Chapter 24

During the siege of Paris, some conferences had been held between the chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The Catholics of the king's party began to complain of his perseverance in Calvinism; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion, especially his confidential friend and minister Rosny, represented to him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in the Roman Church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at St. Denis, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we cannot but suppose, the monarch's conversion was owing to political motives, the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human tribunal; politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most beneficial steps ever taken toward the pacification and renewal of prosperity of a great kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at Chartres, and in 1594 Paris opened her gates to him. He had just been received into the capital, where he was conspicuously manifesting his beneficence and zeal for the public good, when he was wounded in the throat by John Chatel, a young fanatic. When the assassin was questioned, he avowed the doctrine of tyrannicide, and quoted the sermons of the Jesuits in his justification. That society therefore was banished by the Parliament.

For two years after his ostensible conversion, the king was obliged daily to perform the most humiliating ceremonies, by way of penance; and it was not till 1594 that he was absolved by Clement VIII. The Leaguers then had no further pretext for rebellion, and the League necessarily was dissolved. Its chiefs exacted high terms for their submission; but the civil wars had so exhausted the kingdom, that tranquillity could not be too dearly purchased; and Henry was faithful to all his promises, even after his authority was so firmly established, that he might have broken his word with safety to all but his own conscience and honor. Although the obligations which he had to discharge were most burdensome, he found means to relieve his people, and make his kingdom prosper. The Duke de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and the Duke de Mercoeur in Brittany, were the last to protract an unavailing resistance; but the former was reduced in 1596, and the latter in 1598, and thenceforth France enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace till Henry's death. But the Protestants gave him almost as much uneasiness as the Catholic Leaguers. He had granted liberty of conscience to the former; a measure which was admitted to be necessary by the prudent even among the latter. Nevertheless, either from vexation at his having abjured their religion, from the violence of party zeal, or disgust at being no longer the objects of royal preference, the Calvinists preferred their demands in so seditious a tone, as stopped little short of a rebellious one. While on the road to Brittany, he determined to avoid greater evils by timely compromise. The edict of Nantes was then promulgated, authorizing the public exercise of their religion in several towns, granting them the right of holding offices, putting them in possession of certain places for eight years, as pledges for their security, and establishing salaries for their ministers. The clergy and preachers demurred, but to no purpose; the Parliament ceased to resist the arguments of the Prince, when he represented to them as magistrates, that the peace of the state and the prosperity of the Church must be inseparable. At the same time he endeavored to convince the bigots among the priesthood on both sides, that the love of country and the performance of civil and political duties may be completely reconciled with difference of worship.

But it would be unjust to attribute these enlightened views to Henry, without noticing that he had a friend as well as minister in Rosny, best known as the Duke de Sully, who probably suggested many of his wisest measures, and at all events superintended their execution, and did his best to prevent or retrieve his sovereign's errors by uncompromising honesty of advice and remonstrance. The allurements of pleasure were powerful over the enthusiastic and impassioned temperament of Henry; it was love that most frequently prevailed over the claims of duty. The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrees became the absolute mistress of his heart; and he entertained hopes of obtaining permission from Rome to divorce Margaret de Valois, from whom he had long lived in a state of separation. Had he succeeded time enough, he contemplated the dangerous project of marrying the favorite; but her death saved him both from the hazard and disgrace. The sentence of divorce, so long solicited, was at last granted, and the king married Mary de Medici, who bore Louis XIII. to him in 1601. The match, however, contributed little to his domestic happiness.

While France was flourishing under a vigilant and paternal administration, while her strength was beginning to keep pace with her internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against the king. Henriette d'Entragues, another favorite, not only exasperated the Queen's peevish humor against him, but was ungrateful enough to combine with her father, the Count d'Auvergne, and the Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely discovered. Spite of the many virtues and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could never pardon his former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was continually surrounded with traitors and assassins; almost every year produced some attempt on his life, and he fell at last by the weapon of a misguided enthusiast.

Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians to have disclosed a project for forming a Christian republic. The proposal is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed powers, none of which should be allowed to make any new acquisition, but should together form an association for maintaining a mutual balance, and preserving peace. This political reverie, impossible to be realized, is not likely ever to have been actually divulged, even if meditated by Henry, nor is there any trace of it to be found in the history, or among the state-papers of England, Venice, or Holland, the supposed co-operators in the scheme. His more rational design in arming went no further than to set bounds to the ambition and power of the house of Austria, both in Germany and Italy. Whatever may have been the motive, his means of success were imposing. He was to march into Germany at the head of forty thousand excellent troops. The army, provisions, and every other necessary were in readiness. Money no longer failed; Sully had laid up forty millions of livres in the treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were already assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all seemed to forebode such a storm as must probably have overwhelmed an emperor devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a king of Spain under the dominion of the Inquisition. Henry was impatient to join his army; but his mind had become harassed with sinister forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary alienation from his faithful minister. He was on his way to pay a visit of reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled as it passed along the street. His attendants left the carriage to remove the obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to the heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angouleme. This calamitous event took place on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe, were supposed to have been the instigators; but the fear of implicating other powers, and plunging France into greater evils than those from which their hero had rescued them, deterred not only statesmen, but even the judges on Ravaillac's trial, from pressing for the names of accomplices. Hardouin de Perefixe, in his "History of Henry the Great," says, "If it be asked who inspired the monster with the thought, history answers that she does not know; and that in so mysterious an affair, it is not allowable to vent suspicions and conjectures as assured truths; that even the judges who conducted the examinations opened not their mouths, and spoke only with their shoulders."

The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight, discountenance the belief of an extended political conspiracy. The house of Austria, Mary de Medici his wife, Henriette d'Entragues his mistress, as well as the Duke d'Epernon, have been subjected to the hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other historians; but he who actually struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no accomplice, and that he was carried forward by an uncontrollable instinct. If his mind were at all acted on from without, it was probably by the epidemic fanaticism of the times, rather than by personal influence.

Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medici. Of no prince recorded in history, probably, are so many personal anecdotes related, as of Henry IV. These are for the most part well known, and of easy access. Among them stands out prominently the tale of the Spanish ambassador who to his astonishment, found Henry on the floor playing hobby-horse for his children. "Are you a father?" asked Henry, looking up without any apparent embarrassment. "Yes, your majesty." "Then we will finish our game," said the king. And he did so, before taking up his business with the ambassador.

The whole tenor of Henry's life exhibits a lofty, generous, forgiving temper, the fearless spirit which loves the excitement of danger, and that suavity of feeling and manners, which, above all qualities, wins the affection of those who come within its sphere: it does not exhibit high moral or religious principle. But his weaknesses were those which the world most readily pardons, especially in a great man. If Henry had emulated the pure morals and fervent piety of his noble ancestor, Louis IX., he would have been a far better king, as well as a better man; yet we doubt whether in that case his memory would have been cherished with such enthusiastic attachment by his countrymen.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

(1540-1596)

Francis Drake, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was born in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted; with respect to the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, the annalists, Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told that Drake was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the care of a kinsman, the well-known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden, on the other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says that he was bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of Kent, who, dying unmarried, in reward of his industry bestowed his bark upon him as a legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1567 he went with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its color to the rest of his life. Their little squadron was obliged by stress of weather to put into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of Mexico; where, after being received with a show of amity, it was beset and attacked by a superior force, and only two vessels escaped. To make amends for his losses in this adventure, in the quaint language of the biographer Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," "Mr. Drake was persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might lawfully recover the value of the King of Spain by reprisal, and repair his losses upon him anywhere else. The case was clear in sea divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe in doctrines which make for their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a poor private man, undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a monarch."

In the years 1570-71 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies, apparently to gain a more precise acquaintance with the seas, the situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of twenty-five tons, their united crews mustering only seventy-three men and boys, all volunteers. His object was to capture the now ruined city of Nombre de Dios, situated on the Isthmus of Panama, a few miles east of Porto Bello, then the great repository of all the treasure conveyed from Mexico to Spain. Off this coast of America his little armament was augmented by an English bark, with thirty men on board; so that, deducting those whom it was necessary to leave in charge of the ships, his available force fell short of a hundred men. This handful of bold men attacked the town, which was unwalled, on the night of July 22d, and found their way to the marketplace, where the captain received a severe wound. He concealed his hurt until the public treasury was reached; but before it could be broken open, he became faint from loss of blood, and his disheartened followers abandoned the attempt, and carried him perforce on board ship. Such at least, is the account of the English; there is a Portuguese statement in "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii., p. 525, less favorable both to the daring and success of the assailants.

Failing in this attempt, Drake continued for some time on the coast, visiting Carthagena and other places, and making prize of various ships; and if we wonder at his hardihood in adventuring with such scanty means to remain for months in the midst of an awakened and inveterate enemy, how much more surprising is it that the wealthy, proud, and powerful monarchy of Spain should so neglect the care of its most precious colonies, as to leave them unable to crush so slight a foe! The English appear to have felt perfectly at their ease; they cruised about, formed an intimate alliance with an Indian tribe, named Symerons, the bond of union being a common hatred of the Spaniards, and built a fort on a small island of difficult access, at the mouth of a river, where they remained from September 24 to February 3, 1573. On the latter day, Drake set forth with one portion of his associates, under the conduct of the Symerons, to cross the isthmus. On the fourth day they reached a central hill, where stood a remarkable "goodly and great high tree, in which the Indians had cut and made divers steps to ascend up neere unto the top, where they had also made a convenient bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sitt; and from thence wee might without any difficulty plainly see the Atlantic Ocean, whence now wee came, and the South Atlantic (_i.e._, Pacific), so much desired. After our captain had ascended to this bower with the chief Symeron, and having, as it pleased God at that time, by reason of the brize, a very faire day, had seen that sea of which he had heard such golden reports, he besought Almighty God of his goodness to give him life and leave to sayle once in an English ship in that sea." We quote from a tract entitled "Sir Francis Drake Revived," written by some of Drake's companions, corrected, it is said, by himself, and published by his nephew in 1626, which contains a full and interesting account of this adventurous expedition. Drake's present object was to intercept a convoy of treasure on the way from Panama to Nombre de Dios. By this route the treasures of Peru and Chili, as well as Mexico, were brought to Europe, for the passage round Cape Horn was then unknown, and no ship but Magellan's had yet accomplished the passage round the world to Europe. Guided by the Symerons, the English approached Panama, learned that a valuable treasure was expected to pass, and beset the lonely forest road which it had to travel. But the haste of one drunken man gave a premature alarm, in consequence of which the march of the caravan was stopped; and Drake with his party, their golden hopes being thus defeated, forced their way through Venta Cruz, and returned by a shorter route to their encampment, after a toilsome and fruitless journey of three weeks. It was not till April 1st, that the long-desired opportunity presented itself, on which day they took a caravan of mules laden with silver and a small quantity of gold. They carried off part of the spoil, and buried about fifteen tons of silver; but on returning for it, they found that it had been recovered by the Spaniards.

Drake returned to England, August 9, 1573. In dividing the treasure he showed the strictest honor, and even generosity; yet his share was large enough to pay for fitting out three ships, with which he served as a volunteer in Ireland, under the Earl of Essex, and "did excellent service both by sea and land in the winning of divers strong forts." In 1577, he obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth to conduct a squadron into the South Seas. What was the purport of the commission we do not find; it appears from subsequent passages that it gave to Drake the power of life and death over his followers; but it would seem from the queen's hesitation in approving his proceedings, that it was not intended to authorize (at least formally) his depradations on Spanish property.

With five ships, the largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden, the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164 men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or adventure worthy of notice, the fleet arrived at Port St. Julian, on the coast of Patagonia, June 20, 1578. Here the discoverer Magellan had tried and executed his second in command on the charge of mutiny, and the same spot did Drake select to perform a similar tragedy. He accused the officer next to himself, Thomas Doughty, of plots to defeat the expedition and take his life; plots undertaken, he said, before they had left England. "Proofs were required and alleged, so many and so evident, that the gentleman himself, stricken with remorse, acknowledged himself to have deserved death;" and of three things presented to him, either immediate execution, or to be set on shore on the main, or to be sent home to answer for his conduct, he chose the former; and having at his own request received the sacrament, together with Drake, and dined with him in further token of amity, he cheerfully laid his head on the block, according to the sentence pronounced by forty of the chiefest persons in the fleet. Such is the account published by Drake's nephew, in "The World Encompassed," of which we shall only observe, without passing judgment on the action, that Drake's conduct in taking out a person whom he knew to be ill affected to him, was as singular as is the behavior and sudden and acute penitence attributed to Doughty. But we have no account from any friend of the sufferer. It is fair to state the judgment of Camden, who says, "that the more unprejudiced men in the fleet thought Doughty had been guilty of insubordination, and that Drake in jealousy removed him as a rival. But some persons, who thought they could see farther than others, said that Drake had been ordered by the Earl of Leicester to take off Doughty, because he spread a report that Leicester had procured the death of the Earl of Essex."

Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15th, they sailed for the Straits, reached them August 20th, and passed safely into the Pacific, September 6th, with three ships, having taken out the men and stores, and abandoned the two smaller vessels. But there arose on the 7th a dreadful storm, which dispersed the ships. The Marigold was no more heard of, while the dispirited crew of the Elizabeth returned to England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through Magellan's Strait. Drake's ship was driven southward to the fifty-sixth degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the fifty-sixth degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the honor of having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7th to October 28th, the adventurers were buffeted by one continued and dreadful storm; and in estimating the merits of our intrepid seamen, it is to be considered that the seas were utterly unknown, and feared by all, those who had tried to follow in Magellan's course having seldom succeeded, and then with much pain and loss, and little fruit of their voyage; that their vessels were of a class which is now hardly used for more than coasting service; and that the imperfection of instruments and observations laid them under disadvantages which are now removed by the ingenuity of our artists. Add to this, that as the Spaniards gave out that it was impossible to repass the Straits, there remained no known way to quit the hostile shores of America, but by traversing the unexplored Pacific.

The storm at length ceased, and the lonely Pelican (which Drake, however, had renamed the Golden Hind) ran along the coast of Lima and Peru, reaping a golden harvest from the careless security of those who never thought to see an enemy on that side of the globe. There is something rather revolting, but very indicative of the temper of the age, in the constant reference to the guidance and protection of God, mixed with a quiet jocularity with which "Master Francis Fletcher, preacher in this employment," from whose notes the "World Encompassed," which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled, speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as would now be held disgraceful in open war; as for instance, on meeting a Spaniard driving eight llamas, each laden with one hundred pounds' weight of silver, "they offered their service without entreaty, and became drovers, not enduring to see a gentleman Spaniard turned carrier." Enriched by the most valuable spoil, jewels, gold, and silver, Drake steered to the northward, hoping to discover a homeward passage in that quarter. In the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, in what is now the State of Washington, he was stopped by the cold; and, determining to traverse the Pacific, he landed, careened his ship, and, in the queen's name, took possession of the country, which he named New Albion, September 29, 1579; he sailed again, and reached the Molucca Islands November 4th. In his passage thence to the island of Celebes, he incurred the most imminent danger of the whole voyage. The ship struck, as they were sailing before a fair wind, on a reef of rocks, so precipitous that it was impossible to lay out an anchor to heave her off. They stuck fast in this most hazardous situation for eight hours. At the end of that time the wind shifted, and the ship, lightened of part of her guns and cargo, reeled off into deep water, without serious injury. Had the sea risen, she must have been wrecked. This was Drake's last mishap. He reached Plymouth in the autumn of 1580, after nearly three years' absence. Accounts differ as to the exact date of his arrival.