threw themselves into his arms? They
assured him that all reasonable people, and especially the Holy League,
wished him to take the reins of Government, on condition of exterminating
heresy throughout the kingdom by force of arms, of publishing the Council
of Trent, and of establishing everywhere the Holy inquisition--an
institution formidable only to the wicked and desirable for the good. It
was suggested that Philip should not call himself any longer King of
Spain nor adopt the title of King of France, but that he should proclaim
himself the Great King, or make use of some similar designation, not
indicating any specialty but importing universal dominion.

Should Philip, however, be disinclined himself to accept the monarchy, it
was suggested that the young Duke of Guise, son of the first martyr of
France, would be the most appropriate personage to be honoured with the
hand of the legitimate Queen of France, the Infanta Clara Isabella.

But the Sixteen were reckoning without the Duke of Mayenne. That great
personage, although an indifferent warrior and an utterly unprincipled
and venal statesman, was by no means despicable as a fisherman in the
troubled waters of revolution. He knew how to manage intrigues with both
sides for his own benefit. Had he been a bachelor he might have obtained
the Infanta and shared her prospective throne. Being encumbered with a
wife he had no hope of becoming the son-in-law of Philip, and was
determined that his nephew Guise should not enjoy a piece of good fortune
denied to himself. The escape of the young duke from prison had been the
signal for the outbreak of jealousies between uncle and nephew, which
Parma and other agents had been instructed by their master to foster to
the utmost. "They must be maintained in such disposition in regard to
me," he said, "that the one being ignorant of my relations to the other,
both may without knowing it do my will."

But Mayenne, in this grovelling career of self-seeking, in this perpetual
loading of dice and marking of cards, which formed the main occupation of
so many kings and princes of the period, and which passed for
Machiavellian politics, was a fair match for the Spanish king and his
Italian viceroy. He sent President Jeannin on special mission to Philip,
asking for two armies, one to be under his command, the other under that
of Farnese, and assured him that he should be king himself, or appoint
any man he liked to the vacant throne. Thus