age against him: the populace every where, particularly at
Paris, renounced allegiance to him: the ecclesiastics and the preachers
filled all places with execrations against his name: and the most
powerful cities and most opulent provinces appeared to combine in a
resolution, either of renouncing monarchy, or of changing their monarch.
Henry, finding slender resource among his Catholic subjects, was
constrained to enter into a confederacy with the Hugonots and the
king of Navarre: he enlisted large bodies of Swiss infantry and German
cavalry: and being still supported by his chief nobility, he assembled,
by all these means, an army of near forty thousand men, and advanced
to the gates of Paris, ready to crush the league, and subdue all his
enemies. The desperate resolution of one man diverted the course of
these great events. Jaques Clement, a Dominican friar, inflamed by that
bloody spirit of bigotry which distinguishes this century and a great
part of the following beyond all ages of the world, embraced the
resolution of sacrificing his own life, in order to save the church from
the persecutions of an heretical tyrant; and being admitted, under some
pretext, to the king's presence, he gave that prince a mortal wound, and
was immediately put to death by the courtiers, who hastily revenged the
murder of their sovereign. This memorable incident happened on the first
of August, 1589.

The king of Navarre, next heir to the crown, assumed the government, by
the title of Henry IV.; but succeeded to much greater difficulties
than those which surrounded his predecessor. The prejudices entertained
against his religion, made a great part of the nobility immediately
desert him; and it was only by his promise of hearkening to conferences
and instruction, that he could engage any of the Catholics to adhere
to his undoubted title. The league, governed by the duke of Mayenne,
brother to Guise, gathered new force; and the king of Spain entertained
views, either of dismembering the French monarchy, or of annexing the
whole to his own dominions, In these distressful circumstances,
Henry addressed himself to Elizabeth, and found her well disposed to
contribute to his assistance, and to oppose the progress of the Catholic
league, and of Philip, her inveterate and dangerous enemies. To prevent
the desertion of his Swiss and German auxiliaries she made him a present
of twenty-two thousand pounds: a greater sum than, as he declared, he
had e