break off these dark and dangerous
intrigues, the nature of which they so shrewdly suspected, and to
substitute for them an open rupture of Henry with the King of Spain, and
a formal declaration of war against him. None of the diplomatists or
political personages engaged in these great affairs, in which the whole
world was so deeply interested, manifested more sagacity and insight on
this occasion than did the Dutch statesmen. We have seen that even Sir
Edward Stafford was deceived up to a very late moment, as to the rumoured
intentions of Henry to enter the Catholic Church. Envoy Edmonds was now
equally and completely in the dark as to the mission of Varenne, and
informed his Government that the only result of it was that the secret
agent to Spain was favoured, through the kindness of Mendoza, with a
distant view of Philip II. with his son and daughter at their devotions
in the chapel of the Escorial. This was the tale generally recounted and
believed after the agent's return from Spain, so that Varenne was
somewhat laughed at as having gone to Spain on a fool's errand, and as
having got nothing from Mendoza but a disavowal of his former
propositions. But the shrewd Calvaert, who had entertained familiar
relations with La Varenne, received from that personage after his return
a very different account of his excursion to the Escorial from the one
generally circulated. "Coming from Monceaus to Paris in his company,"
wrote Calvaert in a secret despatch to the States, "I had the whole story
from him. The chief part of his negotiations with Don Bernardino de
Mendoza was that if his Majesty (the French king) would abandon the Queen
of England and your Highnesses (the States of the Netherlands), there
were no conditions that would be refused the king, including the hand of
the Infanta, together with a good recompense for the kingdom of Navarre.
La Varenne maintained that the King of Spain had caused these
negotiations to be entered upon at this time with him in the certain hope
and intention of a definite conclusion, alleging to me many pertinent
reasons, and among others that he, having been lodged at Madrid, through
the adroitness of Don Bernardino, among all the agents of the League, and
hearing all their secrets and negotiations, had never been discovered,
but had always been supposed to be one of the League himself. He said
also that he was well assured that the Infanta in her heart had an
affection for the French king, a