especially from every one in France.  The king expressed great anxiety lest the Huguenots should hear of it, and the agent observed that any suspicion of peace negotiations would make great disturbance among the heretics, as one of the conditions of the king’s absolution by the pope was supposed to be that he should make war upon his Protestant subjects.  On his return from Rouen the emissary made a visit to Monlevet, marshal of the camp to Henry iv. and a Calvinist.  There was much conversation about peace, in the course of which Monlevet observed, “We are much afraid of you in negotiation, for we know that you Spaniards far surpass us in astuteness.”

“Nay,” said Balvena, “I will only repeat the words of the Emperor Charles V.—­’The Spaniards seem wise, and are madmen; the French seem madmen, and are wise.’”

A few weeks later the archduke sent Balvena again to Rouen.  He had another interview with the king, at which not only Villeroy and other Catholics were present, but Monlevet also.  This proved a great obstacle to freedom of conversation.  The result was the same as before.

There were strong professions of a desire on the part of the king for a peace but it was for a general peace; nothing further.

On the 4th December Balvena was sent for by the king before daylight, just as he was mounting his horse for the chase.

“Tell his Highness,” said Henry, “that I am all frankness, and incapable of dissimulation, and that I believe him too much a man of honour to wish to deceive me.  Go tell him that I am most anxious for peace, and that I deeply regret the defeat that has been sustained against the Turk.  Had I been there I would have come out dead or victorious.  Let him arrange an agreement between us, so that presto he may see me there with my brave nobles, with infantry and with plenty of Switzers.  Tell him that I am his friend:  Begone.  Be diligent.”

On the last day but two of the year, the archduke, having heard this faithful report of Henry’s affectionate sentiments, sent him a suit of splendid armour, such as was then made better in Antwerp than anywhere else, magnificently burnished of a blue colour, according to an entirely new fashion.

With such secret courtesies between his most Catholic Majesty’s vicegerent and himself was Henry’s league with the two Protestant powers accompanied.

Exactly at the same epoch Philip was again preparing an invasion of the queen’s dominions.  An armada of a hundred and twenty-eight ships, with a force of fourteen thousand infantry and three thousand horse, had been assembled during the autumn of this year at Lisbon, notwithstanding the almost crushing blow that the English and Hollanders had dealt the king’s navy so recently at Cadiz.  This new expedition was intended for Ireland, where it was supposed that the Catholics would be easily roused.  It was also hoped that the King of Scots might be induced to embrace this opportunity of wreaking vengeance on his mother’s destroyer.  “He was on the watch the last time that my armada went forth against the English,” said Philip, “and he has now no reason to do the contrary, especially if he remembers that here is a chance to requite the cruelty which was practised on his mother.”