and Conde, the admiral, and their followers, entire
amnesty, and consented to annul all judicial proceedings made against
them during these or the late troubles. He would exact no punishment for
any treaties which they might have formed with foreign princes, and would
restore their goods, honors, and estates. As to the religious question, he
would allow them to hold two cities, in which they might do as they
pleased, the king placing in each city a capable "gentilhomme" to maintain
his authority and the public tranquillity. Elsewhere in France he would
tolerate no reformed minister, no exercise of any other religion than his
own. Neither would he guarantee the restitution of the judicial and other
offices once held by Protestants, since others had bought them, and the
money proceeding from the sale had been spent in defraying the expenses of
the war; especially as the clergy must look to the courts for the
enforcement of their claims for indemnification for the destruction of the
churches and other ecclesiastical property. The king professed himself
willing to give all reasonable securities for the performance of his
promises, but neglected to make any specification of the nature of those
securities.[772] Such were the hard conditions offered--all that Catharine
and the Guises were willing to concede at a time when it was hoped that
the Huguenots would lose the assistance of one of their secret supporters,
Elizabeth of England; for the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland had
risen in the north, and they had not only the best wishes, but the ready
co-operation of every Spanish and French sympathizer. Charles himself was
writing to his ambassador at London a letter meant to meet the queen's
eye, instructing him to congratulate Elizabeth on the progress made in
suppressing the insurrection; and Catharine, by the same messenger, sent a
secret letter of the same date, ordering the same diplomatic agent, in
case the rebellion was not at an end, to give aid and comfort to the
rebels.[773] Catharine and the Guises had not lost heart. Moved by
repeated supplications, Pius the Fifth at last decided to excommunicate
the heretical daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn. But, as the bull of the
twenty-fifth of February, 1570, had been procured solely by the entreaties
of the rebel earls, enforced by the intercessions of the Guises, and as it
was known that Philip the Second, so far from desiring it, was strongly
opposed to the impruden