THE WAR WITH ENGLAND—THE PEACE OF TROYES[703] (1563-64)
The closure of the civil war was a necessary condition precedent to
the war France now planned to wage with her “adversary of England”
for the recovery of Havre-de-Grace. Catherine de Medici had paid
Coligny’s reiters in order to close the chasm as soon as possible. The
keen-witted representatives of Queen Elizabeth in France—Throckmorton
and Smith—had done all in their power to diussade the Protestants
from making peace.[704] Too late Elizabeth perceived the result of
her procrastination. War between England and France over Havre was
inevitable,[705] though in March the French government dissembled its
real intention, giving the English to understand that the last portion
of the fourth article of the peace, which referred to putting strangers
out of the realm, applied to the German reiters.[706]
The English declared that if the French would restore Calais to the
queen, Elizabeth would surrender Havre-de-Grace and Dieppe, with all
that was held by the English in Normandy.[707] But the French contended
that the English, having occupied Havre-de-Grace, were deprived of all
right to Calais,[708] and declined to entertain such a proffer, hoping
to recover Havre-de-Grace by force[709] and also to remain masters
of Calais by virtue of the treaty of 1559, which provided that if,
during the term of the treaty, which was to endure for the space of
eight years, the English acquired other possessions in France, they
would immediately lose their right to Calais. To this England replied
that France had been the first offender, when French troops were sent
into Scotland in aid of Queen Mary; and that thereby the treaty was
broken and Calais was due her. Elizabeth refused to see that her own
selfish conduct had compelled the Huguenots to make terms, and bitterly
upbraided the Huguenot leaders for their “desertion.”[710]
The determination to push the war proceeded entirely from the queen,
the chief members of the government having opposed it both because
of the strength of the fortress, which they thought difficult to
take, and also because of the confusion which still prevailed in
the kingdom. On April 7 the prince of Condé was established in the
lieutenantship. Marshal Brissac, who was chief military commander, a
week later quitted Paris for Normandy in company with the Swiss, and
the whole artillery lately used before Orleans was sent forward.[711]
Artillery and ammunition were sent by the river, and provisions also
were forwarded. The campaign was delayed until this time for two
reasons: first, to ascertain whether the internal disturbances could
be quelled and the reiters gotten out of the kingdom, as otherwise it
would have been perilous to make any movement in the direction of the
coast; secondly, all the territory of Normandy had been so devasted by
the war that the army could not be maintained except at very great
cost and inconvenience. Fortunately for the French government anxiety
with reference to the Emperor’s designs regarding Metz was now removed,
the cardinal of Lorraine having persuaded Ferdinand that if the Three
Bishoprics were restored they would become a refuge for the heretics
from Lower Germany and Luxembourg.[712]
The queen mother appealed to Paris to obtain 200,000 crowns, and a
royal edict commanded the clergy to contribute 100,000 _écus de rentes_
annual revenue.[713] At the same time a government _octroi_ upon wines
was laid for six years, to the dismay of many towns, which opposed
the execution of the edict, claiming that the vine and wine were
their sole means of livelihood.[714] The King also went to Parlement
to obtain pecuniary supplies there against England, saying that the
200,000 crowns from the city was to be used to pay the reiters of the
Rhinegrave, who had mutinied for their pay in Champagne, to quit the
kingdom.[715] Paris readily responded, “the Parisians caring not what
they gave to recover Newhaven;” it had been “a scourge and loss to them
of many millions of francs” during that year.[716]
Meanwhile the position of Warwick in Havre had grown so bad that he
had expelled all strangers from the town.[717] Anticipating a siege,
a new fosse 30 feet wide, 10 feet broad, and 8 feet deep had been
constructed outside of the old ditch around the town. The delay of
the English government, however, was fatal to the success of Warwick.
All his labors went for naught.[718] On May 22 the French assault
upon Havre began in earnest.[719] In the midst of the tedium and
the anxiety Catherine de Medici dominated all, having no regard for
her own convenience, but being in vigorous action at all hours, and
under great mental strain most of the time. Yet her patience, her
address, and her assiduous attention during the time of the siege to
the councils of the government, and to her continual audiences, were
remarkable. “Her Majesty,” wrote the Venetian ambassador, “exceeds all
that could be expected from her sex, and even from an experienced man
of valor, or from a powerful king and military captain.” She insisted
on being present at all the assaults, and even in the trenches, where
cannon-balls and arquebus-bullets were flying.[720]
The character of Catherine de Medici from this time forth, throughout
her long and varied career, continued to fill her subjects with
astonishment. Not even the most consummate courtier could have
praised her beauty. She had big eyes and thick lips, like Leo X, her
great-uncle.[721] She possessed, too, the characteristics of her
family. She loved to erect public edifices; to collect books. She made
a profession of satisfying everybody, at least in words, of which she
was not saving. Her industry in public business was the subject of
astonishment. Nothing was too small for her notice. She could neither
eat nor drink without talking politics. She followed the army without
regard to her health or even her life. Her physical characteristics, if
not the admiration, were certainly the wonder of all. She was fond of
good-living, eating much and irregularly, and was addicted to physical
exercise, especially hunting, which she also followed for the purpose
of reducing her weight. With this design, incredible as it may seem,
she often rode clad in heavy furs.[722] When fifty years of age she
could walk so fast that no one in the court was willing to follow her.
The difficulties of the French in the siege of Havre-de-Grace were
very great. The locality was surrounded for the distance of a mile by
marsh and by the waters of the sea, which were cut by inaccessible
canals. There was a strand of sand on the seaside only about thirty
yards distant from the wall at low tide. The besiegers passed along the
shore, somewhat concealed by the sand and gravel cast up by the sea,
and wedged themselves and their artillery between this strand and the
sea, and opened fire. By the end of July the French had approached so
near the walls of Havre-de-Grace that they were almost able to batter
them point-blank, and the besieged went out to parley and demanded four
days’ time to communicate with England.[723]
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF THE FORTIFICATIONS OF HAVRE-DE-GRACE
Dated July 15, 1563. Original in Public Record Office, State Papers,
Foreign, Elizabeth, Vol. XL, No. 919.]
The garrison was reduced to a sorry plight, for the French were about
to storm the place, as they had already battered effectually and
dismantled a bulwark and several towers of the fort and filled up the
whole moat, so that with but a little more work they would have opened
a road for themselves securely with a spade. They had, moreover, a
battery of forty cannon, so that while only twenty or thirty shots each
day formed the usual feature of a siege at this time, the French now
fired more than a hundred and twenty shots.[724] At last on July 28
Warwick agreed to surrender Havre-de-Grace, and to embark in four days.
Two days later the English admiral Clinton appeared in sight, with
thirty ships and five galliots. The French artillery was then directed
toward the sea, so the admiral set sail the next evening with the
fleet, and the French army entered on Sunday, August 1, 1563.[725]
The capture of Havre was of immense immediate advantage to France,
especially to Normandy, Havre being the door through which all
the traffic and commerce entered, not only to Rouen, but also to
Normandy, and to a great part of France. Without this commerce
Normandy-of-the-Seine suffered greatly.[726]
But Elizabeth was reluctant to believe that she had been beaten,
and the autumn of the year witnessed tedious negotiations.[727] The
chief difficulty between the two crowns turned on the restitution of
Calais. The French insisted that they were absolved from the terms of
Cateau-Cambrésis through the action taken by England in the matter of
Havre-de-Grace; that thereby forfeiture of the English right to Calais
was made.[728] Elizabeth, on the other hand, would not make peace
unless her pretensions were recognized.[729]
In the meanwhile, in the seas of Flanders, France, and England
thousands of acts of piracy were committed, and trade in the Channel
was quite interrupted.[730] A partial agreement at last was patched
up. On April 11, 1564, the treaty of peace was signed at Troyes,[731]
the articles yielding Havre-de-Grace to France, in return for 120,000
gold crowns, a sum which the English grudgingly took, though they
had demanded a half million, the terms also providing for property
indemnifications and freedom of commerce between the two nations.
Nothing was specified as to Calais. After three years of negotiations
the question still remained unsettled. In June, 1567, Sir Thomas Smith,
Elizabeth’s ambassador, demanded the restitution of Calais. Charles was
evasive, saying that the messenger must be content to wait till the
King had obtained the consent of his council, before whom the King told
Smith openly that he would not restore Calais, but would hold it as the
possession of his ancestors, to which the queen of England had no just
right. When the ambassador replied, citing the word of the treaty, the
chancellor answered that the promise had been given under the express
conditions that the English queen should not in any way molest the
subjects or territory of France or Scotland, but from what had taken
place at Havre-de-Grace it appeared manifest that she had forfeited all
claims which she might have had to Calais. The King’s rejoinder was
notable in that it is so excellent an example of the French doctrine of
“natural frontiers,” Charles IX replying to the effect that the queen
ought not to regret the loss of Calais, knowing that of old it was the
possession of the crown of France, and that God had willed it to return
to its first master, and that the two realms ought to remain content
with the frontiers created for them by nature and with a boundary so
clearly defined as the sea.[732]