“But God is a just God,” wrote Sir Edward Stafford, “and if with all things past, that be true that the king (’videlicet’ Henry iv.) yesterday assured me to be true, and that both his ambassador from Venice writ to him and Monsieur de Luxembourg from Rome, that the Count Olivarez had made a great instance to the pope (Sixtus V.) a little afore his death, to permit his master to marry his daughter, no doubt God will not leave it long unpunished.”

Such was the horrible tale which was circulated and believed in by Henry the Great of France and by eminent nobles and ambassadors, and at least thought possible by the English envoy.  By such a family arrangement it was obvious that the conflicting claims of father and daughter to the proprietorship of France would be ingeniously adjusted, and the children of so well assorted a marriage might reign in undisputed legitimacy over France and Spain, and the rest of the world-monarchy.  Should the king decide on the whole against this matrimonial project, should Innocent or Clement prove as intractable as Sixtus, then it would be necessary to decide among various candidates for the Infanta’s hand.

In Mayenne’s Opinion the Duke of Guise was likely to be the man; but there is little doubt that Philip, in case these more cherished schemes should fail, had made up his mind—­so far as he ever did make up his mind upon anything—­to select his nephew the Archduke Ernest, brother of the Emperor Rudolph, for his son-in-law.  But it was not necessary to make an immediate choice.  His quiver was full of archdukes, any one of whom would be an eligible candidate, while not one of them would be likely to reject the Infanta with France on her wedding-finger.  Meantime there was a lion in the path in the shape of Henry of Navarre.

Those who disbelieve in the influence of the individual on the fate of mankind may ponder the possible results to history and humanity, had the dagger of Jacques Clement entered the stomach of Henry iv. rather than of Henry iii. in the summer of 1589, or the perturbations in the world’s movements that might have puzzled philosophers had there been an unsuspected mass of religious conviction revolving unseen in the mental depths of the Bearnese.  Conscience, as it has from time to time exhibited itself on this planet of ours, is a powerful agent in controlling political combinations; but the instances are unfortunately not rare, so far as sublunary progress is concerned, in which the absence of this dominant influence permits a prosperous rapidity to individual careers.  Eternal honour to the noble beings, true chieftains among men, who have forfeited worldly power or sacrificed life itself at the dictate of religious or moral conviction—­even should the basis of such conviction appear to some of us unsafe or unreal.  Shame on the tongue which would malign or ridicule the martyr or the honest convert to any form of Christian faith!  But who can discover aught that is inspiring to the sons of men in conversions—­whether of princes or of peasants—­wrought, not at risk of life and pelf, but for the sake of securing and increasing the one and the other?