And the shrewd Stafford, who was in daily attendance upon him, informed his sovereign that there were no symptoms of wavering on Henry’s part.  “The Catholics here,” said he, “cry hard upon the king to be a Catholic or else that he is lost, and they would persuade him that for all their calling in the Spaniards, both Paris and all other towns will yield to him, if he will but assure them that he will become a Catholic.  For my part, I think they would laugh at him when he had done so, and so I find he believeth the same, if he had mind to it, which I find no disposition in him unto it.”  The not very distant future was to show what the disposition of the bold Gascon really was in this great matter, and whether he was likely to reap nothing but ridicule from his apostasy, should it indeed become a fact.  Meantime it was the opinion of the wisest sovereign in Europe, and of one of the most adroit among her diplomatists, that there was really nothing in the rumours as to the king’s contemplated conversion.

It was, of course, unfortunate for Henry that his staunch friend and admirer Sixtus was no more.  But English diplomacy could do but little in Rome, and men were trembling with apprehension lest that arch-enemy of Elizabeth, that devoted friend of Philip, the English Cardinal Allen, should be elected to the papal throne.  “Great ado is made in Rome,” said Stafford, “by the Spanish ambassador, by all corruptions and ways that may be, to make a pope that must needs depend and be altogether at the King of Spain’s devotion.  If the princes of Italy put not their hands unto it, no doubt they will have their wills, and I fear greatly our villainous Allen, for, in my judgment, I can comprehend no man more with reason to be tied altogether to the King of Spain’s will than he.  I pray God send him either to God or the Devil first.  An evil-minded Englishman, tied to the King of Spain by necessity, finding almost four millions of money, is a dangerous beast for a pope in this time.”

Cardinal Allen was doomed to disappointment.  His candidacy was not successful, and, after the brief reign—­thirteen days long—­of Urban vii, Sfondrato wore the triple tiara with the title of Gregory xiv.  Before the year closed, that pontiff had issued a brief urging the necessity of extirpating heresy in France, and of electing a Catholic king, and asserting his determination to send to Paris—­that bulwark of the Catholic faith—­not empty words alone but troops, to be paid fifteen thousand crowns of gold each month, so long as the city should need assistance.  It was therefore probable that the great leader of the Huguenots, now that he had been defeated by Farnese, and that his capital was still loyal to the League, would obtain less favour—­however conscientiously he might instruct himself—­from Gregory xiv. than he had begun to find in the eyes of Sixtus after the triumph of Ivry.