by which the Huguenots and Catholics might both live peaceably in France without hurting one another; and he persuaded the queen-mother, as she was called, not to take the side of either, but to stay between the two, and try to prevent cruelty on either side. The Huguenots had long been asking that the States-General might meet to settle the question of religion. The Guises had at first disliked this idea, but at last they agreed to it, hoping that the States-General would decide as they wished, and the deputies were commanded to meet at Orleans in a few months' time. The Guises had a plan to make use of this meeting to take prisoners their two enemies, the King of Navarre and his brother Louis of Condé. They were invited to come to the States-General, and as they had always specially asked that the council should be held, they did not like to refuse, though many people warned them that the Guises were not to be trusted, and that if they went to court some harm would probably happen to them. However, they went on boldly, and refused to take with them a body of horsemen who had come together on purpose to defend them. As soon as they arrived at Orleans, and while they were talking to the king in his private room, some captains of the guards came in and carried away Condé to prison. The King of Navarre was also treated as a prisoner, for he was forbidden to go out of his own house, and was not allowed to see any one without leave.
The Guises wished to do worse than this. They had arranged that the young Francis should have a meeting with the King of Navarre, and while they were talking give a signal to some murderers who would be waiting close at hand, and would put him to death at once; but when the moment came Francis could not make up his mind to give the signal, and the King of Navarre escaped for the time. Both brothers would most likely have been put to death, but that Francis II. was suddenly taken ill. He died after a few days' illness, and the great power of the Guises came to an end at his death, as their niece Mary would now no longer be Queen of France. No one but the Guises had wished for the death of Condé and his brother, and they were at once both set free. Francis's death was a happy thing for the country, for the Guises had meant to make use of the States-General for getting rid of all their enemies. They had meant to ask every deputy to take an oath that they believed the Catholic faith, and those who would not do so were to lose all their titles and wealth, and to be burned as heretics. They would then have done the same all over France, taking the oath to every town and putting to death all who would not agree to take it. The consequence would probably have been a civil war, and indeed this was what came at last, but the death of Francis II. put it off for a while.
