Certainly the Bearnese was the most candid of men.  It was this very candour, this freedom from bigotry, this want of conviction, and this openness to conviction, that made him so dangerous and caused so much anxiety to Philip.  The Roman Church might or might not be strengthened by the re-conversion of the legitimate heir of France, but it was certain that the claims of Philip and the Infanta to the proprietorship of that kingdom would be weakened by the process.  While the Spanish king knew himself to be inspired in all his actions by a single motive, the maintenance of the supremacy of the Roman Church, he was perfectly aware that the Prince of Bearne was not so single-hearted nor so conscientious as himself.

The Prince of Bearne—­heretic, son of heretics, great chieftain of heretics—­was supposed capable of becoming orthodox whenever the Pope would accept his conversion.  Against this possibility Philip struggled with all his strength.

Since Pope Sixtus V., who had a weakness for Henry, there had been several popes.  Urban VII., his immediate successor, had reigned but thirteen days.  Gregory XIV. (Sfondrato) had died 15th October, 1591, ten months after his election.  Fachinetti, with the title of Innocent ix., had reigned two months, from 29th October to 29th December, 1591.  He died of “Spanish poison,” said Envoy Umton, as coolly as if speaking of gout, or typhus, or any other recognised disorder.  Clement VIII. (Aldobrandini) was elected 30th January, 1592.  He was no lover of Henry, and lived in mortal fear of Philip, while it must be conceded that the Spanish ambassador at Rome was much given to brow-beating his Holiness.  Should he dare to grant that absolution which was the secret object of the Bearnese, there was no vengeance, hinted the envoy, that Philip would not wreak on the holy father.  He would cut off his supplies from Naples and Sicily, and starve him and all-his subjects; he would frustrate all his family schemes, he would renounce him, he would unpope him, he would do anything that man and despot could do, should the great shepherd dare to re-admit this lost sheep, and this very black sheep, into the fold of the faithful.

As for Henry himself, his game—­for in his eyes it was nothing but a game—­lay every day plainer and plainer before him.  He was indispensable to the heretics.  Neither England, nor Holland, nor Protestant Germany, could renounce him, even should he renounce “the religion.”  Nor could the French Huguenots exist without that protection which, even although Catholic, he could still extend to them when he should be accepted as king by the Catholics.

Hereditary monarch by French law and history, released from his heresy by the authority that could bind and loose, purged as with hyssop and washed whiter than snow, it should go hard with him if Philip, and Farnese, and Mayenne, and all the pikemen and reiters they might muster, could keep him very long from the throne of his ancestors.