od
many courses very well and faire, meeting with yong Monsieur de Lorges,
capitaine of the scottishe garde, received at the said de Lorge his
hands such a counterbuff, as, the blow first lighting upon the King's
head, and taking away the pannage which was fastened to his hedpece with
yron, he dyd break his staff withall; and so with the rest of the staff
hitting the King upon the face gave him such a counterbuff, as he drove
a splinte right over his eye on his right side: the force of which
stroke was so vehement, and the paine he had withall so great, as he was
moch astonished, and had great ado (with reling to and from) to kepe
himself on horseback; and his horse in like manner dyd somwhat yeld.
Wherupon with all expedition he was unarmed in the field, even against
the place where I stode.... I noted him to be very weake, and to have
the sens of all his lymmes almost benommed; for being caryed away, as he
lay along, nothing covered but his face, he moved nether hand nor fote,
but laye as one amased." Letter to the Council, June 30 and July 1,
1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 151.]

[Footnote 722: Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., _in fine_. Recueil
des choses memorables, and Mem. de Conde, i. 216.]

[Footnote 723: Hist. eccles., i. 123, 124. The singular coincidence is
no invention of the Protestants. It is confirmed by a contemporary
pamphlet by the "king-at-arms of Dauphiny" (Paris, 1559), _Le Trespas et
Ordre des Obseques, ... de feu de tresheureuse memoire le Roy Henry
deuxieme_, etc., which says: "La dicte salle, ensemble lesdicts
theatres, estoient tendus tout autour d'une tapisserie d'or et de soie a
grandes figures, _des actes des apostres_." (Reprint of Cimber et
Danjou, iii. 317.)]

[Footnote 724: De Thou, ii. 674. Yet Francis II., in the preamble to the
commission as lieutenant-general given to Guise, March 17, 1560, seems
incidentally to vouch for the contrary: "Voire de telle sorte que
nostredit seigneur et _pere, a son decez_, ne nous auroit rien tant
recommande, que d'user a nosdits subjets de toutes gracieusetez," etc.
Recueil de choses mem., 20. Card. Santa Croce speaks of him as "ita ex
vulnere concussus, ut primo die sensum fere omnem amiserit." De
civilibus Galliae dissentionibus commentaria (Martene et Durand, Ampliss.
Collectio), v. 1438, 1439.]

[Footnote 725: Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II., Recueil des choses
mem., _in initio_, and Mem. de Conde, i. 213-216; La Planche, 202; La
Pl