It was the recommencement of religious civil war, with more deadliness than ever.  The King of Navarre left no stone unturned to convince everybody, friends and enemies, great lords and commonalty, Frenchmen and foreigners, that this recurrence of war was not his doing, and that the Leaguers forced it upon him against his wish and despite of the justice of his cause.  He wrote to Henry III., “Monseigneur, as soon as the originators of these fresh disturbances had let the effects appear of their ill-will towards your Majesty and your kingdom, you were pleased to write to me the opinion you had formed, with very good title, of their intentions; you told me that you knew, no matter what pretext they assumed, that they had designs against your person and your crown, and that they desired their own augmentation and aggrandizement at your expense and to your detriment.  Such were the words of your letters, Mon seigneur, and you did me the honor, whilst recognizing the connection between my fortunes and those of your Majesty, to add expressly that they were compassing my ruin together with your own. . . .  And now, Monseigneur, when I hear it suddenly reported that your Majesty has made a treaty of peace with those who have risen up against your service, providing that your edict be broken, your loyal subjects banished, and the conspirators armed, and armed with your power and your authority against me, who have the honor of belonging to you, I leave your Majesty to judge in what a labyrinth I find myself. . . .  If it is I whom they seek, or if under my shadow (on my account) they trouble this realm, I have begged that, without henceforth causing the orders and estates of this realm to suffer for it, and without the intervention of any army, home or foreign, this quarrel be decided in the Duke of Guise’s person and my own, one to one, two to two, ten to ten, twenty to twenty, in any number that the said Lord of Guise shall think proper, with the arms customary amongst gentlemen of honor. ...  It will be a happiness for us, my cousin [Henry de Conde] and myself, to deliver, at the price of our blood, the king our sovereign lord from the travails and trials that are a-brewing for him, his kingdom from trouble and confusion, his noblesse from ruin, and all his people from extreme misery and calamity.”

The Duke of Guise respectfully declined, at the same time that he thanked the King of Navarre for the honor done him, saying that he could not accept the offer, as he was maintaining the cause of religion, and not a private quarrel.  On his refusal, war appeared to everybody, and in fact became, inevitable.  At his re-engagement in it, the King of Navarre lost no time about informing his friends at home and his allies abroad, the noblesse, the clergy, and the third estate of France, the city of Paris, the Queen of England. the Protestant princes of Germany, and the Swiss cantons, of all he had done to avoid it; he evidently laid great store upon making his conduct