siege to Poietiers; and as the eyes of all France were
fixed on this enterprise, the duke of Guise, emulous of the renown which
his father had acquired by the defence of Metz, threw himself into the
place, and so animated the garrison by his valor and conduct, that the
admiral was obliged to raise the siege. Such was the commencement of
that unrivalled fame and grandeur afterwards attained by this duke of
Guise. The attachment which all the Catholics had borne to his father,
was immediately transferred to the son; and men pleased themselves in
comparing all the great and shining qualities which seemed, in a manner,
hereditary in that family. Equal in affability, in munificence, in
address, in eloquence, and in every quality which engages the affections
of men; equal also in valor, in conduct, in enterprise, in capacity;
there seemed only this difference between them, that the son, educated
in more turbulent times, and finding a greater dissolution of all law
and order, exceeded the father in ambition and temerity, and was engaged
in enterprises still more destructive to the authority of his sovereign,
and to the repose of his native country.

Elizabeth, who kept her attention fixed on the civil commotions of
France, was nowise pleased with this new rise of her enemies, the
Guises; and being anxious for the fate of the Protestants,
whose interests were connected with her own,[*] she was engaged,
notwithstanding her aversion from all rebellion, and from all opposition
to the will of the sovereign, to give them secretly some assistance.
Besides employing her authority with the German princes, she lent money
to the queen of Navarre, and received some jewels as pledges for the
loan. And she permitted Henry Champernon to levy, and transport over
into France, a regiment of a hundred gentlemen volunteers; among whom
Walter Raleigh, then a young man, began to distinguish himself, in that
great school of military valor.[**]

* Haynes, p. 471.

** Camden, p. 423.

The admiral, constrained by the impatience of his troops, and by the
difficulty of subsisting them, fought with the duke of Anjou the battle
of Moncontour in Poictou, where he was wounded and defeated. The court
of France, notwithstanding their frequent experience of the obstinacy of
the Hugonots, and the vigor of Coligny, vainly flattered themselves
that the force of the rebels was at last finally annihilated; and they
neglected further preparations again