Europe as well as France, at the
courts of Madrid and Rome as well as in the park of Plessis-les-Tours.
A very serious blow for Philip II., and a very bad omen for the future
of his policy, was this alliance between Henry de Valois and Henry of
Navarre, between a great portion of the Catholics of France and the
Protestants. Philip II. had plumed himself upon being the patron of
absolute power in religious as well as political matters, and the
dominant power throughout Europe in the name of Catholicism and Spain.
In both these respects he ran great risk of being beaten by a King of
France who was a Protestant or an ally of Protestants and supported by
the Protestant influence of England, Holland, and Germany. In Italy
itself and in Catholic Europe Philip did not find the harmony and support
for which he looked. The republic of Venice was quietly but certainly
well disposed towards France, and determined to live on good terms with a
King of France, a friend of Protestants or even himself Protestant. And
what hurt Philip II. still more was, that Pope Sixtus V. himself, though
all the while upholding the unity and authority of the Roman church,
was bent upon not submitting to the yoke of Spain, and upon showing a
favorable disposition towards France. "France is a very noble kingdom,"
he said to the Venetian ambassador Gritti; "the church has always
obtained great advantages from her. We love her beyond measure, and we
are pleased to find that the Signiory shares our affection." Another day
he expressed to him his disapprobation of the League. "We cannot praise,
indeed we must blame, the first act committed by the Duke of Guise, which
was to take up arms and unite with other princes against the king; though
he made religion a pretext, he had no right to take up arms against his
sovereign." And again: "The union of the King of France with the
heretics is no longer a matter of doubt; but, after all, Henry of Navarre
is worth a great many of Henry III.; this latter will have the measure he
meted to the Guises." So much equity and mental breadth on the pope's
part was better suited for the republic of Venice than for the King of
Spain. "We have but one desire," wrote the Doge Cicogna to Badoero, his
ambassador at Rome, "and that is to keep the European peace. We cannot
believe that Sixtus V., that great pontiff, is untrue to his charge,
which is to ward off from the Christian world the dangers that threaten
it; in imi